Monday, September 29, 2008 Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part II: Perpetual War, Here and Abroad (Updated) Two missions that should never intersect are those of the military and of the civilian police, respectively. The logic of empire ultimately demands that which our rulers have now provided: A militarized apparatus of coercion in which military and […]

Friday, December 19, 2008 “Question 46,” Revisited Policing the world, from the outside in: A US soldier deployed under UN command in Bosnia frisks a civilian at a weapons confiscation checkpoint. Military personnel are now taking part as “observers” at sobriety/driver’s license checkpoints here in the US; could firearms checkpoints be in our future as […]

Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Rubicon in the Rear-View, Part III: En Route to Military Rule (Updated, 12/27) The military occupation of New Orleans, post-Katrina. Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of […]

Leviathan’s Web The most critical disclosure offered by the Washington Post’s report on the “OneDOJ” database being built by the Department of “Justice” is found buried near the end of the piece – as we’ll see anon.Although the Post refers to the database as OneDOJ, it is also known as the National Data Exchange, or […]

Snapshots of a Sadean State One of Sean Hannity’s “great Americans” in action.On two occasions I can recall, a book has disgusted me so thoroughly that rather than setting it aside lightly, I threw it away with great force. The first volume to go airborne in that fashion was the Satyricon of Petronius Aribter; the […]

Torture and the “Goodness of America” Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends… [I]n periods when millions are slaughtered, when […]

“This Time For Sure!” “Character is fate, the Greeks believed. A hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting for its hour. The voice was Schlieffen’s but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence […]

The Earth is the State’s, and the Fullness Thereof Armed revenue farmers harvest a crop at a DUI checkpoint.When George W. Bush signed the death warrant for the habeas corpus guarantee last October, he was consummating a process that has been underway for decades in our law enforcement and “justice” system. Bush’s destruction of habeas […]

The Christian Right and the “Fatal Embrace” No, these aren’t out-takes from a “Tommy Boy” sequel; they’re snapshots of tomorrow’s Christian conservative GOP leaders. (Tip of the sombrero to The Gaelic Starover.)It’s ironic that Vladimir Lenin, notorious for the length and tedium of his pronouncements, coined what may be the world’s briefest and most potent […]

How the War will “Follow Us Home” Every other rationale for continuing the occupation of Iraq having failed, supporters of the war have taken refuge in what they believe to be an invincible thought-stopper: Iraq differs from Vietnam, because this time the enemy will “follow us home.” “After the war in Vietnam, we came home […]

Toward Global Energy Fascism In 2041 … Switzerland joined the United Nations*, now a military alliance. What had once been merely a debating society during the twentieth century had turned by the rapprochement of the super powers into … an active military and economic alliance. An alliance whose purpose … was to ensure that the […]

Submit, Or We’ll Kill You It must never be forgotten that every directive issued by the State and enforced by its agents is coupled with the threat of lethal violence against those who fail to comply. This principle applies to trivial infractions of petty ordinances, such as those dealing with pedestrian conduct and smoking. Consider […]

How to Deal With Taxmen and Other Thieves Carjacker Cuticello: Knocked flat on his, um, Cheney by a woman. He got off easy.Last night, a resident of New Haven, Connecticut was approached by C.J. Cuticello, a tax collector bent on seizing her car because of $536 in outstanding taxes and fees. According to the local […]

Get The Cuffs, Ponch Like many women her age, my lovely wife Korrin harbored a rather substantial teenage crush on Erik Estrada. For six seasons the Puerto Rican-American television performer (calling him an “actor” would leave the truth with a severe contusion) essayed the role of a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer saddled with the […]

American Idolatry The art of government is the organization of idolatry. The bureaucracy consists of functionaries; the aristocracy, of idols; the democracy, of idolaters. The populace cannot understand the bureaucracy: it can only worship the national idols. The savage bows down to idols of wood and stone: the civilized man to idols of flesh and […]

The Soviet States of North America (Pt. I): Illegal Immigration — The Problem is the State The single biggest problem our nation faces, an acquaintance commented recently, was the presence of “20 million illegals [who are] killing our economy and culture…. 20 million more with amnesty would be the end of any America I want […]

The Soviet States of North America (pt. II): The Criminal Nomenklatura Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon, bloody-handed scion of a Mexican crime family. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Amos […]

A Genocidal War to “Prevent” Genocide? — if by “the job” one refers to demolishing what remains of America’s liberty, prosperity, and international reputation. If the Bush regime, which clearly lusts for war with Iran, isn’t able to confect a casus belli out of dubious claims about Teheran’s nuclear program or its role in fomenting […]

I’m From The Government, So I Get To Kill You Right Now, justice is being perverted in a court of law… Right Now, the truth is being obscured… Right Now, a mad man is wandering the streets of the town you live in… Right Now, our government is doing things we think only other countries […]

UPDATED — Set Nacho Libre!, or: Ramos and Compean: Casualties of the Bogus “War on Drugs” Ignacio “Nacho” Ramos comforts his wife before heading to prison.To the surprise of nobody – at least, no sober and serious observer of the case — Former Border Patrol Agent of the Year nominee Ignacio “Nacho” Ramos has been […]