This work is intended as fiction and is to bear no resemblance to reality.

There was nothing left. Nothing of value. After the crash.

I told them I used to live there and they asked me how. I didn’t know. I lied. I said the government provided for me. It provided for everybody. That what it was there for. Before. Before the crash.

They taxed the rich and that was enough, I explained. Enough for me to live here that is. The middle of the city. People close enough to provide for each other. All within walking distance. Able to provide the services needed to have some honor. Honor had become important again. And was distributed via the computing power the remaining technology had provided. The programs only worked with an equal playing field and we got it. Our history erased, our memories lost, our culture destroyed.

It had become a meritocracy. Not a democratic society, not a sudden apocalypse, no more violence, none of it. Life was too short and we’re all that’s left. “Is that why you take care of us?”, they asked. I shook my head, shoulders and body. It was a strange response to combine it all. I said nothing. I should have said, “Who says you’re not taking care of me?”. But I didn’t. And it never happened. A lost chance. One among many.

Though, perhaps, not that many.

I always thought the end of times, if it were to happen, would be an egalitarian society. Something we’d accomplished. We’d distributed everything fairly. But fair had become a different things. Sure, after the riots (and they were smal in scale compared to the significance of the event) there was no more violence. None. That was surely a good thing. It wasn’t demanded. Not be force. Perhaps by fear. Or worse, apathy. People had stopped caring enough to be willing to kill. Life had become finite and too precious. I say precious because it had a price. It was easily calculable now. There are X people. We don’t know how many there were. We know there will be no more people. We know what we have. There’s no more virtual economy. There’s no more real economy.

First there were news reports about bombs and murders and disasters. It all seemed normal. Nothing suspicious about that. But it was the last news we had before it all really went bad. After the internet pretty much broke down, electricity soon followed. There was screw ups in the food supply and soon everybody who wasn’t growing their own plants was dead. It all happened so fast. The disasters piled up and nature wasn’t pretty after our fragile last fragment of ecomanagement crumbled. The floods. I’ll never forget the floods. The floated around. I picked them up. We’ve been together since. It was touch and go there for a while. Where did that phrase originate from? I never bothered to learn. Good thing perhaps. None of the planes can fly anymore. None that depend on fuel anyway. Or can’t handle a decent storm now and then. The humidity was inhuman. It was always humid now. I looked at the building and realized that if I’d live there now, it would never be as it once was. Besides, the person who lived there now deserved it. I deserve a lot, but this was a little too lucky to be honest. We walked away. Too many building have collapsed in the city. With the quakes and the rats, we may as well leave and had for the nearest town. It would be difficult, no doubt.

The remaining people had huddled together and every nucleus of Peoples that remained had gathered all material wealth. Entire trucks of non-contaminated earth was brought in with the remaining bio-fuel. We couldn’t get to the fossil anymore. It was all gone, outside of reach. Since then, we’ve not had a chance to exploit our surroundings. We’ve failed as a race. Well, as the human race. The little race that could. A rat race. They’re the only ones that could have survived us. But they didn’t. Our lab rats were released and a success. Artificial animals, though not born alive, were among us for a long time. But to survive and adapt in this climate, they soon become movable molds. Clinging to whatever wasn’t blown away by the winds. It wasn’t the smell that bothered me. It was the air. It became hard to breath when they were around. Whenever humans were around too, but never that bad. And it was always worth it. If things still have value. But they don’t. They can’t. We moved on. A village with some people remaining had decided that all were equally worthy. They had no outside contact, so they were entitled to do so. Provided they didn’t need providing. But that meant death. Perhaps they were right. A quick death. They couldn’t have lived over a month after we passed through. It was impossible to survive without help. We asked how long they thought they’d last. A couple of days, a week tops they responded. They were all so calm about it. Everybody was, I suppose. There’s nothing to panic about anymore. It ends with us.

Politics and work

I recently heard Plato’s idea reflected that politicians should have no stake in the decisions they make. That they ought to live in some proto-communist society. In most European countries bribing politicians is illegal, in north America it’s called lobbying. Here’s my innovation: Let’s all be politicians. No doubt, we’ll be at least just as flawed. But the main flaw is that power corrupts, therefor we should all be equally flawed. Being able to make decisions without fear of repercussion. Risk aversion is a real psychological phenomenon. We’re afraid or too busy to think about these things. Making a decision without any repercussion isn’t taking a risk at all, so how can this be possible? We can’t guarantee the survival of the human species without interfering (further) with our habitat. There’s only one planet, we can’t pretend our resources are infinite. So what’s the solution to this very basic problem? My premise is that it is shouldn’t be left to someone else. Somebody who will take the time to think, the risk, the energy to investigate, the blame, … for us. Because we ARE all involved, whether we like it or not. We ALL have something at stake here. So let’s be equals in being able to make a decision. This is not centralism, nor leadership in the sense that it implies followers. Rather it includes the willingness to follow ideas and therefor the leadership to challenge them where they are not yet perfected. And they will never be perfected. Which is why we all have to pitch in. It’s not enough to leave it up to the ‘leaders’. YOU are the leader, just as much as you’re the follower. We can’t elect leaders, because we’ll effectively elect ourselves out of ‘office’. Now, nobody wants to be in the office. Not even politicians, they’re humans too. Some dare say that’s what makes (some) politicians voteworthy. I say it makes them equal to use. And no less, nor more qualified than us. On a brighter note, one could easily claim this is already the case. Therefor there’s nothing to worry about. Those who CONSIDER themselves to be entities with something at stake – be it lifeform, human, westerner, politician, etc. – already have such a system. Bankers profit from the socialism for the rich and the retards who refuse to be engaged end up with what’s often called capitalism. Which, using the strict definition (as I do), implies that some people have the money and others have the labor. Both are equally interchangeable at the marketplace which as only rule has Demand versus Supply. In labor markets, this implies simple things like: The more people are willing to work, the less their labor is (per capita) worth. So get off your arses and stop working! There are things to be done! I’ll come down to earth for a minute and keep some facts in mind. The problem with government is governing. The same problem exists within any structure of decisionmaking. These can claim to be egalitarian. However, in a socialist party there’s often more hierarchy than in others. This is hard to explain. I’ll give it a shot. Everybody gets behind the ideology rather than behind the idea of having ideas. Of course, a party system isn’t the only way. Nevertheless, it’s the one we see most clearly in what’s called the (in my opinion, very narrowly defined) political arena. When we vote, we are part of that system. Only at this moment. When we are unable to vote or influence this sphere, we are by very definition not part of that network. However, most people are at work most of the time (not voting). Who will defend your rights there? So far, if you’re ‘lucky’, it’s the unions. These are filled with human flaws as well as organisational flaws. But one thing is often left out. You’re there more often. This seems to be obviously stated in the premise. However, we don’t consider ourselves to be voting for our job (and working conditions) by showing up. But this is what we implicitly do by not getting fired. Now, being without a job is no fun. But neither is a job. This is what I mean when I talk about wage slavery. Now, one could argue that paying people to do something is the only way to go about things. It’s true, that being productive could and perhaps should be rewarded. But what would be the value of that? Is it to simply make the system function? Sure, you’re functional. But only in the way that you’re perpetuating a system. You’re being payed to be obedient, not to think for yourself. That would imply that you’re paying yourself Being productive enough so you’ll have freedom to be [a creative creature]. Most jobs however consist mainly out of not questioning authority. Authority generally doesn´t stand for that. That´s what I`m talking about when I refer to anarchism. This is not the same as anarchy, which can be used to refer to chaos. This term is often used with the implication that some consistent theory exists which can state the full description of reality which we all know and abide by, thereby avoiding chaos. The world is transparant and already at an optimum. This is a view I´ve tend to adopt when concluding that thinking more about the issue would be of little use. In that it´ll be too hard, depressing or exhausting.

Psychoanalysis and therapeutic effects.

Departing from Freudian analysis, I shall mainly take a more bioneural approach to the brain. Not disregarding concepts of the mind, as stablished by C.G. Jung and partners; this will be my main focus.

Sigmeund Freud has to be placed in historical context. In a time when fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes were hailing the use of cocaine, it did not take long for Freud to look at it as a “wonderous medicine”. He, of course, explains his increased libido as a central enforced personal trait. In patients, he sees it makes them “more normal” and administers it if they feel depressed. After some research is done on this chemically refined use of coca leaves, he is devasted by the scientific consensus: It’s highly addictive and worse than a cup of coffee (which were the effects when chewed as done by native americans for millenia). He goes on to work with C. G. Jung, who places emphasis on the collective consciousness. We have evidence from 5000B.C. that mushrooms were used in Central and South America were reverence. The molecular biology of
and deserves attention at this point.

These subjects are controversial because they were outlawed (but recreational users and medicinal research) during times of racism. A class of people was seen as not being able to control themselves. ‘Crazed negro’ with a ‘bullet to the heart…in self-defense’ would not stop a cocaine pumped agent of that class. This would leave a scar on our social consciousness and psychological freedom restricted to an irrational degree. After alcohol and opium, cocaine was pronounced as the third scourge of mankind. Pemberton treated his morphine addiction with a cocaine drink to provide an alternative to an alcoholic beverage (outlawed during the latest dry era). However in 1970 through the controlled substances act, research on psychedelics and cannabis (still described as marihuana to link it with mexicans rather than the industrial crop hemp) is prohibited. However, psychedelics are by definition:
From Greek psykhe- “mind” (see psyche) + deloun “make visible, reveal,” from delos “visible, clear.” Psychedelia is from 1967. Earliest in 1956, of drugs, suggested by H. Osmond in a letter to Aldous Huxley and used by Osmond in a scientific paper published the next year.
Fitting into a larger criminal market for over 300 billion dollars and over 200 billion euros a year, it remains outcast to the darkest corners of society.
Unlike coffee, alcohol in most countries and tabacco; these products are doomed to make profits near the size of oil revenus of users and addicts, none of whom receive any honest help from their government of social milieu. Most is based on myth and tradition, being biased one way or the other, without relevant data or educational information explaining levels of dependency, mortality rate and so forth.
This is part of the grander setting in which the Self must seated. The set, the internal framework of those who would use a substance to alter their state of mind and thereby enhance the effects of psychoanalysis and/or therapy. The id, ego and superego would in a freudian framework be connected to the set. The ego would be unable to reconcile with the superego on the basis that reality is slanted and only Id could possibly arise from such an irrational disaster.
In other words, the experience becomes tainted. Tryptamines are associated with trips, which are in turn associated with the possibility of a bad trip. In the free associations game that goes on during synaptic free firing neurons, such a view of reality is skewed and causes baseless conceptions of the world to enter what is essentially, a very delicate moment. In other, more ancient, cultures, traditions and rituals would do the same by declaring these as sacred. To view perceptions as real, say gods or aliens; would be to miss the point. Psychotherapy and sjaminism deserve no greater place on the cast system of society than mechanics and mathmeticians.
A lot of energy must first be invested in fixing such a society, which must divide and structure so competitivly.
No one occupation, status, class or use of leisure time should define a person in its entirety. I say it, because it’s a conceptual structure. This abstract person extends to all categorical aspects of life (social, political, economical, territorial, structural). The biological perspective has a lot of evolutionary twists and turns, so for now I’ll leave this page as it is. All of this should be part of the educational system. We ought to learn the basics of food. Nutrition and toxins for the body and mind.

Journal of a law abiding citizen

In Confoederatio Helvetica, a utupic future (and not so distant past), might look like this.
Morning, get up. Wash with water.
Need soap and shampoo from pant H. It grows on the mountainside and requires no maintenance.
Just water. Which flows because of global warming from our precious glacier.
I like the smell, so I made deodorant (also made from H) also smell like it. I´m not a lavander person.

Time to eat something. Ate last of my personally slaughtered chicken yesterday. Time for something less meaty today. Let´s see. Tomorrow I might eat soy, but for now, something more digestable. I´ll just take some seeds from plant H from the near brook. It´s got energy (567 calories/100g), Protein (30.6/100g), Carbohydrate (10.9) Dietary fiber (6), Fat (47.2), Saturated fat (5.2), Oleic (18:1 Omega-9, 5.8), Polyunsaturated fat (36.2), Linoleic (18:2 Omega-6 27.6), Linolenic (18:3 Omega-3 8.7), Linolenic (18:3 Omega-6 0.8). And zero cholesterol. About 5grams will be water from the near brook, but I’m cool with that.
It’s got Vitamin A, Thiamine (Vit B1) , Riboflavin (Vit B2), Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Calcium and Iron. So that’ll be enough for breakfast. Save some of the seed oil for treatment of eczema.
Also no gluten in it, so I can share it later with people who have celiac disease.

It´s noon. I just worked in the barn, feeding the animals with plant H I brought back from the mountainside. What they don´t eat can be used as hay. I´m exhausted. Still have a long day. Better eat something made of plant C butter. Can´t swallow the painkillers because they have too many side-effects on my stomach.

Evening. Just looked to see if plant C was doing fine. I try to keep it seperate from plant H. Otherwise it all turns H. Far relatives of hop, which I don´t brew. I don´t need to have an industrial only variety to make of for this lacking thirst as they call it. I harldy use Fords T-model. Made it after his and diesels design myself. Same fuel source and all. Made from, mainly plant H and runs on it too.
Time to relax. I eat some more butterscones from C. I throw some of the outdoor variety on the campfire, it was growing too close to H and might start mixing. I take some more blankets to keep warm, also made from H, as are my clothes.

As I write this down on paper made from H, I take some plants C and vaporize it to fight the depressing and grim reality. This isn´t utopia, this is the real world.

My plant H is of course, Herbicide. Plant C, Change.

Update: I couldn´t stop nature from crosspollinating. The plant spreads like a weed. Growing in all climates and deserts. Withstanding the conditions of central asia. Even though it originated from the rainforest. Started growing the domisticated variety, tribes used it a couple of thousand years in this manner. The molecule with medicinal values reaches 8% which is sufficient.

Congo

Did you know that the Congo has one of the oldest mathematical artifacts in the World? It is believed to be one of the first calculators and a lunar calendar. It is dated 20,000 BC.

This concludes the nightly session of
The More You Know

Violence as legitimate means

I just saw the clip “Rise Against – Re-Education (Through Labor)” and it reminded me of Fight Club. But also of 24 and Xe.
The clip started with a quotation from John F. Kennedy:”Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Now, if all of us (wealthy worldcitizens, access to internet etc) were to adopt this principle; the world would be an ugly place.

Don’t get me wrong, I like JFK. But the (cold) war rethoric bothers me. If anarchists (meaning people who identify themselves with the anti-authoritarian tradition) were to use the ‘propaganda of the act’ as it were, we’d all be terrorists.

If ANYBODY, starts adressing their grievances (such as state terror on a massive scale) by mimicing the abhorrent behavior, we’re in for a very long and destructive circle (if not spiral, but I doubt cycle) of violence.

Imagine, the anarchist cookbook and the destructive nature of such literature being applied by all extremes of the political spectrum. From left wing commies, claiming all private property is theft, to right-wing contractors who feel the only way to keep order is to do it themselves.
That doesn’t include the people desecrating public property because they feel what one arm of government does, they should annihilate its legs.

The logic is destructive. Meanly because it’s war logic. If you look at this as a war, we’re all going to be fucked.
But as george carlin points on (on education -must see!-), the owners of this country won’t allow us to learn anything. So if we (the masses) can’t think (if that’s reserved for elites), we’ll have to act. Without rational thought I feel this could easily lead into harsh situations.

However, if one (leftist) would replace say, class warfare with class cooperation, he’d quickly have a fundamental change of position (even it’s its only implemented after nationalising the collectives’ wealth); we’d end up with fascism.

Which is a difficult position to maintain. Of course, if you WANT power and you want to achieve your OWN political agenda: Fascism is the way to go.

It is the only thing that does not tolerate anarchy. It doesn’t even tolerate the mob. CIA had to rebuild that with the french connection (drug money, prohibition excluded liquids again). There was order in the streets. The manifesto had been somewhat realised. People listened, and the ones that didn’t were dealt with.

If I lived in the world wars, I hope I’d have been a pacifist. Maybe I’d had joined the resistance, because there was so much suffering around me and no wealth.

But right now, even if I were to -for the sake of argument- think of the current world regime/empire is more totalitarian than it could have been over 50 years ago, I’d still use non-violent means to address the issue.
Like say, words, ideas, concepts, etc.

There was a massive movement, even followed by the Czar (because his poor weaponry) leading up to the Great War. In the Second World War, it becomes hard to repeat Dwight on the american version of The Office and say that “it was a war we never should have gotten involved with”.
Even Einstein and Chomsky thought fighting it was right, and I kinda look upto these guys. But winning a war never determines who’s right, only who’s left.
In this case, the guys with the nukes won. Thank you a lot, Einstein!
And then there’s an MIT (pentagon budget) professor who teaches linguistics who can’t decide on paying taxes or not (or any other act of civil disobedience) because it might lead to fascism.

Of course, I don’t live in a country with the same budget lay-out (military is lik 15% here and most of it goes to social security and health, my region gives most its money away on education and health), so I pay my taxes (well I don’t because I’m a student and I hardly work, when I do the tariff is low and I give most of it away on causes so I get a refund). So even non-violent oppossition isn’t really an option for me either, either by voicing my opinion (because it’s easier to encounter people who might actually recognize me then in such a small country as mine) or by not paying taxes (even though 147 dossiers of 100000 known fraudulents cases are handed over to the justice department of further selection).

As for violence as legitimate means…To what? For what? What’s the end? In my world view it’s peace and non-violence. It’s dialogue, reason, and above all freedom and justice. The first two being the means. The latter two the goals, incompatible with legitimating violence.

For the ends are the means, and anarchism ought to be about deconstructing institutions of power (when classified as illegitimate), not about repeating mistakes of the past.

Make new ones. Do anything, try anthing. Just try not to infringe on other people’s right to do the same. And violence tends to target the weak. You may feel strong knowing that information is free and it’s surprisingly easy for any individual to destroy a lot of infrastructure, human lives, systems of dominance and whatnot.

If not, I’m sure EVERYONE will be able to find SOMETHING they’d be willing to burn, pillage and rape over.
Albeit, most might not abide by that order.

Work work

In welfare states; the working man’s outcry to stop having to pay for the lazy bums causing the electorate to hit the right. Of course one does not “want to work for the sake of someone who does NOT want to work”, because this diminishes the effort somehow.

It doesn’t feel right. If I were to give you one dollar and 99 to another person; you would rather have me give you 10 dollars and 10 or 20 to someone else. Even if I burned everything else; even tough we’re talking about ME giving it away. We look into ourselves and care little for others.

But why is this the case? Is it the case? If I were to give you 2 dollars and someone else 3000; you would, even tough you don’t know the person, feel inclined to do the ‘right’ thing, rather than avenge yourself.

Who cares about the rich not wanting to work for their money? Hardly anybody it would seem. Who cares that the poorest of the world work the hardest for the least money? A few more people, but most feel overwhelmed by feelings of powerlessness. If they weren’t, they’d have to get off their arse and do something about it.

We’re not looking at life as a human endeavor. We’re looking at ourselves as pieces of the economic pie to be distributed. And whomever works, will produce and deserves piece of the pie. But that’s a pre-1930′s mentality. The problem of our society has become overproduction, not scarce resources. Being a commodity on the market to be traded is something most people aspire to, and labor should be sold without concern of human concepts such as freedom or justice.

At least, when you’re bought; there’s a willingness to invest and sell you when you’re truly worth more. But since slavery ended and we stuck to wage slavery, people can just stop hiring you when productivity increases. This means, less people needed for the production of just as much or more wealth. This causes unemployment. Because we don’t NEED to people to WORK to have the same luxeries.

So we don’t work because we want to do the manual or mental labor. Not as an exercise in creativity or freedom. No, we want to be payed more. The work takes second place. Money as a means has become almost a goal. We can’t sit at home all day because most feel inclined to start consuming (24hour shopping stations and malls might have something to do with that), rather than learning a new skill, instrument, or language.

If it is truly possible NOT to go to work and not get eaten by predators, survive comfortably, eat and drink healty, exercise regularly, get medical attention when needed, even get some electricity. Well then, I think the caveman in us should stop hunting. If you don’t want to work for those people who refuse to, than don’t. Stay at home, or go out and help other people; volunteer. Help the rest of the world so they may be able to help you. Or kill them all if you think they’re all compitition.

Mankind could evolve either way, we’ve been on the planet with a thousand people; near extinction. The last 200 years we’ve gone to 1 billion and increased exponentially ever since. If you honestly don’t think the industrial revolution can meet our automatisatoin requirements, that we can’t think of certain machines and computerized processes to replace human labor with; tell me, what makes a human human?

Is it reproduction (because overpopulation or famine, human/food) is not a problem. It is consciousness? Because nobody seems to be willing to rethink our current paradigm. Is it something else? Please comment.

Confidence

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
William Butler Yeats wrote that.

When capitalism was in competition with communism, and consequently embellished. Equal voting rights, minimum wage, pensions, education and pensions were established as part of the welfare state. These marxist principles were adopted without the slightest hint of hypocrisy. Social democracies such as the ones in scandinavia thrived, canada and europe lagged behind.

However, the financial and banking elites remain to rule the regulators. Liberal democracy is as fragile as the next idea. With recession which reminds us of the years running up to another world war, and prohibition of alcohol and the main crop the US since the 1600′s.

Change is not impossible, it’s inevitable.
So is death.

Before you die, don’t you want to be confident enough for a spontanious uprising?
To do, what has not yet been done. To know what has been and to acknowledge that redefining democracy can exist within our lifetime. Participatory democracy, deep democracy, including the economy. That includes the distribution of land. The whole idea that some people ought to be homeless and others ought to have several houses has already been dampend by taxing the inheritance of land (100% in marxist conditions)
and social housing. Taxing goods (flat-tax) is something freemarket proponents like, taxing labor (50% in say belgium) is ineffective and would fuel labor being done without the social benefits (such as ensurance) this implies. Smuggling goods could perhaps be dealt with with capital punishment (together with adultery and thievery this is the main use of it when its particulary brutal).

To steal with your hands is filthy, to do it with a keyboard and a cell phone; it’s white collar crime and should be fined. But not too much, these people are the engine of our economy. I suggest another economy. If you produce with manual labor or with intellectual contributions (this excludes setting up complex systems to funnel money through credit into your pocket). Credit should be given on an individual scale, not to banking institutions such as the Federal banking institutions, in America OR in Europe (ECB).

“The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on — and even precedent value for — other parts of the world, especially in Italy,” the memorandum warns Nixon just hours before a critical National Security Council (NSC) meeting in which Kissinger urged his boss to reject the ”modus vivendi approach” recommended by the State Department.
They were calling for real socialism. Not communism. Dispersed where it was centralised. Participatory where it was bureacratic.

The ability to have a democratic system, rather than a totalitarian one. To be cooperative, rather than competitive. To have the total sum grow, rather than relying on stealing what’s already there (or made by those who would work the most for the least money). To have the confidence to chose for different, like the voters of Indonesia voted many years ago. This is something we should all strive for.

Because if we don’t make the decisions, someone else will. Somebody who is above you, above the law, above justice. Solidarity with all of humankind can set us free. We can have a freemarket. Free of the, mandatory by law, profit-seeking corporation. NOT to be owned by its employees. Banking institutions and schemes like Enron did pay in shares, rather than inflated money.

Jeffrey Sachs likes Poland, with its 40% unemployment rate. But who cares if you can buy the land and the institutions? People are starving to death, have to migrate all over europe, but prices are stable. The economy is ready to be taken over.

Another historic moment of possibility is the end of apartheid in South-Africa. We can end slavery, racism, unequal wealth distribution. You may end in whatever condition, but the starting conditions have to be equal for all. They’re not yet, let’s fix that first. For all of the human race.

NATO Mission Afghanistan and Obama

It seems clear now that Europe may rebuild Afghanistan escorting military operations conducted by US troops and contractors. NATO will continue to turn over people to the regime which will torture them in many cases (and who knows, maybe before it’s all over, he’ll be a terrorist). Basically, NATO will have to join the fight to control the mass population. This is a mixed strategy because the european army is still more or less mixed. The variants that come into play are along very nuanced and interacting paths. Belgians way of training troops (military or neighbourhood cop) will define the post-revolution (1979) landscape and shape the future junta. Civics lessons are nice idea, law and order is currently the talibans monopoly.
If post-colonial powers cannot succusfully install a stable oilpipeline, there’s no telling what Russia will do. Their willingness to make sacrificies is equalled only by the largest empire history has ever seen, funded by the chinese.
If India gets its tech people to run the japanese fighterdrones (they’re decades ahead, don’t tell me they don’t have transformers fully functioning), there’s no predicting how this will end.
Europe will be sick of getting a lousy oil/gas deal from its Ursidae second-world, almost complete capitalist third-world (those are the only ones that AREN’T protectionist, are weren’t because they were raped and pillaged on a metaphysical level) country.
Seriously, there’s nothing there but rocks. Leave it alone, a good part of the 20th century were moderate. Giving women the right to vote that is, maybe that’s too radical.
Exactly what kind of reaction are we trying to provoke with locals?
“Hello, I’m white and well armed. I’m here to help,”?
The Fundament (Al Qaida) is likely to hold a firm ground where the biggest army decides to draw lines in the sand.
Obama’s adviser (from Carter era) still wants a capitalist state of whatever regime, despite what the populations’ desire for afghan democracy and independance. The Mujahedin were his doing and Bin Ladens’ CIA training was hybris in the making. Breeding this medieval environment is manifest doom.
We will not win. Winning has no parameters, they’re infinite. The afghan civil war has to be thrown aside for securing oil and gas. The history of this region has only one, dominant lesson. It has huge blowback. In the long run, the gorilla movement has owned those caves. Even if we end up nuking every square inch (I think there are enough nukes for that on the planet) of that state, we’ll still end up with radiated oil.
So, what ARE we doing there?

Obama is which mythological president?

Personalities of past presidents have been intertwined with, amongst other things, their death. Lincoln was shot, FDR died in office from polio. Which you would like to see Obama end his career with?
Or is it Kennedy’s escalation in around Vietnam. The middle-east will be the new Indochina. Then again, that guy got shot too. So maybe another policy or charismatic option is required for hopefull change.
Now they(Robert Gates and alike) want to do the same thing to afghanistan as they did in Iraq.
Obama doesn’t want to get into the medical marihuana debate (states allow it) because it would waste political capital. Joe Biden and Clinton are allowed to run affaires that are abroad. How is he going to respond to the very real fact that cannabis has replaced opium as a crop. This major cash crop also has a low THC-variant, hemp. Industrial use of this was common for centuries, many taliban tribes haven’t evolved either the last couple of centuries, mind you. Making the plant illegal has been an on again, off again relationship. The use of any substance that can impair judgement is considered haram, forbidden. Then again, when fighting infidels, Al Qaida and other extremists find no fault in allowing production and storage of opium and cannabis (the variant that can also be used for medicinal purposes) to skyrocket to unseen heights.

Only in being realistic about the facts on the ground can you make adequate decisions. What kind of change will he bring after 72 years of prohibition (wood pulp and corn methanal could be ecologically and economically replaced in a sound manner)? Is there a scientific aspect that ought to enter the dialogue? It is time to reach beyond faithfulness and platitudes.
It is time, for change.

So maybe, Obama is Ron Paul.

Just kidding, unless Obama allows a viable, pluralistic, multi party system to take root; Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr and sorts don’t stand a change in hell