Wednesday 12 June 2019

FAILURE OF IMAGINATION



ODO
He's telling The Truth, Commander --
He doesn't know why the Romulans 
would try to kill him. 

SISKO
What makes you so sure? 

ODO
Because if he did know, he'd already be spinning out an elaborate web of lies to cover up The Truth. 

GARAK
The Truth is usually just an excuse for 
A Lack of Imagination

























On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.


These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced “missing” from the Pentagon’s coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.

Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI’s lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.

The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover upfrom start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds,OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney…well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn’t bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of “little practical significance“. Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims’ family members’ questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were “a failure of imagination” because “I don’t think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings ” except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.

The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that’s OK because it probably wasn’t important.

The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that’s OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.

NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7’s collapse, but that’s OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would “jeopardize public safety“.

The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that’s OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.

This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).

Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn’t recorded on video, in which he didn’t resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team’s members died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.

If you have any questions about this story…you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC,MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. 

Because Ignorance is Strength





THE WALL OF SILENCE


SPOCK: 
Curious. Very well. 
For twenty-four hours we'll agree this conversation did not take place.

VALERIS: 
A lie?

SPOCK: 
An Omission.




SPOCK: 
Ah! Mister Scott, I understand you're having difficulty with the warp drive. 
How much time do you require for repair?

SCOTT: 
There's nothing wrong with the bloody thing.

SPOCK: 
Mister Scott. If we return to Spacedock, the assassins would surely find away to dispose of their incriminating footwear
 and we will never see the Captain and Doctor McCoy alive again.

SCOTT: 
It could take weeks, sir.

SPOCK: 
Thank you, Mister Scott. 
Valeris, please inform Starfleet Command our warp drive is inoperative.

VALERIS: 
A lie?

SPOCK: 
An Error.









KIRK: 
Names, Lieutenant.

VALERIS: 
I do not remember.

SPOCK: 
A lie?

VALERIS: 
A Choice.




One of the great myths surrounding Vulcans was that the race was incapable of telling a lie. 

Doctor Leonard McCoy once stated that the simple fact of Spock being a Vulcan meant that he was incapable of lying. (TOS: "The Menagerie, Part I")

While generally believed to be accurate, Vulcans were, in fact, capable of telling lies, usually justifying this action as a logical course towards a means to an end. 

An example of this would be lying to carry out a secret mission or lying to protect the lives of others. 

Spock was in fact capable of lying, as was Valeris, although Valeris' motives were somewhat dubious. 

Tuvok admitted that Vulcans were capable of telling lies but added that he had never found it prudent or necessary to do so, after an inquiry by Seven of Nine into whether or not they were capable of lying. 

(TOS: "The Enterprise Incident"; TOS: "Errand of Mercy"; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; VOY: "Hunters"; Star Trek Into Darkness)




SPOCK: 
The destruction of Discovery was tragic 
but does not in and of itself resolve the issue.
Even more radical steps must be taken to ensure that type of scenario never repeats itself.

I'm eager to hear your recommendations, Lieutenant.

Regulation 157, Section Three, requires Starfleet officers to abstain from participating in historical events.
Any residual trace or knowledge of Discovery's data, or the time suit, offers a foothold for those who might not see how critical, 
how deeply critical, that directive is.
Therefore, to insure the Federation never finds itself facing the same danger, all officers remaining with knowledge of these events must be ordered never to speak of Discovery, its spore drive, or her crew again.

Under penalty of treason.

Thank you, Mr. Spock.
We'll take it under advisement.


“Those That Ran The Soviet Union

Believed that they could plan, and manage a new kind of Socialist Society.


They had discovered that it was impossible to control and predict everything — and The Plan had run out of control.





But rather than reveal that reveal this, The Technocrats decided to pretend that everything was still going according to The Plan.


And what emerged instead was a 

Fake Version of The Society.


The Soviet Union became a Society where everyone knew what their leaders said was   

Not-Real, because everyone could see with their own eyes that the economy was falling apart —



But Everybody Had to Play Along, 

and pretend that it was Real —

Because No-One Could Imagine an Alternative.


One Soviet called it 

HYPERNORMALISATION

You were so much a part of The System that it became impossible to see beyond it — 

The Fakeness was HyperNormal.”



FAILURE OF IMAGINATION




Some people like to dive right in

Can you imagine that?

And flap about in bathtub gin

Can you imagine that?


Don’t Forget Scrub Behind Your Ears.

Tuesday 11 June 2019

The Windmills of Reality Fight Back











“In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quexana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it. 

You must know, then, that the above-named gentleman whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardour and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillageland to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like "the reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;" or again, "the high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves." Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis gave and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the surgeons who had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered all over with seams and scars. He commended, however, the author's way of ending his book with the promise of that interminable adventure, and many a time was he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as is there proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a successful piece of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing thoughts prevented him. 

Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas, the village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Knight of Phoebus, and that if there was any that could compare with him it was Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, nor lachrymose like his brother, while in the matter of valour he was not a whit behind him. 

In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books, enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword who with one back-stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antaeus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because, although of the giant breed which is always arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban, especially when he saw him sallying forth from his castle and robbing everyone he met, and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. To have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain. In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned by the might of his arm Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution. The first thing he did was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that, in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut, he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease with which he had knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and to guard against that danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron on the inside until he was satisfied with its strength; and then, not caring to try any more experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it as a helmet of the most perfect construction. 

He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that "tantum pellis et ossa fuit," surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him, because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow. 

And so, after having composed, struck out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rocinante, a name, to his thinking, lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world. 

Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself "Don Quixote," whence, as has been already said, the authors of this veracious history have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting, however, that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul, he, like a good knight, resolved to add on the name of his, and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha, whereby, he considered, he described accurately his origin and country, and did honour to it in taking his surname from it. 


So then, his armour being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself, "If, for my sins, or by my good fortune, I come across some giant hereabouts, a common occurrence with knights-errant, and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or, in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady, and in a humble, submissive voice say, 'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never sufficiently extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'?" Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very good-looking farm-girl with whom he had been at one time in love, though, so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him.

Well if You Wanted Honesty, That’s All You Had to Say....





Well if You Wanted Honesty, 

That’s All You Had to Say...



“The KGB is a Circle of  Accountability —

Nothing More.”












































“The Social Order ITSELF 

is Not Without Intent...” 


“Those That Ran The Soviet Union

Believed that they could plan, and manage a new kind of Socialist Society.


They had discovered that it was impossible to control and predict everything — and The Plan had run out of control.


But rather than reveal that reveal this, The Technocrats decided to pretend that everything was still going according to The Plan.


And what emerged instead was a 

Fake Version of The Society.


The Soviet Union became a Society where everyone knew what their leaders said was   

Not-Real, because everyone could see with their own eyes that the economy was falling apart —


But Everybody Had to Play Along, 

and pretend that it was Real —

Because No-One Could Imagine an Alternative.


One Soviet called it 

HYPERNORMALISATION

You were so much a part of The System that it became impossible to see beyond it — 

The Fakeness was HyperNormal.”



Some people like to dive right in

Can you imagine that?

And flap about in bathtub gin

Can you imagine that?


Don’t Forget Scrub Behind Your Ears.




Well if you wanted honesty, that's all you had to say
I never want to let you down or have you go, it's better off this way
For all the dirty looks
For photographs your boyfriend took
Remember when you broke your foot from jumping out the second floor?
I'm not okay
I'm not okay
I'm not okay
You wear me out
What will it take to show you that it's not the life it seems? (I'm not okay)
I told you time and time again you sing the words but don't know what it means
To be a joke and look
Another line without a hook
I held you close as we both shook for the last time
Take a good hard look
I'm not okay
I'm not okay
I'm not okay
You wear me out
Forget about the dirty looks
The photographs your boyfriend took?
You said you read me like a book, but the pages all are torn and frayed
I'm okay
I'm okay
I'm okay, now
(I'm okay, now)
But you really need to listen to me
Because I'm telling you the truth
I mean this
I'm okay (trust me)
I'm not okay
I'm not okay
Well, I'm not okay
I'm not o-fucking-kay
I'm not okay
I'm not okay (okay)

Sunday 9 June 2019

A is for Atom



“Those That Ran The Soviet Union

Believed that they could plan, and manage a new kind of Socialist Society.


They had discovered that it was impossible to control and predict everything — and The Plan had run out of control.


But rather than reveal that reveal this, The Technocrats decided to pretend that everything was still going according to The Plan.


And what emerged instead was a 

Fake Version of The Society.


The Soviet Union became a Society where everyone knew what their leaders said was   

Not-Real, because everyone could see with their own eyes that the economy was falling apart —


But Everybody Had to Play Along, 

and pretend that it was Real —

Because No-One Could Imagine an Alternative.


One Soviet called it 

HYPERNORMALISATION

You were so much a part of The System that it became impossible to see beyond it — 

The Fakeness was HyperNormal.”


Thursday 6 June 2019

ENEMY IMAGE







"It is from Schmitt that 
Samuel Huntington got his idea that 
An Enemy Image is absolutely necessary 
for the cohesion of any society. 

In reality, however, it is primarily an oligarchical society which 
requires an enemy image, 
because that society is based on 
an irrational principle 
of domination 
which cannot stand the scrutiny 
it would receive in peacetime. 

George Orwell understood this aspect well
when he suggested in 1984 that 
The Endless War among Oceania, 
Eurasia,and Eastasia was really 
A War waged by each of these states 
against its own population, 
 for the purpose of perpetuating 
a hierarchical society. 

The key concept dates back 
at least to Ibn Khaldun
the 13th century father of Sociology
who noted that The Arabs only 
stopped fighting each other when 
it was necessary to unite against 
An Outside Enemy.


from
CARL SCHMITT: POISON GAS ON GERMAN CITIES 

Leo Strauss was the product of three main intellectual and political influences. 

First among these was the proto-Nazi Friedrich Nietzsche, who was designated by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg as one of the four precursors of Hitlerism (the others were the operatic composer Richard Wagner, the anti-Semitic LaGarde, and the racist Houston Stewart Chamberlain). 

A second was the card-carrying Nazi Martin Heidegger, who praised Hitler in his inaugural speech as rector of the University of Freiburg. 

Finally, there is the card-carrying Nazi Carl Schmitt, the main legal theorist of the Third Reich. 

Schmitt’s ideas have directly contributed to the shattering of the US political consensus under the Bush regime. For Schmitt, politics comes down to the distinction between friend and foe. Starting from this extremely meager reduction of human motivation, he goes on to equate politics with warfare: if there is no warfare or conflict, then politics is dead, and life is no longer worth living. Schmitt therefore wants politics to be the monopoly of a strong state, and he does not like the idea that the state or the government could be influenced by the citizens. Schmitt’s thought is thus revealed as authoritarian, dictatorial, fascistic. It is from Schmitt that Samuel Huntington got his idea that an enemy image is absolutely necessary for the cohesion of any society. In reality, however, it is primarily an oligarchical society which requires an enemy image, because that society is based on an irrational principle of domination which cannot stand the scrutiny it would receive in peacetime. George Orwell understood this aspect well when he suggested in 1984 that the endless war among Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia was really a war waged by each of these states against its own population, for the purpose of perpetuating a hierarchical society. The key concept dates back at least to Ibn Khaldun, the 13th century father of sociology, who noted that the Arabs only stopped fighting each other when it was necessary to unite against an outside enemy. 

The card-carrying Nazi Schmitt was also a bitter opponent, not just of the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, but of international law and international treaties in general. Like his neocon descendants of today, he was an ardent unilateralist. Here are some of Schmitt’s typical comments about international law: “We are talking again about basic rights, about the basic rights of peoples and of states, and especially about the basic rights of those states who have, mindful of their own race, gotten themselves into the proper domestic order. Such a state is the national socialist state, which has led the German people back to an awareness of itself and its race. We proceed from the most self-evident of all basic rights, the right to one’s own existence. This is an inalienable, eternal basic right, in which the right to self-determination, self-defense, and to the means of self-defense is included. . . . From our solid standpoint we can see through that world of legalistic argumentation and that huge apparatus of treaties and pacts, and assign this tower of Babel to its rightful place in the history of international law.” 

Schmitt was the author of Article 48 of the 1919 Constitution of the Weimar Republic, which was the clause that allowed the Reich President to declare an emergency or state of siege and thereafter rule by decree. Schmitt’s activity during the 1920s was largely devoted to agitating in favor of the dissolution or marginalization of the Reichstag (parliament) and the institution of a dictatorship of the President of the Reich. One of Schmitt’s favorite sayings was that sovereignty meant the ability to declare a state of emergency. If you can find what organ of government has the ability to call out the state of siege, suspend the legislature, and impose martial law, Schmitt reasoned, you have found the place where sovereignty is actually located. 

For Schmitt, the concept of emergency rule is a totally lawless realm; under it, the ruling authority can do literally anything it wants, without regard to law, separation of powers, constitutional freedoms, equity, or anything else. In one of his essays Schmitt approvingly quotes a speech by the Reich Justice Minister Schiffer to the Reichstag on March 3, 1920, in which Schiffer points out that under Article 48, the Reich President can attack “German cities with poison gas, if that is, in the concrete case, the necessary measure for the re-establishment of law and order.” (Schmitt, Die Diktatur, 201) Schmitt was adamant that the emergency provisions of the Weimar constitution were theoretically and practically unlimited, and could be used to justify the greatest imaginable atrocities. We see here a tradition of thought, alive in the Schmittian-Straussian neocons of today, which would have no trouble in accommodating a crime on the scope of 9/ 11. 

In July, 1932 the Nazis and their allies carried out a cold coup against the minority Social Democratic caretaker government in Prussia, the largest political subdivision of Germany. The pro-Nazi government in Prussia then became the springboard for Hitler’s seizure of power via a legal coup in January 1933. Carl Schmitt was the lawyer for the coup forces in the German supreme court in Leipzig. (The parallels of this action to the Schwarzenegger/ Warren Buffet oligarchical coup in California in 2003 are more than suggestive, since California is the largest US political subdivision in the same way that Prussia was in Germany.) Schmitt also provided legal services for Hitler’s seizure of power in January, 1933. 

Carl Schmitt wrote articles for the gutter-level anti-Semitic tabloid Der Stürmer, edited by Julius Streicher. In 1934, when Hitler massacred the brown-shirted SA leader Ernst Röhm and his faction for supporting a second revolution against the financiers, industrialists, and the army, Schmitt quickly emerged as one of Hitler’s most shameless apologists. In his scurrilous pamphlet, “Der Führer Schützt das Recht” (“ The Führer defends the law”), Schmitt endorsed the Byzantine theory according to which law is a successful act of strength by the stronger party against the weaker. Schmitt wrote that the primary task of the Führer was “to distinguish friend from enemy . . . The Führer takes the warnings of German history seriously. That gives him the right and the power to found a new state and a new order. . . . The Führer protects the law from the worst abuse, when he–in the moment of danger–through the power of his leadership as supreme judge, directly creates law. His role as supreme judge flows from his role as supreme leader. Anyone who wants to separate one of these from the other is trying to unhinge the state with the help of the justice system. . . . the Führer himself determines the content and scope of a crime.” (Schmitt 200) 

This opens the door to every arbitrary outrage under color of law. While these ideas, so dear to today’s ruling neocons, have been applied to Abu Ghraib, it is also clear that they are equally applicable to 9/ 11.

Gloves



That's the thing about gloves —

They come in pairs.






This glove is different to the other one. 
Maybe different gloves do different things? 
Well, they tend to come in pairs.