Breaking Point - Part 2

An illustrated version of this text is on http://mato48.com/

The forename Sandy is of Greek origin and a variation of Sandra, which is a short form of Alexandra, which is the female form of Alexander. The name Alexander means “defender of men,” and was used in Britain since the early 13th century. Alexander is btw my sons first name.

It doesn’t seem that Sandy is popular with parents and there are not many famous people who bear this name. Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention comes to mind. In the 60s she was one of my favorite singers and it was sad to witness her descent into drug abuse and her early death at the age of 31. Later on Jazz singer Sandy Lomax attracted my interest, I like her voice even better than that of Sandy Denny, though she is not as famous and not widely known.

The name Sandy will probably be even less popular for some time to come.

Recent events were a perfect confirmation and illustration of the post Breaking Point, the following text is an addition and a sequel of Breaking Point.

Hurricane Sandy is rarely mentioned in the media now, but thousands of people living in New York City’s Far Rockaway and Staten Island areas are still without heat, hot water and electricity. They have to line up for warm meals and food. Toxic mold and residue from Sandy’s surge fill their apartments.

The official relief efforts are completely inadequate and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) hasn’t promised anything until January, at the earliest. Local activists and Occupy Wall Street veterans tried to fill the gap and organized relief efforts on a local level.

If one was not impressed by Occupy Wall Street until now and thought that the movement didn’t live up to the hype, the activities of Occupy Sandy deserve a closer look and a new assessment.

Occupy Sandy is different and seems to develop into a project oriented grassroots movement. Working together with other local community organizations, Occupy Sandy activists delivered food and basic supplies, conducted mold remediation and picked up hammers and sledges to help rebuild damaged homes.

Thousands of people have volunteered with Occupy Sandy and if the activists continue in this direction and keep up their drive of local social activities they could become a trailblazing movement.

http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not pleased with the grassroots activities. After accidentally landing his helicopter near one of Occupy Sandy’s main community assistance hubs he thanked the volunteers for their hard work, but the next day he ordered Staten Island police to start an eviction on the Occupy Sandy hub at 489 Midland Avenue, in the heavily hit Midland Beach area.

On December 15, Occupy Sandy in cooperation with community members called protests, involving marches and housing rehabilitations. This was followed by a gathering in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s luxurious Manhattan home.

The second Sandy disaster

Comments about the Sandy Hook bloodbath congested media channels, social media, blogs, chartrooms, and other public forums now for one week. Many expositions and analysis were right on, accurate, enlightened, and worth to collect them and publish them in a package.

The comments most times focused only on one single aspect, and that is the reason I undertook it to categorize, sort, connect, and integrate them. The various comments, ideas, notions thereby became pieces of a puzzle that are assembled into a picture.

The categories are:

Children killed by US policies and military actions
The US culture of violence
A sick society
The myth of “the American Dream”
Electronic Media culpability

One comment, coming from Wayne Lapierre, the vice president of the NRA (National Rifle Association), is not sorted in a category, it stands for its own: "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. We need to have every single school in America immediately deploy a protection program proven to work -- and by that I mean armed security.”

The NRA envisions a "National School Shield Emergency Response Program" where qualified police, military, security personnel and others organize to protect schools.

Former congressman Asa Hutchinson will work with the NRA in a push for armed school guards. His comment: “School safety is a complex issue with no simple, single solution. But I believe trained, qualified, armed security is one key component among many that can provide the first line of deterrence as well as the last line of defense."

In the USA there are already 1,6 million private security guards and contractors working for corporations and for 12,000 registered security firms. Their number is steadily growing and surpasses the number of police officers, which is 670,000. 

The NRA solution to gun violence is clearly “more guns,” and more security guards. Employing additional security personal would admittedly also ease joblessness, but security guards are not well paid, they earn in average 23,000 US$ a year.

Gun violence is not a new problem and not an exclusive US American problem, men all over the world had and have a love affair with their guns since guns exist. The fruits of this love affair become only more apparent and tragic when a society is ailing, when social tensions rise, when aggression and violence become the norm and everybody has to compete with everybody else and defend him or herself by every possible means.

A few thousand additional security guards will not solve the problem of gun violence. There are too many “ticking time bombs” walking down the avenues, lingering in front of computer or TV screens, and preparing themselves for the big showdown on one of the thousands of shooting ranges.

The ticking time bombs will easily outnumber and outgun the security guards.

Hollow point bullets kill better

Adam Lanza used hollow point (soft point) ammunition, which is expanding in the victims body and causes excessive tissue damage. A hollow point bullet hitting the chest will most likely cause death even if it doesn’t reach vital organs. A hollow point bullet hitting a limp will most likely result in an amputation. Hollow point ammunition is prohibited in war by the Hague Convention, but it is widely used by police forces.

Dying from a hollow point bullet wound is not an easy death! It will not take long till the brain stops working but this few moments at the end of the victims life could be extremely painful.

The US Homeland Security and other government agencies are buying large quantities of hollow point ammunition, here are some purchases of 2012:

450 million hollow point ammunition - Homeland Security
750 million high powered ammunition - Homeland Security
200 million sniper rounds - Homeland Security
174 thousand hollow point ammunition - Social Security Administration
85 thousand hollow point ammunition - US Forest Service
187 thousand other ammunition - US Forest Service
40 thousand hollow point ammunition - National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

The US agencies are evidently stocking up this kind of ammunition, which is intended to kill rather than incapacitate a suspect.

The aftermath of the two “Sandy” catastrophes, the surrounding details and associated issues, the public discussion and new emerging informations all indicate, that US society is under strain. This was known before, but it seems, that whatever happens there is no change in direction, there is no relief of social tensions, there is no paradigm change.

Undeterred, unflustered, undiscouraged, unflinching, uncompromising, unyielding the USA keeps the course.

To what?

The following aspects were missing in the comments:

Unhealthy technologies
Environmental devastation
The tyranny of wealth

 A short explanation of the missing aspects:

Unhealthy technologies

New technology, an artificial environment, and an unnatural lifestyle contribute to rising economical, social, and mental pressure. Many technologies are not well adjusted and not conform to human needs. Humans unquestioning and uncritical developed and embraced them without fully understanding the consequences.

While the downsides are now slowly becoming clear, these technologies have penetrated Western societies to such an extent that abandoning them is nearly impossible without a redirection of social and economic policies and a fundamental change of our lifestyle.

Many technologies make life more complex, are distracting, cause unnatural and unhealthy behavior, and provide comfort only at the price of environmental devastation.

Today the humans in industrial (so called developed) nations live in an unnatural world, surrounded by technical gadgets. Most of the urban population lives in a noisy environment where the senses are overloaded by bright colors, flashing lights, pop music beats, traffic noise, industrial noise, and chemical scents. Humans sit for hours in front of a computer, without sunlight, without fresh air, and without moving much.

A Kaiser Family Foundation study concluded, that the average young US American now spends 44 hours a week with electronic media and is practically every minute -- except for the time in school -- using a smartphone, a computer, is looking TV, or is playing computer games.

Loud noise evidently creates psychological stress, hypertension and heart disease. Measurements in New York showed levels which never dropped below 70 decibel, even in parks meant to be oases of calm. Levels in restaurants averaged 96 decibel, in nightclubs 99 decibels, with peaks of 106 decibel. 

Young people use their MP3 devices like iPods for several hours a day at volumes that are inevitably damaging their eardrums. In addition to that sound systems in shops, restaurant, cars pound them with Hip Hop dance beats. They will soon suffer from reduced hearing which usually causes social isolation.

Potentially harmful privately used technologies: Cell phones (smartphones), Television, video players and mp3 players, game consoles, electronic sound systems, cars.

Potentially harmful industrial technologies: Biotechnology (genetically modified organisms), fossil fuel extraction (deep water drilling, franking, mountain top removal) and unrestricted fossil fuel use, surveillance and data mining, some aspects of robotics, aviation, weapons technology, nuclear technology.

Environmental devastation

The pollution of air, water, and soil, environmental degradation, and habitat destruction also contribute to rising economical, social, and mental pressure.

In former times people were able to heal their mental wounds, their mental sicknesses by reconnecting with nature, by retreating to a quiet place, and by meditating. Today a quiet patch of pristine nature is hard to find and many people are simply too agitated and restless to enjoy nature. Even if they had the opportunity they would never seriously consider making a peaceful walk in the woods. 

“Nature Deficit disorder” is a term coined by Richard Louv in his book “Last Child in the Woods,” which describes the trend that children are spending less and less time outdoors. Parents are keeping children in the house to keep them safe from danger and in addition to that there are less natural surroundings in a child's neighborhood.

Richard Louv argues that the Nature Deficit disorder causes a diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. Children grow up disconnected with nature, and this broken relationship is making kids overweight, depressed, and distracted.

The condition of “Nature Deficit disorder” is not restricted to children, it also affects an ever growing portion of the adult population, contributing to social tensions and discontent, crime, domestic violence, mental illnesses, obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, allergies, and cancer.

The tyranny of wealth

US citizens are economically squeezed and increasingly dependent on corporations and big private companies. This dependency is achieved by the privatization or destruction of natural support systems (water is either privatized or poisoned, vegetable gardens in front yards are forbidden, small organic farms are polluted by GM seeds) and by the systematic enslavement of the population with loans and mortgages.

In a functioning democracy the by the people elected government would be able to break the stranglehold of the corporations and the “moneyed elite”, but the USA is not a functioning democracy.

US politicians very well understand that Wall Street money and corporate money can either be used to defeat them or to support their campaigns. They also know that if they are sufficiently influential in the right direction, lobbying jobs that are far more financially rewarding than their present occupation await them when they retire from Congress or from state legislative bodies.

The wealth and power, concentrated in Wall Street and in the major corporations, is being used for the enrichment of the already wealthy, which usually means sending jobs and technology abroad, while holding down wages at home.

Who could blame US citizens for their resentment against “big government”, when the US government is nothing else than an obedient servant and an executor for Wall Street and the big corporations?

Nancy Lanza, Adams mother and his first victim, was part of the “prepper” movement, an informally organized network of US Americans who are convinced that looming disasters, ranging from economic collapse, natural disasters, popular unrest, to a Biblical apocalypse, require total self-sufficiency. She was stockpiling food, emergency supplies, and of course weapons.

The “preppers” could be right about a looming economic and social collapse, but their stockpiles of weapons will not save them from tyranny. US authorities are prepared for unrest, the police forces are militarized and equiped with armored personal carriers, grenade launchers, and drones. In 2011 the Department of Defense gave away nearly 500 million US$ worth of leftover military gear to local law enforcement.

A few pathetic guns will not help the “prepper”, when a SWAT team is storming the house after detonating stun grenades, the guns will not help against mortars, missiles, bombs.

All the here mentioned developments aggravate social injustices and inequalities, increase distress, tensions, animosities, aggressions. All the mentioned aspects make life in the USA more and more difficult (for the average citizen) and convert US society into a pressure cooker that one day may crack, break, even explode.

The following text consist of the sorted comments and as stated before, the various comments, ideas, and notions here are pieces of a puzzle that are assembled into a picture.

(A picture is two dimensional and cannot show all connections and dependencies, but the pieces of this puzzle come from various people who observe the scene from different angles and from their personal point of view, thereby making the picture holographic.)

Children killed by US military and political actions

In 1991, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 687, imposing sanctions on Iraq as a result of its invasion of Kuwait. A study in The Lancet (the journal of the British Medical Association) reported that up to 576,000 Iraqi children may have died since the end of the first Gulf War as a result of the sanctions imposed by the Security Council. UNICEF, in 1999, estimated that at least 500,000 children died who would have otherwise normally lived had it not been for the sanctions in place.

Fallujah was destroyed 2004 in Operation Phantom Fury. It was pounded with white phosphorus, Mark 77 bombs (napalm), and depleted uranium. The city has now 11 times as many major birth defects in newborns than the world average. The increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia in Fallujah are greater than those reported in the survivors of the US atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Americans routinely blow up children, and sometimes their schools. I'm not saying that the scenarios are equivalent, but replace the word "shooter" with "drone" and notice how quickly (for some people) the compassion evaporates.

There's just no denying that many of the same people understandably expressing grief and horror over the children who were killed in Newtown steadfastly overlook, if not outright support, the equally violent killing of Yemeni and Pakistani children.

Every murder committed by the United States government, every murder ordered by Obama, represents to someone a tragedy exactly like Sandy Hook. But it is not someone most Americans happen to know or recognize  as a fellow human being -- and it is therefore as if the tragedy never occurred.

The tragedy in Newtown is a situation that people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and Palestine find themselves in on a daily basis, thanks to the US, and those it supports. The US kills indiscriminately with drones. For the maimed and wounded there is little in the way of medical help, for it too has been destroyed by the Yankeys. In Iraq doctors were specifically targeted.

The misery and torment that befell Newton can be multiplied a thousand fold across the Arab world. American policy and actions have resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent children. The deaths of these children should be considered as war crimes and a crime against humanity of the highest order.

But in order for that to happen one must first believe that Arabs cry for their children too.

America’s drone policy has reportedly killed between 474 and 881 civilians in the Greater Middle East, including 178 children. Apparently the targeted killing of children is now accepted military practice. Army Lt. Col. Marion Carrington is quoted as saying, “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”

Obama's administration neither documents nor acknowledges the civilian casualties of the CIA's drone strikes in north-west Pakistan. But a report by the law schools at Stanford and New York universities suggests that during the first three years of his time in office, the 259 strikes for which he is ultimately responsible killed between 297 and 569 civilians, of whom at least 64 were children.

The wider effects on the children of the region have been devastating. Many have been withdrawn from school because of fears that large gatherings of any kind are being targeted. There have been several strikes on schools since Bush launched the drone program that Obama expanded so enthusiastically.

The study reports that children scream in terror when they hear the sound of a drone. A local psychologist said that their fear and the horrors they witness cause permanent mental scars. Children wounded in drone attacks told the researchers that they are too traumatized to go back to school and have abandoned hopes of the careers they might have had. Their dreams as well as their bodies have been broken.

Obama does not kill children deliberately. But their deaths are an inevitable outcome of the way his drones are deployed. We don't know what emotional effect these deaths might have on him, as neither he nor his officials will discuss the matter: almost everything to do with the CIA's extrajudicial killings in Pakistan is kept secret. But you get the impression that no one in the administration is losing much sleep over it.

Most of the world's media, which has rightly commemorated the children of Newtown, either ignores Obama's murders or accepts the official version that all those killed are "militants". The children of north-west Pakistan, it seems, are not like our children. They have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and flowers and teddy bears. They belong to the other: to the non-human world of bugs and grass and tissue.

What applies to the children murdered here by a deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a sombre American president. These children are just as important, just as real, just as deserving of the world's concern. Yet there are no presidential speeches or presidential tears for them, no pictures on the front pages of the world's newspapers, no interviews with grieving relatives, no minute analysis of what happened and why.

We all know that it is impossible that anyone from the media would be allowed to ask President Obama what the difference is between the deaths of twenty or more innocent American children at the hands of a stranger, and the deaths of an even higher number of innocent Pakistani and Afghani children at the hands of joystick-wielding drone operators employed by the CIA.

When Obama's campaign surrogate and former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the US killing by drone strike of 16-year-old American citizen Abdulrahman Awlaki two weeks after his father was killed, Gibbs said, that Abdulrahman should have "had a more responsible father.”

When President Obama expressed his condolences and spoke of being responsible for one another’s children and of giving children the chance to live out their lives in happiness, he may not have considered the children in Pakistan who have lost their lives in US drone attacks.

The president may not have considered the children in Gaza, who died from Israeli-delivered but US-financed bombs, nor the children in Iraq or children anywhere who suffer because of US policies of war and economic strangulation.

He may not have thought of the millions of children who die from hunger every year because of the neoliberal, neocolonial destabilization of the economies of underdeveloped countries.

The US culture of violence

This country is steeped in violence. From its beginnings to its present. We glorify violence, we lionize it, we export it. We blow the brains out of people at home and abroad and then we have the nerve to ask “why?”

The US was built from seized land, land that was taken from the original inhabitants, who were then massacred -- children, women, and men. Whole nations disappeared, killed by guns, knives, and an early form of biological warfare, as foreign illnesses were introduced to indigenous people.

Slavery was maintained by the gun and by brutal violence that saw the rise of the first standardized police force, the slave catchers. To this day, it has been violence that has maintained US political and economic hegemony over most of the world.

This country has an ethos of violence, and every institution, from politics to media to entertainment, is responsible. We have a president who kills children daily with his drone program, and who has given himself the right to assassinate any US citizen he simply thinks might be anti-American (no trial by jury or presumption of innocence allowed); we have an entertainment industry that makes billions off the violence it assaults our senses with daily; we have a “defense” industry that is the biggest money pit in history; and we have politicians who stand in front of the entire world and lie just to get us into more useless and unnecessary wars. In light of the death and destruction of families, lives, and property that this country has wreaked throughout the world, do we really expect to evade the consequences of our violence?

You can't have a military "colossus astride the world" (to quote the late Chalmers Johnson) without the proper cultivation of "martial values" to wage wars, occupy countries, and maintain the archipelago of bases around the planet. There are resources to extract and markets to expand; "the flag follows commerce" as Woodrow Wilson said. (Remember people saying "Iraq is sitting on top of “our” oil.)

These massacres are not merely about mentally disturbed loners or lax gun control laws. They are the logical outcome of an increasingly militarized culture that glorifies violence -- whose leaders publicly tout their "kill lists" and their readiness to use armed force to further the "national interest." We are a gangster nation -- we should expect the occasional drive-by massacre.

The United States is a country that rules the world by being masters of violence. We're not masters of peace or diplomacy... we don't know how, or just don't want, to do that apparently. Violence is the sure thing and the faster process. We like sure things and fast results. As long as our answer is a "War on...", instead of a "Solution for..." we are proudly embracing a primitive hate-based society.

The heated debate doesn't seem to talk about how 5 percent of the world's population (the US inhabitants) manufactures 70 percent of the world's weapons. No, the debate is only centered on controlling or not controlling the population's choices, while ignoring the fundamental social and economic reality -- which is, that the US economy would collapse if we stopped manufacturing weapons, and that violence has become so systematized in our every day lives that it has become like water to a fish.

The USA worships its military. Soldiers, and officers especially, are held in the same sort of esteem as celebrities and Hollywood stars, and there’s no criticisms of the military allowed, cause then you become one of the enemies, adding to the USA’s many enemies, who for some reason just keep growing in number.

I am loath to use yet another tragedy to point out (again) the inherent violence and brutality of our society, from the exploitation of individuals to the decimation of nations. I am not eager to connect it back (again) to the human-initiated violence toward the balance of life on the planet, that vast interconnected web on which our very existence depends. I take no solace in preparing to rant (again) about the culpability of the media, the profligacy of corporate profiteers who put their wealth above everyone else's health, or about the profound alienation and emptiness of modern life.

If we do not appreciate the basic fact that we are all responsible for all of the world's children, then there is precious little hope for any viable human future on this world. We simply cannot continue to steal the future from our children, to want only consume the habitat and undermine its inherent resiliency, to seed the world with weapons of mass insanity and the implements of violence that are all too readily available for acts of grave cowardice such as the one we are seeing today -- and everyday.

In the midst of this latest national paroxysm of grief, have you heard even one mention of our longstanding national acceptance of corporal punishment of children? Can you recall the last time you heard corporal punishment discussed? Are any major national voices raised in a campaign to outlaw corporal punishment, for the same reasons we outlaw physical assaults on adult human beings? I repeat: CHILDREN ARE HUMAN BEINGS. They are not insensate hunks of matter on which you may unleash your repressed anger and hatred.

The thirst for vengeance does not come from nowhere. It has a clearly identifiable cause. The thirst for vengeance has its origins in infancy, when children are forced to suffer in silence and put up with the cruelty inflicted on them in the name of upbringing. They learn how to torment others from their parents, and later from their teachers and superiors. It is nothing other than systematic instruction by example on how to destroy others. Yet many people believe that it has no evil consequences. As if a child were a container that can be emptied from time to time. But the human brain is not a container. The things we learn at an early stage stay with us in later life.

A sick society

Guns are for paranoid bigots.

Being the first to draw will become more important than talking things out because, who knows, if I offend this guy and he draws on me first, I'm screwed. Not the kind of society I want to live in, but this is the logical outcome in a country where high background stress and insecurity is the norm, and where greed is purposefully stimulated and misnamed "personal drive,"

Every day I watch a hundred little social and interpersonal brutalities and attitudinal cruelties, which seem to go unnoticed by the public at large (though not unfelt, I am sure). And they seem to be growing. Then there is the decay of our social support network and families, the unacknowledged fear permeating this collapsing empire, the exploitation of the citizenry by telling them there is danger at every turn.

The "mass shooting" has become a dominant motif in the production of social relations, the last refuge of the disaffected and unloved, the final epitaph for a culture that has payed far too little attention to its children and the responsibility to ensure for them a positive future.

In a just and sane world, this episode alone would be enough to jolt us out of our torpor and get us to put down all of the weapons of war in our midst. We would reexamine the deep-seated social roots of despair and violence, and take a honest accounting of the ways in which we are all culpable in its perpetuation. We would re-dedicate ourselves to establishing a social foundation based on empathy and compassion, and build our economies and politics around these values. And above all, we would use every peaceful means at our disposal to ensure that our children can play and grow in this world.

If this shooting is like all the others, the murderer will turn out to be someone who "fell through the cracks" of our cruel society. Of the society that offers judgment where there should be compassion, a beat down where there should be a helping hand, a society of sharks, of quarreling orcs, tearing each other to shreds in a race to sacrifice themselves on the altar of greed and power.

The drone strikes are just the outward manifestation of the same thing. For what difference is there, truly, between an empire as rich and powerful as ours murdering people by remote control to secure yet more power and loot, and a billionaire still ruthlessly pursuing more millions?

There have been many ages, admittedly most of them, where life for the average person was extraordinarily unpleasant but we have perhaps created one today that is uniquely devoid of even the normal pleasures. Throughout history, no matter how terrible living conditions or leadership were, close family and community was pretty much a given, with all the support structure that entails.

People can withstand a lot if they have a sympathetic ear, someone who will listen to their gripes and miseries, and if they have a part in a social unit that makes them feel significant. Many people -- particularly these loners who go on shooting sprees -- only have their jobs, where it is made abundantly clear that they and their work have no real value, and that they could be replaced at any time. While working the fields in the past was no picnic, there was at least a real sense that the work was necessary and every hand actually needed. Modern society truly fosters a sense that you, as the individual, are utterly superfluous and nobody really wants you or your work. You’re tolerated at best, a kind of parasite (a word the hardcore right loves to invoke).

The increase in mental illness and medication is in large part because life in America is extraordinarily unpleasant.  You live in a militarized surveillance society with no guaranteed health care and with a job market that doesn’t provide enough jobs for those who need it, allowing bosses to treat those who do have jobs like scum, and executives to take virtually all productivity gains for themselves. The economic model is to pile debt on consumers to create rental streams, but constant debt obligations put people under major psychological pressure all the time.

Many people are mentally ill because of our society, but even more people are medicated who are not really mentally ill. People have to be medicated to function because US society requires unpleasant and unnatural behavior virtually all the time. School and work both require people to act in ways that normal, healthy, unmedicated individuals find hard to sustain.

Add to that the fact that social ties have over the last 60 years absolutely collapsed, leaving most people with almost no friend or close family, and it becomes clear that people need to drug themselves to get through their day. They are sick, scared, and lonely. And at the very edges of this, a person occasionally cracks, goes mad and kills a lot of people.

People in many Third World countries have to deal with psychopaths all the time -- they have to deal with the US military psychopaths who are doing the work of US power elites in these countries right now.

The myth of “the American dream”

Our government has been taken over by the oligarchs; which has resulted in a movement away from a caring, compassionate government to one of mean spiritedness and to a winner take all mentality. So we’re left with a wasteland in which we have to make our way by hook or crook; every person for themselves.

The last vestiges of kindness, the last remnants of compassion are the outpouring of senseless emotions for people we don’t know. There is not much else left for US citizens than a false sense of empathy and grief for acts so horrible that we don’t know what else to do.

"NO ONE needs an assault weapon in a civilized society." True. But have you noticed, our society is not civilized, it is brutal domination and exploitation, worship of power, killing and wealth, at any cost -- forget empathy and go for the kill, that’s more our game.

I came to realize that, in essence, this is the way we in America want things to be. We want our freedom, and we want our firearms, and if we have to endure the occasional school shooting, so be it.

While Lanza may have been surrounded by material trappings, things that the vast majority of people on the planet will never see, his action has proven again, that there is a profound emptiness in just having things and nothing else.

This is a country that holds a quarter of the world's prison population, yet represents only six percent of the world's population -- manifestation of a system that teaches us to value punishment and revenge over keeping our common society in good repair.

The American Dream: Two cars for every family, a gun under every Christmas tree, and a gun in every classroom.

Electronic media culpability

Many computer games are based on exterminating enemies. Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza is said to have played video games like "Call of Duty" and "Starcraft." Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, created gaming levels of the video game Doom.

Number of murders seen on TV by the time an average child finishes elementary school: 8,000. Number of violent acts seen on TV by age 18: 200,000 This is indicative of a national pathology: a cult of unabashed, shameless and unmitigated violence!

I keep seeing little pieces of Hollywood choreography with sexy babes, sinister black or shiny chrome weapons, spattering blood, severed limbs, exploding heads... all to an amped up beat, making it look like rockin' good thrill. Even art has been perverted to serve the violent masters. The gun nuts have these romantic images of themselves in a teenage revenge fantasy, killing bad guys, saving the day, getting the hot babe and the respect and admiration that they crave.

The John and Jane Doe's living all across the country go to work making 70 percent of the world's violent weapons that are designed to kill people, then vote for politicians who only solve their problems with violence, then sit down and watch violent movies, while their children play violent video games and watch violent TV shows. And then they wonder why violence happens in the nearby town.

Too bad it takes intelligence rather than a gun to figure out that gun culture is a product of the American PR machine. Nothing better than fear about lack of masculinity to get folks running. Tobacco's Marlboro Man with the big dick is dead but his clones just keep popping up... we are so easily mislead.

This is a world where masculinity is equated with militarism and lack of caring. It is a world where the conservatives and the rest of the men who treat guns like Linus does his blanket will soon be on the media telling you that guns are not the problem. And no media pundit will ever talk about the way we construct masculinity in this insane fascistic, military worshipping country. And of course our movies and TV shows will continue to be full of gun shooting, chasing and killing, and they all will be aimed at the 15 to 30 year old male, the very demographic that tends to be the shooters.

Our society is one of violence and corruption. The violence was not started by Wayne LaPierre or the NRA and melting all guns will not happen until there is no reason to fight anyone anymore. What if we start by putting a stop to violence in video games, movies and television? Maybe if we stop pouring stories about violence into our children's head we could come closer to a peaceful society.

Unmentioned but perhaps significant is the role played by our entertainment (which is ubiquitous in modern America). Discussing movies, TV-shows, and video games is pretty much all we do socially anymore and much of that entertainment probably contributes to a feelings of low self-esteem. We are inundated with shows full of rich and beautiful people in exciting relationships with other rich and beautiful people living intensely meaningful lives with real accomplishments. Whether it’s about killing the bad guy and getting the pretty girl (most times a wealthy handsome heir), or becoming famous and admired in some other way, our entertainment is constantly showing us examples of life to which our own miserable existences cannot measure up.

Men watch movies full of tough guys who gun down their enemies in a hail of bullets, while in real life most men routinely are humiliated by bosses, embarrassed by wives, kids, and whoever else, never feeling remotely close to the ideal of manhood they’re shown. Likewise women are fed fairy tales where good girls are always supposed to net the perfect husband, have nice children, and live in beautiful homes by the final reel.

Plus there’s all these reality shows that are just open celebrations of beauty and wealth, essentially carrying the message that if you’re attractive and/or rich you can do whatever you want and treat anyone however you wish -- and still be a role model. The unstated subtext is that if you’re poor or physically unattractive you really are beneath consideration and completely without value in modern America. It doesn’t matter if you are ethical, smart, virtuous, kind, a hard worker, whatever. If you’re not rich and/or beautiful, you’re a waste.

How can people stay sane in the inhumane depressing belittling world they currently inhabit, while simultaneously having every day hours of this wealth and power fantasy crap shoveled into their heads?

Update:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/ultimate-logic-society-built-mass-murder

The shooting goes on unabated in the US where two firefighters and two police officers were shot dead on Christmas Eve. Not a big deal it seems as US media hardly mention the incidents.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20838925

Do you need a friend?

What have you been before you were conceived, procreated, fathered? What will you be after you have finally died?

If you believe in reincarnation, you have lived another life and you were another person or another animal before starting the life that you are experiencing right now and after you have died you will begin the next life as another person or another animal. Maybe you will become a cat in your next life.

If you believe in Judeo-Christian mythology, you were nothing before your procreation and you will be either a sinner in hell or an angel in heaven after you die. If you are a Muslim and a man you will also enjoy 72 houris (eternal virgins). This seems to be an incredibly good deal and as a man one has to seriously consider a conversion to Islam.

If you are a skeptical, critical, down to earth person, you will not spent much time with metaphysical considerations and you will not believe in religious myths, superstitions, voodoo/black magic/witchcraft, ideologies of various colors and complexions, advertisement claims, stock market forecasts and economic forecasts in general, mainstream media news reports, commentaries, analysis, and political promises.

Maybe you will speculate and contemplate about the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If you are a skeptical, critical, down to earth person, you will see all these stories about reincarnation or an afterlife as nothing else than a clever trick that the religion founders, their disciples, and all the clergy after them used to lure people into their camp.

You will just for good measure and in lack of a better and more convincing hypothesis assume, that before your procreation you were nothing and after your death you will be nothing. To be nothing is for sure more comfortable than eternally burning in hell and probably less boring than infinitely floating around in heaven.

To be nothing is also far less risky than being reincarnated. Especially with the escalating holocene mass extinction you could be in deep trouble in your next life if you are born as an endangered species. 

For a man the 72 virgins of Islamic afterlife could be tempting indeed but this is so obviously an advertising ploy that no intelligent person will fall for it.

If our life is just this short time between the endless nothingness before and after, if our life is just this little bright spark in the darkness of eternity, every moment of it is precious and we should not waste even one minute with idleness or unfocused, irrelevant, foolish activities.

What one in the end makes with this short and precious life is of course depending on the individual value system, but to enjoy life and to help making life enjoyable for fellow humans and fellow animals seems to be an attractive and sensible proposition.

There are radical different value systems which incline people to be a pain and a horror for their fellow humans and to torture and kill as many fellow animals as possible but this way of conducting ones life has to be discussed somewhere else (on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook for example).

To spend our precious time with the family and close friends is an intrinsic practical application of the mentioned proposition and the Christmas holidays are an opportunity to come together and enjoy each others company. Christmas is a curious mix of pagan rituals (Saturnalia, Yule), the nativity myth, and consumerism, yet it brightens the darkest days of the year and if one is able to disconnect from consumer culture it will be nice and cosy. 

Christmas though could be a hard time for people who live alone and don't have close friends. Lonely people cannot celebrate Christmas in the way it is suggested by Christmas carols, Christmas stories, and Christmas advertising. They cannot spend the Christmas Eve joyful and peaceful with family and friends. How should they, when there is no family and when there are no friends?

Lonely people can go to their local pub or some other place where they usually hang out and meet the regulars there. Most of the other visitors will be lonely as well, most of the visitors will be also without a family or close friends.

They will stand or sit together, they will drink and smoke and talk rubbish. It is kind of a family, though a dysfunctional one. Maybe it should be rather called a brotherhood -- the brotherhood of the lonely hearts. These men are an allegorical brotherhood who is converging in an allegorical "Lonely Hearts Club,” sometimes listening to an allegorical "Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

It is a brotherhood, no woman ever shows up.

There are lonely women too, but they stay at home. The lonely woman looks TV, listens to her favorite love songs, reads a book, or writes her most heartfelt and most emotional thoughts into a diary which in all likelihood nobody except her ever will see. If she is computer literate the lonely woman alternatively hangs out on a social networking site or publishes her deep and sincere introspections and reflections as a blog post.

Men go out and drink, women stay home, so they never meet each other.

Why should the lonely woman go out to a pub where a few dozen unhappy and to various degrees intoxicated men are standing or sitting around, looking at any females with a strange mixture of craving, anxiousness, insolence, and contempt?

It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the "Lonely Hearts Club" crowd includes also nice and decent guys, but a significant number of the club members will be loners, losers, sexists, misogynists, and otherwise troubled personalities. The troubled or outright deranged characters will set the tone, and visiting a place where such people convene is useless and risky, is a recipe for trouble.

Suicide rates don't go up during Christmas, they actually decline, at least according to statistics. Why should suicides increase? Being alone is hard at any time of the year, not only at Christmas. The lonely and terribly sad guys will make it a few more month, as the hopelessness and pointlessness of their existence slowly sinks in. The terribly sad guys will spare their suicide till spring.

The lonely and terribly sad guys would not have to suffer, they would not have to indulge in their melancholy and they would not have to feel unloved, unwanted, useless. They would not have to let their pain accumulate up to the point where they simply cannot take it any longer.

They would not even need to be alone at Christmas!

Most of the sad and lonely souls have of course not chosen to be alone. They would like to have a family and close friends. They would like to have someone who loves them and cares for them.

They don't have a mate because they are either not attractive, poor, dumb, or have unrealistic expectations about a prospective partner. Many of the lonely guys or gals don't see themselves as ugly or dumb, and they reject persons as inadequate who in fact would be a good match and would perfectly fit to them.

The ones who are aware of their unattractiveness and rightfully consider themselves as misfits will rather hide in their caves than look out for equally unattractive misfits.

In any case, we live in a superficial and shallow world and having a good looking partner is a status symbol. Many prefer to have no partner because they don’t want to share their life with an ugly one that would maybe deflate their social status.

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, how true, but in todays society beauty is standardized (and commoditized) like everything else. If your face is not symmetric, if your nose is too big, your eyebrows are too bushy, if you got wrinkles and your skin is not fair and spotless, you are simply out of luck.

If you are born ugly, poor, and daft, you will have a hard time. If you are only ugly and daft, you can at least try cosmetic surgery. If you are ugly and intelligent, you will acquire skills that will make you attractive over time. You will research and learn, acquire wisdom, discover the secrets of life, and develop your personality. Over the years you will increase your charisma and your face will more and more reflect your sincere and genuine nature. You will become respected and admired.

But this is a long and winding road to go and there are only a few hours till Christmas Eve! How can the lonely souls make it through the upcoming holidays without being depressed, discouraged, dispirited, saddened, damaged, crushed?

Well, it is very unlikely that you will be able to find the love of your life in the few hours till Christmas. But you can find someone who needs you and depends on you and maybe will even trust you and like you. You can find a kind, sensitive, and generous friend, you can find an unpretentious, honest, and gentle companion.

Most important of all, you can rescue a lonely soul who is desperate like you and who faces an uncertain future or even death. Think about it, this could become one of the most gracious and benevolent deeds you ever will be able to do. This could become a turning point, a pivotal moment, a capstone of your life, and it is not that difficult to achieve.

You just have to go to an animal shelter and adopt a cat!

Adopt a cat, save a cat, marry a cat.

The animal asylums are overcrowded and many cats have to be euthanized because nobody wants them. You can save the life of an innocent creature who like you is lonely and forsaken and desperately wants to have a home, a warm place, somebody to cuddle with.

Please!

Please, go there and look, you will see old and young and pretty and ugly cats. Don't take the beautiful, take the ugly one, this is the cat that will not easily find a host. This is the cat that most likely will adore you and will be grateful and love you with every piece of her/his little heart. This is the cat who will wait for you when you come home and be joyous and meow as loud as she or he can.

This is the cat who will sit on your lap softly purring and who will put her/his little head in your hand and who will sigh and stretch and relax and who will be happy just for being able to be near you.

Take your cat mate home and show her or him your place. Maybe you need to buy a litter box and some toys or a scratching post. If you are in a quiet area without much traffic you can let the cat out, but not until she or he got accustomed to the house. If you need to keep your cat friend indoors you have to play with and comfort the cat. A minimum of one hour a day will be required to keep your feline companion entertained and happy.

Not everything will work out smoothly right away. Don't be discouraged when the cat pees on your precious persian carpet or throws down an expensive vase, don’t shout angrily, when your friend scratches you unintentionally, never punish your cat.

You may be a bit upset, when the cat shreds the curtains as she/he is trying to catch the big fat fly on the window pane. You may by even more upset, when your little friend sips from your tee after it just has gorged on the big fat fly that it finally caught. You have to face it, the standards of hygiene, cleanliness, and tidiness in your home from now on are set by the cat. Cat households are not antiseptic, and that could be even a good thing, because minor infections that you may not even realize will help your immune system to develop antibodies and be prepared for more serious infections.

Whatever happens, don’t forget, this cat is a living creature, a sentient being like you. This cat will be your friend and companion, it will advise and correct and teach you, it will soon become more precious and important than any of your material possessions.

This Christmas you will not be alone, you will be petting, caressing, fondling your little friend. You will be feeding your cat and you will be playing with your cat and talking with your cat. You will maybe sit on the computer with the cat beside you, looking up all cat-help sites and gathering infos about how to keep a cat pleased and healthy.

Don't forget, this is a longtime (lifelong) commitment! You cannot divorce your cat, you simply cannot do that! From now on you have to share your life with your little friend, no matter what happens. Don't worry, the cat will give you back all the love and it will give it back twice. If you are a caring person and you have love to give, everything will work out.

If you don't want to commit yourself, if you don’t want to take the responsibility and adopt a cat, you maybe can find solace listening to one of the most ingenious songs in pop history, Gilbert O'Sullivan's composition ALONE AGAIN.

When a little while from now,
If I’m not feeling any less sour,
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower.

When climbing to the top
Will throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who
Ever what it’s like when you’re shattered,
Left standing in the lurch
By a church with people saying
“My God, that’s tough, she’s stood him up.
No point in us remaining,
We may as well go home.”
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally.

To think that only yesterday,
I was cheerful, bright and gay,
Looking forward to, well who wouldn’t do
The role I was about to play;

But as if to knock me down,
Reality came around
And without so much, as a mere touch
Cut me into little pieces,
Leaving me to doubt,
Talk about God in his mercy,
Who, if He really does exist
Why did he desert me?
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally.

It seems to me that there are more hearts
Broken in the world that can’t be mended,
Left unattended;
What do we do?
What do we do?

{Break}

Now looking back over the years,
And whatever else that appears;
I remember I cried, when my father died,
Never wishing to hide the tears;

At sixty-five years old,
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken;
Leaving her to start
With a heart so badly broken,
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken.
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day;
Alone again, naturally

Alone again, naturally

My dear friends on the other side

My dear friends on the other side of the ocean!

I feel with you and moan with you about the 20 dead children in Sandy Hook Elementary school. This is a terrible tragedy!

I have to admit I’m a bit numbed by the constant reports about killed children. I’m running out of tears.

Three days ago a car packed with explosives blew up near a school in a residential part of Qatana, Syria. 16 people were killed, including seven children and three women, nearly two dozen people were wounded.

34 Palestinian children died in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.

I’m a bit numbed and mentally exhausted but I’m still able to connect the dots.

There are a lot of guns and explosives around, these tools of destruction don’t come from nowhere! Who produces and distributes the guns and who funds the violent psychopaths who use them?

I live in the country where one of the most popular pistols is made. http://www.glock.com/

I’m not proud about it, I hate the idea that I share the same nationality with Gaston Glock. I’m not proud that in a tiny segment of the market Glock outperformed Smith & Wesson.

My dear friends on the other side of the ocean, don’t worry about being outperformed, apart from the tiny company Glock, well established US corporations dominate arms manufacturing and arms trade. The USA is undoubtedly the biggest muscle and the unchallenged master of weapons manufacturing and it leads the competition by a wide margin.

In 2011, the USA exported weapons worth 66.3 billion US$, which is 78 percent of the global arms market.

Manufacturing military equipment is the most profitable business and the weapons industry is the politically best connected lobbying group. In the USA this special interest group is called “the Military Industrial Complex.”

A significant part of the weapons companies output is meant for the domestic market. The USA has the biggest military budget (711 billion US$, which is 41 percent of global military expenditures) and the Pentagon is with a workforce of 3.2 million the biggest global employer. The USA maintains between 600 and 800 military basis abroad.

The USA has 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers and 71 nuclear powered submarines (more than all other navies together). The USAF and the Navy operate 5,000 aircraft, 2,200 cruise missiles, 700 drones, 500 LGM-30G Minuteman missiles with nuclear warheads plus 288 Trident-2 D5 missiles (on submarines) with nuclear warheads.

How could it be different? Weapons, especially guns and shooting, are a part of US American identity and US citizens have the constitutional right to keep and bear arms (Second Amendment). In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court clarified that this right is unconnected to the service in a militia and indeed constitutes an individual's right to possess a firearm.

My dear friends across the ocean, the cherished individual freedoms that are part of US identity come at a price.

The freedom from accountability for environmental damages comes at a price.

The freedom to acquire as much wealth as possible comes at a price.

The freedom from environmental, financial, social regulations and restrictions comes at a price.

The freedom to possess weapons comes at a price.

The USA has the highest gun ownership rate in the world (an average of 88 firearms per 100 people), US Americans possess between 240 and 260 million guns, that are roughly 40 percent of all globally civilian-owned guns.

As I wrote before, manufacturing military equipment is the most profitable business and the weapons industry is the politically best connected lobbying group. The freedom to make any kind of products which can be sold profitably comes at a price.

The freedom to produce and distribute arms comes at a price, but the price is not paid evenly!

The guns, which are constantly made in big numbers are put to use in the strategic moves of the worlds big players, who are trying to destabilize countries and who are fanning the flames of war by pouring out their cornucopia of weapons onto even the meanest and heinous thugs, thereby causing indescribable pain and suffering all around the world (Syria, Congo, Somalia, Afghanistan, to name just a few of the most recent imperial projects).

The occasional shooting sprees by deranged individuals in the USA are only faint reflections (one could also call it “straying beams”) of the shooting sprees that gunmen all over the world commit with US produced and US delivered weapons and there are for sure at least 20 children dying every day in the worlds conflict zones outside the USA.

Newtown (Sandy Hook Elementary) is not Aleppo, Blacksburg (Virginia Tech) is not Homs -- far from! This is not even collateral damage, this is a negligible side effect of an enormous profitable business from which all US citizens (more or less) benefit. Weapons manufacturing is the one industrial branch where the USA is second to none and can outperform any competition. Without weapons manufacturing the USA would have gone bust long time ago.

I moan about the 20 dead children in Sandy Hook Elementary school as I moan about all the other slain children of the world. This is a terrible worldwide tragedy!

Peace.

Bad news, dark days, hard times

No, I didn’t forget to take my daily Fluoxetine pill (Prozac, Sarafem, Fontex), I never depended on this or other medical drugs.

But sympathy and sorry feelings for Hugo Chávez, who’s cancer has returned, darkens my mood. Sympathy and sorry feelings for the 23 million Syrians who face an uncertain future darkens my mood even more.

I apologize for the gloomy and discouraging title, but during last week a string of bad news about Syria came in. I don’t mean the mass media propaganda lies about chemical weapons stockpiles or scud missiles, I refer to the disheartening messages written between the lines of alternative news sources.

The kidnappers of Russian/Ukrainian journalist Anhar Kochneva (more about this case in Get the word out, if you can) have threatened to execute her if their demand of a 50 million US$ ransom payment is not met. This demand was never meant seriously because Kochneva’s mother is of course not able to pay this sum and no government will pay such a high ransom to terrorists.

The execution was set for yesterday, until now nobody knows, if the savages are serious. The kidnappers are part of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and they also threatened to target the Russian, Ukrainian, and Iranian embassies in Syria and in general all Russians, Ukrainians, and Iranians on Syrian soil.

There are reports about a statement by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, that Moscow will evacuate the Russians in Syria -- this is not yet confirmed though.

The journalists of Kreml.TV and Vesti.ru have already gone back to Russia, Marat Musin and his cameraman Dmitry Yershovt from ANNA-News are the only Russian journalists left to report from the Syrian front lines.

There are of course quite a few FSA embedded Western journalists who gladly fill the void to tell the story from the terrorists point of view.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Dec-09/197807-syria-rebels-seize-chunk-of-aleppo-base-activists.ashx#axzz2EanQqdYZ

Will Russia jump ship?

"We have never changed our position (on Syria) and we never will," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said, after Deputy Foreign Minister Bogdanov earlier this week remarked that the Syrian regime "is losing more and more control" and that it could be imaginable that President Bashar al-Assad loses the war with the rebels.

It is not clear if Bogdanov -- who is also the Kremlin's special envoy for the Middle East -- was aware that his remarks were on the record and would be reported by Russia's news agencies.

Vladimir Putin once boasted that he is ready to defend Syria "on the very streets of Moscow.” But his visit to Turkey at the start of December and the signing of 11 bilateral cooperation agreements made clear that Russia is not willing to jeopardize the 40 billion US$ trade with Turkey despite Ankara’s military support for the FSA, which amounts to an open undeclared war in bridge of international law.

Putin doesn’t have to defend Syria on the very streets of Moscow, but he should defend it on the streets of Aleppo, Homs, and Idlib. If the Russians indeed forsake Syria they will pay dearly for their cowardice and timidity and Putin one day will have to defend Russia itself on the very streets of Moscow.

If Syria falls, Iran is next, together with the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Islamists and their CIA handlers will lose no time to destabilizing Russia’s southern neighbors Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and its southern republics Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and Kabardino-Balkaria.

But who knows, maybe this backtracking is only a clever trick, a duplicity to fool the Western strategists. Maybe columns after columns of Russian armored vehicles are already on the way to reach Syria soon via Iran and Iraq.

One shouldn’t hold one’s breath though.

US-NATO Sponsored Humanitarian Disaster

When Prof. Michel Chossudovsky writes about a “US-NATO Sponsored Humanitarian Disaster”, he means the possible use of chemical weapons by the FSA terrorists. This is for sure a possibility, but the humanitarian disaster is happening right now, because the FSA systematically destroys important infrastructure installations and food stockpiles.

It seems that there is indeed an inexhaustible supply of young radicalized Arab men and more Islamic fighters are flooding in from all over the Middle East. They are trained by US military contractors in Turkey, Jordan, the UAE, Kuwait, Kosovo, and probably several other places that are not known yet. Since the start of December about 10,000 new jihadis have crossed from Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon into Syria.

These fighters are now everywhere and though many of them don’t survive their first few encounters with the Syrian army the FSA can easily replenish the losses with the steady stream of new canon fodder.

Logistics are not so much a problem because the fighters operate in small groups and rob what they need from warehouses, repositories, and ordinary citizens.

Diesel, cooking gas, and petroleum have disappeared. If fuel can be found, its price has reached insane levels on the black market

Hundreds of flour containers were stolen during clashes in the countrysides of Aleppo and Idlib in the last months. In al-Bab the FSA stole large quantities of wheat from the city’s silos and sold it to Turkey. As a consequence hundreds line up now outside bakeries from the early morning hours on to get their daily bread.

The situation in Aleppo becomes increasingly unbearable for most residents. There is a huge shortage of essential goods and even bread is often outsold and no more available. The FSA steals, robs, or destroys any accessible inventories of heating oil, bread, and other essential goods.

Many factories have been ransacked and burned down, or the workers are too terrified to go there.

This week Aleppo spent two nights without electricity because the FSA bombed the main power line from the al-Safira energy plant (Syria’s biggest power plant) to the city. Before that the terrorists had already destroyed a natural gas pipeline to the plant. The utility company reported that until now 17 workers and engineers from the company have been killed by the FSA during maintenance and repair operations on the power grid and on transfer stations.

Already in September FSA fighters destroyed a major water pipeline, leaving hundred thousands of Aleppo’s inhabitants for days without drinking water.

There have been reports about the emergence of plague in parts of Homs.

Can Syria be saved?

I’m in no position to give anybody any advice but here a few ideas:

There is undoubtedly corruption and cronyism in Syria. Even alternative and unbiased sources acknowledge that. The corruption may be not as bad as in the USA (where it is called “lobbying”), but it should be stopped. When you face the devil, you need to have a pure heart!

President Bashar al-Assad doesn’t seem to be corrupt, he actually appears to be a decent guy (though I never would claim that I’m sure about this characterization because I don’t know him personally). Bashar al-Assad may be okay but some of his family members are said to be corrupt and there could be legitimate grievances against the Assad clan.

What if President Assad calls the bluff of the anti-Syria coalition and steps down?

What if he transfers power to a military council like it was done in Egypt when Mubarak stepped down? The Syrian army is probably still the most stable and respected institution in Syria.

What if he invites the US appointed Syrian National Coalition to join a new body which includes all involved parties to prepare new UN supervised general elections and constitutional referendums.

What if Russia and China in a concerted diplomatic effort push for the deployment of a massive UN peacekeeping force to Syria?

All this will not come to pass because the FSA terrorists never will accept a democratic solution, they despise even the Syrian National Coalition.

The FSA will create their caliphate in one part of Syria, The sane people will gather in another part. There will be massive sectarian and ethnic cleansing, unimaginable hardship, there will be massacres, even genocide. If the sane Syrians hold on to their part of the country, they will be one day again live in a united Syria because the caliphate of the religious psychopaths will crumble, implode, go up in flames sooner or later.

Following are excerpts from an article by Finian Cunningham for Press TV

The chemical weapons trick seems to have fizzled like a damp squib. So, now it’s time for another illusion – the “worthy Syrian opposition”.

This motley crew of treasonous exiles -- who mysteriously some how have bags of money to trot all over the globe from Doha to Cairo, Tokyo to Marrakech -- are all of sudden anointed by the American President as the next government of Syria.

The latest Obama stunt follows the dress rehearsals in previous weeks by Britain, France, Turkey and the Persian Gulf Arab dictators who had already appointed the SNC as the de facto government-in-waiting on behalf of the 23 million Syrians.

Anyone who has read the Doha Protocol that the SNC willingly signed up to while seduced in a luxury hotel last month by their Qatari sponsors should be under no misapprehension. This group of self-serving opportunists has been cobbled together with the sole purpose of selling Syria’s sovereignty to the highest, or even lowest, bidder. The people of Syria have been spared no treachery low enough in the imperialists’ manifesto of regime change, including surrender of wealth, natural resources and all of Syria’s independent foreign policy principles.

With the panache of a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, Obama declares: “We’ve made a decision that the Syrian Opposition Coalition is now inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough of the Syrian population, that we consider them the legitimate representative of the Syrian people in opposition to the Assad regime.”

The White House tried to give this “recognition” wheeze some credibility by demarcating an illusory line between “legitimate” and “renegade” Syrian opposition, and by proscribing certain militant groups within Syria as “terrorists”. The Jabhat Al Nusra front, which is said to be linked to Al Qaeda, is henceforth ostracized, at least officially, by Washington.

Of course, Washington had to crank out some rhetorical fog to cover up the glaring contradiction between its decade-long “war on terror” mantra and the fact that Islamic extremists are central to the Western-backed campaign of subversion in Syria. 

But this chicanery is fooling no-one who has been accurately following the state terrorist war of aggression in Syria over the past 22 months. No-one, that is, except those perhaps who have been brainwashed by the Western mainstream media echo chambers, which call this campaign of terror afflicting Syria a “pro-democracy uprising”. 

Obama’s cynical charade of isolating extremists from supposed worthy opposition belies the fact that Syrian society is being assailed by a gargantuan criminal conspiracy authored, fomented and fueled by Western governments and their regional proxies. The so-called Syrian rebels are terrorist foot-soldiers of foreign masters. 

Think about it. What group claiming to liberate Syria would murder their own compatriots -- men, women and children -- with such fiendish, unrelenting barbarity? 

For Obama to try to make out that the opposition has now been cleansed from extremists - on the basis of his say-so -- is transparent nonsense. 

Are we expected to believe that the litany of atrocities perpetrated against the Syrian people are all down to “rogue Jihadis”? 

Let’s review just some of the low-lights of the putative Syrian liberators: 

1. Massacres of whole villages. Just as Obama was sanitizing the opposition, news was coming in of yet another massacre this week in the village of Aqrab. Reports put the number of killed at over 125. Typically, the Western media lie machine was vague in ascribing blame, but past record shows that such atrocities are stock-in-trade of the anti-government foreign militants. On May 25, the village of Houla, also in Hama Province, was massacred, including 49 children. After initial media misinformation, it turned out that the mass murders were carried out by the Western and Arab-backed mercenaries.

2. No-warning car bombs across Syria in urban areas of Damascus, Aleppo, Idlib, Daraa, Homs. The newly American-sanctioned Al Nusra front is said to be based in Aleppo. Are we to believe its operatives can whisk around the entire country of Syria carrying out suicide bombings? Again, as Obama was pronouncing the validity of Syrian opposition, the suburb of Jaramana outside Damascus was attacked with no-warning bombs, killing two and injuring several more. Last month, the mainly Christian and Druze community of Jaramana was targeted for the fourth time in as many months with multiple explosions that claimed over 34 lives.

3. Video evidence emerges this week showing Saudi mercenaries recruiting a child to behead what appears to be a captured Syrian soldier as he lay on the street, his neck propped on a concrete block and his hands tied behind his back.

4. Other footage shows foreign militants taking unarmed men out on to a street and executing them one-by-one. In other horrific scenes, Syrian soldiers lying on the ground are seen begging for mercy as gun-toting captors spray them with bullets.

5. Victims of cold-blooded executions are thrown off multi-story buildings onto the pavement below, their mangled corpses lined up in the gutter for gruesome public display.

6. Mosques and churches are desecrated by being turned into sniper posts of the Western-backed mercenaries, from where they shoot randomly at civilians in the streets.

7. Family members are kidnapped for ransom only to find that their loved ones have been slain in the most heinous way.

8. Mortar shells are fired deliberately at civilian apartment blocks by mercenaries who then film the aftermath fabricating that the crimes were committed by the Syrian Army, fabrications which the Western mainstream media peddle in line with their governments’ propaganda.

9. Journalists who are trying to give an accurate account of all of the above and more are targeted and assassinated, including Press TV’s Maya Naser and at least 15 other Syrian media workers.

10. In yet another crime against humanity, it is revealed this week that Saudi Arabia has forced inmates from its seething jails to go and wage “holy war” on the Syrian people.