Boston Police in re: Occupy in their Association newsletter
ACAB, my friends.
NYPD Raids Activists’ Homes Before May Day Protests
America’s got this funny style of Fascism going on where so many of the actors (NYPD, FBI) are positively pathetic (in what they choose to focus on, in how they’re unable to see how obviously ridiculous and fucked up they are being), while the underlying ideas and principles (and the slow but certainly steady volume increase on these ideas) are really fucking frightening.
WHO IS IOZ (via thenewephemera)
Almost shouted at someone this weekend who suggested that all that matters is that you go out there and vote. Doesn’t matter who you vote for, just be counted. But then instead of arguing the sophomoric point I remembered “Live without dead time” and focused on the movie on the screen (Predators) instead.
"We really need to start the healing process and move forward." »
— UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, explaining why she shouldn’t be held accountable for the UC Davis pepper spray incident (numerous videos available at the above link, if by some strange chance you haven’t seen one yet).
“Moving forward” has become a handy euphemism for ignoring abuses of power and shielding the people responsible from consequences. (Though the call for starting the healing process and moving forward is strangely absent when the accusations are against, say, young people of color or non-citizens.)
Katehi’s call to move forward is hardly the first time the language has been code for free pass. As Glenn Greenwald wryly notes, that same day, Vice President Dick Cheney publicly lauded President Obama for not prosecuting people responsible for the Bush administration’s “enhanced-interrogation” policies, itself code for torture. (Just like “Iraq has WMDs” was code for “No it doesn’t.”)
Obama himself has used these words like a mantra, and even gained some devotees:
April 2009, when asked about a Spanish investigation of US abuses at Guantanamo (“I’m a strong believer that it’s important to look forward and not backwards”)
July 2009, Senator John McCain agreeing with Obama (“it’s time to move forward and not go back”)
January 2011, on appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-administration crimes (“I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”)
March 2010, on an investigation into the abuses of an ex-President’s human rights abuses (“”We have to acknowledge that those past human rights abuses existed. We can’t go forward without looking backwards…”)
Oh wait. The last one was Obama referring to ex-Indonesian President Suharto. Apparently we only look backwards when we’re talking about some one else’s skeletons.
CLICK HERE and read more by Jeannie Rose Field on the topic.
Let’s weave this into my political platform…. Truth and Reconciliation? Fuck, who needs that, we are people of the Future. Look at that great big Future out there. Keep looking! Nevermind the past. Forget about the present. Look on to Forever, where the Future is, keep reaching for it as it keeps receding into the distance. Don’t look at the Present, that’d be like when the cartoon runs of the cliff and then it looks down to notice that there’s nothing there. CERTAINLY don’t look to the past.
As long as we’re at it, anything I’ve ever done wrong, let’s just forget about it. Let’s look forward. Again. Forever. why’d you even ever stop? As a friend suggested “I may have messed up all those times I suggested we just move forward, but let’s look ahead and not back to here.” and that time, just now (see there you go again with the Present), that I again said let’s look forward? Well NOW that’s the past, so let’s move forward. Again. Forever.
oh uh, but I just wanted to point out one thing before moving forward. That thing that you did terribly and horribly wrong that you need to be held accountable for. I’m sorry, but we simply can’t look forward without looking back. I know what I said, but that’s for you, YOU look forward, but I must look forward and back because I am like Janus, I am god-like, you’re a fucking mortal. So fuck you. And keep your eyes on the fucking future prize.
I think it becomes obvious when the attempts at justification are put forward for the State’s violence/brutality and suppression, when Jean Quan or Bloomberg try to excuse the mountains of bullshit, you see how thin all the smoke and mirrors have gotten.
A lot’s been made of Frank Miller’s most recent idiocy. Those of us who have followed Miller can’t be surprised, though. Much like Christopher Hitchens, he completely lost his mind following 9/11. Compare both their work before 9/11 to their work/attitudes now and it’s obvious their hold on reality slipped way too far. Above, for example, is a page from Miller’s Batman: Year One where Batman outright threatens Gotham’s vampire squid aristocracy. Of course, sometimes it takes a Fascist to write a fun Batman story, as Christopher Nolan’s shitty apologias for Fascism via Batman attest.
Hmm, yes, IT WOULD SEEM SO LATELY.
