Killing for Fun in Oklahoma & For Other Reasons Elsewhere

Sometimes, a lot of the time, I absolutely hate this state, its dreadful senator, James (global warming is a hoax) Inhofe, its backward politics, its ultra-religious leanings. I love the land itself, I love to "watch the hawks making lazy circles in the sky". I'll also watch pigeons, a less dramatic species, but still co-inhabitants of this planet. They can be pests, in certain circumstances and so can humans. Pigeons have, historically, been of great use carrying messages in war time. These birds do not deserve to be used for live target practice for the amusement of humans who seem not to have progressed far from primitive European ancestors.

Watch the short video at the link! SEE HERE

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe is facing criticism from animal rights groups over a fundraiser he held earlier this month in which live pigeons were thrown into the air for participants to shoot out of the sky.

Illinois-based Showing Animals Respect and Kindness released video on Tuesday that shows dozens of pigeons being killed by shotgun wielding participants, including Inhofe.

Capt. Tony Woodruff of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's law enforcement division says live pigeon shoots, while not common, are legal in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma deserves better, but a majority its people are too brainwashed or wilfully ignorant to do anything but re-elect their horrendously inept senators and governor. Fallin and Inhofe will be voted back in. Nothing will change.

In other news : an excellent piece this week from one of my early US heroes, Dennis Kucinich:
The Real Reason We Are Bombing Syria

He ends his piece thus:

In foreign policy, the administration has failed. Congress has failed. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties have passed the national checkbook to their patrons in the war contracting business. And passed the bill to future generations.

The American people, who in 2008 searched for something redemptive after years of George W. Bush's war, realize in 2014 that hope and change was but a clever slogan. It was used to gain power and to keep it through promoting fear, war, the growth of the National Security state, and an autumnal bonfire of countless billions of tax dollars which fall like leaves from money trees on the banks of the Potomac.

SMALL STEPS

Small steps.
#1 When the UK stepped back from allying itself with the US on proposed military action in Syria.
#2 when President Obama decided to take his case for military action in Syria to Congress for approval.
#3 The suggestion by Putin that if Assad allowed inspectors to quarantine and destroy his store of chemical weapons that would preclude any US military intervention.
#4 President Obama, in his speech, hastily re-jigged due to fast-moving changes, postponing Congressional vote on the issue, agreeing to await outcome of proposed solution.

Small steps which would, ideally, have been taken in reverse order - beginning with efforts to solve the crisis without force and further pain and bloodshed in Syria, this time at our hands. But as always, we take what we can get and feel thankful for the breathing space, with hopes that a crisis can, for once, be solved peacefully.

I did watch President Obama's speech on Tuesday evening, unusual for me, because what he says usually bears no relevance to what actually happens, so I tend not to bother. I was curious to see how his speech writers would have managed to spin the re-jig in light of fast changing events.

I called out to the screen just twice, towards the end. Once when the Prez said

To my friends on the left, I ask you to reconcile your belief in freedom and dignity for all people with those images of children writhing in pain and going still on a cold hospital floor, for sometimes resolutions and statements of condemnation are simply not enough.

I shouted back: "And what about the children lying dead or writhing in pain as a result of your kill lists and drones Mr Obama?"

Then at the end of the speech, when he said:

That’s what makes America different. That’s what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth.

I shouted "You are not exceptional, and you are not humble. Simple as that."

But.... small steps can lead towards peace, so we'll take whatever we can get!

Received this a few minutes ago with request to share wherever possible....so:

Alan Grayson is Speaking Out

It's good to note that Rep. Alan Grayson is speaking up against the US taking military action in Syria. See HERE for one example; and a link to his online petition appears on THIS blog.

I looked at his natal chart in 2010 in a post titled Election Go-round when preparations for the 2012 General election were gearing up.





Now's a good time to look again. It's a 12 noon chart so Moon and ascendant positions are not reliable.



His gentle Pisces Sun belies the forceful and outspoken politician we've come to know and admire. Neptune, ruler of Pisces, now resides in its home sign, but will not conjoin his natal Sun until around 2022. We still cannot be 100% certain what a transit of Neptune might have in store. Neptune has the reputation of illusion, delusion and general fogginess, so can present a bit of mystery in transit history.

Natal Mercury (communication)is in the first degree of Aries, known as The Aries Point, thought to be a strong position. Perhaps this is the source of the forthright communication style we recognise as Grayson's. His Mercury was right in the path of transiting Uranus, planet of unexpected change a couple of years ago. Alan Grayson lost his seat to the opposition in the 2010 mid-terms - one unexpected event! He regained his seat in 2012. If Alan Grayson were born before or around noon, transiting Pluto was within range of his natal Moon during the run-up to the 2012 election. It almost seems (tongue in cheek) that Uranus ousted him and Pluto reinstated him.

Long may his raised voice be heard ! I wish we had a Representative like him in our district of Oklahoma.

Red Lines In Art & In Life

President Obama's metaphorical "red line" drawn in an attempt to prevent or dissuade the use of chemical weapons, still could mean the use of military force by the USA and consequently even more killing. Seems to me to be counter-productive in the worst possible way.

We all have metaphorical red lines of one sort or another. This is being illustrated vividly by current TV series Breaking Bad.


I've mentioned Breaking Bad in a post once before, in February:
Thoughts on Crime and Morality. Since then, when we'd seen a backlog of old episodes via DVD, the series has returned to TV for its final season, a season taken in two "bites", first bite watched again via DVD, but we're now properly on board in real time on Sunday evenings for the last few episodes of all.

The story, layered and layered again as it is, never ceases to surprise us with twists and turns. Brilliant writing, even more brilliant acting, well deserving of Awards already received.

I never forget that, as Walter White, his family and his young, much abused protégé, Jesse Pinkman stumble towards what can only, logically, be a dark ending for all involved, that the insidious seed from which all this grew was lack of proper health care availability in the USA.

First we watched the "breaking bad" of a formerly mild mannered though talented chemistry teacher, his interaction with others who were either already broken themselves or on the cusp of it. The story was then about Walter White's breaking. As will always happen, once an apple turns rotten, the rot spreads.

We are now discovering exactly where, as with Obama and chemical weapons, the secondary characters each find their own "red lines". Walter White's wife, his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, all formerly presented as fine, moral, upright citizens, have at last reached their red lines and are, verbally at least, beginning to break bad.

What would it take for any of us to break bad? To consider killing, or even harming, another person? Threats to loved ones? Threats to our preferred way of life? Threats to our hubris or dignity? We wouldn't know for sure until presented with such scenarios in our own lives.

For our President, it's not a difficult choice. He can and does order drone attacks, which regularly kill innocents and children. I'd say he's broken bad already. He has the authority, now, in his own mind, to attack Syria, but is attempting to give himself cover by seeking the approval of Congress. How many of them have broken bad?

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche.

No Excuse for War

10 Problems with the latest excuse for war - see linked pdf

Then, please go to Cannonfire and see post for 31 August:

The "Trojan" trick: You can't understand what's going on now unless you know what happened in 1986

*** To Help Prevent an Attack on Syria - please go here:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8463

SYRIA

I hesitate to utter a single word about anything connected to the Middle East - unless it's a quote from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. However, Syria is starting to push other stuff off the headlines, so I felt I really should try to understand what it's all about.

Americans and Brits - more accurately their governments - have a fetish about the Middle East. There's hardly ever a 24-hour span when an atrocity of some kind isn't going down over there, there where the sun rises; inter-tribal violence is a way of life and has been for as long as I can remember, and much longer than that, I'm sure. The same could be said about parts of Africa though, but that doesn't elicit the same passions from USA and UK governments. The reason has to be that dirty three-letter word OIL, doesn't it? What else is there?

What brought events in Syria to the fore currently is the alleged use of chemical weapons by President Bashar al-Assad against the rebels (a body of mixed sects, who no doubt also fight against one another at times.) What proof is there that Assad did use chemical weapons? It seems the rebels were already being defeated anyway, where was the need?

A paragraph from Brit politician George Galloway's piece at Red Molucca:

"It is entirely implausible that the Syrian regime chose the moment of the arrival of a UN chemical weapons inspection team to launch a chemical attack on an insurgency already suffering reverse after reverse on the battlefield and steadily losing international support with each new video showing them eating the hearts of slain soldiery and sawing of the heads of Christian priests with bread knives.

In the absence of conclusive evidence one would have to believe that the Assad regime was mad as well as bad to have launched such a chemical attack at a time when it is in less danger than it has been for almost a year. I do not believe that Bashar is mad."

Remember those dire warnings that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, back in the early 2000s? Did they? Look what happened when that warning was acted upon!

“War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”
~ Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West

UPDATE
Thursday 29 August 2013:
British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a stunning defeat in the night's Parliament vote to endorse UK/US military action against Syria. Cameron's motion was defeated 285 to 272, a majority of 13 votes. Cameron said it was clear Parliament does not want action and "the government will act accordingly."

We can only hope that on this side of the pond our leader will follow suit and at the very least do nothing without Congress taking a vote on the issue.