From time to time, people over here in England ask me -- with an
occasional nuanced edge of annoyance: "If you think Americans are so
<expletive deleted> great, why don't you go and live in America?"
There are several reasons why I don't live in America, in addition
to the peculiarly difficult immigration procedures for us Brits;
America has lost so much that is _irreplaceably_ precious.
Having to live right alongside this dissonance might prove to be
intolerably painful for me. Having to live with:
[1] The nightmarish and oppressively unjust 'legal' system;
[2] The systemic political corruption -- Democrat and Republican --
with its attendant numbskull politicians subservient to the monied
oligarchies and special interests.
[3] The random and remorselessly escalating official and unofficial
violence in society.
[4] The massive concealed violence against children; look at the
'superpredators' and ask: How would you bring a kid up, for him (or
her) to behave like this as an adult?"
[5] The horrifying social insecurity -- most people are one paycheck
away from ruin, and there's no 'safety net' either. The medical
system sucks. This gives far too much bargaining-power into the
hands of employers etc. This may be OK if you're young and fit and
into adrenalin highs, but to those of us with a more reflective
temperament...
[6] The yawning gap between the constant 'official rap' about what
the country's supposed to stand for, and the unbearably harsh social
reality itself, is a widening chasm, which causes unbearable social
dissonances. Incomes falling every year since 1973, while taxes
rise and weekly hours worked rise by 33%.
That is: America is being steadily remade from 'America the Free'
into a Continental-Scale Slave-Labour Maximum Security Prison, with
all the mores and practices of a Maximum Security Prison reproduced
into the wider society.
Claire Wolfe is -- in all the essentials -- right.
As Chris Rea sings:
"This ain't no Technological Breakdown;
This is the Road to Hell."
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
The future of America matters _intensely_ to me. I have two
relatives buried at Arlington -- Dene Smith, who worked with Oliver
Franks (later 'Sir Oliver', and 'C' -- Director of MI6) at the
American Interests Section of the Foreign Office; and her husband
Hawley Armistead Smith, a senior US Army officer and US Consul in
Canada and Italy.
If a quiet patriotism is the love of the _idea_ of a country, I'm a
North American by choice, rather than by accident of birth.
Here's why: 'Policy Review' republished this next piece in Fall '83.
I and my friends are among the all-too-few people around who are
crazy enough actually to subscribe to these principles...
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
[TRACK TEN] "The Role Of History".
TEXT: In 1944, Nash-Kelvinator Corporation ran this magazine
advertisement,showing a grim pilot, about to take on Zeros at twelve
o'clock, imagining this staccato message to his partner:-
"I want to tell you what I'm fighting for.. It's you and our little
house and the job I had before... and the chance I had, the fighting
chance, to go ahead on my own. That's what all of us want out here...
to win this war... to get home... To go back to living our lives in a
land -- and a world -- where *every* man is free to grow as great as
he's a mind to be... where *every* man has an *unlimited* opportunity
to be useful to himself and his fellow men ...
"Tell 'em we'll be back... nothing can stop us... And tell 'em no
matter what they say, no matter what they do... to stay *free*.. to
keep America a land of *individual freedom*!
_That's_ what we're fighting for...
_That's_ what we're willing to die for...
_That's_ the America we want when we come home."
So say Mary Kay Schmitz LeTourneau and I. Amen.
We're the sort of people who smash the Bridges at Toko-Ri...
See the video of James Michener's inspiring story, with William
Holden, Mickey Rooney, and Grace Kelly.
Michael Levin closed off his article on the draft (which quoted the
above passage) with these words:
"We had better figure out what happened if we expect _any_ army,
conscript or volunteer, even to _remember_ what it's fighting for."
Too bloody right. Here's what happened. All the bloody conformists
and 'obedience trainers' and 'discipline' freaks crushed the spirit
out of most Americans, didn't they? So you have a mostly
broken-willed conformist population where those who 'fitted in' and
did what they were told ended up with the career 'credentials'
(paperwork) for positions of social control, and will now put up
with damn nearly anything, and will fight for _nothing_ worthwhile.
As things are in present-day America, a wealthy corporate oligarchy
with state surrogates owns and controls _both sides_ of the political
process, and the legal system is in the grip of authoritarians and
lawyers (often the same people) who are hideously destroying
everything the American Dream actually stands for.
The administration of 'justice' is so oppressive, tyrannical and
unsafe that no free person would possibly consent to live within its
jurisdiction if they truly understood the risks to their lives, their
liberties and their property. The entire country is being turned
into a maximum-security prison; this steadily reproduces the mores
and practices of a maximum-security prison in the wider society.
1.3 million citizens are presently 'internally' imprisoned (and often
tortured as well), most for victimless 'crimes.' Viz:
On 8 Dec 1997 05:42:30 , Tom Warner wrote:
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> `TEAR DOWN THE PRISONS WALL BY WALL
> FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!'
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> By Tom Burghardt
> Editor, Antifa Info-Bulletin
>
> *
>
> SAN FRANCISCO -- Some 3-5,000 demonstrators marched and
> rallied in San Francisco on Saturday to demand freedom for former
> Black Panther, award winning journalist and death row political
> prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
>
> Framed-up by Pennsylvania's racist "justice" system in 1981
> for a crime he did not commit, Abu-Jamal continues to sit on
> death row. A target of the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO program and
> a decades-long vendetta by Philadelphia cops, Abu-Jamal is housed
> in SCI-Greene, a notorious "Super-Max" high-tech hell-hole.
>
> According to Amnesty International's Secretary General, who heard
> testimony from Mumia on prison conditions in November:
>
> "Death row in Pennsylvania looks and feels like a morgue."
> Everything is high-tech, and there is no human being in sight.
> From the moment that condemned prisoners arrive, the state tries
> to kill them slowly, mechanically and deliberately -- first
> spiritually, and then physically."
>
Barry Goldwater's chief speechwriter Karl Hess, and murdered actress
Jean Seberg ('Lilith', 'St. Joan') -- one of many activists murdered
by FBI serial-killer J. Edgar Hoover -- also supported the Black
Panthers, by the way.
So I -- and many North Americans also -- live in a state of _exile_
from a Free North America that does not yet exist. As Cookie Rankin
of the glorious Scottish-Canadian 'Rankin Family' (go get their CD
'North Country') said here in Bristol when asked for a song for 'we
exiles':
"We are _all_ exiles.'
In present-day North America -- again, at this time -- 250 000
military veterans are homeless, this bitter winter of '97. Give them
all high-powered firearms, and just watch the political 'priorities'
suddenly shift. There are Fire Control Officers who are _really
pkssed off_ about the fate of their comrades -- and their country --
and who are quietly programming in the the GPS coordinates of the
authoritarian "Right"'s -- illegal -- propaganda mills and
antiConstitutional 'law' factories _right now_.
I advise every libertarian in North America to get a rifle (semiauto);
a shotgun (12ga. pump with 00 buck and rifled slugs) and a handgun
(9mm. or up -- Walthers and Browning Hi-Powers are good, compact and
reliable). Right now. Take competent range instruction. Practice
regularly. Sharpen up! Watch the legislators suddenly address your
concerns most assiduously!
<sigh> OK: Maybe we have to go; but we can take out _all_ the goddamn
authoritarians right along with us... And their fell mouthpieces.
There's an exact correlation between intelligence and accuracy with
firearms. And we're _smarter_ than they are.
In the UK under Thatcher and the Tories, homelessness multiplied
ten-fold, while the average age of the homeless at death dropped from
47 to 42. Average life expectancy is 74. Same thing happened under
Reagan. 50% of American small farmers went out of business. A few
thousand Crony-Capitalists who wanted nothing except all the wealth,
all the land and all the power got even richer than they were already.
The Politics of -- murderous -- Cruelty.
Which we ruthlessly smashed at the last election here. The tory Party
implodes and re-implodes by the day.
As Eithne Ni Bhraonian - 'enya' - sings -- beautifully, brilliantly,
bitterly -- on her magnificent album 'Watermark' (a copy of which I
sent to President Bush as a gift at the conclusion of the Gulf War):
(I purchased the three hardcover volumes of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Lord
of the Rings' on the same day, 28 February).
"The Gods send thread for the web begun."
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
'EXILE': Words and Music by Eithne Ni Bhraonian and Nicky & Roma Ryan
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
"Cold as the northern wind
In December mornings,
Cold is the cry that rings
From this far distant shore.
Winter has come too late,
Too close beside me.
How can I chase away
All these fears deep inside?
I'll wait the signs to come
I'll find a way.
I will wait the time to come.
I'll find a way home.
My light shall be the moon
And my path -- the ocean.
My guide the morning star
As I sail home to you.
I'll wait the signs to come.
I'll find a way.
I will wait the time to come.
I'll find a way home.
Who then will warm my soul?
Who will calm my passion?
Out of these dreams -- a boat
I will sail home to you."
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
Here's a boat to bring it all right home to America:
>>>open.network/network 28 THollick (1522) 1 September 90 18:05
TITLE: "SUPERCARRIER"
TEXT: The cover article in March's issue of "Popular Mechanics", an
excellent American magazine, is titled "War Machine!" and subtitled
"America's Newest Supercarriers Pack More Firepower than all of World War
II" There is an interesting and well-written article, and a colour wall
poster.
The inset text for the colour poster reads:
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
<< SUPERCARRIER >>
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
'First commissioned in 1975, the USS Nimitz (CVAN 68) launched a new class
of carriers that now numbers five. The other members of this supercarrier
family include the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVAN 69), the USS Carl Vinson
(CVAN 70) the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVAN 71) and the newest member, the
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVAN 72), commisioned in December, 1989.
Nimitz-class carriers are enormous nuclear-powered self-contained floating
cities. Supported by a Carrier Battle Group, they can stay at sea
indefinitely. And with a full complement of 9 to 10 air squadrons, two
Sea Sparrow missile launchers, four close-in weapons systems and 5400 men
and women, they can be deployed tactically and strategically. Each
Nimitz-class carrier costs approximately $3 billion, and they'll be our
number one instrument of Naval striking power well into the next
century.'
(The averaged age of the crew of a Nimitz-class carrier is 19 yrs, 2 mo.)
CONTACT: http://www.spear.navy.mil/ships/
BTW: Britain is known as 'America's Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier.' >:-}
_My_ Commander-in-Chief (the only person I'll _ever_ accept orders from):
Admiral Noel A. M. Gayler, USN
==============================
Born December 25, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America.
1931-1935 U.S. Naval Academy.
1935 Commissioned Ensign, USN.
1940 Flight Training course.
1940 Naval aviator, assigned to VF12 Squadron, USS Randolph, flying Grumman
F6F Hellcats from Navy carriers.
Served in the Pacific Theatre during WWII. Asst. to Admiral John M. Cain.
1957 Aide to Navy Secretary Thomas S. Gates.
1960 Aug:- Commanding Officer, CV61 USS Ranger (Aircraft Carrier).
1960 Rear Admiral.
1962-1963 Commander, Carrier Division TWENTY, US Atlantic Fleet.
1963-1965 Director, Development Programmes, Office of Chief Naval Officer.
1965-1967 Assistant Deputy Chief, Naval Operations (Development).
1967-1969 Deputy Director, Joint Strategic Planning Staff, Offut AFB.
(Designer, SIOP -- the Single Integrated Operational Plan)
1969-1972 Director, the National Security Agency (DIRNSA).
1969-1972 Chief, the Central Security Agency.
1972-1976 Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet and Armed Forces (CinCPAC).
Flag Officer: 4-star Admiral.
Awarded:- Three Navy Crosses; Bronze Star Medal; Distinguished Service
Medal; Legion of Merit with Gold Star; Sperry Award of the Institute of
Aeronautical Sciences; other medals and awards.
Admiral Gayler is a Committee Member (with George Kennan), American
Committee On East-West Accord
He contributed to; "The Choice: Nuclear Weapons Versus Security" edited by
Gwyn Prins, [1984]
[Ch. 2] A Commander-in-Chief's perspective on nuclear weapons p. 15
[Ch. 16] "The way out: a general nuclear settlement".
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
Then, there's Information Warfare -- NSA's forte!
[ FX: <quietly>: "Event Sequencers now active at twelve plane levels" ]
[ FX: <coolly>: "Fire Control Officers to your Battle Stations" ]
[ FX: <electronically>: "Fail-Deadly Launch Modes Active" ]
[ FX: "Scanning all frequencies for Stop-Codes _and_ Go-Codes..." ]
"Merry Christmas!" >:-}
/ /\ \
--*--<Tony>--*--
Tony Hollick, LightSmith, Warfighter
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/la-agora (LA-Agora Conference)
http://www.agora.demon.co.uk (Agora Home Page, Rainbow Bridge Foundation)
http://www.nwb.net/nwc (NorthWest Coalition Against Malicious Harrassment)
Check out:
See especially the 21st Century Cryptologic Program >:-}
"Fasten your safety belts. You never had a trip like this before."
------------------- * * * * * ---------------
<EOT>