Friday, January 30, 2015

Local Blog Exposes Self

[UPDATE] [UPDATE II :: This joke for a respectable blog continues to disintegrate]
The so-called Tuluwat Examiner showed itself to me early on. Those of us that didn't go along with their right to slander, insult and demean, anyone on their "shit-list" got censored. It was a new blog and usually only 6 to 8 people commented, or rather I should say puked out volumes of accolades at what seemingly appeared as community beneficial postings. They went after the new Eureka Police Chief for his supposed inability to fight crime as well as the City of Eureka over budget issues and a few other pet issues that began to identify them for who they really are. But, it was their commentary on the police killing of Tommy McClain where they began to show their duplicitous intent. Their sleazy way began to show itself - talk one way and do something else. It didn't take the folks over at Eureka Citizen long to find out who and what they were dealing with.

Now today they endow the world with this definition of who and what they are, rabble-rousing, gossip mongers.
“EUREKA CITIZEN” APPARENTLY WANTS TO END THE PUBLIC DEBATE

take aim, and make jokes(?)”…….Sorry “Eureka Citizen” but this (ill) legitimate outlet “The Examiner” will continue the debate of your programs with or without out your direct participation. 
We’re a blog, that’s what we do!
It's been my experience in life that you can't "debate," actually REASON WITH AN IDIOT.
--Joe 

[UPDATE :: January 31, 2015]

When I said: "You can't reason with an idiot" I had no idea that those psychotics would prove and justify what I said in such a finite way. So, if you go there remember "reader beware," be sure to read the comments. When I wrote the above posting there were no comments. When I checked this morning there were 42.

What you will find there is a classic example of what happens when you fall into a Harpy Nest. The Eureka Citizen thought to engage them and got caught in their trap.

[UPDATE :: February 2, 2015]

Another good example of what I mean by a "Harpy Nest" is also self-defined in this latest posting's comment section as a Troll Nest. Pay particular attention to the standout example that calls themselves Mola42. He clearly suffers from DID. EC’S PANHANDLING ORDINANCE ON SHAKY LEGAL FOOTING

Watching these degenerates self-define and then disintegrate is vindication at it's ultimate best. I know exactly  how the New England Patriots must feel today after the so-called Moola-types tried to make "Deflategate" work for them.

A couple of examples:
Retired USAF Col
February 1, 2015
6:21 pm
***
"It is really hilarious that it has only taken a few comments to get TE to do 3 retaliatory articles and simply self-destroy it’s former reputation. TE has become the laughing stock of Humboldt County." 
Retired USAF Col
February 1, 2015
6:22 pm
"Simply reinforced the butt-fucking description of the TE crowd."
 And finally:
Greg Sparks
February 1, 2015
10:12 pm
"You do realize that this group, Eureka Citizen, has totally consumed Tuluwat Examiner for nearly 2 weeks. You and your fellow bloggers have become obsessed with this group. 5 of your last 6 articles are about, or mention the group. Additionally, you let members of the group completely take control of your blogging; they easily manipulated every member of your blog. You completely played into their hands."

"I’ve always used Tuluwat as a 3rd opinion to read and absorb. After the past week, it’s sad to say you have lost all credibility. Good luck with that."

Friday, January 23, 2015

Obama's Way of Preemptive Murder

From how the police and the military to the government operate. For example:
Exposing the lives of one’s troops was never considered good, but historically it was believed to be necessary. Therefore dying for one’s country was deemed to be the greatest sacrifice and those who did die were recognized as heroes. The drone wars, however, are introducing a risk-free ethics of killing. What is taking place is a switch from an ethics of “self-sacrifice and courage to one of self-preservation and more or less assumed cowardice.” 
Chamayou refers to this as “necro-ethics.” Paradoxically, necro-ethics is, on the one hand, vitalist in the sense that the drone (or police officer) supposedly does not kill innocent bystanders while securing the life of the perpetrator. This has far-reaching implications, since the more ethical the weapon seems, the more acceptable it is and the more readily it will likely be used. On the other hand, the drone advances the doctrine of killing well, and in this sense stands in opposition to the classical ethics of living well or even dying well. [Emphasis added.]
A classic example in Eureka was when the Eureka Police Department, without any admittedly demonstrable threat to either the police or anyone else, gunned down Tommy McClain with total impunity September 17, 2014. It's called Preemptive Murder.
--Joe


The "Humanitarian" Weapon
Drones and the New Ethics of War
by NEVE GORDON
This Christmas small drones were among the most popular gift under the tree in the U.S. with manufacturers stating that they sold 200,000 new unmanned aerial vehicles during the holiday season. While the rapid infiltration of drones into the gaming domain clearly reflects that drones are becoming a common weapon among armed forces, their appearance in Walmart, Toys “R” Us and Amazon serves, in turn, to normalize their deployment in the military.

Drones, as Grégoire Chamayou argues in his new book, A Theory of the Drone, have a uniquely seductive power, one that attracts militaries, politicians and citizens alike. A research scholar in philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, Chamayou is one of the most profound contemporary thinkers working on the deployment of violence and its ethical ramifications. And while his new book offers a concise history of drones, it focuses on how drones are changing warfare and their potential to alter the political arena of the countries that utilize them.

Chamayou traces one of the central ideas informing the production and deployment of drones back to John W. Clark, an American engineer who carried out a study on “remote control in hostile environments” in 1964.  In Clark’s study, space is divided into two kinds of zones—hostile and safe—while robots operated by remote control are able to relieve human beings of all perilous occupations within hostile zones. The sacrifice of miners, firefighters, or those working on skyscrapers will no longer be necessary, since the collapse of a tunnel in the mines, for example, would merely lead to the loss of several robots operated by remote control.

The same logic informed the creation of drones. They were initially utilized as part of the military’s defense system in hostile territories. After the Egyptian military shot down about 30 Israel fighter jets in the first hours of the 1973 war, Israeli air-force commanders decided to change their tactics and send a wave of drones. As soon as the Egyptians fired their initial salvo of anti-aircraft missiles at the drones, the Israeli airplanes were able to attack as the Egyptians were reloading.

Over the years, drones have also become an important component of the intelligence revolution.  Instead of sending spies or reconnaissance airplanes across enemy lines, drones can continuously fly above hostile terrain gathering information. As Chamayou explains, drones do not merely provide a constant image of the enemy, but manage to fuse together different forms of data. They carrytheoryofdronetechnology that can interpret electronic communications from radios, cell phones and other devices and can link a telephone call with a particular video or provide the GPS coordinates of the person using the phone. Their target is, in other words, constantly visible.

Using drones to avert missiles or for reconnaissance was, of course, considered extremely important, yet military officials aspired to transform drones into lethal weapons as well. On February 16, 2001, after many years of U.S. investment in R&D, a Predator drone first successfully fired a missile and hit its target. As Chamayou puts it, the notion of turning the Predator into a predator had finally been realized. Within a year, the Predator was preying on live targets in Afghanistan.

A Humanitarian Weapon
Over the past decade, the United States has manufactured more than 6000 drones of various kinds. 160 of these are Predators, which are used not only in Afghanistan but also in countries officially at peace with the US, such as Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.  In Pakistan, CIA drones carry out on average of one strike every four days. Although exact figures of fatalities are difficult to establish, the estimated number of deaths between 2004 and 2012 vary from 2562 to 3325.

Chamayou underscores how drones are changing our conception of war in three major ways. First, the idea of a frontier or battlefield is rendered meaningless as is the idea that there are particular places—like homesteads—where the deployment of violence is considered criminal. In other words, if once the legality of killing was dependent on where the killing was carried out, today US lawyers argue that the traditional connection between geographical spaces—such as the battlefield, home, hospital, mosque—and forms of violence are out of date. Accordingly, every place becomes a potential site of drone violence.

Second, the development of “precise missiles,” the kind with which most drones are currently armed led to the popular conception that drones are precise weapons. Precision, though, is a slippery concept. For one, chopping off a person’s head with a machete is much more precise than any missile, but there is no political or military support for precision of this kind in the West. Indeed, “precision” turns out to be an extremely copious category. The U.S., for example, counts all military age males in a strike zone as combatants unless there is explicit intelligence proving them innocent posthumously.  The real ruse, then, has to do with the relation between precision and geography. As precise weapons, drones also render geographical contours irrelevant since the ostensible precision of these weapons justifies the killing of suspected terrorists in their homes. A legal strike zone is then equated with anywhere the drone strikes. And when “legal killing” can occur anywhere, then one can execute suspects anywhere—even in zones traditionally conceived as off-limits.

Finally, drones change our conception of war because it becomes, in Chamayou’s words, a priori impossible to die as one kills. One air-force officer formulated this basic benefit in the following manner: “The real advantage of unmanned aerial systems is that they allow you to protect power without projecting vulnerability.” Consequently, drones are declared to be a humanitarian weapon in two senses: they are precise vis-à-vis the enemy, and ensure no human cost to the perpetrator.

From Conquest to Pursuit
If Guantanamo was the icon of President George W. Bush’s anti-terror policy, drones have become the emblem of the Obama presidency.  Indeed, Chamayou maintains that President Barak Obama has adopted a totally different anti-terror doctrine from his predecessor: kill rather than capture, replace torture with targeted assassinations.

Citing a New York Times report, Chamayou describes the way in which deadly decisions are reached: “It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals… Every week or so, more than 100 members of the sprawling national security apparatus gather by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and to recommend to the president who should be the next to die.” In D.C, this is called “Terror Tuesday.” Once established, the list is subsequently sent to the White House where the president gives his oral approval for each name. “With the kill list validated, the drones do the rest.”

Obama’s doctrine entails a change in the paradigm of warfare. In contrast to military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz, who claimed that the fundamental structure of war is a duel of two fighters facing each other, we now have, in Chamayou’s parlance, a hunter closing in on its a prey.  Chamayou, who also wrote Manhunts: A Philosophical History, which examines the history of hunting humans from ancient Sparta to the modern practices of chasing undocumented migrants,  recounts how according to English common law one could hunt badgers and foxes in another man’s land, “because destroying such creatures is said to be profitable to the Public.” This is precisely the kind of law that the US would like to claim for drones, he asserts.

The strategy of militarized manhunting is essentially preemptive. It is not a matter of responding to actual attacks but rather preventing the possibility of emerging threats by the early elimination of potential adversaries. According to this new logic, war is no longer based on conquest—Obama is not interested in colonizing swaths of land in northern Pakistan—but on the right of pursuit. The right to pursue the prey wherever it may be found, in turn, transforms the way we understand the basic principles of international relations since it undermines the notion of territorial integrity as well as the idea of nonintervention and the broadly accepted definition of sovereignty as the supreme authority over a given territory.

Wars without Risks
The transformation of Clausewitz’s warfare paradigm manifests itself in other ways as well. Drone wars are wars without losses or defeats, but they are also wars without victory. The combination of the two lays the ground for perpetual violence, the utopian fantasy of those profiting from the production of drones and similar weapons.
Just as importantly, drones change the ethics of war. According to the new military morality, to kill while exposing one’s life to danger is bad; to take lives without ever endangering one’s own is good. Bradley Jay Strawser, a professor of philosophy at the US naval Postgraduate school in California, is a prominent spokesperson of the “principle of unnecessary risk.” It is, in his view, wrong to command someone to take an unnecessary risk, and consequently it becomes a moral imperative to deploy drones.

Exposing the lives of one’s troops was never considered good, but historically it was believed to be necessary. Therefore dying for one’s country was deemed to be the greatest sacrifice and those who did die were recognized as heroes. The drone wars, however, are introducing a risk-free ethics of killing. What is taking place is a switch from an ethics of “self-sacrifice and courage to one of self-preservation and more or less assumed cowardice.”

Chamayou refers to this as “necro-ethics.” Paradoxically, necro-ethics is, on the one hand, vitalist in the sense that the drone supposedly does not kill innocent bystanders while securing the life of the perpetrator. This has far-reaching implications, since the more ethical the weapon seems, the more acceptable it is and the more readily it will likely be used. On the other hand, the drone advances the doctrine of killing well, and in this sense stands in opposition to the classical ethics of living well or even dying well.

Transforming Politics in the Drone States
Moreover, drones change politics within the drone states. Because drones transform warfare into a ghostly teleguided act orchestrated from a base in Nevada or Missouri, whereby soldiers no longer risk their lives, the critical attitude of citizenry towards war is also profoundly transformed, altering, as it were, the political arena within drone states.

Drones, Chamayou says, are a technological solution for the inability of politicians to mobilize support for war. In the future, politicians might not need to rally citizens because once armies begin deploying only drones and robots there will be no need for the public to even know that a war is being waged. So while, on the one hand, drones help produce the social legitimacy towards warfare through the reduction of risk, on the other hand, they render social legitimacy irrelevant to the political decision making process relating to war. This drastically reduces the threshold for resorting to violence, so much so that violence appears increasingly as a default option for foreign policy. Indeed, the transformation of wars into a risk free enterprise will render them even more ubiquitous than they are today. This too will be one of Obama’s legacies.

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel’s Occupation. He can be reached through his website.
A shorter version appeared in Al Jazeera.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

More "Thought" Murders by Hallucination

Israeli source: "We thought we were hitting an enemy field unit that was on its way to carry out an attack on us at the frontier fence."


Source tells Reuters Israel believed only lower-level operatives would be present at the site of the strike.
EBX.SH

--Joe

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Murder by Hallucination


Video Shows Montana Cop Weeping After Fatal Shooting

Newly released video shows a police officer breaking down in tears after fatally shooting an unarmed man in Montana. Last week, a coroner’s jury found Billings Police Officer Grant Morrison was justified in shooting Richard Ramirez during a traffic stop last April. Video from the aftermath of the shooting shows Morrison collapsing over the hood of a police cruiser and weeping as his colleagues try to console him. Morrison can be heard saying, "I thought he was going to pull a gun on me. Maybe he was. Maybe he was. (Weeping)." [Excerpt from Democracy Now]

It is obvious from viewing the video that this cop was scared absolutely to death. This fear induced paranoid literally murdered that innocent man, a man that presented absolutely no threat to anyone, for the hallucination screaming at him in his own sick mind, "I thought he was going to pull a gun on me." He saw no gun, there was no gun. The only gun he saw was in his mind. The only threat he saw was a fantasy. In fact, he, living in his sick mind, was the only real threat to anyone. He literally murdered that man for his psychosis. While murder is a crime, the real criminals were the Coroner's Jury that granted him impunity. That community deserves to pay the price for their failure to remove this murderer from their midst.
“I knew in that moment, which later was determined to be untrue, but I knew in that moment that he was reaching for a gun,” Morrison later said of the incident. “I couldn’t take that risk… I wanted to see my son grow up.”
After posting the YouTube video above, they canceled it. Too bad, it was better than the ones listed anywhere else. The above quote is from the article and video at Salon.com. The fact is, he admitted that he was hallucinating - what he knew in "his mind" was a fantacy. The Coroner's Jury exonerated this murder because he "couldn't take that risk"? Everyone of those jurors should be indicted and stand trial. This is the same thing that happened to Tommy McClain. At least this poor individual, Richard Ramirez, got some kind of a jury and a lot of good that did him. Considering the white-wash situation in Eureka, this community and its law enforcement is far worse than Billings. The Eureka people will pay a heavy price for their lack of due diligence as responsible law-abiding citizens. Their lives are not worth a paranoid thought.
--Joe