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Heroes, Villains, & Empty Suits
Submitted by James H Kunstler via Kunstler.com,
The poet W.B. Yeats was right in 1919 when he said the center cannot hold, as if, following the first great industrial slaughter of modern times, he discovered the lethal vacuum at the center of modernity itself. There was a lot to be nervous about after the First World War. And right away, of course, enter, stage-right, Adolf Hitler. We’re still trying to explain that cat to ourselves, and not just the Germans, either. Who cannot be awed by the appearance of genuine evil in the world?
Although, perhaps most remarkable in our time is not merely the presence of evil, but the eerie dearth of heroes, and by that I do not mean supernatural gym rats in spandex outfits swinging from the Frank Gehry condos on cords of spider silk. I mean living, breathing humans willing to engage with great and implacable forces.
American sniper Chris Kyle was one of the rarees, and he was a strange case, really. Not just because of his alleged frailties, his tendency to play up his exploits, brag, maybe lie a little, but because he carried out his lethal deeds mostly at a remove — up there on the dusty rooftops of Fallujah, where he could reach out with his sniper-scope and swat human flies from a position of relative safety. Yet it is not hard to identify with his mission to kill “bad guys” — especially two years after his loopy martyrdom on a Texas gun range at the hands of a deranged fellow soldier driven mad on his own wartime mission.
The more interesting hero to me is Snowden. The purity of his name alone kind of says it all. The documentary movie about his brush with history, Citizen Four (by Laura Poitras, also a hero), is now showing on cable TV. It follows Snowden during the days of spring 2013 when he went rogue on the National Security Agency and revealed to the public the extent to which the American government was prying and worming its way into everybody’s electronic life — ignoring the pain-in-the-ass constitutional limits on such mischief, and setting the USA up to be a police state beyond the frontiers of anything George Orwell dreamed about in his darkest nights of the soul.
It is more than ironic that Snowden was also Mr. Ed, because if you take his comportment on film at face value, never was there such an exemplary and seemingly normal American young man. His heroism resided largely in his amazing composure under the strain of events. He spoke English clearly and calmly, and reacted to the weighty events he set in motion with startling equanimity. He appeared to know exactly what he was doing, and with quiet, unshakable moral commitment. And then he disappeared down the gullet of America’s modern times nemesis, Russia, where he continues to taunt with his very existence, the NSA gameboys, lizard-lawyers and puppet-masters who cordially invite him back home to face, ho-ho, our vaunted justice system. Of course any six-year-old understands that they would love to jam Snowden down some federal supermax memory hole as an example to any other waffling NSA code-jockey having second thoughts about reading your grandpa’s phone records.
And then, strangest of all to relate, there is Putin. Our guys are moving heaven and earth to jam him into a red-hot Satan suit but it’s not working. The pitchfork they want him to brandish looks strangely like a sword of justice. Even Americans of modest intelligence, when not locked into the Kardashian trance, can detect something false in all our official handwringing over Ukraine — the made-in-the-USA failed state now eating itself alive on Russia’s border. Before February 2014, Ukraine was just a struggling, marginal demi-nation still economically dependent on Russia, of which it had effectively been a province for centuries. Mr. Obama and his haircut-in-search-of-a-brain Secretary of State, Mr. Kerry, thought it would be a good idea to make Ukraine our client state instead. They couldn’t have botched the operation more completely. I have to say, Vlad Putin’s composure in the face of this perfidious idiocy is really something to behold, regardless of the roughness of the polity he rules. Our guys, in contrast, look like something less than sheer clueless rogues. They look like empty suits.
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bullish for US stocks
I sort of expected more article. Kinda short for a Kuntsler screed. Seems to me cowards, evil and grreed fit together nicely.
you're a spandex raree, then
Hello... Ron Paul?
Billy Talent.
Conscience has been cast away
Evil has been blessed with praise
Heroes end up in their graves
Perhaps the point is that the blue pills are wearing off, and he's kinda short on solid ground with which to support his belief system?
At least, I hope so.
The great thing about defining villains and heroes is the sliding scale used. Hitler was considered a hero to many in Germany just before they were sent to the Western Front.
Now fill in the blank:
Obama was considered a hero to many in USA just before .................
Chris Kyle was a straight-up fraud and Hitler was not a bad guy (if vain and gullible)- unless you love central banking.
We have a lot of history to un-learn.
The holocaust.
Didn't.
Fucking.
Happen.
Like their not snorting lines in the oval office....Please!
Speaking of villains, where is our Netanyahu update?
"Mr. Obama and his haircut-in-search-of-a-brain Secretary of State, Mr. Kerry, thought it would be a good idea to make Ukraine our client state instead."
Sure Obummer, but not even an honourable mention for the NeoCons or Nuland?
James Limited-Hangout Kuntsler
Snowden and Putin heroes? hmmmm...why do i want to disagree, but cant? Sad
Yes, paging Cognitive Dissonance, please pick up the nearest white courtesy phone...
That's what you get when the Evil Empire is America. Gotta go offshore for your heroes. Paging North Korea.
Snowden - Absolutely
Putin - Tyrant
Obama - Useful Idiot and Petty Tyrant wannabe.
Yellen, McConnell, Reid, [insert US/EU/JPN/CHN Apparatchik here] - Useful Idiots (at best); Idiots (kindest theory); Traitors (most likely theory).
Snowden - Absolutely not. A CIA asset (like Ellsberg before him and the Guardian newspaper) meant to scare us by letting us know how far Big Brother has come. Previous whistleblowers revealed more.
Putin - A statesman acting in the interests of the Russian Federation. Therefore a hero for Russians, but certainly not acting in the interests of the west where most ZHers live.
As long as Putin avoids getting trapped in a hot war with the West, everyone but the .001%ers interests are served.
Sabres are rattled for a reason.
"Putin - A statesman"
Yes, with $40B of personal wealth (did you ever wonder how that dropped in his lap?)
A crashed currency (hmm - maybe that explains the Crimea "volunteers". You know - start a war when everything is crapping out)
Invading neighboring countries (Georgia and Ukraine)
Political assassinations (you could do some of this research yourself you know)
Political imprisionments (Yes, only a "statesman" would imprison "Pussy Riot")
Further your education, if you can:
"Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?"
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1476795193/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=4969492283&ref=p...
I'll bet you're really good at making farting sounds with your hand and armpit, right?
Used to be...haven't practiced in a while though.
It's better than being a member of the Pooty Fanboiz Circle Jerk Club.
How's that working out for you?
The practice of applying historical revisionism to your arguments usually works much better only AFTER you have defeated your enemy/opponent in a major conflict or war. Otherwise, the lies, obfuscations, and logical fallacies of the revisionist become rather transparent and obvious.
Are you really expecting to sway anyone's opinion here with such absurd propaganda?
But it does have the stink of real fear, even across the interwebs.
No fan of any form of government, but anyone who is slowing down the rate at which the US hegenomy grows can't be all bad.
How can you be certain, Mr Heisenberg?
Agree. Givi and Motorola are heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeS2tfaMy4Q#t=119
Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds-RATM/Wake Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wauzrPn0cfg
RATM have a lot of things to say, and say it very well.
Bulls on Parade is pure genius.
Please, the simple truth is that from a standard of living point of view, the East has had it quite harder than the west. The western oligarchy has been stealing the value of everyone's savings (this already happened in the East) in order to try and maintain power and control, period.
The bottom line is that the earth has been filled with exponentially, never-before-seen, amounts of paper claims on real goods...
Eventually, these paper claims will seek those goods out. The people in the East have lived through such times, where there are no social safety nets, I wonder how all those 'mericans will do?
Same as it ever was...
Lets be fair here, both Chinese and Japanese empires raped their people same as European Kings and Queens. Those Mericans only have a social safety net because at one time in history they grabbed their balls and said fuck it I'm done with this bull shit and fought a war over it. Since that day the bankers (bank of England under the Roschilds) has been working diligently to get the Mericans back under control. They succeeded in 1913 as they had previously a couple times but those central banks were disbanded. Those Mericans are part of a very very small number of groups that successfully threw off the chains. Them like the others have all had them put back on through deception. The people of the East seem to be very comfortable living in a feudal system.
Yes, but those days are gone... something about tree of liberty comes to mind...
Maybe those who are looking for heroes only see empty suits because they're not doing anything themselves. Put the iPad down, stand up (yes, this means using your muscles) and do something.
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
-Yeats
FTA: "Vlad Putin’s composure in the face of this perfidious idiocy is really something to behold, regardless of the roughness of the polity he rules."
Links to data for those who truly want to know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014%E2%80%9315_Russian_military_intervent...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31669061
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/26/alexander-lebedev-russian-billi...
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-09-17/vladimir-putin-the-rich...
"Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not."
And now, a rebuttal from the ZH Pooty Fanboi Brigade!
That's easy. Wiki as authority for controversial issues?
Really? That's your 'depth' of reading and research? Really?
You lose.
But...but...msm!!
Yeah, and Bloomberg accusing Vlad of being rich, maybe richest in the world.
Where does one begin?
Provide a link to contradictory evidence then.
BTW - Reviews of the book "Putin's Klepocracy"
“[A] copiously researched account . . . the most persuasive account we have of corruption in contemporary Russia. Dawisha won’t be getting a Russian visa anytime soon. Her indictment—event if it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law—hits Putin where it really hurts.” (New York Times Book Review)
“[An] unblinking scholarly exposé.” (Forbes)
“An important and valuable work” (The Wall Street Journal)
"I can make up anything I want and call it the truth for as long as I want, as nobody will ever be able to concisely and completely rebuke my bullshit and/or others' bullshit on Wikipedia"
You're clearly the one to answer this: does establishment cock suffer from ED, or do posts like yours still generate boners? If boners, what do those boners taste like when you're slobbering all over them?
Spend a lot of time dwelling on the taste of cock?
"You lose" says the Pooty Fanboi.
1) You provided no links to any info discrediting any of the above info.
2) Look closely: I provided links to BBC, Bloomberg, Huntington Post and Wikipedia.
3) Which linked source in which Wiki article are you disputing?
Creed of the Pooty Fanboi: When facts fly in the face you your world view: ignore the facts, kill the messenger, etc., but never re-examine your world view.
BBC - State funded and sponsored propaganda.
HuffingtonPost - A liberal cesspool of groupthink and promoter of the politically correct transgenderization of 'Murica.
Wikipedia - CIA clusterfuck re-writing history to fit "their" narrative.
Hardly sources
Uh-huh.
We all wait for your links to the real truth...Not just me, but your fellow Pooty Fanboiz
"Pooty Fanboiz"
Dead giveaway, troll.
Fanboiz!
It's interesting that Google links to the Ukrianian crisis are all BBC, NYT, Huff Post etc. Nothing even remotly offside.
So Wiki, like Google are completely independant and voice, well aggregate, truth? ROTFLMFAO!
It's interesting that Google links to the Ukrianian crisis are all BBC, NYT, Huff Post etc. Nothing even remotly offside.
So Wiki, like Google are completely independant and voice, well aggregate, truth? ROTFLMFAO!
yes, Putin is an oligarch/tyrant. So fucking what? What I find more idiotic is the fact that most Americans think that Mr. Bush and Mr Clinton aren't.
The Russian people have survived several economic collapses where there simply isn't a social safety net anymore. I wonder how the average American will handle it?
"I wonder how the average American will handle it?"
Probably not well, but "So fucking what?"
Remember, the subject: "Heroes, Villains, & Empty Suits"?
Regarding the subject, I agree with your comments, : "Putin is an oligarch/tyrant."
Yes, just like Bush and Clinton.
Problem is, how much of that is propaganda and how much is real? Don't get me wrong, the guy is former KGB, so it is highly unlikely that he wasn't involved in some bad shit at sometime, but think about some of the other lies that we've been exposed to in Western media when painting people as enemies of the US. We've been pulling that shit for decades, at least since Operation Mockingbird, and probably longer. My advice is to not trust ANYTHING from ANYBODY on this. Too much BS is flying around to take anything at face value here.
The point is simple: If Putin did something wrong and there is proof (I think he's smart enough to deal with the whole proof thingie,) then pony up. If there is no proof, don't fucking lie about it. If the evidence is inconclusive, I can deal with that.
Great attitude! Absolutely correct.
The links I provided are the starting place for someone interested in finding out.
The truth is that all leaders - with extremely few exceptions - are out for themselves. They scheme, lie, cheat and scramble to enrich/empower themselves.
And Western media lies do not prove Putin sainthood, as many on ZH seem to believe.
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State
can shield the people from the political, economic and/or
military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to
repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
lie, and thus by extension the truth becomes the greatest
enemy of the State." - Joeseph Goebbels
@Darteus. All these Wiki links! Wiki is a CIA front designed to seed, when appropriate, bogus information to disinform people looking for truth.
Well, then I thank goodness that you're here!
Please provide links to the real truth!
ROFL!
Consider reading https://archive.org/details/Propaganda1928ByEdwardL.Bernays if you want to excel at your profession.
It is incumbent upon those looking for heroes, that they familiarize themselves with just who Hero was.
She was a mythical beauty, who fell in love with Leander, a righteous looking dude hisownself.
She heard, mistakenly, that he died and, besought with depressing sadness, she threw herself into the Hellespont and drowned, for nothing.
@compte. And, of course, when Bayer wanted a brand name to market diacetylmorphine in 1885 they figured that since it made one feel like a hero, that heroin would be a catchy name.
"he discovered the lethal vacuum at the center of modernity itself"
Kuntzler, this gets the pseud's award of the month.
Wait for the vacuum to leak out.
Techanically, there is nothing in a vacuum. That's why it's called a vacuum in the first place. Shit has a tendency to leak in.
you fell for it, sorry - I have a chemistry degree and it was a standing joke in the lab about the vacuum line...
No, you missed it, I forgot to put the emphasis on the shit... Seems to me there are a lot of vacuums these days...
Is this a bad time for me to be a dick and step in here to bring up the Casimir Effect?
No. Please continue...
You mean that there will be a pressure on two metal plates that are parallel and close together in a vacuum, and this pops out of the math from Quantum Electrodynamics because there are fewer allowed values for the electric field between those two plates than there are? It raises more questions about what a vacuum actually is than it answers, but the effect has been observed. It gets into something fundamental about the nature of the universe that we don't really understand.
is that where you put your dick between two electrically charged plates?
No, thats the Casanova effect.
When I think "chemist", the first thing that pops into my mind is not "great sense of humor". I may be jaded, tho, as my next door neighbor is a biochemist and is a complete asshole who cannot even spell "joke".
I'd have to see his wife before making a judgement on that thesis...
I knew a chemist once who was a real sourpuss. He was prim and proper to begin with, then he had a really hot daughter who was very wild.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1476795193/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=4969492283&ref=p...
“[A] copiously researched account . . . the most persuasive account we have of corruption in contemporary Russia. Dawisha won’t be getting a Russian visa anytime soon. Her indictment—event if it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law—hits Putin where it really hurts.” (New York Times Book Review)
“[An] unblinking scholarly exposé.” (Forbes)
“An important and valuable work” (The Wall Street Journal)
Your point is taken.. With out a doubt the American Kleptocracy is more subtle and has more sophisticated political/ propaganda capabilities.
"And then he disappeared down the gullet of America’s modern times nemesis, Russia, where he continues to taunt with his very existence, the NSA gameboys, lizard-lawyers and puppet-masters who cordially invite him back home to face, ho-ho, our vaunted justice system. Of course any six-year-old understands that they would love to jam Snowden down some federal supermax memory hole as an example to any other waffling NSA code-jockey having second thoughts about reading your grandpa’s phone records."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cikvqdMRTTA
Pfft. I'm so tired of that bullshit about Hitler being "evil incarnate". He did nothing wrong except try to rebel against the global financial system.
Germany's stand against bolshevism; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnu5uW9No8g
Unbelievable! Not a single mention of urban sprawl or happy motoring.
Nor any cheap shot at Southerners.