Stop Believin' in Pete

 

I poured over darwin and jane goodall. Ernest Hemingway and Bettina Aptheker from the coliseum to stonehenge, today is pete hegseths tribunal for manager of the dept of defense, as if it matters who's in charge there, where the president has a remote office, just like at the cia.

Why do we care? Where does pete hegseth fit in the scheme of right and wrong, democracy and total authoritarianism? 

It's just an intellectual exercise. A game. It's like arguing the rules of war. Or international law. Nothing moves slower than moral persuasion, except maybe glaciation.

If the idea is to prevent another Hiroshima, My Lai, Wounded Knee, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Oct 7th, Sudan, before the atrocity happens, then where is that solution? Israel is the perfect example of the institutionalized hubris of the modern nations and LA fires is the perfect example of the neglect that institutionalized hubris causes.

Stop Thinking. We are the original AI. If AI is the intelligence of non-experience, that is, if we're going to invest our being into a false type of experience because of the fear generated by knowing (and believing) every possible threat and fear of the future is imminent, then we become paralyzed, like we are.

Free the incarcerated firefighters. Why is it so difficult to do the right thing? It shouldn't be democratic nor republican. 

Get rid of eternal punishment. They are not gods and criminals who pay the punishment price shouldn't have to have the letter "C" stamped across their resumes. 

Stop believing in the President. If he (or if it she) were god, would we believe in its existence? No, we would have our doubts.

 It's OK, isn’t it, to believe you're smarter than the constitution or whatever belief system you were raised under, to reject that which justifies your killing someone you don’t even know except by some sort sort of magical transformation of logic or having someone else kill someone for you?

The constitution is no more than the revised ten commandments for nation states, which need some authority to pre-empt the real emptiness of the ten commandments.

And look at what happened with the ten commandments. Adam and Eve got thrown out of the Garden of Eden, Cain killed his brother Abel, Noah took his sons wives to bed to repopulate the earth and every god fearing wanna be human made up their own version (religion), from the first pope, first king, first follower, first Utah messiah, just so they could justify their own crimes.

The first savior, Jesus Christ, was the first big loser because he never wrote on a book nor etched a tablet, but, unfortunately for him and for us, we got a whole mess of ghost writers and worse, tyrants and misanthropes who distrust and hate the human race but at the same time think they are exempt. Basically, they think they’re gods. That’s why I don’t believe in em.

Stop believing in all this fairy tale and fear mongering. Anyone who believes that a Virgin Mother wouldn't have been either stoned or banished and whose son rose again from the dead, the entire family a coven. In order to be fair, our entire history, in the world, rome, greece, norway, africa, and asia, and america, is based on the so-called chronicling of events that supposedly have improved our condition. Jesus, Mohammed, all the popes, kings, and emperors (and billionaires) have come to us either as felons or naked as jaybirds, and we've dressed them up in our minds like Barbies to fit our presumptuous illusions of who we think we are.

Everytime we take a bite to eat, drink, sit on the toilet we need to remind ourselves that we are no different or better than the worst of us, so quit contemplating who to blame for whatever is happening to you. All these "monsters' who believe in their right to not only exist but to determine who else should exist, will get the same comeuppance as we will. History may look as if Biden, Netanyahu, Putin, Trump, or Musk, as examples but certainly not all of these named predators will come out smelling like roses, but in the end, they'll just leave the same rubble and destruction  in front of us as Hadrian, Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Hitler, as examples, and who among them, do we actually care about nowadays anyway?

Take a trip to the Middle East or Turkey and see the ruins and rubble created by all the great religions and conquerors of the past. 

The Glories of War

Glories of War 

Reflections for Veterans Day 2026 from Frederick Foote

Reflections for Veterans Day 2026

 

“The U.S. has been at war or in armed conflict for 229 of its 249 years — roughly 92% of its existence.”[i]

Should we use Memorial Day to reflect on this rather startling fact and to promote peace and a better understanding of our combative history?

Most of our troops (enlisted and junior officers) are working-class, with a few generals and admirals in the upper class.

African Americans are 12.63% of the US population and 18.1% of our armed forces.

Should we be concerned about the burden of service falling almost exclusively on the working class or of ethnic groups being disproportionately represented in the military?

African Americans have participated in most of our military conflicts, yet this participation is rarely reflected in our Memorial and Veterans Day celebrations. Many Americans are surprised to learn about the Black troops who fought for their freedom in the Civil War.

 Africans, Negroes, Blacks, coons, tar babies, jigs, mulattos, colored, African Americans, and always niggers fought in most of the USA's declared wars.

Niggers that had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect" stood up in numbers during our Revolutionary War and fought for their freedom on both sides. Between 5,000 and 8,000 African Americans fought for the United States during that war. Their contributions to the nation's freedom have been routinely ignored or denied.

An estimated 20,000 Blacks fought for the British during that war and were awarded their freedom at the war's end.

Was it the British promising Black slaves freedom, or the US military fighting to continue Black slavery that was truly fighting for freedom?

During the American Civil War, approximately 200,000 African Americans served in the Union Military. These troops were crucial to the Union's victory in the war. My great-grandfather was one of them. There is a small and obscure Monument to these troops in Washington, DC, near Howard University.

About 2,500 African American troops fought in the Spanish-American War. My grandfather was one of them. Six African American servicemen won the Medal of Honor.

More than 380,000 African American troops fought in World War I in segregated units. Most of these troops were relegated to support units and subject to racial discrimination. However, the African American units assigned to the French army saw extensive combat. And units such as the Harlem Hellfighters (369th Infantry Regiment) earned the highest honors.

African American troops returning to the USA were beaten and lynched for having the audacity to wear their uniforms.

Over a million African Americans served, again, in segregated units in World War II, and almost none of them showed up on the movie screen or popular literature concerning the war. My father was one of them. 

Over 300,000 African Americans served in Vietnam, many of whom were cannon fodder. I served in the US Air Force during this war, but exclusively in the United States and Canada.

African American military service did not go unnoticed in the Vietnam War, as Black and White soldiers fought each other to a degree that could not be ignored or concealed.

Sixteen percent of the troops serving in the Iraqi Wars were African American.

The number of African American troops serving in Afghanistan is not known, but they were a substantial number of the casualties. Again, literature and popular media often ignore the role of these troops.

On Memorial Day, we should not lose sight of our history of constant warfare, the horrors of War, and we should make a conscious effort to understand the economic and ethnic demographics of the people who fight our Wars.

 

 

 

 

 

[i] US Wars List — Every American War & Military Intervention Since 1776 | WarCosts

All these institutions controlled by the “capital” class are manifestations of the advance of world wide totalitarianism. In other words, it’s worse than you think.

All these institutions controlled by the “capital” class are manifestations of the advance of worldwide totalitarianism. In other words, it’s worse than you think. When ADAM SMITH wrote The Wealth of Nations, the world was in a far different mode. Nations, the banking industry, the control of resources were all certainly established but not on an international scope. Sanctions, blockades, and localized warfare were in the mix but it took the worldwide industrial (read technology) revolution to supply a worldwide reason for capital consolidation, along with the development of worldwide communication systems so companies, government collusion could be enhanced. Governments could and did begin to react to any political adversarial relationships in any region of the world that possibly hindered the advancement of their imperial interests. Imperialism, capitalism, colonialism rather than being mundane historical antiquarian principles became the basis for ethnic cleansing, genocide, and exaggerated manipulation of the worst mankind had to offer at a moral level. The economic strangulation of countries also became a tool to control. We are seeing it in the modern world, at least the obvious instances, such as Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, but the part we don’t see is the near majority of nations who over time have become indebted to the owners of every nation state. No nation is exempt from this much universal crushing of freedom, though freedom among nations is practically nonexistent, inside domestic freedoms are more like living in a glass bubble rather than actually living free. Freedom itself has suffered the most, because now freedom is more about any individual's desires than it is about the acceptance of other's differences between you and them. Taking away, hindering, and even hating the others freedom becomes a freedom in itself, thus full circle we come around to eating our own tail. The freedom of the government has always been the purpose of the nation state, whether it be kings, princes, strong man dictators or so-called reasonable Age of Reason aristocrats. It’s ironic that we the commoners of any nation come to believe that our struggle is to change the present in our favor against a system designed to make sure that doesn’t happen. Sent from my iPad

And so it was that later in its life,

And so it was that later in its life, it sunk to the lowest levels, it looked into its past to see if anyone It knew had done anything worthwhile, at least, worthwhile enough to have been recognized by any major news source, ( oh yes, it more than understood that it may be a much too relative criteria for acknowledgement of success) or really any notable consequence or notoriety, from serial killer to "quietest woman on earth" ribbon at the Macon, Georgia county fair would be considered infamous. It would be journalistically spurillist to expose the final reports because of the new rule of journalistic ideas are ordered in such a way to keep the truths a mystery, inadmissible as evidence in any court ruling. No, it's true that no one ("no one" being a purely no brainer to statisticians) should ever have to look at truth and believe they understand it. For some reason, it is aware that what's wrong with the world isn't virtual reality but age old unproven nor unrealistic traditions, from the likes of witches, brujos, religious fanatics, perfectionists and idealists, or billionaires, the world has its own mind, made up of swelling oceans, low lying deserts, thunderstorms, hurricanes as well as soft breezes, cool nights, pleasant afternoons, and rain in its ways of thinking. Although many armies will be turned back and defeated by snow, mud, natures perseverance, they will carry on with their mission, die for their cause, all for bloody naught, because when memory, which keeps so many alive between life and deaths, is gone, there's no one who can venture outside with only their own Truth as a guide and triumph over a Lie. Sorry folks, that's where we are, can't be denied nor verified. Why is it considered relevant to want to be in a science fiction movie, besieged by the same imaginary monsters created here on earth. I like it when you (or anyone) can Start anywhere and end up somewhere else, but at the same time go nowhere and everywhere. Conclusion: no one I ever loved, friend, lover, wife (which is different than lover or friend but has a category of its own), acquaintance, nor co-worker, bar friend, more or less anyone and everyone I spent any time with at all, universally, hasn't amounted to more than an obituary. No one ever wants to die, there’s always a hope and chance for some sort of miracle that may give us one more day, month or year. For some I suppose it’s the children that bear the futures burden. Maybe for them, there will be a miracle, and they won’t have to wave goodbye to someone else as they escape into the new frontier, going where no one has gone before, where no one cares about what’s been left behind. Sent from my iPad

By the time I was thirty I had stripped nearly all artificiality and humanity from my consciousness, although I understood underneath still lay the quick sand muck of socialization and instinct. I thought that would be okay, after all, residue, rust, and dust is the natural order of all physics.

By the time I was thirty I had stripped nearly all artificiality and humanity from my consciousness, although I understood underneath still lay a quicksand muck of socialization and instinct. I thought that would be okay, after all, residue, rust, and dust is the natural order of all physics. I remembered my first real girlfriend and I talking one day about what we wanted to be or have when we reached thirty. I don’t know why thirty was important, but I guess that was about how far along in life we could think of ourselves before we started getting old. She wanted to be a millionaire and I wanted to be a doctor or a saint. I have to laugh at that now, imagining what it would have taken to be either one. She was smarter, money was a simple object to gain some happiness out of life. She didn’t care how she got it or where it came from, from her own creativity or by just being pretty and available. I had plenty of conversations with god, or Jesus, and maybe, as I discovered later, a little misogyny probably prevented me from conversing with the Blessed Virgin Mary, maybe out of shyness, thinking how complicated it could be, being a virgin and a mother, with god as the father. Still, those were the good old days. Nostalgia can be nourishing at times. That’s one realization I’ve come to, the Principle of Lasting Peace, from which Nostalgia is derived. You might not see that now, but you will a little further on. 

Anyway, she did become a millionaire and I didn’t even make it to Australia, which was the second thing we both wanted to do in our lifetimes. I went a lot of other places but not there. There is an indigenous culture there that is one of the homeliest people in the world. Yes, that’s just my standard of a certain kind of beauty, but I’m pretty inclusive when it comes to accepting most of the six billion people on this earth of ours. I really love humanity and all it has to offer in such a basic way but, once I get down to what they’re all about, the bad far outweighs, or should I say, dominates the good. Like I was saying, by thirty I had accepted that fact. I didn’t relish that because deep down in that residue I mentioned before, there is a semblance of belief that there is always a chance humanity could find its balance between being suckers for the godhead and the philosophy, “money talks and bullshit walks.” I suppose that’s Hope. Hope is the belief that in every truth, there can be found, if one looks hard enough, a kernel of optimism among the many dire warnings that life produces. In fact truth itself is inherently a realization that for every action there is a reaction, truth or consequences, right and wrong, a contradiction. Or wrong time, right place or vice versa. Sent from my iPad

Genocide is a spectator sport

Genocide is a spectator sport Like everything else. I think we’re all going to find out what it was like living in Roman times when gladiators and Roman armies entertained the pre tv audiences of the day. When smoke rose from the chimneys of Auschwitz and Dachau, when Gaza, Armenians, Romanians, Rwandans, Serbs, indigenous peoples in every nook and cranny of the earth, all of them valiant, valor, honorable for the kings of money. We’ve accepted all this in our name. We hear and see it all, like an incessant drumbeat and dance, pounding throughout our nights, flashes of light like the sun going off and on, something’s coming, it calls us by the names we were given when time began. Sent from my iPad