Hey Jorge, You're Outta Here!

Full Metal Jacket: The Culturist Implications

Here is my problem: I am promoting a culturist version of Darwinian literary studies and very few political activists see an urgent and vital connection between Darwinian literary studies and their patriotic cause.  Fortunately, Stanley Kubrick’s powerful Vietnam War film, Full Metal Jacket, makes the connection clear.

Kubrick’s film follows the career of one recruit ‘Joker’ (Matthew Bodine) go from boot camp to the war, wherein he works as a reporter / propagandist for the military newspaper.  In this position, Joker sardonically parodies the war. But, after the Tet offensive, the propaganda chief panics that newsman Walter Cronkite will go say the war is unwinnable.  At this point, the chief stops humoring Joker and sends him into combat.  

We all know how disagreement over the Vietnam War’s meaning tore up the United States.  But, we must also come to see the importance of narrative in current politics.  Black Lives Matter, foreign aid, and the resettling of refugees into the West are justified by a narrative that paints the West as having sins for which to atone.  These would all come to a halt if the publicly largely believed the West were a unique cultural gem that needed protection.

Famously, Full Metal Jacket portrays raw indoctrination in boot camp.  The opening shot shows the recruits getting their heads shaved: their old self is to die, so that they might be reborn.  The drill instructor then proceeds to call them ‘gay,’ ‘ladies,’ and ‘fat bodies,’ while mercilessly running them through drills and routines. This continues until the recruit called ‘fat body’ kills the drill instructor and himself. 

READ THE THRILLING CONCLUSION HERE!

ISIS Hacker Involved in Garland Attacks on Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer and Bosch Fawstin KILLED DEAD BY US DRONE STRIKE

AND A BIG FUCK-YOU-IN-THE-ASS TO MOHAMMED THE PIG-GOD!

A US drone strike in Syria Tuesday reportedly killed a fugitive British computer hacker who had become one of ISIS’ top online recruiters. 

The Wall Street Journal reported the death of Junaid Hussein late Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the operation. 

The officials said Hussein was killed by a targeted airstrike near the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS’ self-proclaimed “caliphate.” 

Hussein was a native of Birmingham, England, who fled Britain for Syria in 2013 after serving prison time for hacking the email of a former aide to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and publishing Blair’s personal information online. 

Adopting the name Abu Hussain Al Britani, he repeatedly called for young, computer-literate Muslims to come to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. 

“You can sit at home and play call of duty or you can come here and respond to the real call of duty… the choice is yours,” Hussein tweeted in 2014, referencing the popular video game. 

In recent months, officials told the Journal that Hussein had tried to use social media to recruit would-be jihadis to carry out attacks against US service personnel. 

The paper reported that Hussein would frequently post the names, addresses and photos of US troops on his Twitter feed and urge his followers to find the serviceman or servicewoman and kill him or her. 

US officials believe Hussein was also involved in plotting terror attacks over this past July 4 holiday.

Seven Mary Three

Cumbersome

Water's Edge

US and Canada ONLY Developed Nations to Offer Birthright Citizenship, UK, France, Ireland Threw Out the Law

No European country grants birthright citizenship to any person born on its soil.

EVEN more on the Iranian detente and a more moderate Iran

U.N. Nuclear Watchdog: Iran May Have Built Extension at Disputed Military Site

VIENNA (Reuters) – Iran appears to have built an extension to part of its Parchin military site since May, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a report on Thursday delving into a major part of its inquiry into possible military dimensions to Tehran’s past atomic activity.
A resolution of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Parchin file, which includes a demand for IAEA access to the site, is a symbolically important issue that could help make or break Tehran’s July 14 nuclear deal with six world powers.
The confidential IAEA report, obtained by Reuters, said:
“Since (our) previous report (in May), at a particular location at the Parchin site, the agency has continued to observe, through satellite imagery, the presence of vehicles, equipment, and probable construction materials. In addition, a small extension to an existing building appears to have constructed.”

More on the NEW DETENTE with a changed, happy Iran

Senior Iranian Official Says ‘Israel Must Be Annihilated’

The Iranian parliament speaker’s international affairs adviser has said that his country’s “ultimate slogan” is that “Israel should be annihilated.”

“Our positions against the usurper Zionist regime have not changed at all; Israel should be annihilated and this is our ultimate slogan,”

Hossein Sheikholeslam told reporters on Tuesday, Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
The Iranian official was protesting the British foreign secretary’s contention earlier this week that Iran’s position on Israel had changed.
According to past media accounts, Sheikholeslam was among those who took American diplomats hostage in Tehran in 1979.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly pointed to the Iranian leadership’s aspirations to destroy the Jewish state as one of several reasons he believes the Iran nuclear deal spearheaded by President Barack Obama is dangerous.Indeed, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier this month tweeted his support for “resistance groups” fighting Israel, a euphemism for armed groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

• 
  

Jorge Ramos’ Daughter Works For Hillary Clinton, Univision’s Chair Pledged ‘All Might’ To Help Hillary

I know it's hard to believe, but ...

Christianity Is The Religion of War

Hungarian police fire tear gas at migrants to prevent them leaving refugee processing centre

Hungarian police fire tear gas at migrants to prevent them leaving refugee processing centre

Hungarian security forces have fired teargas to prevent around 200 migrants leaving the country’s main refugee processing centre near the southern border with Serbia, a police spokesman says. 

Key points 140,630 migrants have crossed into Hungary this year Barbed wire, four-metre high fence used to stop refugees ‘Border hunters’ to patrol Hungary’s southern border Germany’s Angela Merkel booed by far-right protesters. 

The spokesman, Szabolcs Szenti, said police used the tear gas to disperse migrants who had refused to be fingerprinted and tried to leave the processing centre at Roszke near the southern border, along which Hungary is erecting a fence. 

“Police are trying to calm the situation, but the migrants are continuing to shout,” Mr Szenti said.

AND THEN THERE'S THIS:

Bulgaria: Soldiers deployed to block refugees at Macedonian border

Dozens of heavily armed Bulgarian soldiers and a Humvee were deployed to the Macedonian border near the Gyueshevo checkpoint, Wednesday to prevent refugees and migrants entering the country.

Samantha Power: “No religious beliefs justify throwing individuals off of buildings or stoning them to death because of who they love”

From Jihad Watch:

Samantha Power is Obama’s Ambassador to the United Nations. At the first UN Security Council meeting on LGBT rights, she did the absolutely predictable thing: dissembled about the root causes of why the Islamic State persecutes gays. “No religious beliefs,” she asserted confidently, “justify throwing individuals off of buildings or stoning them to death because of who they love.”

Oh really? Here is a quote from a manual of Islamic law, al-Siyaasah al-Shar’iyyah, as reproduced atIslamQA.com:

Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Abbaas said: The highest point in the town should be found and the homosexual should be thrown head first from it, then stones should be thrown at him.

Ibn ‘Abbaas derived this hadd punishment from the punishment that Allaah sent upon the homosexuals of the people of Loot.

“Loot” is the Biblical figure Lot. When this says that the punishment of throwing homosexuals off high places and stoning them is derived from the punishment of Allah upon the homosexuals of the people of Lot, it is referring to this Qur’an passage:

“And Lot when he said to his people, ‘Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds? Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people.’ But the answer of his people was only that they said, ‘Evict them from your city! Indeed, they are men who keep themselves pure.’ So We saved him and his family, except for his wife; she was of those who remained. And We rained upon them a rain. Then see how was the end of the criminals.” (Qur’an 7:80-84)

This “rain” that Allah rained down upon them is generally understood by Islamic authorities as referring to a rain of stones, as per this Qur’an passage:

“By your life, indeed they were, in their intoxication, wandering blindly. So the shriek seized them at sunrise. And We made the highest part its lowest and rained upon them stones of hard clay. Indeed in that are signs for those who discern. And indeed, those cities are on an established road.” (Qur’an 15:72-76)

Samantha Power ignores this, and probably doesn’t know about it. But the Islamic State does.

“Making History: The First UN Security Council Meeting on LGBT Rights,” by Samantha Power,Medium.com, August 24, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

…But crucial and unprecedented as this step is, condemning ISIL’s violent and systematic targeting of LGBT individuals is the easiest step we can take today. Because while today’s session is focused on the crimes against LGBT persons committed by ISIL, we know the scope of this problem is much broader. Consider the report released in June by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights — a report that found that thousands of people have been killed or brutally injured worldwide because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. According to the report, “the overall picture remains one of continuing, pervasive, violent abuse, harassment and discrimination affecting LGBT and intersex persons in all regions…often perpetrated with impunity.”

We are all horrified by ISIL’s videos of men being thrown to their death. But what is it about these crimes that so shocks our collective conscience? At its essence — it is the denial of a person’s most basic right because of who they are. It is ISIL deciding that, because of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, they do not deserve to live.

Yet if these crimes feel utterly unjust and wrong to us, we must also ask: Why is it acceptable to deny LGBT persons other human rights? Why should LGBT persons be imprisoned for who they are? Why should police be allowed to refuse to investigate attacks or threats against LGBT persons? Why should we accept LGBT persons being turned away from schools or jobs or social services because of who they love? The answer to all of these questions is the same: We should not accept it. But too often we do.

No religious beliefs justify throwing individuals off of buildings or stoning them to death because of who they love.

No cultural values excuse refusing to investigate a killing, assault or death threat because the victim is gay. These are not Western-imposed rights, or the North trying to force its values on the South.

Yet in too many parts of the world, denying LGBT rights is still seen as moral and just. Laws are used to criminalize LGBT persons, rather than to prosecute the people who violate their rights. That must change.

That change begins by working to stop attacks against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. And by taking steps to ensure that those who commit these heinous and brutal crimes are held accountable, whether the perpetrators belong to ISIL or police forces or are members of our own communities….

Train Gunman Watched Jihadi Video Before Attack: French Prosecutor

Humpday Blues

Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Born With A Broken Heart

Shotgun Blues

Shame, Shame, Shame

Midnight Rider

It would be bad if Daniel Barenboim played music in Iran

The Israel-hating musician Barenboim might be allowed to enter Iran just so he can play philharmonics with a German group:

Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev demanded on Wednesday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel cancel talks of a possible performance in Tehran staged by the Berlin Philharmonic and its musical director, the world renowned pianist Daniel Barenboim.

Barenboim, the Argentinian-born Israeli, has earned a reputation in recent years as one of the harshest critics of government policies in the territories. [...]

"The conductor, Daniel Barenboim, a citizen of Israel, will perform in Iran together with the Berlin Philharmonic," Regev wrote. "Barenboim has taken an anti-Israel stance and he makes sure to slander Israel while using culture as leverage in order to state his political opinions against the State of Israel." [...]

"Daniel Barenboim's concert in Iran hurts Israel's efforts to prevent the nuclear agreement and boosts the delegitimization efforts against Israel," Regev wrote.

"Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism," she wrote. "It supports Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and Hamas, and its leaders have blood on their hands. I believe that Germany would do the right thing if it would cancel the performance."

That any German medium would willingly go to Iran at a time like this when they're still dominated by pure evil only says they haven't learned a true lesson. Their association with monsters like Barenboim speaks volumes.

Mike Grell's uninformed view of Islam and Yugoslavian war

I found an old interview Westfield Comics did in late 2001 with artist/writer Mike Grell on the Internet Archive, from the time he'd written Iron Man for about a year - and a very poor job at that - where he wrote up a story that whitewashed Islam. It was in issue 50 of the second volume (post-Heroes Reborn), and what he had to say was pretty distasteful:

Westfield: What can we look forward to in upcoming issues?

Grell: Storywise, the angle I'm taking is I want to, first of all, deal with the character. To me, the stories are not necessarily secondary, but the character development itself is always the important thing and the stories build around the character. So, one of the first things that I'm doing is restoring the human frailty aspect of Tony Stark having to recharge his heart on a regular basis, or an irregular basis, which is even more alarming for him. Depending on how much energy he uses during the course of the day, he gets somewhere between a 24 and 48 hour charge on his heart before he begins to weaken. So we're adding that one aspect back into his character. Then, going on from there, one of the things that I'm dealing with is the fact that Tony's spent an awful long time involved in one aspect or another of weapons development. Basically what he's done is, he's developed this super powerful weapon that, if it were to fall into the wrong hands or if it were to be misapplied, could cause more harm than good. It's one thing when you're young and you're approaching things from an academic standpoint, more or less on the angle of a mental exercise, "can I do this?" as opposed to "should I do this?" It's quite another thing when something you might have developed in the past jumps up and bites you in the butt. That's the direction that I've taken him in the very first storyline that I'm doing. In issue #50, I'm very pleased to say, given the state of the world and everything else, I took the problems in Eastern Europe of Kosovo and Bosnia and rolled them into a situation with a character that I call Milos Radanovic (a very, very slight take off on Slobodan Milosevic), and put Tony Stark into the situation where he has to deal in a country where the leader is conducting ethnic cleansing, which is a thinly veiled term for genocide, against the Muslim population. At this stage in the game, given recent events, I think a lot of the readers are gonna be surprised and a little startled to find that my romantic lead in here is a Muslim woman, which I'm actually very pleased about. (Of course this story was written months before the 9/11 attack.) I took Tony over there with the express intent of separating him from his armor and forcing him to deal with the issues at hand as an ordinary man. The way the story develops from there, I think, is both logical and interesting for the reader to see what happens when a guy who's come to rely on this super powerful armor, this ace in the hole that he always has, is forced to deal with it on a one-to-one human basis.

Boy, this man sure didn't sound like he wanted to be informed at the time, and no telling if he's changed even now. Milosevic may not have been a saint, but if he thought the Serbians started the Yugoslavian war, he should take a look at the following info by Andy Wilcoxen:

...Alija Izetbegovic, the war-time President of the Bosnian-Muslims, and his Defense Minister, Hasan Cengic, were both outspoken jihadists.

Izetbegovic is the author of a book entitled the Islamic Declaration, which he wrote in 1970 and published in 1990. In his book, Izetbegovic advocates Sharia law, asserting that “the Islamic movement should and can, take over political power as soon as it is morally and numerically so strong that it can not only overturn the existing non-Islamic power, but also build up a new Islamic one.”

Izetbegovic brands Western feminists “a depraved element of the female sex” and says, “There can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic social and political institutions.” Izetbegovic asserted that “means of mass influence — the press, radio, television and film — should be in the hands of people whose Islamic, moral, and intellectual authority is indisputable.” And he advocated banning “casinos, night clubs, dance halls and all other forms of entertainment incompatible with the moral tenets of Islam.”

In 1983, Izetbegovic and Cengic were tried and convicted by the Yugoslav authorities for attempting to incite an Islamist uprising similar to the Islamic Revolution that gripped Iran in 1979.

According to the 1983 trial judgment, “Alija Izetbegovic asserted that Islam must be a state system or social system in all countries where the population is Muslim, and that the necessary conditions should be created to turn Bosnia and Herzegovina into an Islamic republic with Islamic laws.”

The judgment also quoted Izetbegovic as saying “Our imams should be armed and they should interpret and apply Islam following the example of Iran’s Shiite imams.” The judgment quoted Cengic saying, “The goal of the Islamic revolution in our country is the creation of a unified Islamic state comprising the area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sandzak, and Kosovo.”

The judgment went on to quote Cengic’s view that “Jihad should be pursued to its final outcome in order to exterminate the enemy and the infidels.” He said, “We should not wait for a challenge or a provocation. Muslims must invent a challenge. They must be the ones who produce the challenge, and the goal will then come by itself.”

Cengic believed that “The Muslims should be prepared for self-sacrifice to achieve their goals.” The judgment quoted him admonishing Muslims, “do not take an infidel as your friend. Do not be friends with your fathers or your brothers if they favor the absence of our faith.” He said, “A Muslim woman should not nurse the children of a non-Muslim woman. A Muslim cannot receive the blood of or give blood to a non-believer. Muslims must be superior to all others, and every effort should be made to create an environment in which everyone will be of pure Muslim blood.”

So who really started the war and held the most morally reprehensible visions? A few years ago, a Bosnian woman was arrested in Kentucky for torturing/murdering Serbs (H/T: Pamela Geller):

According to court documents, [Azra] Basic is charged with fatally stabbing a prisoner in the neck in 1992 during the bloody conflict in the Balkans.

Court documents accuse her of numerous other atrocities, including: Setting a prisoner ablaze, pulling out prisoners' fingernails with pliers, ripping off a man's ear with pliers and carving crosses and the letter "S" into another man's flesh.

The federal courts have ruled last month that Basic can be extradited for her repulsive crimes. Gee, these are the kind of people Grell thought were perfect saints? I lost respect for Grell after he penned his propaganda piece in Iron Man, which conflicts with the premise he wrote for Jon Sable, who witnesses the terrorist atrocities at the 1972 Munich Olympics in the titular series from the mid-80s. What if it turned out Grell even bought into all the anti-Israel propaganda depicting Israel as "aggressor" against the so-called palestinians? The PLO, the very terrorist gang who conducted the invasion at the Olympics, takes its name from the "race" even Golda Meir said was non-existent. I found his bragging about being "pleased" with the setup he wrote insulting too. He just proved himself another leftist who always goes for the easiest path.

Still, he got punished in a way: the overall writing in his run was very sloppy, including the storyline where Tony Stark unmasks and goes public about his identity as IM, which involved getting into armor so he could rescue a cat. IM is the kind of heroic role whose wearers like Tony I don't think should go public about their IDs. The run also saw a weak battle between Tony and the son of the Mandarin, who fought without rings. It was pretty lame too. And the unmasking was all but ignored soon after. Also, the story with the Muslim woman named Aisha (which was the name of the child bride of Muhammed), was soon forgotten too, though not before Grell insulted everyone's intellect. As noted, his run was only a year at best and then he was let go.

He also defended his angle in an interview posted at Alvaro's Comic Boards. First though, here's something he had to say about the delay of a new Jon Sable story:

Q: There was some potential movie stuff with your character Jon Sable, but then that got placed to the side due to 9-11 stuff. Has that situation changed?

A: Not anything right at this moment, but there is continued interest. Sept 11 did factor in there. We were close to a green light in March of 2001, and the company was trying to push production ahead in light of the potential Screen Actors Guild strike. They would have had to start shooting March 15 so that they could have it in the can to have it released in October of 2001, but when it became a tight fit, they decided that rather than rush it into production they would wait. If you saw some of the movies that came out around that time you can tell they were rushed and not great movies. They felt Sable was a good enough project that they wanted to spend the right amount of time on it so they put it on hold and planned to start shooting parts of it in October.

Then 9-11 happened and the funding for the features just evaporated. Lots of the capitalization was European and it just vanished, it wasn’t anything personal and it certainly wasn’t anything against the character. The producer, Gene Simmons of KISS, was a big admirer of Sable and loved the character for years and years and felt really bad that it happened, but Sable wasn’t the only project of his that got axed. So we are still looking.

And still are; I don't think there's ever been a Sable movie, and with the dominant politics today, there's no chance there ever will be. Now for the part about his propaganda part in IM:

Q: Does fan reactions and comments factor into what you decide to do with the titles you are on?

A: I think it effects the editors more than the writers, because when I have a character and story in mind--when I have formulated the plot and the relationships and decided the direction everything is going and begun that journey--by the time it gets to the fans I have already gone 5 steps beyond. My lead time on most of those stories was around 5 months. As a matter of fact issue 50, where I featured a Muslim woman as the primary romantic interest and made her into a reoccurring character, had nothing to do with 9-11. I had no political axe to grind whatsoever. In hindsight people would look at that and the timing- especially since the issue that followed that involved firefighters trapped in a burning building- and say, “It is all connected to 9-11”. Nothing could be further form the truth. It was a story line that was pursued for the drama of it and the development of the character. It had nothing to do with what was going on in the world because I was already so far ahead at that time. What the reader reaction does effect on a very quick ongoing basis is other directions publishing companies elect to take from the stand point of sales.

"Nothing to do with 9-11", yet everything to do with his perception of the Yugoslavian war, which was doubtlessly informed only by mainstream papers who long made up their minds they were on the side of the Islamofascists. It makes no difference whether it was before or after 9-11; what he wrote would've been ludicrous and galling anytime, and an insult to many innocent victims of jihad past and present. Grell did nothing more than reveal himself as somebody with a bad grip on reality and no interest in doing deeper research on challenging issues.

And interesting that a Jon Sable movie would be shelved, but his IM story was given full approval. This certainly says a lot about how mainstream editors (and film producers) are thinking. And it likewise tells how questionable Grell's view of the 1972 Olympic massacre could be. I hope he's learned his lesson since then. But chances are he didn't.