See? U.S. Marines Really ARE Like the Waffen-S.S.

Marine Sniper Unit displaying their political/ideological loyalties.

Some Marines displayed a flag with the S.S. lightning bolt insignia. Oh, an aberration, you say?

They don’t see a need to hide it. They even photographed themselves proudly displaying their Nazi killer elite banner.

And one institutionally protected. The Corps decided that the Marines were just naïve and ignorant (never heard of Nazism, apparently, perhaps thought “SS” was a logo of the Social Security Administration) and SHOULD NOT BE DISCIPLINED.

The excuses- they're young and didn't know better (really, the media said this) and those stylized lightning bolt S's really stood for "scout snipers." Which doesn't explain how or why they came to choose the EXACT STYLE of S's unique to the Waffen-SS. So it's bullshit.

Of course, this is small beer compared to the USMC refusing to punish anyone for the war crime massacre of 24 civilians in their own homes, shot at pointblank range, in Haditha, Iraq. (Guess someone is going to quibble with me because a single sergeant was busted in rank.)

In general, American “elite” forces, especially “Special Forces,” have a history of fascistic fanaticism, which manifests itself in symbols reminiscent of the Third Reich, even directly derivative of Nazi emblems. For example, during the Vietnam War the Green Berets informally adopted the Nazi Death’s Head skull emblem, their version being a demonically angry skull wearing a beret.

U.S. “elite” forces have to have a fascistic mentality, because one of their key roles is to wage terroristic war against civilian populations in Third World countries. These forces are the trainers and advisers of death squad military units all around the world, especially in Latin America historically. A communistic ideology would hardly be the right fit. And of course, there is the matter that they are defending capitalism in its most virulently exploitative forms in these nations. Fascism is the ideology that provides the rabid rage and ruthless muscle for this task.

[See: “How The U.S. Marines Are Like The Waffen SS”]

Donald Trump Being Donald Trump Again

Donald Trump “endorsed” Mitt Romney for President recently. (Why anyone should give a rat's ass about this is a mystery.) He'd been hinting and teasing and “expected” (by the corporate media) to endorse Newt Gingrich.  Both candidates had visited Trump to kiss his ring.

In other words, he jerked Gingrich around, and grabbed attention for himself. As usual.

That's what Trump does- he jerks people around. And he's an attention-glutton. And the $ media played along, for some reason. 

So important is this "endorsement" that it's already been forgotten.

The U.$. media would do better to analyze the noxious, destructive policy proposals of the GOP, instead of turning the election into a circus freak show. But that would serve the American people, not the interests of the corporate oligarchy, which “the media” is the propaganda arm of.

Santorum Sweeps 3 States In Stunning Victory! Wins Zero Delegates! Media Hypes His New “Momentum!

I guess my title pretty much sums up what just happened in Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota. Meaningless “votes” by a few tens of thousands of arch-reactionary whites that didn't even choose convention delegates. Excuse enough for the corporate propaganda system to indulge in two of its favorite games, Presidential election as horse race, and hyping “momentum.” (“Big Mo!”)

For example, these meaningless glorified opinion polls among small bunches of reactionary fanatics “gave him an important  lift,” the NY Times “reported.” As if that's a fact and not an opinion. [“Another Twist for G.O.P.  As Santorum Fares Well,” 2/8/12, p. A1.] “With his unexpected victories, Mr. Santorum was also suddenly presenting new competition to Newt Gingrich as the chief alternative to Mr. Romney, the front-runner.” “His performance added another twist to an unruly nominating contest that has seen Republican voters [cadres of arch-reactionary whites] veering among candidates...”and blah blah blah. It's extra-exciting because Santorum's “candidacy [was] all but dismissed just days ago...;” by the mediaocracy, I guess they mean. Santorum's pointles victory [sic] comes “after Romney won Nevada, a “contest” in which a grand total of 16,000 (white reactionaries) voted for all four of the GOP horses still in the race.

The corporate media breathlessly narrates the competition among the reactionary politicians to be President exactly like a horse race: “Gingrich is surging, HE PASSES ROMNEY! But now Romney's in the lead, AND NOW SANTORUM HAS COME FROM BEHIND TO OVERTAKE HIM! and Ron Paul's at the back of the pack. Folks, this is the most exciting race we've seen in a long time!”

Gee, I can hardly wait to see which extreme right-wing Republican politician wins! Will it be “moderate Mitt,” a centimillionaire who insists that “corporations are people, my friend,” and thinks the poor are sitting pretty in America? (Go check out the things he's been saying during his campaign, and indeed during his last run for President, and in the intervening years, to see what the corporate oligarchy's propaganda system means by “moderate.”) Or Gingrich, a crazed liar who has declared his intention to ignore court decisions he decides are “wrong,” thus crowning himself an absolute monarch? Or maybe it'll be Rick Santorum, the sex-hating fanatic who wants to control everyone's sex lives through brutal state repression, equates homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia, is chomping at the bit to go to war with Iran, destroy the EPA (but he's not the only one). Or could it be Ron Paul, who “the” media would have us believe is beloved by youth, a Texas Confederate who would revert to “states' rights” racism (his naked racism is thoroughly documented in his newsletters, which he now claims to have never read  and was unaware of their content, an absurd claim now refuted by ex-employees who state that he assiduously proofed each issue prior to publication) and who wants to abolish the Federal Reserve? (Who needs a central bank anyway? We got along fine in the 18^th century without one.) Can we even measure the difference between these sick bastards under a microscope?

Thus does the corporate media continue provide a running narration of the thrilling horse race between a gang of extreme reactionary politicians, one worse than the other, hyperventilating the whole time, while legitimating the extreme ideology and vicious policy promises on display by treating them as wholly normal and respectable. Indeed, since now in America “conservatism” is the ONLY respectable ideology, even “liberal” denigrated as weak and surrenderist on “national defense,” “hollowing out” the military, coddling of criminals, spoiling of “welfare cheats,” (those lazy [black] poor people,) “conservatism” owns the commanding heights of political and ideological legitimacy.

Of course “conservatism” is a respectable-sounding euphemism which dignifies the most vile, anti-human, immoral policies, namely; even more aggression abroad, killing masses of Third World people; ever-increasing immiseration of the poor domestically; making the cancer epidemic even worse by eliminating environmental regulations; more and more power for the secret police state and increased repression of dissent [the Democrats are doing that too, as much as the GOP, so there's no difference there- we dissidents are now subject, thanks to Obama, to permanent imprisonment in military gulags with no legal process whatsoever, merely by having the label “terrorist” applied to us, as the FBI and police routinely do to protesters of all progressive stripes]; virtual elimination of taxation of the rich with an increasing tax burden on the middle and lower classes; elimination of the basic human right of women to control their own bodies by terminating pregnancies and using birth control; elimination of the few remaining workers' rights, targeting their organizations for destruction or impotence; continued mass imprisonment (with 5% of the world's population, the U.S. already has 25% of the world's prisoners) which is another bipartisan policy; and ever-increasing amounts of money shoveled into the maw of the military-industrial complex. (The Democrats what to level it off at the current enormous amounts.)

The extreme reactionaryism and racism of the GOP makes the evil conniver Barack Obama look good by comparison, if only because he isn't openly demented in what he advocates. His policies are typical Democratic policies, Republican-Lite. I've documented many of his evil crimes in other essays. So we're supposed to breathe a sigh of relief that the next wave of vicious assaults on our lives aren't as bad as we were made to fear they could be, had we failed to panic and rush to the polls to save ourselves by voting for the lesser evil once again.

This sick con game actually dates back to Woodrow Wilson, who inaugurated the systematization of political repression in America with the Alien and Sedition Act. It's long past time for people to see through the game and organize a genuine political opposition. Why more people don't rally to the Green Party, for example, or vote for Ralph Nader, which are just the first steps towards actually seizing real power and changing this evil system, is somewhat unfathomable. In historical terms it's analogous to trying to puzzle out the phenomenon of Adolf Hitler; while there are lots of explanations, at some fundamental level it seems inexplicable.

China and Russia Give Green Light To Assad Regime Savagery

China and Russia both vetoed a milquetoast UN Security Council Resolution put forth by the Arab League with backing from the U.S. and European powers that would have rebuked Assad and told him yet again to stop his slaughtering. It didn’t do much more than that. No mandatory sanctions, no arms embargo (Russia is right now resupplying the armory of the Syrian murder regime), no much of anything beyond more calling on Assad to do the right thing.

The repressive duo vetoed it anyway.

The vote was 13-2.

But first Russia and China jerked everybody around by negotiating concessions in the resolution, forcing it to be watered down, and then pulling the rug out from under the rest of the Council by killing it anyway. Part of a strategy, also employed by the Assad gangsters, to stall for time while they try to drown the people's rebellion in blood. (Like father, like son. There was a lot of idiotic prattle that Assad junior would be some kind of  "reformer," different from his father. Hopefully we won't hear more of that. We are hearing slimy blather from Assad and his minions from time to time about "reform" and "dialogue:" a really sick joke given the actual reality.)

Meanwhile, Homs is bleeding. Assad's barbarians are shelling residential neighborhoods, shelled the makeshift hospital, uses snipers to assassinate people at random. [BBC]. The bombardment intensified in wake of dual veto of Security Council condemnation. Hundreds have been killed already in just a few days, many have lost limbs.

The nationwide death toll in ten months of violent repression has surpassed 6,000. Innumerable more have been wounded, many maimed for life.

The assault began on earnest on the very day of the scheduled UN vote, before the vote; thus do the cynical Assadite barbarians underline their contempt for world opinion.

To top it off, the Assad regime is showing its usual cynical contempt for everybody’s intelligence by lying through its teeth and denying it’s killing anybody in Homs. It’s “terrorists” killing people in Homs. (Somehow “terrorists” have brought tanks and artillery into Syria, which has a 200,000 man army, and the regime is powerless to stop them.) But just in case you don’t believe that, they also say everything is peaceful in Homs. So the Sado-murder regime provides freedom of choice! Pick the lie you like!

Oh, and by the way, this is all about “Syria” (the sado-murder regime) being victimized by “foreign plots.” So say they and their loathsome fellow-travelers (various pseudo-academics of a faux-leftist persuasion).

Western “leftist” fellow-travelers back Assad, draw idiotic parallels to Libya, which they mindlessly see as an example of “Western Imperialist aggression.” The fact is, if NATO (and a few Arab states) hadn't used air power to help the Libyan people throw off the suffocating yoke of the tyrant Qaddafi, “rivers of blood” would have flowed as per the Qaddafi family's vow. (The intervention was pursuant to a UN mandate which was instigated by the Arab League. But ideologues are always selective when it comes to acknowledging facts.) I guess it’s easier to be an ideologue than to comprehend reality in all its complexity. Applying knee-jerk, simple-minded templates on all situations is easier than having to think, for the mentally slovenly. Although I don’t see what’s so hard to figure out. To say, West always Bad, foes of West always Good, reveals mindlessness, and a sickening moral abandonment of human beings who are being savagely oppressed.

But for some reason people with an ideological doctrine they hew to always believe it to be more moral than actual human morality. (See: all religious fundamentalists; Ronald Reagan; etc.)

Certain leftists have an ironclad, if unacknowledged, rule they follow in terms of their attitude towards dictatorships: if the oppressors are supported by or have friendly relations with Western powers, the dictator is BAD. If it's on the outs with the West, it's GOOD. Rightists have an exact mirror image of that rule. [See Wall Street Journal, National Review, et al for endless examples.]

This phenomenon makes a fine illustration of the adage: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.