Source: Pixabay
Dear Diary,
As predicted, US stocks rose yesterday. The Dow shot up 213 points, or 1.2%.
Investors bought the dip, as they have been programmed to do.
The flow of credit will not dry up, they believe; the “Empire of Debt” will not falter.
Practically every day in these Diary entries we mock investors, Democrats, Republicans, teetotalers, terrorists, anti-terrorists, economists… and almost everyone else.
We are equal opportunity mockers – insensitive to race, color, creed or body-fat ratio.
The mocked have only menaced us twice.
Once, a journalist went off his head and sent a letter threatening to murder one of our children. We knew the sender personally; we judged him incapable of the act and recommended medical treatment.
The second time was in 2003. When we mocked President G.W. Bush’s attack on Iraq, a dear reader held his own tribunal and found us guilty of treason – a crime, he said, that should be punished by death.
Again, we brushed it off and continued making fun of the warmongers.
We mock people. But we do not mock their gods. Who knows?
Why take the chance?
Mocking the Gods
Yesterday, mocking gods proved fatal to the staff at Charlie Hebdo, the Paris-based satirical newspaper.
And today, all Christendom is in indignant mourning and solemn outrage.
Our own hardened, satirical, cynical, ironical heart sinks in sympathy and solidarity.
“Satirist down!” screams the alarm in our own head. Duck!
We say a prayer for ourselves… for the victims in Paris… and all the innocents in schools… churches… newspapers… banks… public and private spaces… rich and poor… droned… blown up… or gunned down by self-righteous world improvers all over the planet.
But the planet spins. And the media puts on its own spin.
It has picked up the discourse of the very same George W. Bush… and flatters the perps.
They are to be pursued not as the murderous clowns they are, but as soldiers.
The threat to our liberty, say our leaders and the press, comes from this tiny army of delusional fanatics, not from the very real armies – TSA, NSA, FBI, CIA, FDA, SEC, etc. – that pretend to suppress them.
A War on Freedom?
And so, we raise our heads again to mock our brethren in the Fourth Estate… their masters… and their customers.”The War on Freedom,” screams the headline in British newspaper the Daily Mail. And all over the blog-TV-newspaper-o-sphere the need to fight this “war.”
French politician Jacques Myard said, “We are at war… the Western nations – like Britain, France and Germany.”
People come to think what they must think when they must think it.
The US heads a global credit-fueled empire, a successor to the British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Holy Roman, Roman, Mongol, Arab, Persian – and all the other empires.
So its opinion leaders must lead opinions in a direction that confirms and justifies the imperial narrative. It is a coalition empire at war with barbarians.
France’s president, François Hollande, described the attack as an “act of exceptional barbarity.”
But killing people is hardly exceptional – neither for the empire nor its enemies. It is routine. And great empires follow their well-trodden paths, too, no matter what mockery they encounter.
That path leads in a familiar direction – freedom of speech is chilled.
But we know of no instances in which foreign enemies put it on ice. Usually, it is the empire’s own bureaucrats, snoops and protectors who do the chilling.
And that cooling is already under way. So sayeth a report published Monday by the international literary association and defender of free speech PEN American:
Writers are reluctant to speak about, write about or conduct research on topics that they think may draw government scrutiny.
This has a devastating impact on freedom of information as well: If writers avoid exploring topics for fear of possible retribution, the material available to readers – particularly those seeking to understand the most controversial and challenging issues facing the world today – may be greatly impoverished.
The US is an empire. Left and right… red states, blue states… black-and-blue states… the First, Second, Third and Fourth estates… must all think like imperialists.
That is, like blockheads.
Regards,
Bill
P.S. Initial reports allege that two French-Algerian brothers committed the bloody Charlie Hebdo murders. Let’s look back to history. Acting on some flimsy pretext, France conquered Algeria back in the 1830s. This brutal war resulted in the untimely deaths of up to 33% of the Algerian population. More than a century later, the Algerians rose up in revolt, winning their independence from Paris in 1962. As many as 1.5 million Algerians perished in this war. These inconvenient historical facts ring with unpleasant familiarity in today’s American ears. Because the US empire is the largest and most brutal in the present world. Bill’s hardcover book The New Empire of Debt uncovers this inconvenient and urgent truth, and you can get a free copy right here. It’s crucial and unsettling reading for these times… get your copy now. All we ask is that you pay shipping.
Where to flee to?
Fabulous article.
We kill them …. they kill us … and round and round we go.
Yesterday when I wrote that very true statement, about 5 dickheads voted it down. You dickheads still around?
I know what I am about to say is irrelevant to this article, and I apologize a thousand times, but if you are a ZH’er you might find this interesting. This afternoon I followed a Muscatine county, Iowa sherriff for 15 miles as he meandered down the highway at 47 to 52 miles an hour. I eventually noticed he was continually crossing into the oncoming lane. After a while I started counting the times he crossed the centerline but after 8 i didn’t see the point anymore. The erratic driving incensed me me because Muscatine cops are viscous predators who love to sink their fangs into clueless motorists.
I called 911 to report this but the woman assured me that the officer was on duty and not impaired. I told her she could not sit at her desk and judge wether he was impaired. She said nothing would be done unless I provided my name and address. I surmised that nothing would be done anyway. My daughter said I was mean to report the officer. I told her that if anyone else drove like that they would be spending the weekend in jail and the courts would be systematically separating them from their life savings. So who’s really mean?
Some people that lived in dreamland thought that they could ridicule others with impunity.
Just as there is no free lunch, free speech also comes with a price. The price is responsibility. Usually those with a big mouth are never confronted. Once in a great while, their intended victims take action against the big mouths. Why should we care if 12 fools in France got wiped because they deliberately angered people who take no shit? Every day, 12 children die of starvation. Every day, 12 families are wiped out by horrible diseases. Every day, 12 innocent people are tortured to death. So if I compared these problems that people have with the fate of 12 lamebrains I have to say that they are not even a blip on my radar screen.
I knew a state trooper, turned pilot, that pulled over a judge whose vehicle contained drugs and other things in the trunk. He lost his job. And the judge lost his.
we need more like that trooper.
Where to flee to? -Dutch
Costa Rica would be my choice..if I could afford it.
“Where to flee to?”
—-Dutchman
Any small Mormon community in the U.S. where there’s plenty of fresh water to cook/drink, and fuel (firewood) to keep you warm. Take guns, ammo, and dehydrated food. You’ll do fine. And you’ll fit right in.
The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny …