Watching interviews with American politicians always disturbs me when they talk about their youth — they all know each other. So many of them went to school together, have family ties to each other, worked together in the old days, and so on. Even if they don't agree or are in different parties, they're from the same place.
Eugenics is the science of improving humanity through selective breeding. I'm sure most of you remember reading about it in school when you read Plato's Republic;
When young men prove themselves good and true in war or anywhere else, honors must be given to them, and prizes, and particularly more generous freedom of intercourse with women; at the same time, this will be a good excuse for letting as many children as possible be begotten by such men.
One of the problems with being a genetic organism is that if you manage to evolve a society where breeding does not favor the “best” or otherwise most successful, and especially if breeding rates increase in your “less favorable” members, you face a very serious threat: devolution. We're doing this culturally as well as we make public schools easier and easier (and teaching less and less), lower standards across society, increase state welfare, and so on.
But don't think the rich — the ruling class — are going to permit it to happen to them. The rich, on the whole, breed with other rich people — class mixing is a giant taboo. They are raised going to the best private schools and private universities. They are expected to be athletes and leaders and on the whole work incredibly hard to both excel to their maximum potential and to retain and improve their bloodline.
And it's worked — look at the family trees in US politics. There really is a ruling class, and it's almost impossible to break in. The only way to break in is to prove to them you deserve admittance to their gated communities, and then you're one of them.
The part that surprises me is that everyone who's not of that class just keeps on voting for them. You know why? It's because as much as they were bred to be the ruling class, two thousand years of breeding has made the rest a servant class on a genetic level.
From The American Conservative, read this.
Now let's look at what's in the news this morning.
First of all, Afghanistan (yes, Afghanistan) is still a mess as Taliban continue to fight to control the country (more) and urge the people of Afghanistan to cut off US fuel supplies (more). That said, the PR machine still expects Bin Laden to be captured just in time for Bush to parade him around in a cage before the election (more). Just in time.
Iraq is still a giant mess as well, with both Americans and Iraqis dying daily (more) and oil pipelines under constant attack (more). Given that Halliburton and other giants work in these nations by doing things like bribing violent and corrupt governments (more), is it really any wonder that when the people of these nations get guns in their hands they turn them on the pipelines?
Election stuff… Soldiers stationed overseas have lost the right to a secret ballot (more)… of course, they're doing better than Afghanistan's citizens. While Bush may praise them like crazy (he did again in his speech) on “registering 10.35 million people to vote”, but that's not really anything to be proud of in a nation of 9.8 million voters (more). America may only be able to get 50% voter turnout, but Afghanistan can get 106% turnout, woot! Of course, most of the speeches there — cough, Zell, cough (more) — were litanies of lies that you'd really have to be incredibly uninformed to buy. I'm not sure if I'm more shocked that the average voter is so stupid, or more shocked that so many people are willing to knowingly go along with the lie. But it's no secret I suppose that the GOP are big fans of lies and secrets (more)… and big fans of 9/11 (more).
Schwarzenegger was especially funny — telling his stories watching of Soviet tanks rolling through his town — given that they left Styria two years before he was even born (more). Then his talking about how much he loved Nixon… wait… Nixon? Well, I suppose it could have been worse, he could have talked about how proud he was that his father was a Nazi (more) while he was reminiscing about how much Austria sucks (which incidentally has better healthcare and minimum wages than most of the US). Of course, when you're preaching to the ignorant, facts are irrelevant.
Oops, South Korea's got nukes too (more).
Oops, US troops in Iraq have suffered nuclear attack (more).
Oops, they're also available on the South African black market (more, more).
This FBI spy/mole Israeli story is interesting as well (more) — as was the first gay ripple (more). Now, it's old news that Israel has agents — including seductive agents — inside US (and other) intelligence agencies. What's more interesting is the extent to which these agents were able to help shape US policy (more, more). Where it gets even more interesting is that these Israeli spies have a 30-year history with the current neo-con Cabal, and that Ashcroft is stepping in to block the investigation (more) as much as possible. Not that there aren't a dozen other reasons to have the whole lot of them up on treason charges, but add another to the list.
I linked to this story a few days ago, but I wanted to mention it again because it so perfectly showcases the world we've created. How sad is it when poor people have to trade food for weapons? How sad is it when it happens on a national level? Thailand, wanting to replace its aging US jets with new Sukhoi Su-30s, is currently trying to trade 250,000 tons of chicken for Russian weaponry (more).
In other Russian news, Japan and Russia may finally reach a peace treaty after nearly sixty years of Russian occupation of the Kurils… and what will make them come to this historic agreement? You guessed it, oil (more)!
I'm not really sure what to say about the Russian school hostage/killing situation — almost 300 dead, over 500 wounded (more), some of whom won't make it. It's officially an “al Qaeda” attack, with Arab and Chechnyan cooperation in pulling it off (and presumably the airliner explosions; more, more). This story is a first hand account of what went on inside the school. What can I say but you should probably expect a whole lot more of this crap, and don't be surprised if it starts to happen in America as well if current trends continue.
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