Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt, James Bond.

What do they all have in common?

Well of course they are all fictional spies who fight “evil” across the globe. But more importantly they all, at some point, interact with a an organization called INTERPOL (International Police). This group, which has been a mainstay of spy movies dating all the way back to the fifties (and maybe before) is actually quite real.

INTERPOL operates in hundreds of countries and in many of them their authority supersedes those of local law enforcement.

And now they are coming to America, with a vengeance.

Executive Order 12425 gives INTERPOL full diplomatic immunity, a privilege not even enjoyed by the police at the city, state, or even federal levels here. And, by the way: No Freedom of Information Act applies to them (documents can be kept secret by them – forever).

Ronald Reagan had officially recognized INTERPOL, but with substantial safeguards. Some of those safeguards, it appears, have now been removed.

Let’s see how this develops.

If it develops.

-Out

Tehran is, by all accounts, a city of contradictions.

Walk it’s streets by day and you are subjected to a heady mix of Islam and Persian culture, albeit a form of Islam rejected by much of the Muslim world. Warring for attention constantly are the ever-present sounds of Islamic observation (prayers, calls to prayer, quranic recitation) and the similarly overpowering sounds of Persian music and Persian commerce. Voices, some confident and commanding, others plaintive and pathetic, wash over the visitor in waves not unlike those of a turbulent sea.

At night the prostitutes begin to appear, although none but a practiced eye would know them as such at a glance. Iranian prostitutes are unique in the world in a couple of distinct ways. One is that they do not consider themselves to be prostitutes (nor do most of their customers). The other is that, unlike the scandalously clad prostitutes branded into the imagination of the Western individual and called forth at the mention of the term, Iranian prostitutes often dress far more conservative than their more virtuous female city-mates.

This serves a very potent purpose. It helps ensure than they are not recognized as they go about their normal non-prostitute activities (like shopping, mothering, etc.).

Turn on a Television in Tehran and one is exposed to yet another set of contradictions. Due to the ready availability of free satellite television signals in the Muslim World, Iranians are exposed to a constant barrage of propaganda from their neighbors. On many of these stations Shia Islam, and those who observe it, is condemned as a horrible mass-apostasy destined for hellfire. Turn the channel and one can see rebroadcasted programs which have long fallen out of favor in the USA, but which still are hits in the conservative Muslim World, like Baywatch. Many of the same men who would yell at, and perhaps even beat, their own sisters for being seen talking to a member of the opposite sex, watch enthusiastically as bikini clad beauties frolic on the beach with their Speedo-clad make-believe boyfriends.

Turn your attention toward the civilian government and yet another contradiction greets you. Armani suit-clad men attempt to appear 100% Western in front of international cameras, and when meeting with Western diplomats or business interests, then they immediately morph into 100% Persian when they face the local cameras. Yet again they transform when they are summoned to, or are granted an audience with, their Ayatollah overseers. When they face these serious, often stone-faced men, they become the absolute embodiment of Shia Islamic observance.

Turn toward the women of the nation and you find again contradiction personified. Scarves gradually inch forward or back (or even come off entirely) throughout the day, depending on who they believe sees them. Iranian women, by and large, perform a strenuous and complex dance between the American and European ideas of beauty, and their traditionally accepted roles which require them to downplay their charms and remain mostly unseen and unheard.

Turn toward the American government and face yet another contradiction. The USA set up a puppet King in Iran who oppressed and brutalized his own citizens, then cried foul when the Iranians finally overthrew him for good in 1979. Today the USA claims that Iran is working on a Nuclear weapon and enacts sanctions against it, all the while negotiating behind he scenes to convince the Iranians to continue trading oil in US Dollars, instead of Euros or some other currency.

Turn toward Israel and consider the contradiction that every single major skirmish between Israel and it’s neighbors, with the arguable exception of the Six Day War in 1967, was initiated by Israel itself. Fast forward to today where Israel is the de facto sole nuclear power in the Mideast, yet actively (and violently) denies every other nation in the region nuclear power, not to mention nuclear weapons, under the guise of protecting itself from aggression. Now America, at Israels behest, is “putting pressure” on Iran to keep it from developing nuclear power, in spite of Iran’s repeated offers to provide proof that it is not pursuing weapons.

In light of all of these contradictions one must seriously consider whether a nation so divided against it’s own contradictions, is truly even a danger to the citizens along it’s own borders, let alone it’s neighbors.

Especially against a “neighbor” so distant as the USA.

I have read several alarmist headlines in the past few weeks regarding moves by several state governments to reassert their sovereign rights, in the wake of the extremely totalitarian Bush regime.

I, for the life of me, cannot rationalize the fears of people who ardently believe that any change from the governmental structure that they have is inherently bad.

It has been a mainstay of history that smaller nations usually function better and more efficiently than their larger couterparts. Massive empires rarely are prosperous except for a certain small segment of the population.

In the face of massive inflation, lost jobs, the contraction of credit availability, and with the specter of civil unrest looming, a breakup of the U.S.A. into regional confederacies may not only be inevitable, but may be just what the doctor ordered.

Unfortunately every film, the mind-programming tool of choice today, of which I am aware that depicts an “End-Of-America” scenario depicts it leading to chaos and misery.

Perhaps we should actively consider the possibility that America has grown too big for its britches, so to speak. Perhaps we are entering a time in which the Super State is becoming an unsustainable entity which must be put out of it’s misery to make way for it’s younger more energetic sons to survive and prosper.

This video is hilarious. If you like T.I. and already know the real song, then it’s even more funny.

Normally I don’t write comments to the Pictures of The Day, but this one warrants some commentary nevertheless.
Although I do have some issues with President Obama’s positions, especially as related to homosexuality, and the muzzling of religious figures (as was seen during the Reverend Wright scandal) I don’t agree with the demonizing of him that has occurred in many quarters on the basis of how much he has inspired blacks in America, and around the world.
Images like this are increasingly common online, as artists seek to depict those who “believe” in President Obama’s ability to affect positive change in the world as being deluded, blind followers, akin to those in a religious cult.
I object to this for a large number of reasons, but especially because the “fervor” of Obama supporters seems to be condemned while the fervor of G.W. Bush supporters, during his heyday, was applauded.
White Christians, and some minority ones, praised him for his faith and his “moral character”. There is even one video where kids worship and praise an image of President Bush.

Don’t believe me? Check it out:

Is the historic nature of what just happened lost on everyone without dark skin? A Black man just became the President of a majority non-black country which was whipping and killing blacks wholesale just 40 years ago.

This feat has no parallel in the modern world whatsoever. So if blacks across the planet celebrated (and they did), even if you can’t understand: Don’t condemn.

Today America carried out a tradition that is both old, yet was made new.

It was old, because presidents have been handing power from one to the other for a very long time.  It is new because, for the first time, it was handed to a Black Man.

And although I, like much of America, was impressed by the history of the moment, I was not swept away by it.

President Barack Obama carries in him the hopes of billions of Black People across the planet who are beginning to see him as one endowed with divine purpose.

He has parted the waters or politics quite well, but now we will see if he can walk on them as well.

A Mother's Grief

I wonder what my own mother would have done is I had been the child in the photo.  I wonder what her grief would have led her to do, if I and the children of her friends, neighbors, and even strangers, were being killed along with her own.

I wonder how people can fail to understand that “terrorism” is often the last resort of the oppressed.  One man’s “terrorist” is another man’s “freedom fighter”, it has been amply abserved.

In times such as these, where the people of Gaza are being slaughtered by Israeli forces indiscriminately, is it so strange that even mothers and aged grandparents are driven to take up arms and fight?

What would your mother have done if the body on thaty table had been yours?

I'm A Puppet

Introducing the Puppet Of The Century – Mahmoud Abbas,  President Of Palestine.

His people are being slaughterd by the truckload and he has nothing but kind words for the killers.  I guess these are the kinds of leaders the Palestenians are stuck with.  A President that shakes hands and eats with the murderers of his people, and a Party that fires missles but intentionally misses the targets…

Great team you guys have over there.

Religion For Sale

In the ancient Islamic world there was a term that was used as a stinging insult toward some religious scholars.

The term was “Government Scholar”.

These scholars were known, or suspected, to give religious rulings either in exchange for financial support from the government (some recieved actual stipends) or directly in exchange for money on the spot.

Today in both the Muslim world and in the West there seems to be a resurgence of the Government Scholar.  Religious leaders across the world are approving practices and lifestyles that the very books which they claim to represent openly condemn.

But since the governments accept it, so to must they, it seems.

The reality is that the Government Scholar never really went away.  There have been shadowy meetings between religious officials and governemnt officials in almost every society throughout history.  But now the fact of it is becoming increasingly evident.

Last year we had to sit through recording after recording of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his biting criticism of the USA.  We had to hear how un-American he was and watch the media demonize him.

But wait.

When have religious officials ever been openly beholden to a state?  It used to be considered an accepted fact that the Churches, Mosques, or Synagogues were not the province of the state, but were the houses of God Himself, and thus stood autonomous.

In the public eye, rulers have generally curried the favor of the Church, not the other way around.  Of course, behind the scenes the story was often quite different, but in the public sphere part of the legitimacy of the Minister/Imam/Priest/Rabbi hinged on his being beholden to God alone.

Today, however, religious leaders are expected to be beholden to the State, openly and secretly, and as a result their influence among the poeple is waning rapidly.

Every time a religious leader compromises his principles and says what the government or the people want to hear, in exchange for the retention of status, for financial gain, or both, the respect of the people toward that leader goes quickly out the window.

Religion is for sale, and has been for a long time.

This is part 3 of the BBC documentary series called “The Power Of Nightmares”.
This documentary is an excellent introduction to the Politics Of Fear, as opposed to the all-but-forgotten Politics Of Hope.

Here is the video: