… Carter, Clinton, W-Bush, Ray-Gun, Obama, Trump, Biden . . . but that’s low hanging political rotting fruit, but then a Chomsky saying what about us unvaxxed folk?
“Sube a nacer conmigo, hermano” / “Rise to be born with me, brother.” — Pablo Neruda
So, those first two books of The Divine Comedy, Inferno and Purgatory, by Dante follow his journeys from hell to purgatory. In Inferno, Dante meets the poet Virgil who guides him through the rings of hell. Once the two reach the bottom of hell, Virgil continues to guide Dante through the next realm in Purgatory.
Throughout this epic adventure, Dante also presents ideas concerning the afterlife. These ideas range from simple descriptions of the two realms to more remarkable ideas of who exactly goes where after death and why. Dante also paints a picture of how sinners will be punished in hell and oppositely, the process of how sinners are redeemed in purgatory.
Like hell, purgatory also has a structure in which each level focuses on a different sin. Unlike hell, sinners in purgatory work their way up through the seven terraces of purgatory in order to finally reach heaven. To advance to a new terrace, sinners must first work off the sins from the previous terraces.
In each terrace, sinners face a unique punishment that they must endure until God is satisfied. Of this process, Dante writes,
“God demands we pay the debt.
Don’t dwell upon the form of punishment
but on what follows; think that at the worst
it cannot last beyond the day of doom” (10.108-111).
Then, there are those using that other thing, Bible, contrary to Dante’s notion of sinners redeeming themselves, sees it as impossible.
Ephesians 2:8-9 states,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”
This is all fun and games, no? Then, really, which lines will “they” cross which will convince you they (you know who I am talking about) are not worthy of respect, honor, valorizing, power, holding sway over us, the poor, weak, misbegotten? The Salt of the Earth:
Jimmy Carter?
On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista uprising culminated in their gaining full power in Nicaragua. The Sandinistas first move as new political leaders was to declare a state of emergency and expropriate land and businesses owned by the old dynastic family and friends, nationalize banks, mines, and transit systems, abolish old courts, denounce churches, and nullify the constitution, laws, and elections. A socialist state was born in Nicaragua. President Carter immediately sent $99 million in aid to the FSLN in an attempt to keep the new regime pro-U.S.. Simultaneously, however, Cuban officials were advising the FSLN on foreign and domestic policy and the FSLN sought an alliance with the Soviet bloc which they reached by March 1980 signing economic, cultural, technological, and scientific agreements with the USSR. Deliveries of Soviet weapons from Cuba began almost immediately after the signing of these agreements. (source)
Once it became clear to Washington that the FSLN would not moderate its policies, President Carter authorized the CIA to support resistance forces in Nicaragua including propaganda efforts, but not including armed action. The Sandinistas supported expanding socialism abroad, including sending weapons to leftist rebels in El Salvador beginning in 1980 and continuing for the next ten years. Some argue that this international support from Nicaragua was also in effort to insure that the Soviets would fully support and protect Nicaragua in case of a U.S. attack or intervention. Sandinista support for the Salvadoran rebels had a profound impact on U.S.-Nicaragua relations throughout the 80’s
Ray-Gun?
On December 1, 1981, Reagan signed an order that allowed the CIA to support the Contras with arms, equipment, and money. This order was implemented in conjunction with an overall strengthening of U.S. presence in Central America and the belief that covert activities are the most effective way to put pressure on a regime. This shift of foreign policy away from the Carter administration’s non-intervention culminated in June 1982 with the Reagan Doctrine which called for supporting democratization everywhere. It was at this point that the goal of the covert operations in Nicaragua shifted away from one of simply interdicting arms to one of supporting a change in government. Iran-Contra historian Theodore Draper, among others, argued, that this was the real goal all the long.
To help popularize the foreign policy changes of the Reagan administration certain propaganda and media initiatives were implemented to sway public and congressional opinion. In January of 1983, National Security Decisions Directive was signed, entitled Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security, institutionalizing public diplomacy. In effect, it was a special planning group within the NSC to coordinate public diplomacy campaigns.[6] This group was America’s first peacetime propaganda ministry. Every administration tries to influence public opinion, but not until Reagan was it so institutionalized. Another use of white propaganda, which Richard Miller described as “actually putting out [the] truth, straight information, not deception,” was the State Department’s Group of Latin American Public Diplomacy (S/LPD).[7] This group, in actuality, reported directly to the NSC despite being housed within the State Department. Both committees utilized a variety of media propaganda and control efforts. A fourteen page memorandum dated March 20, 1985 from North to National Security Advisor Robert McFarlane explained over 80 publicity stunts to influence public and congressional opinion before upcoming Contra aid votes.[8] The public diplomacy officials also leaked select pieces of information that they wanted made public to journalists who favored Reagan. Strategic leaking and declassification of documents allowed the Executive Branch to manage the public perceptions of the American efforts in South America.
Yeah, elected president, Daniel Ortega, and this is Carter’s legacy, then Reagan’s?
My buddy, Toothless in Wisconsin (read my series on his life and my life intersecting with him here on Substack and part one over at Dissident Voice, he’s toothless because he was attacked by an inmate in a country jail in Wisconsin, who kicked his face for 92 seconds, straight. Then, six years in prison (four other years total in and out of jails) with Mengele Dental Hell, i.e. no dental care, that pretty much took his chompers out.
It’s a badge of honor, survival, etc. Now, is Kelly redeamable? He was in trouble because of booze, that old time religion in USA, and in Wisconsin, in the town her grew up in, 53 bars and drinking holes, and 43 churches. In a town of 9,000.
Look, he has traveled many pathways, many heights, and he has fallen and picked himself up and read books galore and has thought out a life now that is part monk, part estranged from family (on their part), part surviving the death of a woman he called friend and mate for over 40 years, and he is still on paper, man, age 65, still on paper, out of the hell mentality of DAs, cops, and judges.
Ahh, redemption, a la Neruda:
Canto general is, as intended, a monument of Western and specifically American literature. As a chronicle of a captive and abused people scheduled for redemption, it recalls the Hebrew Bible; as a historical vision of originary calamity and ultimate deliverance, it brings to mind Paradise Lost; and as a democratic catalogue of New World humanity, it follows Whitman, whom Neruda explicitly invokes. Canto general also looks forward, to Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, where the backwaters of the New World are also the center of creation, or to Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire trilogy, another factual chronicle of conquest and rebellion across the span of Latin American history related with prophetic indignation. Che Guevara carried a copy of Canto general with him in the Sierra Maestra.
For all that, Canto general is often more great than good. Neruda’s gift is lyrical, not narrative, and his ostensible epic, on inspection, is so many lyrics in historically chronological order. Neruda sometimes writes least about what is most important (the best of the 15 sections, “The Heights of Macchu Picchu,” is also among the shortest), and vice versa. And, unsurprisingly, Neruda’s weakest lines are often his most polemical, propagandistic, the poet seeming to say what he should feel or think instead of what he does. None of this much qualifies the glories of the thing. Part III of “Macchu Picchu” concludes, about everyone:
“they all faltered on awaiting their brief daily death:
/ and the bitter brokenness of each day was
/ like a black cup they drank from trembling.”
My translation may improve on some others, but the rills of plangent vowels are lost.
“Sube a nacer conmigo, hermano” is probably the most famous line of the poem: “Rise to be born with me, brother.” History presents a choice, Neruda says, between dying alone each day or being born at last with our brethren. If the notion is embarrassing today, this does not seem entirely to our credit. (sources)
So, also, talking with my friend who is going through hell with a domestic violence case against her husband, now going on 8 months of his incarceration in county jail, and delay after delay in the state’s case against him.
Can she see this far ahead now, after four-plus years, and now, almost a year more, of this fellow deceiving her, denigrating her, attempting to murder her soul and spirit and literally her body?
That’s a large arena from which she has to contend with the demons he put into her life, a la C-PTSD.
Forgiving?
On Feb. 3, 1998, as a bloodthirsty mob of Texans bayed outside a prison in Huntsville, Texas, Gov. George W. Bush defied the appeals of religious conservatives and ordered the execution of Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted ax murderer who found God on death row.
Leigh Anne Gideon is a former reporter for the Huntsville Item. Huntsville is where Texas has its death house, and since 1924 all the state’s executions have taken place there. Gideon has witnessed some of them, sometimes along with members of the condemned man’s family. “You’ll never hear another sound like a mother wailing whenever she’s watching her son being executed,” she says. “There’s no other sound like it. It is just this horrendous wail.”
Contrast that sound bite, taken from a remarkable National Public Radio documentary called “Witness to an Execution,” with what George W. Bush said in the second presidential debate. The subject had turned to the lynching of James Byrd, a black man who had been dragged to death, and Al Gore had made reference to the alleged need for a hate crimes law. Bush hit him back:
“The three men who murdered James Byrd, guess what’s going to happen to them? They’re going to be put to death. A jury found them guilty, and it’s going to be hard to punish them any worse after they get put to death. And it’s the right cause, so it’s the right decision.”
Bush smiled.
For Bush, that was hardly an uncharacteristic moment. Earlier in the campaign, he mocked Karla Faye Tucker, the pickax murderer who had become a born-again Christian and had pleaded for her life. “Please don’t kill me,” he mimicked her in an interview with Tucker Carlson of Talk magazine. Bush said he was misrepresented. (sources)
I remember Bush, in the back pockets of chemicals industry, vetoed a bill that doctors, nurses, humans, all over the USA, wanted to pass that would have gotten poison manufacturers to poison control markers in their products which would help ERs and EMTs and doctors counteracting poisonings. You know, a little bit of money spent to have markers in 13 or 14 of the most common poisons humans use. W Bush said he did not want to unnecessarily burdern private for-profit companies with more costs to do business.
No redemption for me, all the POTUS scum, but here, specifics. Dead people in ERs because of the time to attempt to test stomach material to see what the antidote might be, but then, these other grander more extensive death warrants these George W Bush’s mete out.
The bill Bush vetoed (HR 976) would expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by $35 billion over the next five years, to $60 billion. That would be enough, Democrats say, to provide health coverage to 10 million children whose families are low-income but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid—about 4 million more than the program now covers.
Oh, remember Clinton and his affairs and his Arkansas mafia and his witch Hillary?
Man oh Man, no redemption there: This fellow shows redemption:
Shortly after becoming the U.N. Special Envoy to Haiti, former President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for forcing Haiti to drop tariffs on imported subsidized U.S. rice during his time in office. The policy wiped out Haitian rice farming, seriously damaged Haiti’s ability to be self-sufficient, and contributed to Haiti’s forced urbanization that likely increased the earthquake toll. Dr. Paul Farmer, who serves as Clinton’s deputy in Haiti, told Democracy Now! today: “I felt a sense of great relief just hearing him say that. I felt grateful for it as an American.”
Human stain, with no redemption at all in their futures: “We came, we saw, he died,” she joked when told of news reports of Qaddafi’s death by an aide in between formal interviews. “I’m sure it did” have something to do with her very own visit to Libya just days earlier, she continues.
Watch her, 12 seconds of hell!
Oh, it is a very very Dante’s Circles of Hell World in my book.
This is how they roll at Harvard, at Stanford, City of London, K-Street, J-Street, US Chamber of Commerce, Military Merchants of Death Industrial Complex:
The Nobodies Written By Eduardo Galeano
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream
of escaping poverty: that one magical day good luck will
suddenly rain down on them- will rain down in buckets. But
good luck doesn’t even fall in a fine drizzle, no matter
how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their left hand is
tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right foot, or
start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The
nobodies: the no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits,
dying through life, screwed every which way.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the
police blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them
+—+
That Lincoln?
Thirty-eight Native Americans were hanged on Dec. 26, 1862, as ordered by former President Abraham Lincoln, after the 1862 Dakota War, which was also known as the Sioux Uprising of 1862. The sentences of 265 others were commuted.
THE FACTS: A military commission sentenced 303 Sioux fighters to be executed after deadly fights white settlers and soldiers had with Indians angry about the loss of their homeland and lack of access to food. Harold Holzer, author of several books on Lincoln, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview this month that Lincoln reviewed “every one of these capital cases.”
According to reporting by The Associated Press, the original trials were a farce, some taking as little as five minutes. In addition, the Indians were denied counsel and did not understand what was being said.
After the review, Lincoln decided there was evidence that 39 Sioux were guilty of murder or rape during the uprising and ordered their execution. The remaining 264 sentences were commuted. In addition, one of those sentenced to be executed received a reprieve before the Dec. 26, 1862, hanging of 38 Sioux warriors.
Lincoln went against the advice of fellow Republicans in Minnesota who warned that showing mercy would “carry a large political cost” and that “lessons needed to be taught,” according to Holzer. (source)
Redemption?
Do I need to fill in the blank____________________________________________?
For those I believe do not get any redemption? Kissinger at 100?
How about history speaks about the United Snakes of Chaos-Lies-Deceit-Death-Terrorism?
A new book by David Michael Smith, Endless Holocausts: Mass Death in the History of the United States Empire (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2023), estimated that the U.S. empire is responsible, or shares responsibility, for close to 300 million deaths.
Smith writes that “the almost inconceivable loss of life in these endless holocausts arguably makes this country [the United States] exceptional, though in a strikingly different way than its apologists intend.”
Exceptional in its violence and killing prowess, which is truly shameful. (source)
Yikes, yes, Oh-bomb-uh. But you know about his mother?
In 1965, the CIA backed a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the deaths of millions of alleged communists who were identified by lists provided to the Indonesian military by the CIA. One person suspected of helping to identify names for the blacklist was Ann Dunham, Barack Obama’s mother, who worked as an anthropologist in East Java, a communist stronghold.
[Photo: Ann Dunham in Indonesia in the early 1970s.]
Redemption my ass! Rogue State
William Blum talked about his book Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower, published in 2000 by Common Courage Press. The book was cited by Osama bin Laden as one that Americans should read. The guest responded to telephone calls and electronic mail.
Audio book, Killing Hope:
Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:
- Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
- Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
- Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
- Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
- Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.5
- Though not as easy to quantify, has also led the world in torture; not only the torture performed directly by Americans upon foreigners, but providing torture equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person guidance by American instructors. (source)
Alas, just since 2014, Nuland and McCain and the other creeps pushing Ukraine into a Nazi-Hell Hole, all the people in Klanada, U$A, EU, U-Inbred-Kingdom, Five Myopic Eyes, EuroTrashLandia, Isra-Hell who support, cheer, fund, and overtly and covertly perpetrate the machinations of death, destruction and deceit, well, there you have it, no redemption given by yours truly. As if they give a shit!
The pig, Chomsky.
Noam Chomsky doubles down on his previous call for the state to segregate The Unvaccinated from society: “How can we get food to them? Well, that’s actually their problem.”
&
Noam Chomsky DEFENDS asking Jeffrey Epstein for financial advice as it emerges pedophile moved $270,000 between his accounts: ‘In civilized societies, a person who has served a sentence returns to society without prejudice’
- The linguistics professor, 94, received $270,000 from Epstein in March 2018
- He said the transfer involved his own common funds connected to his late wife
Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges
Paul Haeder, Author 
