Gratuitous Impiety

Court Docs Reveal Bill O’Reilly Owned a Vibrator

First a disclaimer: no one is knocking phone sex or the insertion of sex tools into the rectum by geriatrics, per se. It's imposing this behavior on an unwilling partner young enough to be his granddaughter that is offensive to the civilized senses, especially when this is literally the man who sets the tone for right-wing morality in America. […]

Books

The Prince

Although the light of almost four centuries has been focused on “The Prince,” its problems are still debatable and interesting, because they are the eternal problems between the ruled and their rulers. Such as they are, its ethics are those of Machiavelli’s contemporaries; yet they cannot be said to be out of date so long as the governments of Europe rely on material rather than on moral forces. Its historical incidents and personages become interesting by reason of the uses which Machiavelli makes of them to illustrate his theories of government and conduct. […]

Gratuitous Impiety

Cheney’s Torture Fetish

Bybee's memo (not to mention a few others) is damning evidence suggesting a common plan on the part of the Administration to violate the laws of war. Strikingly, such a "common plan," or conspiracy, is itself a war crime. […]

JAG

How Fanatical Atheism Gave Us the Tea Party

There is a very strong, tactically palsied movement by fanatical atheists today to crush religion, particularly Christianity. The way this movement is led, unfortunately, is as a militant movement that demeans and ridicules people of faith. The common wisdom is that once an idea is sufficiently mocked and ridiculed, then that is the moment the idea dies. For the proponents of this common wisdom, please do tell! how has this worked out for you? It’s only been tried for thousands of years, but maybe you just need a few more days. […]

History

Why the Klan is Protected by Democrats and Republicans

"[Allen] Dulles was not acting out of kindness. He wanted to put these men to work as spies who would murder and kill in the name of the good ‘ol USA. Even before the war ended, Dulles had begun recruiting Gestapo agents, that is, members of the German Order of Skull and Bones, the Brotherhood of Death, into what would become the American version of the Gestapo, the CIA. As recently revealed by the CIA (5) and as documented by Christopher Simpson, in his extensively researched book, Blowback, “hundreds of convicted Nazi war criminals” were “smuggled out of Germany to avoid prosecution at the war crimes trials at Nuremberg.” They were “recruited by, and were put on the payroll of several U.S. government agencies, including the Army CIC, the OSS, and the Office of Policy Coordination within the State Department.” […]

Censorship

Klan Fronts Today

Like Hitler’s Gestapo, the mission of the CIA had a definite political purpose which was to put into power those sympathetic to the interests of the Wall Street elite and who supported the fascist ideology of the Brotherhood. However, it was not just third world countries which would be subverted, but the government of the United States. […]

Censorship

It Was Johnson

The Copy Cat Crime: Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson On January 23, 1923, William J. Burns, by then the acting director of the Department of Justice wrote “I have gone over with considerable interest the […]

Censorship

When Klansmen Killed “a thousand future generations of n*ggers”

FBI’s own evidence and unclassified documents prove Wayne Williams wrongly convicted for the murder of 30 black children… “Mrs. Catherine Leach is enraged that the best kept secret from the public in this crisis Is the brutal manner in which most of the children were mutilated. It is common to find among the bodies— castrations, hands amputated, feet amputated, lips and ears cut off, as well as part of the face. Why, the secret? It reads like old-fashion racist killings.” […]

Censorship

What it’s all about…

Not too long ago a friend invited me to her daughter’s birthday party. I had a wonderful time, but as I watched the children play a sadness fell upon me. The cognitive dissonance was over. I had learned a few things over the last few weeks about human nature, about power and secrecy, about monsters portrayed as heroes and heroes portrayed as monsters. […]

Abraham Lincoln

The Writings of Abraham Lincoln Vol. 1-7

“It has long been a grave question whether any government not too strong for the liberties of its people can be strong enough to maintain its existence in great emergencies. On this point, the present rebellion brought our republic to a severe test, and the Presidential election, occurring in regular course during the rebellion, added not a little to the strain…. The strife of the election is but human nature practically applied to the facts
in the case. What has occurred in this case must ever occur in similar cases. Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be avenged…” […]

Books

Lincoln; An Account of His Personal Life

Shortly before the end, he had a strange dream. Though he spoke of it almost with levity, it would not leave his thoughts. He dreamed he was wandering through the White House at night; all the rooms were brilliantly lighted; but they were empty. However, through that unreal solitude floated a sound of weeping. When he came to the East Room, it was explained; there was a catafalque, the pomp of a military funeral, crowds of people in tears; and a voice said to him, “The President has been assassinated.” […]

Books

Andersonville

In addition to these, about one hundred and fifty Union prisoners were examined, who testified to all manner of barbarities which had come under their personal observation. They had all seen Wirz shoot men, had seen him knock sick and crippled men down and stamp upon them, had been run down by him with hounds, etc. Their testimony occupies about two thousand pages of manuscript, and is, without doubt, the most, terrible record of crime ever laid to the account of any man. […]

Books

My Bondage and My Freedom

I see, too, that there are special reasons why I should write my own biography, in preference to employing another to do it. Not only is slavery on trial, but unfortunately, the enslaved people are also on trial. It is alleged, that they are, naturally, inferior; that they are _so low_ in the scale of humanity, and so utterly stupid, that they are unconscious of their wrongs, and do not apprehend their rights. Looking, then, at your request, from
this stand-point, and wishing everything of which you think me capable to go to the benefit of my afflicted people, I part with my doubts and hesitation, and proceed to furnish you the desired manuscript; hoping that you may be able to make such arrangements for its publication as shall be best adapted to accomplish that good which you so enthusiastically anticipate. […]