Memory Holes and Pyramid Schemes

As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of ‘The Times’ and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames.

- 1984 George Orwell

As the tubes used in Orwell's 1984 protagonist Winston Smith's Ingsoc employers' gleaming white offices at the Ministry of Truth to purge our collective memory become increasingly clogged, it seems to be happening to me more and more frequently of late. That blank look of incomprehension staring at me around the classroom or across the table at the pub after delivering what I'd thought just a moment earlier to be a thought provoking observation. Events such as those happening over the past fortnight in Egypt, home to Gizan Pyramids and a KFC for the deaf, provide enough fodder to stoke the furnace of forgetfulness. The conflicts that have been sown in and around, by and for, the likes of Tutenkahmen, Cleopatra and Nasser from the Pharaonic high point of ancient civilization to the Tahrir Square occupation keep Big Brother digging the memory hole ever deeper. How can it be a 1979 moment or even '89 or simply '09, when there's no Ayatollah Khomeini coming home, Solidarity of Lech Walesa or even a Mir Hosein Mousavi? In our reality an American president can become a torturer who gets to go to the Super Bowl but not Geneva for fear of arrest while Obama has to help Egyptian torturers become presidents to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood becoming the Revolutionary Guard.

Watching the bumbling US government response to Egypt along with the rope-a-dope technique #3 from the authoritarian leader handbook (the others being violent crackdown or exile to mountainside villa) being played by Hosni Mubarak while the media whips up fear of Islamic extremism can be depressingly predictable. Regardless of whether the spark of revolution was the social media connectivity of Facebook and Twitter, the reporting of Al Jazeera and Wikileaks or grinding poverty combined with the skyrocketing price of bread, the fact is thirty years of political repression has left a void bigger than what a former UN Atomic Energy chief or Google executive could fill and so would give Islamists a voice in any democratically elected government. It was a crafty move by Mubarak to unconstitutionally name Omar Suleiman vice-president, buying time with America as he was their main rendition connection in the region and a trusted friend of Israel. The Winston Smiths of today have cut and pasted his name to Soliman in the cables provided by Wikileaks where he calls Iranians 'devils', turns the Muslim Brotherhood into the bogeyman and promises to pressure Hamas. Omar Suleiman may be better known as Sheik al-Torture but you can't convince me Mubarak's consigliere's not Snidely Whiplash with his look and fetishes; I wonder who we could get to play Dudley Do-Right?



As Minister without Portfolio and Director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate (EGID) since 1993, Omar Suleiman oversaw the security apparatus and torture program that produced the likes of Mohamed Atta and Ayman Al-Zawahiri. These graduates from his CIA designed torture chambers went on to pilot American Airlines flight 11 into the north Twin Tower on 9/11 and become Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant, the real brains behind Al Qaeda respectively. Of the19 hijackers that day, there weren't any from Iraq, a problem for Dubya's plan to finish off Saddam Husein for his dad - 15 were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Egypt and Lebanon. As point man for the CIA's rendition program, Suleiman received many of the suspects that America snatched around the world for torture. The most notorious case was an Al Queda suspect known as Ibn Sheikh al-Libi who was bound and blindfolded at Bagram Airforce Base in Afghanistan and flown to Cairo. Suleiman convinced Libi to confirm a personal link between Saddam and Osama and that the former was providing the latter with chemical weapons by locking him in a little box for eighty hours. Though Libi later recanted, his torture induced assertions were used by Colin Powell in his testimony to the UN in building the case for war in Iraq. For nearly 20 years, Suleiman has played Saraman for Mordor, the USA.

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
-Inner Party member O'Brien in 1984

When America was given custodianship of the world's economic system from the British Empire after World War II they also inherited the disastrous legacy of colonial duties from all the previous world powers from Chile to Vietnam, Angola to Afghanistan. America chose to spread freedom and democracy while ignoring convenient client state dictators and installing others who played for their side. Saudi Arabia and their extreme Wahabi version of Islam became fine but Iran's theocratic regime certainly isn't. Arming and supporting the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan in their struggle against Ruskies only to fight them twenty years later as the Taliban. The fear factory slipped seamlessly from fear of the Russian commies to the Islamic fundies in Iran. After screwing up Persia the US had to give Saddam weapons to fight the Ayatollah in a war that cost a million and a half lives only to have to turn its sites on Baghdad not once but twice. CNN and the 24-hour cable news cycle was born as George the elder's, Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. led (fun triva fact: his dad, Sr., was the man sent to bring the Shah back to Iran in '53 from self-imposed exile in Italy and went on to train the Shah's security forces, SAVAK) Desert Storm kicked Saddam out of Kuwait. Americans were taught to believe in smart missiles that only killed the bad guys but weren't shown the mass executions of those America incited to rebel and then deserted to die. Faux News was legitamized in the eyes of hillbillies as the embedded journalist came courtesy Dubya's shock and awe in Gulf War II as reporters rode the army's tanks into Baghdad. With their impartiality already compromised, they had no problems beaming staged celebrations back home to be played on an endless loop. Perhaps Egypt's protests will bring about cable news' next revolution and help propel Al-Jazeera into more living rooms to provide an alternative to the background noise designed to dull or senses.

Keeping in mind the arbitrariness of choosing a point in time when the story of empires keeps building on foundations heavy with history, we should look at Iran and Egypt in the early 1950s especially since the Bill O'Reillys and Glenn Becks of the world want us to fear the rise of a Muslim Caliphate from Cairo to Tehran (and yes, onto Islamabad and Kabul) if we dare encourage democracy. Since they get to ignore the differences across the region - Sunni from Shiite, petro-wealthy from poverty-stricken, Arab from Persian - and present a false choice faced in Egypt as one between Jihadist and friendly dictators, so can we. To combat the Manichean view of perpetual Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who said, "there's a real possibility in a few weeks...that Egypt will join Iran, and join Lebanon, and join Gaza, and join the things that are happening that are extraordinarily dangerous to us" we could study the past to learn from our mistakes. More than 50 years ago Egypt and Iran both had back to back major revolutions, the second Shah was installed in Iran while a military coup in Egypt eventually saw Gamal Abdel Nasser take control. By constantly rewriting history, Oceania's perpetual war alternated between Eurasia or Eastasia; the doublethink in our world had the US conspire with the USSR to push the British out of Egypt while McCarthy whipped up anti-commie rage to convince America to work with the Brits in Iran.

Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq nationalized Iran's oil industry and earned Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1951 while US President Truman stood by. It seems quaint today but when first presented with a British plan to overthrow Mosaddeq, Truman said, "We don’t overthrow governments; the United States has never done this before, and we’re not going to start now". By 1953 General Eisenhower was president and the US along with Britain had successfully completed Operation Ajax, overthrowing Mosaddeq and installing the Shah (fun tria fact #2: the CIA plan was hatched by Kermit Roosevelt Jr., grandson of Teddy Roosevelt), thus earning the lasting hatred of large sectors of the Iranian public, uniting communists, nationalists and Shia clericalists behind enmity of foreign meddling. The world got BP in exchange for Anglo-Iranian Oil and America got a client state to supply cheap oil for 26 years.



The Shah's supporters point to successes such as the 1963 program known as the White Revolution, which included land reform, the extension of voting rights to women, and the elimination of illiteracy. His detractors however remind us these very achievements served to alienate the clergy and avoid real democratic reforms. He flouted the constitution which placed limits on royal power and provided for a representative government, going so far as crowning himself "Shah en Shah", King of Kings in 1967. His increasing subservience to the US played poorly as he threw an extravagant celebration of 2,500 years of Persian monarchy and in 1976 he replaced the Islamic calendar with an "imperial" calendar, which began with the foundation of the Persian empire around 500 BC. These actions were clearly aimed at sidelining the Islamic religion, and excited the opposition of Muslim groups, which rallied around the then-exiled Ayatollah Khomeini.

The second Egyptian Revolution broke out in Egypt the year before resulting in Nasser's military coup on July 23rd 1952. This time the world got pan-Arab nationalism and three more Israeli wars in '56, '67 and '73 to add to the Arab loss of 1948. It wasn't until his successor Anwar Saddat that the lure of American dollars could convince them to at least play nice with Israel. In exchange for honoring the Camp David Accords signed by Sadat in 1978 and keeping the border to Gaza sealed for the most part, Hosni Mubarak and his cohorts have been made rich; Sadat paid with his life, Mubarak has paid with his soul. Corruption in Egypt has been taken to a whole new level; in America the corporations control government policy through lobbies, election funding and regulators, in Egypt the businessmen simply are the government and vice-versa. As the public grew poorer and prospects grew ever dimmer for the university graduates who managed to avoid being beaten by the secret police, five of Mubarak's cronies became billionaires. Former interior minister Habib Ibrahim El-Adly and party insider Ahmed Ezz amassed $1.2 and $3 billion respectively. A few other billionaire former Cabinet ministers trying to flee the country as protests broke out but were stopped. Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of the late President Gamel Abdel Nasser spied for Mossat and was killed in England; another billionaire former Parliamentarian, Talaat Moustafa paid a hit man $2 million to kill a Lebanese pop star who jilted him.

Much was deservedly made of the fact that over the billions in military support that made Egypt the second largest recipient of US military aid after Israel so they could buy the same American built F-16s, tear gas, and Abrams tanks buzzing, blinding and encircling the crowds in and around Tahrir Square. No wonder Egyptians are now referring to Obama as the Black Bush as he, his administration and other western leaders try to maintain the status quo that is looking more and more like a Madoff Ponzi scheme ready to collapse. Frank Wisner, the US envoy sent to speak with Mubarak after protests broke out,  works for a law firm which works for the dictator's own Egyptian government. Usurprising then that he would say, "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy." Vice-president Biden stated that because Mubarak had been a responsible ally he "would not refer to him as a dictator." Tony Blair, probably hoping this will somehow make it more likely we'll attack Iran, said Mubarak is "immensely courageous and a force for good". Silvio Berlusconi, perhaps to distract attention from the myriad of scandals that tend to follow septuagenarian prime ministers who sleep with underage hookers, said of the dictator "in the West, above all in the United States, [Mubarak] is considered the wisest of men". Yep, apparently wise enough to have siphoned off enough of his people's wealth to build his family a $70 billion fortune.

When the US lost Iran to the 1979 Revolution, American interests, or more precisely, Israeli and oil flow security, were buttressed by Anwar el-Sadat's decision to make peace with Israel. Mubarak has more than held up their end of the bargain in other areas as well from his positions during the wars against Iraq, his stand against nuclear Iran and it's involvement in Lebanon but the Israeli free pass has been key. In making peace with Israel the 26th of March 1979, Egypt essentially permitted Israel to tighten their grip over the West Bank and Gaza, and concentrate their military ambitions elsewhere such as Lebanon or Gaza, and perhaps sometime in the future, Iran. In the words of a 2009 American embassy cable, part of the Wikileaks document dump, "The tangible benefits to our mil-mil relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the US military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace."

Yet, instead of using this breathing space as an opportunity to make peace, Israel has seemingly done all it can to alienate everyone around them. It seems to me that the last couple of years have brought an increased arrogance to the aggressive actions taken by Israel, meaning the Palestinians could be the biggest beneficiaries of an Egyptian power shift that could threaten the border with Gaza. Settlement expansion along with that in East Jerusalem, a crazy wall and the creation of a ghetto in Gaza. Just as a peace deal with Syria brokered by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seemed to be about to become reality, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead against the people of Gaza. Further frosting the Israeli-Turkish relationship came with the attack on the Freedom Flotilla trying to break the siege and deliver supplies to Gaza. a people slowly being starved and limited to an ever changing list of 81 items allowed entry into their sliver of a territory, more concentration camp. In international waters, the IDF killed nine activists, eight Turkish nationals and a Turkish-American. As the world argued over who started it and what label should be attached to the parties we forgot about the real victims in Gaza. Israel spin is better than any pneumatic tube system.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
- John F. Kennedy 

Yeah, it could be that the Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war that Kennedy wanted to avoid could quickly become a Pox Americana for her client states in the region. Israel along with  it's friendemies in Jordan, the UAE and of course Saudi Arabia are piling the pressure on Obama not the cut Mubarak loose. At least King Abdullah II’s recent dismissal of his cabinet in Jordan (the only other Arab country that has signed a peace treaty with Israel) shows he's aware of the change, Saudi's King Abdullah (yeah, same name) still thinks his oil means he calls the shots. Wikileaks is there to help reporters again in a timely way as just released cables reveal fears that the sea of oil in the Kingdom is about 40% smaller than previously thought, bringing Peak Oil ever closer. These nations real and legitimate fear is the 240 F-16 fighters in play along with the other advanced weaponry the Americans have sold Mubarak over the years in an attempt to create a balance with the Iranians. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, it's a belief that keeping the oil flowing at all cost can continue forever and not seeing that America is the biggest obstacle to peace and democracy in the Middle East.

By supporting the status quo, siding against the protesters, America will force the military to eventually back Mubarak/Suleiman to keep the money flowing into their coffers with or without bullets. This money ensures rigged elections come September and once the international cameras go home Suleiman's torture chambers await any pesky dissenting voices, their thoughtcrimes earning them the Mubarak treatment that turns them into unpersons. The cycle intensifies as anti-Americanism grows for supporting torturers in the Arab world while the western media (with ever-concentrating ownership) points out the only support for the opposition parties comes from Iran and Hamas. This allows the US government to defend Suleiman when he keeps emergency powers in place (motto: in place since 1981 so why not forever?) and ratchets up repression. Such a course of events ensures that if democracy ever comes to Egypt, thousands will have to die and the resulting government will be far less open than whatever would have come from the current demonstrations, had we supported them in the first place. The false choice of stability versus democracy that has been played far too long must be refuted.

The fate of over 80 million people hangs in the balance, the 15th most populous nation just in front of Turkey and Iran, the latter used as a dog whistle of fear to cover the only sustainable path to follow blazed by the former. Our old buddy Newt framed the issue in a perfectly partisan way by offering this advice to Obama, "study Reagan and Carter and do what Reagan did and avoid what Carter did", neocon code for the old game of continuing to lecture on democracy while supporting dictators. Jimmy Carter didn't lose Iran, it was the decades long support for brutal dictatorships that accomplished that trick. If fears of Islamic extremism cause us to falter in our support of the pro-democracy movement, "What is certain is that siding with a repressive regime against the Egyptian people, especially against young Egyptians, will turn these fears of extremism into a reality." Damn memory holes, we always seem to forget that blowback is a bitch.


Update #1: You may have noticed the celebrations in the streets of Egypt being beamed around the globe. Unfortunately, not much is being said of Omar Suleiman the man who announced the resignation of Hosni Mubarak last night, February 11th. All the commentary seems to agree the best outcome possible has occurred, but all that's happened is the US supported army is in charge. The only certainty they seem to be expressing is that all existing treaties will be honored by Egypt. They're celebrating across the Arab world, whispers of Algeria or Morocco being next, and everyone seems to be appeased, but the only reassurance has been directed at Israel. 

This Month in Wingnuttery

Format changes continue with a tweak to my promised semi-regular feature on wingnuttery; by making it monthly it'll give me a chance to do a piece on schedule and allow me to use the far more convenient shotgun rhetoric those nutters love to use. What, with the oil gushing top kill reaching Cousteau shock and awe, it's time to set things right before it's too late. Who knew the term wingnut had so many different meanings? According to dictionary.com it's a nut having two flat, widely projecting pieces such that it can be readily tightened with the thumb and forefinger; the first definition on the urbandictionary is "An outspoken, irrational person with deeply-held, nominally conservative, political views. A person who chooses on principle to be flagrantly ignorant. A "right-wing nut". And wingnuttery? Well, for our purposes let's take it to be anyone who's parsimonious with the truth, often disguising this fact with allusions to god, guns and (smaller) government in order to advance a conservative agenda. Unbeknownst to me when I started this semi-regular (woohooo 2 editions!) feature, CNN has been running a similarly named feature for the past year, but they take a more "balanced" approach, naming a left and right wing freakshow of the moment. Here we don't need to maintain the faux illusion of fairness. We better hurry though, lots of ground to cover, from the Empress of Alaska down to the Gulf, duh, and then over to the home of wingnut civilization, the cradle of the big three Abrahamic religions, the Middle East and Israel.

America has of course become the capital of wingnuttery, or New Jerusalem if you will. Anywhere that someone of Sarah Palin's type can so easily stir a populist frenzy by flashing some MILF thigh and screeching some internet mined redneck jokes is in trouble. Coming within a heartbeat of being a heartbeat from the presidency was scary enough, but she seems to be on track for another run in a couple years, this time at the top of the Republican ticket. Wouldn't surprise me if she won as the very corporations that are busy destroying the world will be able to spend unlimited amounts on future elections thanks the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. Money is speech for corporations with guaranteed freedom but the people whose lives they destroy don't have the money to buy voices.

The demi-governor of Alaska has been busy during this mid-term election primary season, throwing her support behind anyone willing to pay her appearance fees. With the attention span of a hummingbird on a nectar jag, she probably misses the hypocrisy and cruel irony of her choices. The Palin of 2008 pledged to "stop multi-million dollar payouts and golden parachutes" for executives who run their company into the ground. So why not support Carla Fiorini for Senate, a woman who oversaw the loss of over 50% in the value of Hewlett Packard only to walk away with a $45 million payout. Where did she run her company and what color was that parachute? Or Vaughn Ward, her choice to be the Republican congressional candidate from Idaho. Besides fulfilling the Palin geography requirement calling Puerto Rico a country, he also happened to lift a speech given by Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic convention. Teleprompter anyone? Plagiarize much? How about Clint Didier for Senate in Washington blasting government intervention while taking $140,000 in federal farm subsidies. Not sexy enough? Ok, take Palin's pick for governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, who had an affair with a former co-worker in the governor's office.

Of course every time these stories come out, it's not the lack of proper vetting, exactly what allowed her to join the McCain ticket in '08 and launched her into the national spotlight, it's the 'lamestream' media's fault. These are somehow personal attacks which are "a violation of our press freedom", a curious claim coming from someone who supposedly studied journalism in college. Sure, she could've served out her term as governor and tried to leave a public service legacy while boning up on the issues in order to take a run at the presidency in 2012. God bless America, however, where the pursuit of wealth and fame trumps intellect and democracy every time. In order for a two-party system to function properly it's essential to have some kind of balance between the two choices. It's gotten to the point where the wingnuts have enough influence to grind the legislative process to a near halt, where 'no' isn't about belief but dogma. However, if the Palins and teabaggers have their way, come November the Republican slate of candidates will be so wingnut heavy as to be poisonous to democracy.

Check out the ad for the aforementioned Carly Fiorini against her FCINO (Fiscal Conservative in Name Only) opponent, really watch it to the end if you want to learn that good Republicans are sheep and don't have glowing red eyes. It only gets worse in Alabama where teacher's unions sponsor attack ads against gubernatorial candidates who believe in evolution and don't believe in the infallible truth of the bible. Or maybe you prefer a candidate who made her fortune specializing in blood, seminaked women and scripted subplots featuring rape, adultery and familial violence. Sounds like a surefire way to get elected in a NASCAR friendly state like Alabama, but it was the Connecticut Republican party who chose Linda McMahon to be their candidate for the senate. Rand has even come back, no not a brain-eating zombie named Ayn, this time as a first name as Rand Paul took a step to joining dad Ron in the senate. Sure they call themselves libertarians, but they're just racists who want to repeal civil rights and abolish the department of education while keeping medicare cheques rolling in, after all, an optometrist needs to earn a living, right? These are the people who will be screaming for deregulation as the world eats itself up and if you dare to blame a corporation, you are un-American.

Palin and her ilk's drill baby drill bit is the reason the Gulf of Mexico is witnessing the craziest shit we've seen in awhile. A wingnut's job in times like this is to call this Obama's Katrina to try to take the blame off of our society's insatiable need for a black-gooey resource that is getting harder and harder to extract, oil sands anyone? Even wingnuttier is the fact they'll still be holding the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, for which I will grant them the honor of being my first wingnuts of the month. Even as the new oil ecosystem hovers and splashes onto their coasts wiping out the entire fishing industry with it, they still plan to celebrate the 75th edition of the festival. It is the diamond jubilee after all. Who knows, maybe oil-dipped shrimp will be the wake up call to the fact that despite the states pro-business policies, they somehow still remain one of the poorest states in the union where the rich get richer while the poor, well, die. Too bad the media damage control spin has been more effective in dulling the outcry than the effort to control both the leak and the damage done to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. By low-balling the original estimates, much of the public has been softened up to the real amount of oil that is oozing relentlessly into the gulf.

Don't worry though you true believers in the capitalist system, as always, there's money to be made from tragedy. After all, the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska brought us the credit default swap who knows what weapon of financial destruction will be unleashed as a result of this latest disaster. The spill has already opened the opportunity to bet on the first species to become extinct in addition to creating a whole new reality TV genre, truly hypnotic, let's hope they don't get any ideas for spin-offs. Maybe the wingnuts truly believe that corporate rights should win out over human rights and that big oil would never knowingly do anything to endanger the planet. No, corporations should be just left on their own to do as they please like Chevron in Ecuador or Shell in Nigeria. If we could just get tort reform poor big oil wouldn't have to worry about silly environmental lawsuits and could back to the serious pursuit of profits.

Oh, in case you missed it, this tragedy reminds of another wingnut misconception. The one where all regulation is bad. The fact is bad regulation has the potential to be bad times two whereas none has infinite badness potential. Too bad the double bad in this case may turn out to be an unstoppable force of destruction of gooey destruction where top kills and junk shots don't relieve the pressure. Funny, the regulators charged with overseeing the oil and gas industry were doing the same thing as the financial regulators - jerking to porn while writing the rules that decide how you're buddies play the game. The MMS, or Interior Department's Minerals Management Service was staffed predominately by Dick Cheney's Dubya administration, yes that helps explain why Halliburton is so involved in this fiasco (they're a huge company thanks to government war and oil contracts my friends, let's hear it for the free market, yeah!). Obama was at the helm when this went down and had an opportunity to, pardon the expression, blue ball those bastards before blowing their bunk, but as with the financial oversight authorities, the old boys network was allowed to develop thanks to Dubya.

Anyway, the MMS collects royalties and writes the rules for the BP's and Exxon's and Chevron's sorta like Fitch's, Moody's and Standard and Poor's charges the financial industry for the ratings they provide. Do you think this opens the door to corruption? Well, gifts and cushy jobs are nice but it's the porn link that is almost too much, hey, these guys were all buddies, financial and oil good ol' boys, they naturally shared porn links. At work, oh, and the meth. One handers took down finance and now the gulf. Instead of focusing on why the BP spill response plan for the gulf seemed to be lifted directly from other plans we get the wingnut leader lord Limbaugh grunts towards those who may now question offshore drilling "what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just saying." A wingnut doesn't want us to know that deregulation and lax oversight is what allows the BP's and Halliburton's to fill in inspection forms in pencil for the MMS inspectors to write over in pen.

Those like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal want less government involvement except when they want more government involvement. Yet it's the Reagan in them that limited the liability of big oil corporations like BP after the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, until just a few days ago America's worst environmental disaster, to $75 million. It might piss us off if we knew about BP's hand in exacerbating that Alaska mess back in 1989. Or, maybe even remember the 2005 BP refinery explosion in Texas killing 15 in 2005 or the 200,000 gallons leaked out of their Alaskan pipeline just a year later. It might upset people to know that the lives of those men in Texas could've been saved if BP had sprung for the more expensive facilities instead of penning them like pigs. Our blood would boil if we found out that even more egregiously, BP was using dispersant to break up the giant oil slicks that look so bad on TV which is only making the disaster worse and putting clean up worker's health at risk. It would be a public relations disaster, just like acknowledging there is a respiratory danger, so BP prevented fisherman helping in clean up efforts from wearing respirators. People would get angry if they knew this was all just the cost of doing business, right? Especially if they found out that the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP, Transocean Ltd., decided to insure the rig for about twice what it was worth (don't ask me how they have more sense than insurance companies) and made a $270 million profit from insurance payouts thanks to the disaster.

The best way to keep stuff like this happening is to keep 'em dum (sic), Texas dumb that is. The Texas school board are doing their bit to keep the country ignorant, having finished it's ten year review of the history curriculum and deciding they didn't like it. History that is. So they've made some minor adjustments. Minor, if you consider Oscar Romero being bumped off by right-wingnuts for the second time because an ignoramus had never heard of him or omitting the achievements of a Founding Father because he believed in a strong central government as minor. A March refresher:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Don't Mess With Textbooks
www.thedailyshow.com
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Well, the bad news is, the changes officially passed into the books just last week to little fanfare, unless watching a purchased school board discussing the UN takeover of America being taught in the classrooms is exciting (Don McLeroy a name to remember - not, I love that second guy though). No, the bad news is that they'll be teaching kids that the founding fathers never intended complete separation of church and state. No wait, the really bad news is that changes made to Texas history books will affect what much of the nation will have their children taught as publishing companies cater to the state's needs seeing as its such a big customer.

Don't let us forget neighbor Arizona is making matters even worse rallying to the Faux News banner of illegals stealing jobs and killing white folk turning the state into a Goebbels' paradise. Am I using a wingnut jedi nazi trick? Um, does the Catholic Church protect paedophiles? Wingnut supporters of their new anti-immigration law wrap themselves in the Constitution while taking away the cover the document offers society's most vulnerable. SB 1070 requires cops in Arizona to stop anyone appearing Latino on reasonable grounds that they are committing a criminal act because if they are undocumented they have been redefined as a criminal by merely being in the state. Isn't racial profiling through circular arguments fun!

Thedeafening march of blackboots is almost enough to drown out the screaming contortions caused by having a Miss USA with Palestinian roots. Releasing the hounds and screaming "Git (sic) her, she's different!". Aaah, fear of the other combined with a little intolerance and you've got the perfect wingnut recipe. Take the proposal to build a Muslim cultural center a couple blocks from ground zero. Somehow they still don't get the fact that being able to build it was what made America great, instead they're calling on 'true Americans' to blow it up if it's built. Better yet, instead of the community center, a monument should be built to "victims of hundreds of millions of years of jihadi wars, land enslavements, cultural annihilations and mass slaughter." Ah yes, the classic wingnut response, treating numbers like putty, turning history on its head and oblivious to the irony of being suggested as the cost of their crusade-like response to 9/11 passes the trillion dollar mark.

Right wingnuts don't even have to answer questions, simply make baseless accusations to stun and distract the public. Easy enough when they're playing to an audience where educated might mean graduating from a place like Liberty University which bans Democrats, campus organizing, distribution of unapproved literature, viewing most movies and playing of music that's "offensive to Liberty's Christian stand". The kind of place that  invites Glenn Beck to give commencement speeches where he can take his president's words out of context. At least he avoided hawking gold while fomenting distrust in the central government and left out the part where he rails against the social justice preached in the gospel or that socialist Jesus, guess they don't have that kind of stuff in his Book of Mormon.

See, wingnuttery preys on the believers' naivety, finding fertile ground in religious belief. Politicians trumpeting social conservatism will always play well to some, never mind that their homophobia most likely stems from same-sex arousal, or that their family values preaching doesn't seem to jibe with their adulterous ways. Yes, I'm talking to you Rep. Mark Souder, Sens. John Ensign and David Vitter and Gov. Mark Sanford and, well, you get the picture. Right-wingnut hypocrisy when it comes to sex is even worse than the libertarians who would have the government's hands all over the uterus but it all makes sense when you realize the congregation is led by preachers who believe they can cure homosexuality that take jaunts to Europe with rented boy toys. I know, that ain't nothing, if we we're only reviewing March's wingnuttery we could go after the Rat and his minions a bit, but we're not, and I'm chomping at the bit for Israel, the land where the neoliberal meets the neocon.

Why? Well, again, in case you missed it, we now have proof that the Israeli wingnuts hooked up the South African apartheid nutters with nukes. Yeah, I know, Israel hasn't signed the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty so that means they can't even have nukes. What? That doesn't mean they don't? Yike! Well, shouldn't it freak us out then that Shimon Peres was dealing them to PW Botha all the way back in the 70's? Shouldn't Israeli's themselves find it awkward remembering that their country welcomed a Nazi sympathizer, former South African Prime Minister John Vorster, back in April of 1976 to iron out the details. Well, after visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, where he laid a wreath to the victims of the German Reich he once extolled. Does no one care that Israel aided the oppression of the black majority, nuclear missiles no less, um, do you think maybe it's Israeli wingnuttery that is getting in the way of dealing with Iran honestly. Why is it that the Israeli lobby has been so successful? Guilt and obfuscation. With rhetorical flourishes any anti-Israel statement is turned into an anti-semitism. Somehow questioning how a nation whose very existence is due to atrocities committed can commit those very same atrocities makes one an anti-Semite. In order to keep the truth hidden, wingnuts must also keep those who speak the truth silent, or at least quiet.

The likes of Noam Chomsky can be denied entry trying to cross the Allenby Bridge from Jordan with his daughter to deliver a scheduled lecture at Bir Zeit University in the West Bank. Silencing a critic who had spoken at Israeli universities in the past most likely because of his saying "supporters of Israel are in reality supporters of its moral degradation" after the 2008/9 war in Gaza seems a little anti-freedom. I mean this is Noam Chomsky. My English students only know him for his linguistics books, after all he was and is one of the smartest men of our times. How do the wingnuts keep his political views so silent? Oh yeah, the entry denial thing. Totalitarian regime thing. Oh, and the wingnuts supporting the guys selling them the bombs who want to keep tensions ratcheted up in the region to guarantee a steady flow of profits from killing innocent people along with a few crazies. Keep illegally building in East Jerusalem and the occupied territories, quietly balancing the numbers, putting up an illegal concentration camp fence barrier in the West Bank and building apartheid road networks and eventually people won't even remember that two national groups claim the right to self-determination in what used to be Palestine. All the nutter faithful see are towel headed terrorists, not a people being methodically exterminated by a more powerful master. Doesn't seem like Apartheid South Africa at all, no reason for an Israel Apartheid Week every year.

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's chief wingnut, er, foreign minister, wants to require Israeli Arabs to sign a loyalty oath. Loyalty to a government that has maintained a stranglehold over Gaza for more than two years, a blockade to slowly starve and dehumanize the population. Slower and more painful than the gas chambers I guess. The Gaza War that bridged 2008 and 2009, or Israeli Operation Cast Lead, not only saw Israel commit war crimes, but was preceded by the sealing of all entry points to Gaza, severely hindering efforts to deal with the injured. Unbelievably this situation has continued until today, and if heaven forbid you call a spade a spade and compare Gaza to a concentration camp, you get called a Palestinian propagandist, even if you're a Catholic cardinal. Another flotilla is trying to break the siege, this time number six ships, 700 activists, over 10,000 tons of aid and one Nobel laureate, but will most likely be stopped by the Israeli navy. It has somehow become normalized over the last three years that Israel determines what the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza can and can't have. Frozen salmon yes, cilantro no. Of course Israel fears the latest flotilla attempt as it never looks good for soldiers to block people trying to bring the essentials of life, but what are they gonna do? Once a wingnut, always a wingnut.

Better cut this rambling rant off now before I lose some readers (sigh, resigned laugh here). We've clearly entered a new phase of the culture war, where guns, gays and god still have their part to play, but this time in a battle for the survival, not just economic and political, but as a species. Even recent history has seen momentous turning points as witnessed in Berlin, Tianamen and Pretoria about 20 years ago. It only takes a pebble to start an avalanche and the pebbles being kicked around seem to be getting bigger and bigger from the financial meltdown through to the gulf disaster. When faced with overwhelming evidence that something no longer works, a rational person changes tack, tries something new, whereas it's clear that a wingnut only wants to maintain the status quo in order to enrich himself. America is truly the Wingnuts-R-US of the world, wielding so much influence over so many that nothing short of armageddon will get them to change their ways as seen by the chart on the right. Yet it's hard not to notice that the scale of crises has become too big and if we don't find a way to get through to the wingnuts of no, the next one could prove to be the big one and it'll be too late. This is a teachable moment to remind us that "the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves." After all, even hillbillies can learn a new tune.

See no evil...

Evil comes in many forms. Sometimes it make itself known up front, Darth Vader or Dick Cheney style. They're easy to spot, often commanding headlines and front page stories around the world. Other times, one man's evil is another's hero; here you find folks like Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin. However, the most dangerous evil is often the one that flies in under the radar; depending on which media you use, you might not even know they exist until it's too late. Since we don't all have Hugo's ability to identify the sulfur smell of evil and top ten lists are all the rage, here's a top 10 most evil people in the world you may never have heard of.

#10. Joseph Kony - Leader of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). So bad ass the US coordinated an attack with the Ugandan army to try wipe him out at his base in northern Congo. Unfortunately it went Black Hawk Down, worse really as the rebels slipped away and have since been on a wild killing spree from village to village. It's estimated that Kony is responsible for the abduction of an estimated 20,000 children (a number that could be 2 or 3 times higher) to fight in his army since 1988. It appears his rebellion began in northern Uganda as his Acholi people had been excluded from power, then by pledging to rule the country according to the 10 Commandments, he took the religious moniker LRA. He holds the distinction of being the first man indicted by the International Criminal Court. Having been driven out of Uganda, he now makes northern Congo and southern Sudan his killing zone. Maybe Kony has made a deal with the devil as he's never lost a battle and always seems to slip away.

#9. Grace Mugabe - OK, you know her husband, but do you know what a bitch this lady is? She's also pretty good with her fists, beating up a photographer last month as her bodyguard held him down. She steals land, just like her husband who took Zimbabwe from independence, pride, early success with education to pariah state. He stole land from whites, she steals it from blacks he gave it to like Judge Ben Hlatshwayo, who presides in the High Court in Harare. Ironically, the nation's downfall was accelerated with the land invasions that began 2 weeks after the defeat of the constitutional vote in 2000, Hlatshwayo was on the committee that drew up that constitution. Cholera is rampant, store shelves are empty as the economic activity of the nation has been ground to a halt. With the recently issued 500 trillion notes already worthless by now, foreign currency, basically dolarization, has been sanctioned for use. But there's a glimmer of hope as Robert seems to be on the verge of ceding a bit of power to the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, as early as Feb. 11th, but we've all heard it before... Did we mention that Grace isn't too bright? Could just be the syphilis. Plus she made my brother miss a plane once.

#8. General Than Shwe - Leader of the Myanmar (Burma) military junta. An army junta has held power since a coup in 1962, led first by the charismatic and superstitious Ne Win, now his rather less magnetic successor Than Shwe. Along with his fellow generals, they control all aspects of politics and the economy. The army has repeatedly turned its guns against its own people, most tragically in 1988 when a student-led protest movement was crushed, leaving some 3,000 dead. Remember Rangoon, the capital of Burma? Yeah, me too. In 2005, the ruling junta mysteriously moved the nation's capital from Rangoon to a new city called Naypyidaw, carved out of the jungle at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. As the masses have grown poorer, the military has enriched itself through timber and natural-gas deals. Last year, a video of Than Shwe's daughter getting married made the rounds in Rangoon, most of the country has no access; Burmese were shocked by the number of jewels dripping from her body — and by wedding gifts valued at an estimated $50 million. Meanwhile, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, don't know where the Daw came from either, the former Nobel Peace Prize winner languishes and bitches from house arrest. How many years now? 13 of the last 19. You'd be bitching too. Yeah, there was that little flood and land slide thing in 2007, to go along with killing a few monks, but we couldn't get in to see how bad it really was. Dude, crazy town, right across the border from Thailand.

#7. Abdul Qadeer Khan ; Pakistani nuclear proliferator. Or hero. Could fit into the above Chavez/Putin category, but c'mon, he sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya! Anyway, Islamabad sees him as the father of their nuclear program/hero these days and released him last week; was it a snub at the Americans? I live in Poland, there was just a Polish engineer executed, first westerner since Pearl in Pakistan; it's a miracle because today I can understand the TV, rare for me: scary music, kill the Muslims. Fact is though, I can't think of a country that is more dangerous than Pakistan today. Nuclear weapons and religion don't mix, just look at Israel. Khan sees himself as a hero - is it possible Pakistan needed the bomb because India had it? Balance of power craziness.

#6. Father Floriano Abrahamowicz: Fellow holocaust denier along with Bishop Richard Williamson who is at the centre of a schism healing attempt by Pope Benedict XVI gone awry. The more I read about Vatican II and the ensuing split in the Catholic church and now the personal prelature similar to that of Opus Dei being contemplated for Williamson's Society of Pius X, the more frightened I am. Religious hatred is the biggest problem in the world, they remember in Germany, as Angela Merkel shamed the pope on behalf of the massacred masses enough to cause him to order the good bishop to study up about the holocaust. In an interview with a Swedish station Williamson said there were only a couple hundred thousand Jews killed during WWII and there were no gas chambers in the concentration camps. He also has wacky 9/11 and 1984 stories. John Paul II kicked out Williamson, the Borat of the schismatic ultra-reactionaries, along with two Frenchmen, a Spaniard, an Italian, and an Englishman for being ordained without Vatican permission. Now they're being un-excommunicated in an effort to bring his sect back into the flock. Breaking news is that Williamson has lost his post at an Argentine seminary. (Is it because Poland is a Catholic country that I can't get the video with the Swedish channel: this link comes up "This video is not available in your country", even though Williamson lost the court case to restrict it.)

#5. Pramod Mutthalik: Leader of the Sri Ram Sena, an extreme right-wing Hindu group often referred to as the Hindu Taliban, connected with the ruling BJP government. Spotting the religious theme yet? If you missed the attack he ordered carried out two weeks ago against women in a college-town bar, here you go:

The Taliban comparison is apt, as in addition to hating women, they smash art, attack rivals, disdain fashion, abduct and torture, and are even being linked to the 2006 Malegaon terrorist blasts which killed 37 and injured over 125.

#4. Ronald Larsen: American land owner in eastern Bolivia. A Montanan no less, so it's the wild west in eastern Bolivia. Hypocritical of me as well, seeing as the indigenous leader of his nation (Evo Morales playing the part of Robert Mugabe) is trying to force whitey off the land. Morales won another Constitution vote last month, making it certain that there will be more armed confrontations as the government tries to move Larsen and other land owners off their land. Limits on land holdings of 5000 hectares have led to Larsen trying to reduce his holdings by giving them to his Bolivian born sons, one of whom was Mr. Bolivia in 2004 (and he's married to a former Ms. Bolivia). One of his ranches, Caraparicito, where most of the confrontations have occurred, is 37,000 hectares alone. He's got over 104,000 more. Accused of slavery, kidnapping and obstruction already, the government will come for the gas rich land, in the name of saneamiento - sewage, running water, that kinda thing. Did anybody else notice that Bolivia is now known to have the most lithium in the world, enough to power the battery-powered car boom, not the Hunter S. Thompson stuff. Pro Larsen arguments here - I feel guilty, the Mugabe parallels, I really like Evo Morales.

#3. Avigdor Lieberman: Leader, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Homeland) party. In case you missed it, with the Gaza massacre distraction for land grab going on, there's an election in Israel today and unfortunately Lieberman and his party will probably hold the key to power if the results are as tight as polls indicate they will be between Netanyahu and Livni. Bibi and Tzipi. Being so close, the winner will need at least a few other parties to join the coalition. Lots of kids are gonna vote extreme right, Lieberman, for "security" with the top concerns being Gaza, rockets and of course Iran - always nearing the point where they can wipe out the country, launching satellites and now preparing for an election of their own. Of course this all plays together, an Ahmadinejad victory later this year combined with a hard right leaning Knesset equals trouble. Imagine, in a few months we'll all be watching an Irani election closely, and cheering for a guy named Khatami.

#2. Angelo Mozilo - Former head of Countrywide, the largest sub-prime mortgage lender in the US. These lenders have of course been accused of using misleading marketing to push unsuitable mortgages on sub-prime homeowners who could not afford to service the debt, the root cause of the credit crunch. During the housing boom, Mr Mozilo reportedly earned $470 million in salary and other income. Yes, even kickbacks to politicians are involved while he unloaded $141 million in stock options before the company's share price collapsed. Could of picked any of a number of people in the financial industry; runner-up - Kathleen Corbet, head of the biggest credit agency Standard & Poors back when they were rating Mr. Mozilo's and whoever else's debt derivatives AAA in a crazy system where companies pay for ratings. The Japanese "yen from heaven" scam guy Kazutsugi Nami a close third representing the Bernie Madoffs of the world

#1. Ken Ham: Some may think I'm giving Ken a raw deal making him numero uno. Perhaps you'd prefer Carl Baugh, Ben Stein, or "Dr" Kent Hovind. Just pick one, they're all evil. Fact is, in celebration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday this week, there is no more fitting spot than atop this list for this group of lie spreading creationists. Ken just happens to be perhaps the most public face, what with his Creation Museum and all. These are some sick puppies. If you've made it to the end of this top 10, then you deserve to watch these freaks taking the piss out of Ken, poor Aussie never knew what hit him. (read accompanying story of the first day of the creation museum from another perspective here)


Well, that got a little long, and there's so much more to say about each plus so many more names to add to the list. Let me know who you think belongs in the comments below.

Sorry

Could it be that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has a point? There's been a lot of talk about the fact that Barack Obama gave his first interview to a foreign network, an Arab network no less. Of course the American networks felt slighted, with some, OK, one, the FOX "network" going so far as pretending to not be able to pronounce Al-Arabiya (check it out here, was she being ignorant or condescending?). As expected the right's response is to scream about being weak in the face of the enemy - remember talking and exchanging ideas is a Republican weakness - but I want to focus on the comments made by everyone's favourite Persian leader.

In his first public address since Obama's inauguration and interview, Ahmadinejad said:
"Those who say they want to make change, this is the change they should make: they should apologise to the Iranian nation and try to make up for their dark background and the crimes they have committed against the Iranian nation."

Here's the thing: he's right. While Obama took the first step by reaching out his hand, much of the Muslim world still sees that hand as a clenched fist. How could they not when one considers some of the things that the US has done to Iran and other countries over the years, most of which many Americans themselves have no idea about. If one wants to get a small idea of the propaganda and censorship that forms the world view of many Americans, this is a quick and easy start. Ahmadinejad listed some of the grievances of his people that he wishes an apology for, beginning with American support for the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh and installed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who ruled until he was ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Also on the list is the shooting down of an Iran Air Airbus A300 by the United States Navy’s missile cruiser Vincennes over the Persian Gulf in 1988, killing 290 people. American military commanders said at the time that the passenger plane had been mistaken for an F-14 fighter jet, and they defended the warship’s actions.

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Oh, and there was that little thing where the US backed Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the 1980's in the war against Iran leading to the deaths of over a million people. Of course over on FOX "news" (read story here), the only US 'crime' that is mentioned is trying to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. That's the only bad thing America has done, ever.

The truth is, without American intervention there would be no Ahmadinejads, Bin Ladens or Kim Jong-ils in this world and therefore not only owes the Iranian people, but the whole world a big sorry. Yes, the world also owes America a great big thank-you for all the good it's done as well. However, she must face up to the fact that much wrong has resulted from her actions. From genocide at home to Chile through Iraq, America has made it's share of errors (pretty good list here, CIA interventions here). The last eight years saw a dangerous shift in American foreign policy, specifically the pre-emptive war doctrine and increased support for Israel in their genocidal fight against the Palestinian people. The predictable result has been the increase in radicalism seen in the Muslim nations, making the world a much more dangerous place. Now there's news that the Obama administration is drafting a letter to the Iranian people in response to a letter of congratulations received after the election victory in November. What should the letter say? What tone should it strike? Should it be addressed directly to the people of Iran? All important questions, but I think one word would go a long way to healing the wounds: Sorry.

Whose Side Are They On?

Just when you start to wonder how it is that Israel can get away with doing some of the things it does, you get a little reminder. A couple of days ago Canada's still Conservative government blamed Hamas for the deaths (read murder) of at least 40 at a UN school in Gaza. Yep, that's right, you can read it right here. I really don't understand the way some people think, but at least this kind of propaganda helps explain why the Israelis are still able to muster enough international support to continue their genocidal killings. What seems to make matters worse is the ability that the Israeli state has to continually play the holocaust sympathy card in order to deflect honest criticism of their tactics. Cardinal Renato Martino, the president of the Council for Justice and Peace at the Vatican, was quoted as saying, "Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp", and for calling a spade a spade, the automatic knee jerk reaction is to cry foul for using language that recalls the atrocities committed against the Jews in WWII. Well, um, that's the point, Israel exists today because of those same atrocities, and now (ok, not now, but awhile ago) the state that was created out of sympathy has become oppressor.

In this bizarro world is it any wonder that the world stands by and watches the senseless slaughter of innocent civilians, including women and children. When the Catholic church is the most vocal defender of the Palestinians being massacred in Gaza you know they're in trouble. Why is it that in the more than 60 years since the creation of the nation of Israel the Palestinians still have no international rights? Well, the finger can't be pointed exclusively at the Israelis or even the US, in fact a large part of the problem lies at the feet of the Arab states and the Palestinian leadership.

UN Resolution 181 called for the partition of British ruled Palestine into two, a Jewish state and an Arab state. It passed by a vote of 33 to 13 with 10 abstentions. From the get go, the Arab and Muslim countries said no to a Palestinian state as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen were among the 13 'no' votes. Of course the Arab states went a step further than simply voting no to voice their disapproval, they attacked the newborn Israeli state the day after independence, May 17th, 1947 and were handed their first of to be many defeats by the Israeli army. Fast forward to October of 2000, in the waning days of the Clinton administration the Palestinians are once again offered nationhood only to once again refuse, ostensibly over the issues of Jerusalem and the right of return.

So, what of the 'Palestinians' who we're denied nationhood? Back in 1947 they were urged to leave the area by the Arab powers so that they wouldn't be caught in the crossfire of war; they would be able to return to their homes once the new Jewish nation had been destroyed. Alas, it didn't work out that way. It's estimated that from 540,000 to 720,000 Arabs fled their homes, many simply to the eastern portion of the country controlled by Jordan and many to other Arab nations. To this day, none of the diaspora that fled at the Arab nations urging has been granted citizenship by these same countries. Politically motivated maneuvering that reflects these same governments actions today has played a large role in keeping the Palestinians stateless and without any citizenship.

Again today, the Arab states are playing the self-interest card instead of doing anything to help their brethren in Gaza. An excellent article can be found here that helps explain the fears that many Arab nations have regarding Hamas. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Syria all have reasons for fearing Hamas and their governments actions have pushed Hamas into the arms of the only country willing to help, Iran. Sunni Hamas in bed with Shiite Iran has led to a situation of which Egypt's Hosni Mubarek said, “has led to Egypt, in practice, having a border with Iran.”

The bottom line is that it's in the interests of many parties, including Arab leaders, for the Israelis to take out Hamas. Of course there is a different story on the Arab street and as the divide between public opinion and government action continues to widen, things may reach a breaking point in countries like Egypt as people become more and more disillusioned with their governments. There's no question that Israel's actions are seeding more rage across the Muslim world, however it is the leaders of many of the Muslim states that may have to pay the price. The latest news is of an escalation in the Israeli offensive; it seems as though the lesson will never be learned, the more force you use, the more extremists you create.