Déjà vu - Global Gulag - All's well with Afghanistan opium trade

Business is booming! "Two years after the ousting of the Taliban regime, which had cracked down ruthlessly on the cultivation of opium, production of the substance last year hit 3,600 tones, up 6 per cent over the previous year, and surveys of farmers show a further increase is likely this year." This war against terrorists is great for the drug trade. See any pattern when troops are garrisoned? The protection racket just runs their traffic with more efficiency.

Read the entire article on the "Global Gulag" archive page

Subscription sign-up for the BATR RealPolitik Newsletter

Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum

Déjà vu - View from the Mount - Howard Beale: Where Are You?

There has never been a more fitting time to resurrect the sermons of our prophet of doom. Mad as hell, just doesn’t mean the same any longer; and who among us, are not willing to take it anymore? It doesn’t get any worse; the last straw has been broken, as the courts suck and siphon the last sustenance from society. The Massachusetts high court has just penetrated our privates with their perversion. Rule by precedent is a pretext for legal repression, imposed under the guise of equal rights. Outrage is not enough for their arrogance. The impending outlook of ruin is no longer placed into the future. The future has become now, and there will be no reprieve.

Read the entire article on the "View of the Mount" archive page

Subscription sign-up for the BATR RealPolitik Newsletter

Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum

Déjà vu - Strappado Wrack - Spy Master a Lethal Melanoma

The formation of a bureaucratic superstructure for national intelligence will put in motion a perverse organism. The significance lies not in the figurehead or even the process for the selection, but rests in the birthing of a Medusa. Little wisdom comes out of this modern daughter of Phorkys and Keto, the children of Gaia (Earth) and Okeanos (Ocean).  This ugly creature will use the charms of seduction – national security – but will end up spreading a den of snakes. The globe will be her playpen and the seas will be her lake. No one or no place will fall outside her watch. She will run her hydra network through all those underling heads, but in the end her advice will revival that of Eve.  The mother of all evil won’t be a gender bias for any director will impose paternity over the stream of information. The children of this fraudulent union will bear the price from her wrath. Overseas enemies will feel the force of her boot. And the only creature to resist her might may well be those who run under the radar screen. 

Read the entire article on the "Strappado Wrack" archive page

Subscription sign-up for the BATR RealPolitik Newsletter

Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum

Déjà vu - View from the Mount - Living with David Duke and Louis Farrakhan

A discussion about race is one of those subjects that frighten most people. Yet, the facts of social and ethnic differences are a major cause of our idiotic public policy in a society that is rooted in denial. Of course, ethnic groups are different, but it does not follow that they cannot have common ground. A comparison of David Duke and Louis Farrakhan might seem to the casual observer to be a study in dissimilarities, but for the scholarly practitioner of the "real world", the commonalities of - Just What's in those Genes? – illustrates a universal nature. 

Read the entire article on the "View of the Mount" archive page

Subscription sign-up for the BATR RealPolitik Newsletter

Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum

Déjà vu - Totalitarian Collectivism - When Net Neutrality Becomes Programmed Censorship

The worst fears of all free speech proponents are upon us. The Verizon suit against the Federal Communications Commission, appellate decision sets the stage for a Supreme Court review. The Wall Street Journal portrays the ruling in financial terms: "A federal court has tossed out the FCC's "open internet" rules, and now internet service providers are free to charge companies like Google and Netflix higher fees to deliver content faster." 

Read the entire article on the "Totalitarian Collectivism" archive page

Subscription sign-up for the BATR RealPolitik Newsletter

Discuss or comment about this essay on the BATR Forum