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“ I believe that gay people should be allowed to get married in the sense that I believe accused terrorists deserve a trial by jury with full legal representation in the sense that I believe black men should be able to drive automobiles within the legal limits without being pulled over all the time. That is to say that I advocate a situational equality within the context of the society we are given even though such equality is in the broader sense fundamentally absurd. That a state can ban a relationship between individuals, or that a President’s view on the matter is of national significance, is really awful to contemplate. I know marriage is supposed to be some, like, basic physical property of the human universe, paired protons and neutrons or quark spin or some shit or whatever, but really, uh, like, what if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania banned slightly awkward social acquaintances in which you do have each other’s cell numbers but you don’t really feel comfortable calling even though you need to borrow his pick-up and you’re pretty sure he’d be cool with it but maybe you’ll just text him instead. Then the 3rd Circuit overturns the law on twenty-first amendment grounds. The President of the United States says that although he would probably have sent a private Facebook message, his views on the issue are evolving. Then Joe Biden, literally, explodes.
—

“Gay Rites” - Who Is Ioz

If the President says that something should be or IS a Right but still seems to believe that States should have the power to take away those Rights and Equality, then that is a step backwards, not an “evolution”

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posted : Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

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“ Iran is not some fictive evil empire; its rulers are not Mings the Merciless. It’s a nation full of people trying to lead decent lives in spite of the corruption and madness of their state, just as America is a nation full of people trying to lead decent lives in spite of the corruption and madness of their state, just as all nations and all peoples are, in their own way, such. War is an unmitigated evil. I’m going to repeat myself here. Accepting (and I don’t) that some wars, sometimes, are truly necessary doesn’t dissolve the evil or absolve people or nations from their participation in them; they can never fully be atoned for or forgiven. And I am talking about, you know, fighting the Nazis! Invading some country for the hell of it, supporting that invasion because you find yourself incapable of mustering sufficient skepticism toward the reporting in the New York Times, for god’s sake? Good lord, don’t quit your day job
—

“Centrifugal State” - Who Is IOZ

I hate to just plop down the conclusion to a piece, but this contains a crucial point I can’t emphasize enough, even at the risk of being repetitive and repeating IOZ’s repetitions:

Accepting (and I don’t) that some wars, sometimes, are truly necessary doesn’t dissolve the evil or absolve people or nations from their participation in them; they can never fully be atoned for or forgiven.

This I believe to be one of the truths underpinning the tragedy that is the “victors” in war. Even the victors of war (or revolution!) must condemn themselves when all is said done, anything less is not enough. Sadly, this never seems to happen, certainly not when the State wages war.

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posted : Wednesday, February 29th, 2012

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“ Did he say anything interesting? Jobs, mortgages, jobs, business, taxes. I seem to recall some generic bellicosity toward Iran and I definitely remember hearing that hoary Albrightism, “the indispensable nation.” I have always enjoyed that phrase. It suggests a single, sad bag of Cheetohs resting lazily between the coil and the glass, refusing to fall into the hopper, and a single, sad, very fat man banging a futile palm against the other side.
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Who Is IOZ - Straits of the Union.

I care for the liveblogging of the SOTU about as much as I do for that of the Republican debates, which is to say, I wish we didn’t pay so much aggravated attention to so much useless nonsense. I checked the text of the speech today, though. Was anyone surprised by the speech? The usual empty promises on that which he cannot control and the usual despicable threats on that which he can and will. Can you read/hear that speech and expect the nation’s trajectory* to change one iota?

*perhaps instead of “trajectory” we should instead call it a sad but much deserved destiny…

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posted : Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

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“

there is something fundamentally nuts about a media-sphere in which SOPA etc gets vastly more play & protest than eternal imperial war. This is not to say you can’t care about both.

Also strange is the way in which tumblr Google etc are mobilizing protest. You gotta ask, why? In other words: cui bono? I’d wager they aren’t doing it for our sake.

— yonders, comments over at WHO IS IOZ
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posted : Thursday, January 19th, 2012

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“ Well, look, the change I believe in comes from cultivating mindfulness, equanimity, and compassion. The whole lib shebang, the whole Obama schtick, the wholesale misappropriation of Ghandi’s exhortation to be the change you want to see in the world—oy, outside of a philosophy of rigorous Hindu asceticism it is exactly the platitude it’s become. And that is really the problem with these well-meaning progressives, I mean, the problem other than the problem of their eagerness to return a child-murdering capitalist stooge to the Throne of St. Lincoln for four more years … the problem is an entirely outward-looking vision of transformation; a management-guru spiritualism: five principles, six steps, and seven processes for a better tomorrow, today!
—

WhoIsIoz givin’ that old timey religion.

in related news, remember to Combat Liberalism.

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posted : Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

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“ Those FOX dummies! But before all you Jon Steward fans set to congratulating yourselves over your incisive insight into Egypt, you may consider that there was no “government of Hosni Mubarak”; that Hosni Mubarak was merely the head of a military government; that he was ultimately deposed by the military; and that the military is still the government. Now that is not nitpicking. What “New Jerseyans know”, except of course for those who watch FOX, is fundamentally incorrect, not simply a bit off on the details; it reflects the banal, uncritical, deeply parochial, spectacle-obsessed hack journalism of USA Today and MSNBC and the Sulzberger Picayune … in other words, this poll reflects that routine FOX viewers are not necessarily familiar with the same canned bullshit as CNN viewers. Well, okay. Sure.
— Who Is IOZ, laying it down, as usual.
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posted : Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

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“ …it’s good to remember that there’s extraction, and there’s extraction; the machinery of profit exports its more sordid forms of violence just as it exports its most exploitative forms of labor; pepper spray is to the cluster bomb as the service sector is to the sweat shop. This is another reason why when folks say that OWS and like minds are naive in their disengagement from electoral politics and their belief that their civilization is irrevocably broken and unrecoverable, I spit on the sidewalk. OWS is insufficiently cynical. America is quite willing and able to destroy whole societies, yet you believe it is somehow morally indefinsible to avoid the ballot box; you think it anti-democratic? Democracy has delivered the greatest military juggernaut in the history of mankind.
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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.

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posted : Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

reblogged from : d/o/l/a/n/ // m/o/r/g/a/n////

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“ The agents of state power cannot be prevented from availing themselves of the tools of state power through any application of the clever little fictions called laws. The law itself is an instrument of state power as surely as guns and nuclear bombs. You will often hear civil libertarian types say that the police should not act like soldiers. Why not? They are.
— Who Is IOZ?
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posted : Friday, November 18th, 2011

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