Bob’s Blog

Courtesy of:  The Huffington Post and Tom Tomorrow

I recently read an article by historian Michael Hunt. Published in 2002, and while it may seem dated at first glance, it on the contrary seems to only have become more relevant as the years have gone by. An excerpt:

If the clash unfolding before us involves some sort of fundamentalism, it is tempting to say that it is as much ours as theirs — that there are strong strains of fundamentalism on both sides. Americans bring to the September 11 crisis a deeply rooted nationalist faith that is universal in its application, ahistorical in its thinking, and reductive in its view of other cultures. The talk from the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon draws from a familiar nationalist repertoire that reduces complex situations to easily grasped terms familiar from other times of tension and fear. The result is the ethnocentric invocation of a great conspiracy, an axis of evil, a monolith of terror. This is the language of the crusader. Posed against this official American position with broad popular appeal is something more amorphous but demonstrably powerful — a set of values that has come to the fore in Muslim countries, that is preoccupied above all with domestic renovation, and that is in the main opposed to the United States for what it does politically and militarily to sustain a bankrupt old order and obstruct efforts to create something better.

There may be dangers lurking as Americans make their way deeper into the affairs of the region. Taking guidance from convenient simplifications is not likely to prove in practice any wiser today than it has in the past. It may well be now in the Middle East, as earlier in East Asia, that historical perspective will find little if any place in policy decisions and public debate. Ignoring history or embracing a simple, comforting version of it is always an attractive option. U.S. policy makers are likely to plunge heedlessly ahead. A fundamental reconsideration of policy may then have to wait until they encounter resistance that imposes costs higher than the public is willing to pay and that finally creates a kind of education through violence. This is a grim prospect with much uncertainty and much human suffering likely to attend it.

I urge you all to read the rest of it here.

Fascism in 10 Easy Steps

A friend of mine just sent me that article and it actually angered me because how full of shit it is, and how much short term memory is crammed in there.

Wiretapping has been done since the ’50s. This is nothing new. The CIA was doing it to root out Communists in the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s and also used it to try and find people linked to domestic radical and terror groups such as The Weather Underground. Same applies for targeting certain people and ethnic groups and harassing them.

Even FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two leaders who are regarded as the best presidents this country has ever had…have severely limited civil liberties within this country.

The United States has always villafied war enemies; such as The Germans, Russians, Japanese, Mexicans, or any other war opponent. The only group that has never really been demonized in modern American war would probably be the Vietnamese.

The so-called “gulags” (the fact that they would even put what we currently have in place with what Stalin was doing in the 40’s is absurd) again, always been around. Secret CIA bases and prisons have been around since the Cold War. Not that I agree with having something like Guantanamo Bay or anything, but still. The point remains that these things are nothing new in American history.

Issues with the journalism and the US government have always been around. Trying to find a balance between leaking classified or sensitive information has always been there. And the US government purposefully putting out false or exaggerated news is nothing new. Look at Vietnam.

And don’t even get me started on the “dissent is treason”. Blah blah blah, look at Communism in this country and how that’s turned out.

I could go on and on about this article but I think you all get my point. What this author is presenting is nothing new in this country. For over 200 years, these problems have been reoccurring over and over. I’m not justifying any of these actions. I don’t think they’re right. I don’t like the abuse of power or manipulation. But this country has survived and will continue to survive. Again – not justifying the actions of my government, but what this author presents is just nothing new and it does nothing but scare people and feeds into the huge far left propaganda machine. People need to critically look at the history of this country and not automatically assume we’re going to turn into fascists because history is repeating itself over and over again.

President Bush and his administration, for as awful as they are (and they are pretty awful, no question) are doing things that have already been done in this country before. This article is more alarmist, scare-tactics than anything else in my opinion.

I don’t believe this country will fall to fascism but I do believe that it needs a wake up call and there are a lot of things that need to be fixed, starting with the impeachment of George Bush and Cheney.

This article, I think overall, is just pure and unadulterated horseshit and offers nothing new or anything of real merit. The ignorance in this article genuinely angers and offends me. It’s no better than what they claim the right is doing in this country.

This author needs to pick up a damn US history book and actually look back through the pages in history and actually think about what is going on and how it compares.

Warning: History Nerd Alert.

Within the next 10 years, I hope to have earned my phd, and will be teaching at a university somewhere.  Preferably in history or political science.  As part of various programs, I would have to attend conferences and write various essays and books. And strangely enough, I’ve begun to think about some of the things I would want to write about. I’m sure this will change over time, but here are some things I think would be interesting enough to warrant reading:

1. Breaking down the myths and long told praises of various presidents in this country’s history. More specifically people such as Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln,  JFK, hell – I’d even take on FDR. I think it would be interesting. While the purpose is not to rain on people’s parades in regards to these presidents and to take away from their achievements, I think it would be highly interesting to give a fresh perspective on these presidents and lay out some of the not-so-great things they did and to break down some of the myths.

2. Human rights abuses carried out by the United States from WWII up until the present. Again – not to purposefully knock this country but let’s be real here, we’ve done a lot of not-so-nice things and these things often get brushed underneath our history’s rug. You’d be surprised about what you would find out what’s been done in our name within the past 60 years.

3. The history of the CIA. Again, as per above. You’d be amazed at what some of the things that have been carried out in our name. Plus, I just want to write a chapter on how the CIA came up with crazy ideas on how to kill Castro such as creating exploding seashells and cigars.

4. My history professor, Dr. Baldwin, has really shed an incredibly new light on the Cold War for me in one of my courses. It’s been absolutely fascinating to read some of the things you are never really taught. I think it would be fascinating to write about the history of the Cold War. And, hopefully by the time I would get around to this, more classified documents would be released by the Soviets.

5.  A history of Middle East and US relations.

Yeah. I totally want to be a history and political science writer. I’d have way too much fun with it.

These are two of the funniest videos I’ve seen in a while. Some friends of mine give me crap for liking David Blaine. So, this is for them:

“Quit putting shit on our bodies!”

“He just pissed orange soda!”

I crush hands like this all the time.

I’ll be honest – I haven’t followed the VA Tech situation much. I read an article last night on CNN about it to know what happened, and I sat in the Pub with some friends and couldn’t stomach the idiots on the news networks trying to lay blame.

Let’s get a few things clear here: The school did everything they could in the situation. They were following police orders. No college campus is prepared for a situation like this. And what reason do they have to be? Here in BG – the only way we would be notified if an event like this happened would be through email. BG is not the only one, either. That’s the bottom line. And that’s the damned truth.

There would be no other way for students to know not to come to campus that early in the morning, besides possibly the morning news. But, to be real here – most college students aren’t going to check these things that early in the morning. It’s just part of the college atmosphere. You sleep in late, and if you do have an 8 am class, you drag your ass out of bed 5 minutes before class starts.

Let’s cut the crap and not blame video games, let’s not blame society, let’s not blame music or books or whatever. Let’s put the responsibility of this event on the shoulders of the person who committed this act. It absolutely infuriates me that the media and many people in this country and constantly looking for scape goats in acts like this. Pointing the fingers at the college will do no good and instead, we should be focusing on the individual.

That is not to say, however, that issues like this are always black and white. People have disorders and are sick. People have had childhoods and parenting. People spend their lives in environments they can’t get out of. There are a lot of things that drive a person to these points. But we also must know that some of these events, like this one, are premeditated. That some knew 100% damn well what they were carrying out. They know right from wrong. And they know what they were doing was heinous and despicable.

I’ve dealt first hand with things like this. More so than any idiotic, know-nothing TV pundit who spews out garbage each day on TV to garner ratings. I have to spend the rest of my life worrying every single day whether or not one of my students is going to pull a gun out in the middle of my high school class. I’ve seen and interacted and have known kids who are capable and willing to do these things. There is nothing scarier than a kid blurting out in the middle of class, “I have a hit list.” and then finding out his list is real and he had real intentions of hurting and/or killing people.

We will never truly know what drives these kids to do these things. You will never pin point one particular issue. The people who shoot up work places or schools have more than one issue, I can tell you that much. And no matter the precautions a school takes to prevent these horrible acts…if a kid wants to carry them out, they will. We see it every year with high school shootings. More and more precautions and security measures are taken and shootings still occur. It’s frightening and it’s saddening to think this, but it’s the truth.

Our world is a changing place and I don’t know what the hell is happening to people out there.

So, this year I’ve started to play Fantasy Baseball. My friend Jess intrigued me about it enough last summer and so I decided to play it with her this season. I love baseball, love watching it, and I want to be an owner. It only makes sense to play this, right? Right. Never done the fantasy sports thing before, and I must say – it’s starting to consume my life.

I spend my days wondering how my players are doing. I check my League’s page at least 4-5 times a day; analyzing, switching up the line-ups, thinking. I plan my line-ups days in advance only to have them changed day of anyways.

The worst part? I find myself rooting against my favorite teams in order for my fantasy players to do better. Crazy.

It’s starting to get out of hand, to be honest. I wish I would have gotten into this sooner.

Currently rocking:
C.C. Sabathia
Josh Beckett
Ty Wigginton
Orlando Hudson

Currently sucking:
Barry Zito
Ryan Howard
Alfonso Soriano

Found this earlier today while browsing the news. Hard to argue with this piece and it really does hit home. I think it even explains some of the questions I raised a few days ago on why people just don’t seem to care or aren’t outraged enough.

By: Sheldon Richman

Our rulers could have forced us to be more involved. They could have passed a special war tax, launched a high-profile “Buy War Bonds” campaign, and found other ways to demand “sacrifice” in the name of patriotism and victory. They could have staged more events featuring “our brave heroes who risk everything to preserve your way of life.” They even could have started conscription if only for symbolic reasons.

But our misleaders have not done any of this. Why not?

To understand, we need to think about the nature of war as a political instrument — for at its core, that is what it is.

In a lecture last year Prof. Joseph Salerno of Pace University pointed out that war is a device by which a ruling class not only expands its power and access to wealth, but also distracts the domestic population from the exploitation perpetrated by its government. The welfare-warfare state does not exist primarily to serve and protect “its” people. It does those things to some extent, of course, but only for the same reason the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk” fed the goose that laid the golden eggs: to sustain the exploitation as long as possible.

No, in its primary role the welfare-warfare state is a grand scheme to enable a ruling class, through its complex bureaucracy and ideological smokescreens, to transfer wealth from the industrious classes to itself. This system deceives and compels the taxpaying producers to support a tax-consuming aristocracy, which includes the bureaucracy and corporations that exist on government contracts.

War can be highly useful to this cause because in time the taxpayers may begin to catch on to the scam that drains their wealth. If they can be made to fear that an external enemy threatens their safety, they will happily trust their rulers with more power and money and ignore the occasional overt corruption. Nothing better serves this purpose than a foreign war. First, of course, the war makers must persuade the people that a threat really exists. This can be pulled off all sorts of ways. Phantom weapons of mass destruction served quite nicely in 2003. Foreign intervention that provokes murderous retaliation (terrorist “blowback”) also does the trick.

But this method of keeping the domestic population alarmed is not foolproof. Rulers can overplay their hand. Under some circumstances, asking too much sacrifice of too many people may cause them to call the whole scheme into question, risking the aristocracy’s hold on power.

That could be why the Bush administration has asked so little directly of most people. It spends $7 billion a month on war but has cut, not raised, taxes. How can that be? Government borrowing lets the war makers spend now and tax (young and unborn generations) later. But there is no free lunch even in the present, because the borrowing shifts wealth from fulfilling the purposes of consumers to fulfilling the purposes of the war makers. As a result most of us are poorer.

Thus, in one respect it’s good that most of American society has avoided the ugliness and spiritual rot that war wreaks. But in another respect, it has permitted the war party to continue its imperialist policy of occupation and murder largely unmolested, while milking the people in covert ways.

Paradoxically, there might be more war opposition if the empire imposed on the home population more heavily.

For some odd reason, a lot of people have been stumbling across my blog in search of Hot Pockets and the history behind them. And I suppose some people like one of my stories behind them as well.

So to help everyone out and to satisfy the curiosity of all you people, here is the history of Hot Pocket, thanks to Wikipedia:

Hot Pockets were invented by Paul Merage and David Merage in the 1970s. They founded the company Chef America Inc.and began producing Hot Pockets for the market in 1983. In 2002, the Merages sold Chef America to Nestlé for $2.6 billion. Initially only available in the United States and Canada, they are now sold by Nestlé in France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom under the Maggi brand. Quote from Nestlé 2005 Full Year Financials: “In Europe, the roll-out of Hot Pockets, small microwaveable frozen meals, is gaining momentum in France, Germany, Spain and the UK.”

Hot Pockets, which come frozen, are often known for a “sleeve” or “crisper” in which they cook in the microwave. This sleeve comes packaged with individual Hot Pockets, and are meant to be disposed of after use. The sleeve converts microwave energy into heat to crisp the crust, which would normally be penetrated by microwaves.

Recently, Hot Pockets brand has introduced whole grain crusts, following a trend of many convenience product purveyors of offering lower carbohydrate choices. This new variety is part of their “Lean Pocket” line, under the heading “Lean Pocket Ultra”.

Riveting.

You can read more here.