I went to this talk at Kebele, one of Bristol's Anarchist social centres, on Wednesday night and really felt like I had my eyes opened to the situation facing these activist-journalists.
I had previously fallen for one of the various state presented scenarios for this event ie
(Dumb hiker(US) or CIA Agents(IRAN))
I'm now convinced that these people are in fact comrades. (seems obvious now, that there is another type of person who hangs out near conflict zones)

I really recommend anyone in London to go to this talk tonight.

I particularly recommend that people involved in peace and Palestinian struggles go to see this.

GO SEE THIS GUY TALK

Oh god this is brilliant.

Naive apologists for terrorists, fundies and dictators have been nicked by the Iranian authorities who don't share Western tolerance of politicial dissent and think they're spies. See, kids - Achmedinejad DOES have a sense of humour!

Sort of reminds me of that joke about the animal rights activist that got eaten by a killer whale. Ha ha!

We are ruled by sociopaths and here is all the proof you need tightly encapsulated in one New York Times editorial:

264 Days and Counting

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/opinion/22thu2.html?ref=opinion

This one editorial lays bare for the world to see the criminally insane collective mindset of American political, media, and corporate elites.

Today is the 264th day that three American "hikers" were arrested by Iranian border guards after wandering over the border from Iraq . . . and the New York Times is outraged at Iran over this and chose today to take them to task:

Nine months. Two-hundred-sixty-four days. However you total it up, it is too long for three Americans to be cruelly, and unfairly, held in an Iranian jail.

Shane Bauer, Joshua Fattal and Sarah Shourd should have been released long ago. It now seems that Iran’s mullah-led government has made them pawns in the political chess game with the United States over Tehran’s nuclear program. That’s unconscionable.

Really? That's "unconscionable?" Really? Never mind that the US government held 5 Iranian diplomats for 2 1/2 years with no charges of any sort with even the Iraqi and Kurdish regional governments demanding their release. The Times thinks that Iran, surrounded by US armies and armadas and threatened on a near daily basis with attack "options" which include the nuclear option, is acting irrationally here in holding three American "Hikers" for going on 9 months now? And let's not forget that the US is a country whose major politicians speak routinely of funding covert ops in Iran to destabilize its government. Nope- Iran is being a bad freedom hating country here in holding these poor Americans for no logical or rational reason! But that doesn't even begin to fathom the bottom of the hypocrisy barrel in this editorial.

Iran using Americans as pawns in a political "chess game"? Why don't I think the Iranians see their predicament with the US to be a "game"? Oh right- cause unlike the Time's editorial writers and virtually all Americans- a war with the US will be fought on their soil and it won't be a "game" for them. Unlike our political elite- war has consequences for Iran's leaders. It isn't a sick pastime for them like it is for our leaders. It is life and death for millions of their citizens.

And of course the US doesn't use people as political pawns at all! Tell that to the children and elderly who will be killed by US sanctions in Iran. That's not using people as pawns though! That would be in addition to the scores of Iranians killed in plane crashes every year as a direct result of US sanctions on airplane parts for civilian crafts.

Each line of this editorial actually gets more deranged and unhinged from reality:

Since then, the Iranians have permitted only two consular visits — in September and October — by Swiss diplomats representing American interests in Tehran. The hikers had to wait seven agonizing months, until early March, for one phone call apiece to their families back home.

Bwah? Certainly the writers of this editorial are aware that the US held hundreds, if not thousands of men, for years- not months, but years with zero contact with their families, representatives from their governments, or any outside contact with anyone at all- with most if not all being brutally tortured as well? Surely the Times is aware of the over 100 deaths of "detainees" due to torture at the hands of the US government?

So is this how our elites are going to roll from now on? Just pretending that their massive assassination, kidnapping, rendition, torture, and murder regime under the last President didn't happen? Going to pretend that the current President has not all but kept all of these programs going and made them worse?

Still, it gets even worse:

Iranian officials should comply with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and allow regular access to the three Americans. They should stop manipulating the families and grant visas so the mothers can visit their children. The mothers filed applications in January that are still not approved.

The US runs a friggin world wide secret gulag that contains God knows how many people who get no visits from anyone, no phone calls . . . and the writer's of the New York Times editorial board know this! And yet they feel completely at ease taking Iran to task over its far lessor civil rights violations here? These people are out of their minds. Nuts. This editorial is emblematic of criminally insane sociopaths who show absolutely no awareness of their own crimes while constantly working themselves into foaming lathers at the far lessor faults of those around them. This editorial is, in a word, bonkers.

But still, it gets even worse . . .

The fact that Iranian officials cannot agree on charges against the hikers, or back them up, is a sure sign that something fishy is going on.

Yes. I agree. Indeed. That is fishy. When government can't even charge anyone with a crime while holding them? Yep- that is fishy! Know what else is kinda fishy? How about holding a dozen men for being the 9/11 masterminds for going on a decade now with no trial? How about holding a dozen men for that crime for years in total isolation while they were repeatedly tortured using "techniques" specifically designed to elicit false confessions? How about creating entirely new courts for these "masterminds" with rules of evidence that would make Stalin blush? Is that "fishy" New York Times editorial writers? Oh right- of course not. Now when "we" do it.

The scariest thing about this editorial is that foreigners will read this- foreign intelligence political analysts will read this editorial and pretty much conclude the same thing I have here- we are ruled by an elite that is utterly incapable of introspection of any serious sort and that somehow actually thinks it still has the moral high ground to lecture other countries on human rights and due process.

Being out of touch with reality is one thing. Many people are. But being out of touch with reality while brandishing the biggest arsenal the world has ever seen while simultaneously thinking you are inherently good and noble and everyone else around you is evil . . . well, watch out.

Here it is, in your face, from Christopher Dowd, apparently one of the few savvy journalists left in the states who is not completely embedded in the backside of the establishment.

Christopher goes one step further than me with my monotonously repeated definition of a PSYCHOPATH as one who can inflict pain, suffering, injury, even death without empathy, compassion or remorse, Christopher uses the term SOCIOPATH - a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

I had been referring to the US Leadership, the US government and the people who own and control it, or more specifically TPWOWC - The people who own western capitalism and validating my accusation by reference to the mass suffering (spoiling of livelihoods, burning homes and generally making life miserable), extreme cruelty (such as showering civilians, including children with burning, molten plastic- Naphalm) and murder (bombing, straffing, burning or just systematically massacring whole viliages) in Vietnam - over a period of 16 years - until forced out - with clearly no compassion or empathy (or they would have stopped sooner) and no remorse, because they've been doing it ever since in a string of south american countries and now, on a larger scale, with greater efficiency in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unquestionably PSYCHOPATHIC.

It's interesting that although his critique is dealing with the content of an editorial of the NYT in all it's masterfully candid, megalomanic narcissm and hypocrisy, Christopher concludes by applying this secondary epithet to the country's rulers "we are ruled by an elite that is utterly incapable of introspection of any serious sort and that somehow actually thinks it still has the moral high ground to lecture other countries on human rights and due process". Does he implicitly include the editors of the NYT under the umbrella of this epithet? Could the same logic be applied across the entirity of the neurotic right-wing American media as the front-line cheer-leaders for this PSYCHOPATHIC leadership cabal? Does it extend to the military, the CIA and private "security" service providers who do their bidding? Does it extend to the people in those international institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, or the overgrown multinationals that daily go about the business of undermining governments, economies and private corporations of other countries in the interests of TPWOWC? Does it extend to the treasonous individuals in the governments, secret services, defence forces, media and private corporations of other countries who (in consequence of 60 years of incessant American propaganda) misguidedly believe that service and assistance to their US counterparts, even to undermine parties and individuals of "the wrong political colour" in their own country or organisation is a service to the "greater good"? Indeed, does it extend all the way down to the myopic, ignorant addict of "I love Lucy", "Friends", "Oprah", "Lethal Combat" and "FOX News" who, due not entirely to her/his own fault (either secretly or overtly) gloats over the death of every "towel-head" and scoffs at the misery the tragedy inflicts upon the "towel-head's" family?

We've let the eagle fly way too high and for too long - this disease is a pandemic.

The words and thoughts of people like Christopher Dowd shine a very bright light of hope and the ominous closing words of Christopher's article are very significant:

"being out of touch with reality while brandishing the biggest arsenal the world has ever seen while simultaneously thinking you are inherently good and noble and everyone else around you is evil . . . well, watch out".

We could be lucky. An Iranian missile on the carrier of USS Destruction might stop them (these SOCIOPATHIC PSYCHOPATHS) in their tracks, although that would leave only a stalemate.

Without a great increase in global awareness, enough to drown the nonsense of mainstream media, a grass-roots pressure on governments and institutions like the UN, and a pendulum shift among the inteligencia, the law and the corridors of power to force the necessary and profound changes this can only end in disaster.

Environmentally and economically our clock is running down very rapidly. Humanity in it's small boat of reason is tossed on a stormy sea, edging by the hour closer to the rocks of destruction and all our energies are currently engaged in fighting over the tiller of greed.

Regards,

Allen

Let me get this straight....

- They spent their time contesting the US presence in the middle-east (effectively supporting countries like Iran).
- They then get imprisioned by the people they are supporting
- Then they moan that the US (the country they were protesting against), is not helping them.

Amazing. You really couldn't make stuff like this up.

governments arent the same as people or even nations- but some people don't realise this - hilarious! or just stupidity?