11/11 Open Thread: It's 11-11, do you know where your troops are?
~~ Armistice Parade
Yes, YOU! Your troops, mine too, they are, you see, our troops. And, the short answer is No, you don't know where they are. Sure, some are in Afghanistan, and Syria, and Saudi Arabia, and D.C., and San Diego and uh, like, Africa. Africa, big place that. They are, in fact scattered all over the globe in some 800 of so "bases" depending upon who you are listening to and accounting for quibbles like whether or not "lily pads" are bases and all like that. Oh, and are National Guard troops our troops too? They must be if "we the people" can send them abroad and into combat. "We the people", heh, a nice phrase for "the powers that be", isn't it? Ah well, and the CIA's combat forces, are they also our troops? Well, that gets tricky. Here's the government line on that from the wikifolk:
The Special Activities Center (SAC) is a division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency responsible for covert operations and paramilitary operations. ...
The Special Operations Group (SOG) is a department within SAC responsible for operations that include high-threat clandestine or covert operations which the U.S. government cannot be overtly associated.[3] As such, unit members, called Paramilitary Operations Officers and Specialized Skills Officers, do not typically carry any objects or clothing, e.g., military uniforms, that would associate them with the United States government.
If they are compromised during a mission, the United States government may deny all knowledge. SOG is considered the most secretive special operations force with less than a hundred operatives. The group often selects former military servicemembers from special mission units such as Delta Force, MARSOC, DEVGRU, Army Special Forces, ISA, and 24th STS, as well as other United States Military forces.
Sound almost more like pirates or brigands than your troops, don't they? Doesn't matter, they are almost de minimus in number relative to the truly enormous size of our military
And how about the mercs, all those civilian contractors like Blackwater that we hire to kill people as needed and otherwise help our troops kill people? Are they "our troops" too? After all, "we the people" hire them too, just like "we the people", especially the CIA people sometimes hire entire proxy armies, paramilitary death squads and like that? Damn there's a major scarcity of clarity in this, heh, arena.
But that's not what this is about. This is about Armistice Day. You know, it's still Armistice Day, even though we changed it officially to Veterans' Day. I actually grew up with Armistice Day, and everybody was taught the whole story, and 11,11,11,11; the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11 month. Yes! A cessation of hostilities, and we, and a lot of other nations and peoples celebrated it too. Who knows, maybe, just maybe some one or two of those persons or places would still be of a mind to celebrate the cessation of hostilities. Not us, however. We know better than that, silly naive country that we were. How the hell could somebody in their right mind celebrate the cessation of hostilities. The money, the power, the control, and everything else important come from the hostilities. That's why we're a warfare state, with an economy and position as the global top predator that depends on wars and warfare. This is far and away a better way of life than being the peace loving simpletons of yore, don't ya think?
Ah well, I see that my time is up, especially if I'm gonna stick to form and play some music. I know that the Aussies were involved, and celebrated that armistice, so let's start with something from down under.
Heh, the first two versions of that song that I tried to post were blocked by You Tube as "age inappropriate". That says a lot. After all, impressionable young minds should not be exposed to the truth about war and its horrors lest they come to disapprove of it. That would be horrible for our economy and the share prices of all those stocks that all the members of all three branches of the government own in large quantities
But hey, never mind all that, there's big money in war, really big money, even if pretty much none of it trickles down (TM) to the troops, and even less trickles down (TM) to "We the People", aka, the hoi polloi
Oops, my bad attitude is showing again.
On this day in history:
1215 – The Fourth Council of the Lateran met to assert a Magikal doctrine
1572 – Tycho Brahe observed the supernova SN 1572 but it wasn't called that
1620 – The Mayflower Compact was signed
1675 – Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates integral calculus for the first time
1831 – Nat Turner was hanged after inciting a slave uprising.
1869 – The Victorian Aboriginal Protection Act was enacted, effectively leading to the Stolen Generations.
1887 – Four anarchists were executed as a result of the Haymarket affair.
1918 – Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies
1919 – American Legionnaires stormed the Centralia, WA IWW hall during an Armistice Day Parade; 4 attackers were killed
1921 – The Tomb of the Unknowns was dedicated at Arlington
1926 – The United States Numbered Highway System was established.
1930 – Patent number US1781541 was awarded for the Einstein refrigerator.
1982 – Space Shuttle Columbia, the first operational mission of the Space Shuttle program,launched
1992 – The General Synod of the C of E voted to allow women to become priests.
2004 – The PLO confirmed the death of Yasser Arafat
Some people who were born on this day:
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
~~ Fyodor Dostoevsky,
1821 – Fyodor Dostoevsky, author essayist, and philosopher
1866 – Martha Annie Whiteley, chemist, mathematician and activist
1867 – Shrimad Rajchandra, philosopher, spiritual mentor of Mahatma Gandhi
1896 – Shirley Graham Du Bois, author, playwright, composer, and activist
1904 – J. H. C. Whitehead, mathematician
1914 – Daisy Bates, activist, journalist and lecturer
1922 – Kurt Vonnegut, author
1925 – Jonathan Winters, actor, comedian and screenwriter
1926 – Maria Teresa de Filippis, race car driver, first woman in F1
1927 – Mose Allison, singer, songwriter, and pianist
1928 – Ernestine Anderson, singer
1929 – LaVern Baker, singer
1930 – Hugh Everett III, physicist and mathematician
1937 – Alicia Ostriker, poet
1940 – Dennis Coffey, guitarist, Funk Brother
1945 – Chris Dreja, guitarist and songwriter, Yardbird
1945 – Vince Martell, singer and guitarist
1953 – Marshall Crenshaw, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1962 – James Morrison, horn player and composer
1964 – Margarete Bagshaw, painter and potter
Some people who died on this day:
There is nothing of greater importance to the well-being of society at large - of man as well as woman - than the true proper position of woman.
~~ Lucretia Mott
1831 – Nat Turner, enslaved person and rebel leader
1855 – Søren Kierkegaard, Christian Existentialist
1880 – Lucretia Mott, activist
1917 – Liliuokalani, queen, rebel, songwriter
1939 – Bob Marshall, author and activist
1945 – Jerome Kern, composer
1972 – Berry Oakley, bass player
1984 - Martin Luther King, Sr., pastor, missionary, and activist
opposite
1993 – Erskine Hawkins, trumpet player and bandleader
1998 – Paddy Clancy, singer and actor
Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:
Veterans' Day
Today's Tunes
So, the cancellation of an armistice or other peace is:
Of course, defense contractors, bankers, politicians and other warmongers say otherwise
Highway system
Mose Allison
Ernestine Anderson
LaVerne Baker
Dennis Coffey
Chris Dreja
Vince Martell
Marshall Crenshaw
James Morrison
Jerome Kern
Berry Oakley,
Paddy Clancy
Bonus:
Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. What's on your mind?
Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com
open thread, Armistice Day, Nat Turner, Mose Allison, LaVerne Baker, Paddy Clancy
Comments
I would like to know --
what an accurate count of the unhoused populations in the US would look like. What I've seen so far appears as an undercount.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
yeah, the authorities are obscure on counting
.
.
that demographic. Just spitballing here, maybe one out of 500
are unhoused? That would be about 600,000.
edited upon re-checking the math
question everything
Well if you were unhoused
and I have been unhoused, you would want to avoid being counted because if you are counted you can then be identified and arrested and you would in all likelihood lose whatever property you had managed to squirrel away somewhere.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Good morning, Cass. I cannot begin to guess.
They are, after all, unhoused and mobile. I was once among the "no fixed abode" crew, and, thinking back, see no way to count such a population that doesn't involve mass sweeps, holding pens and possibly banding like birds or something.
I also believe that we will never know, those empowered to even begin finding out certainly have no interest in knowing or in having anybody else know.
be well and have a good one,
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
@Cassiodorus one out of a hundred is
one out of a hundred is about right. I think the best undercounts support that.
when you have thousands in an urban area of half a million, and depending on the legitimacy of the definition applied. It wont likely improve without the government itself resorting to nigh anarchist solutions. it will take far too long to remove the selected representatives of the property profiteers from every office. who are completely responsible for the crisis. the ONLY reason people, including men and women in their 70's, are living on the street is the refusal to address the requirement of affordable housing. aint drug abuse mental illness or Martians.
I would like to see governments --
-- everywhere resort to solutions that involve powers of eminent domain, which is to say that the housing crisis has reached such dimensions that a government should be able to be able to buy up a property that has been sitting on the market for some vast period of time with no buyers, for pennies on the dollar, and use that property to house the unhoused.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
@Cassiodorus as you probably
as you probably realize, commercial hotels have been repurposed in the seedy areas throughout California (I presume) and while these rehabbed accommodations require numerous upgrades including pretty much prison grade secured perimeter fencing, all at a cost per unit too obscene to mention.
Meanwhile, if not just before, sizable apartment complexes in the middle lower part of town were up for public auction at pretty much bottom dollar. Sale/auction cancelled. Not that anyone was looking at them as mitigants, just the bang for buck was too obvious. It's the cream from the proposed solutions that makes anything happen. Not the outcome.
@kelly need to add, since
need to add, since many people dont realize- the homeless people accomodated in these refurbished motels are there for 90 days.
90 days. back you go.
the local monsters love taking credit for housing 42 people (out of hundreds being rousted from quiet lots) recently without mentioning where those 42 spaces came from.
Despite a good bit of new construction, it appears to me much off that is not yet in use.
I expect the remodeled motel/prisons to be the venue for private prison profits that have been threatened by outmoded concepts of cruel and unusual.
expect new terminology.
yeah, just doing napkin reckoning
if you cut my number in half, say one in 250 instead of 500
that would double the number of homeless souls to 1.2 million.
As Cass mentioned, the uncounted don't count in demo charts.
question everything
Celebrate war, not peace...
Perhaps we are in 1984 and war is peace, as Obomber basically said as he accepted his peace prize.
What should be celebrated?
Everyone have a good one. Thanks for the OT and all the music!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Good morning LO. I think we should celebrate a version
of Armistice Day, and all other armistices and peace treaties. So long as we celebrate warriors, and thereby wars and warfare instead of peace, we will continue churning out those and that which we celebrate.
Thanks for the great "posters" and the Obama connection.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Today calls for
one of my favorite Dropkick Murphys tunes, this cover of an Eric Bogle song:
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Good morning UFS. A wonderful rendition of a wonderful
song, thanks for posting it.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning, El, et al!
A friend spent years of his life roaming around this and that country setting of explosive devices. He was not allowed to disclose where he was. If he had gotten killed, the Army would have literally claimed he was AWOL. Now, his son joined up and is in the Space Force and can't tell a soul exactly what he is doing.
Does shit like that run in families?
Not impressed with the selected Trump nominee to be UN Ambassador. She is an ardent Zionist, and has advocated that anyone pro-Palestian is a terrorist. Throw 'em in jail, throw away the keys.
Sigh...
There is a Veteran's Day ceremony at the courthouse this morning. I attended one with my Dad a few years ago. His picture hangs in the courthouse in the Hall of Heroes room.
He spent most of his life being ardently anti-war.
I wish war wasn't so lucrative.
I loved the music, El, and the whole idea of laying down arms and walking away.
Thanks, friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Good morning otc. I recall some studies and other
reports that there are indeed military families who follow the warfare trade the way some families produce generation after generation of farmers, weavers, bakers, businessmen and the like. My own personal recollections of folks I have known disclose a possibly propensity among some, but not others, so who can say. My dad's dad was a rebel, and dad went to war but not as a careerist, my bro was too ill to go even if he had wanted to and I swore that I'd definitely go to prison first, so we sure weren't an example. OTOH, I know of somewhat largish clans where "service" is some sort of family rite of passage.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Where many troops are...
,,,is deliberately and systematically concealed. The throw away line is that the mercenary type actors/contractors are "former military." Yet, many are active duty according to William Arkin operating under an extensive deep cover system. There are up to 60,000 personnel operating in this role, dwarfing the number of CIA agents. A lot of these are playing the role of support, providing "deep cover" for those in the zones of conflict or other operations.
Exclusive: Inside the Military's Secret Undercover Army
I always cite this article when people say Americans involved in wars abroad are "former military." I know some of the article is "golly gee whiz" type bs, to me the main significance is that active duty personnel are involved according to Arkin. This doesn't mean that former soldiers aren't involved, just that the claim they constitute the main presence of Americans abroad in conflict zones isn't entirely the case. And we don't know what they're doing.
Thanks for the OT Enhyda lutris. Enjoyed the tunes. I was a big fan of Vonnegut and Dostoevsky. War is a great song to play on Armistice day.
語必忠信 行必正直
Good afternoon Soryang. Thanks for the info and the link.
I've always wondered how many mercs are really something else.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
People are already doing this
A few days ago I saw a shitlib saying that they will not invite anyone from their family that voted for Trump. Then it became an echo chamber of "I’m not either and I’m telling them why they aren’t invited. They voted to kill me!"
Update from the doc:
My stepdad’s parents did this to us kids. On Xmas all my cousins got wonderful toys and such and I got socks. Did it hurt? You betcha it did.
Cults and abusers try to isolate you from your family and friends. This is the blue anon cult.
Good afternoon Snoops. That kind os shit, and much wworse,
has been going on for as long as there have been religions. For a great many, our political parties are religions in all but name, as are a lot of other dogmas and beliefs. Wherever people are accepting or promoting things on faith one or more preconditions for a religion/cult are present.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Kshama Sawant elaborated on Due Dissidence
on her argument that it was a good thing to be a spoiler:
As much as I am in sympathy with this argument, I have elsewhere argued that promoting one's status as a spoiler does not win one votes. In the example in question, most of the Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan concluded that it would be more effective to spoil Harris' Presidential bid by voting for Donald Trump than for Jill Stein. And they were correct in doing so.
The problem is that voting for Donald Trump (or for that matter for Kamala Harris) does not build anything of importance. Mainstream candidates are pawns of a career system -- vote for us so we can get richer. You want to run against the whole career system.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Good point CAss, thanx for the post:
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Only coming from one side, eh?
As far as I am concerned, others besides Kamala already got this ball rolling, many years ago. Witness the terms "shitlibs" and "libtards". I don't believe I've heard any utterances of "contards", or "shitcons"; isn't that weird? Witness Trump saying that Socialists and Communists are "vermin", and we have to get them out of "our" (-meaning HIS-) Country. As someone self-identifying as Socialist, or maybe I should say, socialist; the product of two socialist parents, I can't say that I'm completely sanguine about being called vermin, or having my dead parents referred to as such; this is literally, LITERALLY, Nazi rhetoric, and what do we do with VERMIN? MAGA knows it got that assault rifle for a reason. I've had nearly a decade of people 'splaining to me that I shouldn't feel threatened, or get my liberal panties in a bunch. After trying to defend some of what Trump did the first time around, after arguing that he wasn't Hitler, after trying to calm people around me down when they were actively threatened by his fanboys, I am so done.
It isn't that I think everyone making that choice is evil (although I do think they are mislead); it's that I'm beyond tired of listening to it. Having had to put my sister's side of the relation, and most of my Mom's side, before that, at arm's length, over religion, I see parallels in the present political divide. There's only so much judgmental Jeebus that one can be expected to wade through, just to be sociable, let alone friendly. -But it's not just Christianity; I've had to put a couple of NON-Christian cultists at arm's length, too, over the years.
"So what, Peasant, are you suggesting that Trump is a cult?" No, I'm stating it bald-faced. The main diff between him and Harris, is that her cult is slowly coming to its senses, and is currently dissolving. No, She's NOT the Chosen One. She even conceded defeat; WOW! Shit. This is two-sided, like it or not. -And Left-leaners sure as fuck don't bear sole responsibility for starting it, either.
But maybe I'm wrong, and Trump is on the verge of apologizing, for telling lies about folks, and all the threatening, abusive, insulting shit he's been dumping on everyone who doesn't worship at his alter. Is that about to happen? I'm listening for that. Waiting for a godsdamned miracle, more like. Will families then start reconciling? Will it take the barbs and razor-wire out of domestic discourse, and wouldn't that be swell? I'll shut up after that happens...
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
― Franklin D. Roosevelt
I would think a bona fide socialist or other lefty
would be perfectly accepting of the term "shitlibs" because it refers to the phonies, the pseudo-liberal democratic party cultists who, among other things, have absolutely no use for socialists or anybody remotely of the bona fide left.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Umm…
I posted a video last week showing that it was Rachel Maddow and others of her ilk that called Trump, his supporters and republicans RATS and vermin before he started talking about vermin that drove the leftist media into a fit.
And I’m pretty sure that no one here has called shitlibs 'libtards'.
Women are shaving their heads and promising not to date men because Harris lost and abortion rights were turned over to the states. I posted about this in the blues tonight and I have been posting what a doctor is seeing from his dem patients. He thinks it’s cultist behavior. Check my comments.
Democrats had 30 plus years to codify abortion, but never did. In fact Obama promised that one of his first acts would be to codify abortion, but after he won and had the numbers to do it he said it wasn’t his priority.
And a psychiatrist is telling people that it’s okay to cut off contact with people in their families who voted for Trump….she said that on a dem media outlet. Tweet up thread.
Biden said that anyone who questioned the election or the Covid narrative were domestic terrorists. He named 12 people who were the biggest threat to the Covid narrative and not only got them banned from social media, but many of them were fired from their jobs including doctors who had been saving lives because they found something that helped people stay alive instead of going home waiting until they couldn’t breathe and then being admitted to hospital. I don’t remember Trump doing any of that. Or threatening to do it.
Right, although...
This is why we don't vote for Trump to punish Biden/ Harris (though of course Harris is a mere seat-warmer in the Biden administration). Caitlin Johnstone:
The Incoming Trump Administration Is Already Filling Up With War Sluts
All of those nice analysts who had Team Biden's number on Ukraine for the past two and a half years were saying a lot of really stupid stuff about Trump after he won. Watch them ask: "are there take-backs?" Although:
Old Russian saying: "trust, but verify." You'll want to see it before believing it.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Stefanick might be a good move
It gets her out of congress for 4 years and gives her a position with little power. She went hard ass on the Palestinian protesters during the congressional hearings.
Waltz/Walsh as Secretary of State isn’t good news since he’s anti Iran. Larry Johnson has the story. Someone said that Kushner is back in…poo.
So far Trump hasn’t impressed me that he’s going to be a peace president. His plan for the Ukraine war is beyond silly. Russia will agree to a ceasefire while other countries continue to arm and train their troops and European troops will patrol the border… since Russia is winning why would they agree to stop accomplishing their goals. Dumbest idea yet.
Plus he’s all in on Israel taking over the West Bank. Poo again. I admit that I was hopeful that Trump had learned who not to put in his cabinet….but I also thought it was wishful thinking that he’d actually change America’s warmongering. People actually thought he would be the change president.
Oh wonderful!
Waltz will pressure Trump to end the Ukraine war by putting more sanctions on Russia and to flood Ukraine with weapons….brilliant idea you dumb ass.
We’ve put maximum sanctions on Russia already and it came back to hurt Americans and they have shrugged the sanctions off.
Best move ever…double down on Biden’s failed tactics. Gee it’s no wonder America keeps losing wars.
Uniparty
writ large, eh?
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981