The election of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte constitutes the lowest point for the struggling Filipino democratic system. Duterte has used profanities against President Obama, the United States Ambassador to the Philippines, Pope Frances, the United Nations and others who have questioned his blood-soaked reign as president. Recently, he even compared himself to Hitler in not only refusing to stop his extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals but saying that he was prepared like Hitler to murder millions. Now this budding tyrant has declared that the very concept of human rights is the “anti-thesis of government.” In reality it is Duterte who is pushing the Philippines back into a state of Nature where might is right and government is merely the dominion of the powerful over the powerless. What is particularly chilling is that Duterte is a lawyer and former prosecutor.
Duterte has ordered the killing of thousands and even personally tied to past murders from his time as a prosecutor. He told the audience of policewomen “[Don’t listen to] human rights (groups), because human rights is always the anti-thesis of government.” He has previously said “I don’t call about human rights.”
It is already clear that Duterte believes that the definition of “government” includes extrajudicial killings, authoritarian rule, and contempt for rule of law. However, he now maintains that government cannot by definition include the concept of human rights.
As an attorney, Duterte is an utter disgrace to our profession. As a national leader, he is little more than a profane, petty tyrant. The United States cannot simply ignore his murderous and despotic policies — no matter how important an ally the Philippines may be.
“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators” – P. J. O’Rourke, US humorist & political commentator (www.quotationspage.com/quote/26898.html).
So, who’s Duerte been bought by?
@fred sobel, October 4, 2016 at 9:54 am
“ ‘As an attorney, Duterte is an utter disgrace to our profession’
“I long for the day when Prof. Turley applies those same words to James Comey and Loretta Lynch.”
How about “Constitutional” lawyer Barack Obama?
I thought about that but I didn’t want to push my luck. No way will Turley ever say that about Obama, come hell or high water.
“As an attorney, Duterte is an utter disgrace to our profession”
I long for the day when Prof. Turley applies those same words to James Comey and Loretta Lynch.
@Don de Drain, October 3, 2016 at 11:03 pm
“Ken
“I think Squeaky is reading from a different version of the Constitution than the version approved by the Founding Fathers. Her version talks about faithfully executing people, not about faithfully executing the laws.”
Well, then, that explains a lot. 🙂
Paul and Squeek – Have you read Pat Barkers’ most excellent trilogy about WWI? Highly recommend! Also, back in 2008 I saw an amazing performance during Spoleto USA festival about the sinking of the Lusitania and WWI. They used small scale models to enact the war. Since then I’ve never looked at broccoli quite the same =) Such an amazing show.
If I remember the documents well enough, it was young man named Winston Churchill who was responsible for pulling back the escort of the Lusitania and Carpathia? I think the Carpathia took 4 torpedoes and still made it into port.
wow. nothing has changed has it? the elites have no problem sacrificing innocents in their quest for power and money.
slohrss29 – Churhcill was in France at a conference, First Sea Lord Fisher was in charge. The U-20 sank several ships and they were tracking it by its sinkings. The signals (2) they gave the Lusitania were both vague and contradictory. Carpathia was the ship that rescued the passengers on the Titanic.
Thanks for the detail Paul!
Autumn – not been to Spoleto, on my bucket list. I could see doing the Lusitania and U-20 as broccoli. Or were the people broccoli, in which case that is a lot of broccoli.
Autumn,
No I have read that, or even heard of that. I don’t read a lot of war stuff anymore. I used to read some of my father’s war books when I lived at home, but not much anymore. I need to strengthen my reading in that area, I guess.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky Fromm, Girl Reporter
1, October 3, 2016 at 6:46 pm
“@Ken
“I have no idea what you were going on about. Did you agree with me about Duterte, or did you support the drug pushers???”
Do you really think that agreeing with your advocacy of murder or supporting the drug pushers exhausts the possibilities? If so, your question’s a sad commentary on the circumscription of your conscious awareness.
What I was saying to Jill and anyone else interested, is that your and Duterte’s unabashed and unvarnished advocacy of killing people you deem socially undesirable, not only starkly reveals your own compromised consciousness, but also illuminates in a new light the same sociopathic behavior by people who attempt to hide the behavior or rationalize it as being legitimate because they’re acting as agents of some government or another.
For example, a commenter up-thread said, “Someone needs to explain how Duterte, by the above statement, [“It is already clear that Duterte believes that the definition of ‘government ‘includes extrajudicial killings, authoritarian rule, and contempt for rule of law. However, he now maintains that government cannot by definition include the concept of human rights.] is any different than our current government, up to and including the Commander in Chief.”
In other words, to come back around to you, your advocacy/support of extrajudicial people-killing, aka murder, is remarkably similar to that of another of your heroes, Barack Obama.
Ken
I think Squeaky is reading from a different version of the Constitution than the version approved by the Founding Fathers. Her version talks about faithfully executing people, not about faithfully executing the laws.
Sooo, let’s see. Drug pushers sell a product that addicts the user, and frequently renders that user unproductive in society, destroys their familial relationships, lands them in jail as they steal things to pay for the product, ruins their health, destroys neighborhoods, and even manages to kill 24,000 of them per year in the U.S. alone due to overdoses—- the people who instigate that, you blithely label those people as simply:
socially undesirable.
Well then, I got your answer. You are on the side of the drug pushers.
Thanks for clearing it up for me!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Breaking news folks!! Assange allegedly coming out saying HRC wanted to kill him.
Autumn, Democrats don’t kill people, do they??
Be interesting if this gets any traction. Not likely, probably.
slohrss29 – the “alt right” and “alt left” are already on it. No one pays attention to the MSM so it does not matter if they bury it.
Just looking around this evening, the mainstream reporting is looking so bad, they may be resorting to reporting some of the truth. Must be the pressure of the alt media. We can only hope. If people throw in the towel in the MSM, that means the advertisers will too eventually…
It may be a little late, but we can hope…
Her spokesman doesn’t deny that she said something like, can’t we just drone him? See wikileaks twitter for more info.
Jill, as a fellow basement dweller you’ll love Tim’s show today
And Trump supporters stayed up all night for a Assange commercial. 🙂
Alex is not too pleased with Assange. He sent him an infomercial.
@Teaching Spastics to Dance, October 3, 2016 at 6:34 pm
“The Canadian psychologist Dr. Robert Altemeyer
“Called by one Australian social psychologist, ‘The Clown Prince of political psychology’.”
That’s awfully interesting. Did he also say something about your being the Clown Prince of Truculent Trolls? 🙂
Is everyone aware that he is not just sanctioning the killing of drug sellers, but drug users as well?
http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKCN1200BD
Or maybe this is OK with folks too? Kill the users and the pushers? Asking for a friend.
Not a nice guy. He is in the Philippines, not the US. It’s up to the Philippino citizenry to handle this, and it looks as though they have. They elected him to office.
We just killed 22 more people in Somalia by a missile fired from a drone. As far as I know, they have not declared war on us, and the Congress has not declared war on them.
I think we have a difference in scale considering human rights here.
Reported deaths and injuries
Pakistan 2004 onwards
US Drone Strikes
Our complete
Pakistan datasheet
Most recent strike:
May 21 2016
Total strikes: 424
Obama strikes: 373
Total killed: 2,499-4,001
Civilians killed: 424-966
Children killed: 172-207
Injured: 1,161-1,744
Yemen 2002 onwards
US Covert Action
Our complete
Yemen datasheet
Most recent strike:
September 29 2016
Confirmed drone strikes: 135-155
Total killed: 577-838
Civilians killed: 65-101
Children killed: 8-9
Injured: 98-232
Possible extra drone strikes: 91-108
Total killed: 356-511
Civilians killed: 26-61
Children killed: 6-9
Injured: 82-109
Other covert operations: 15-78
Total killed: 203-436
Civilians killed: 68-102
Children killed: 26-28
Injured: 43-132
Somalia 2007 onwards
US Covert Action
Our complete
Somalia datasheet
Most recent strike:
September 28 2016
Drone strikes: 32-36
Total killed: 241-418
Civilians killed: 3-10
Children killed: 0-2
Injured: 18-24
Other covert operations: 9-13
Total killed: 59-160
Civilians killed: 7-47
Children killed: 0-2
Injured: 11-21
Afghanistan 2015 onwards
Our complete
Afghanistan datasheet
Most recent strike:
September 28 2016
Bureau data
Total strikes: 475-480
Total killed: 2,091-2,747
Civilians killed: 78-145
Children killed: 4-21
Injured: 228-258
USAF data
Missions with at least one
weapon release: 800
Total weapons released: 1,760
As far as I know, they have not declared war on us, and the Congress has not declared war on them.
So what? A formal declaration of war is not a contemporary convention, unless you fancy we were not at war in Korea, your point is twee.
Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox 1h1 hour ago
One reason Trump’s PTSD comments stuck in my craw: similar to what the ignorant think about addiction—a moral failing rather than a disease.
41 retweets 138 likes Trump’s remarks about PTSD are really get attention.
Addiction is not a disease, Arnie, no matter how much smoke the mental health trade blows at you.
Teaching Spastics to Dance – would you please expound on how addiction is not a disease?
phillyT – we know you are asking for yourself, but it is alright with me. You have to take out both sides of the supply chain in an illegal operation. One of the reasons prohibition did not work very well was that it was not illegal to drink liquor, just illegal to buy or possess it. Duterte sees the issue and is trying to solve it. You make the dealers too scared to sell it and the addicts to scared to buy it.
I think we need to start worrying about the rigging of the general (s)election. Like maybe setting up nation-wide volunteers to conduct exit polls? How many dead people are going to be voting for Killery?
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2016/10/02/press-virtually-ignores-two-week-old-story-19-dead-people-registered?update=1&email=
@Jill, October 3, 2016 at 6:34 pm
“Ken,
“Thanks for the reading recommendations. I have read some of them but not others. The only problem I have is calling this a right wing phenomena. The left wing is fully engaged in totalitarianism. You see this from commenters on this blog and in various lefty journals who call people psychologically deranged for daring to question the greatness of Clinton.”
You’re very welcome.
I don’t remember the details, but there’s a history in the field of social psychology preceding Altemeyer regarding the term “Right-Wing Authoritarianism.” In any event, he makes it clear that he’s aware that people who self-identify at “leftists” can be as authoritarian as their “rightist” counterparts.
Personally, I have little to no use for the “left-right” political taxonomy, as I think it has become increasingly meaningless and useless for labeling or understanding people’s political orientations on specific issues.
It seems to me that anyone who needs a political spectrum for their thinking about politics would be better served by a libertarian-authoritarian one, with those at opposite poles who would or would not think it permissible to kill people, for example, in the ordering of social relations.
And on that score, I think we’re happily agreed that a society based on murdering criminals, defectives, subversives, and misfits is a grotesquely self-mutilated body politic.
In that connection and in view of the historical results, I think that given another chance, even as murderously authoritarian a politician as Hitler might reconsider the wisdom of many of his political decisions. 🙂
More good old fashioned US torture of the innocent: ” Al-Najjar told Human Rights Watch that when he first arrived at the facility, he was stripped naked, thrown on a concrete floor, and doused with cold water. The same Arab interrogator that had threatened to hang him “from his anus” cocked a gun and held it to the back of his head, saying that if al-Najjar did not talk, he would kill him.
His interrogators would hang him from the ceiling for 24-hour periods, his wrists strapped to a metal bar over his head and his toes barely able to touch the ground. Often, according to al-Najjar, while he was in this position, guards would beat his legs and back with a baton, or punch him in the kidneys.”
see link above
TWO FORMER CIA captives recently described being threatened with a makeshift electric chair — a previously unreported torture method — while being held in the U.S. government’s infamous “Salt Pit” prison in Afghanistan.
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/03/former-cia-detainees-describe-previously-unknown-torture-tactic-a-makeshift-electric-chair/
It’s all good when the US does it!
Paul, Thanks for the lead on a book. I’m reading Rising Tide. It’s about taming the Mississippi River. Written by historian, John Barry. He wrote a good book about the Flu Pandemic of 1919. This River book is pretty dry..pun intended. The Intimidation Game is one my short list. About the Chicago style politics of the Obama Administration.
Nick – there is an excellent book on the Mississippi about the engineer to walked the riverbed of the river (underwater) to see where dams should be placed. Cannot remember the title (sorry) but it was a very informative book.
Paul, That’s what Rising Tide is about. It focuses on 2 engineers who had different visions on trying to tame the river.
@Jill, October 3, 2016 at 2:25 pm
“Squeeky,
“Murdering people isn’t the way to a good society.”
Well, aren’t we the silly little idealist residing somewhere in La-La Land. 🙂
Seriously, there’s an important sense in which we owe a debt of gratitude to people with authoritarian personalities like Duterte and Squeeky who are so candid and outspoken about their sociopathy.
Their candor helps to illuminate the same proclivities, manifested in their actions, of those political sociopaths who are at pains to conceal via euphemisms and other linguistic trickery the actual nature of their actions under a disingenuous veneer of civility and concern for the public weal. (See in this connection, even if you’ve read it previously, Orwell’s masterful essay, “Politics and the English Language.”)
I suggest that all thoughtful people consider seriously how we’ve come to have so many sociopathic politicians who, thanks to modern technology, are increasingly positioned to usher in a new (even more) highly repressive social order, with potentially apocalyptic consequences.
The Canadian psychologist Dr. Robert Altemeyer has surveyed American state legislators, with the following results:
“Stomp Out the Rot
“One last thing: an item on the RWA [Right-Wing Authoritarian] scale that I used in these legislator studies goes, ‘Once our government leaders and the authorities condemn the dangerous elements in our society, it will be the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning our country from within.’
“It’s a ridiculous statement, isn’t it? People usually laugh when I read it out loud to an audience. It sounds like it came out of some Nazi Cheer Book. And a solid majority of the legislators who wrote the laws in American states when I did these studies rejected it. But 26 percent of the 1,233 lawmakers in my samples agreed with this.
“That’s already half-way to a majority. And in terms of later developments, I’ll point out that these studies were all done before 1994.” [Prior, that is, to the terrorizing of Americans with 9/11]
http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
The excerpt above is from Altemeyer’s The Authoritarians, available at the link in its entirety at no charge, in which he describes the characteristics of the authoritarian personality in its various degrees of intellectual and emotional constriction, and the very serious ability of authoritarians with political power to inflict very widespread human harm, socially and physically.
Although Dr. Altemeyer doesn’t delineate in any detail the primary means by which people acquire authoritarian personalities, the Swiss psychoanalyst, Dr. Alice Miller, does:
“Child Mistreatment, Child Abuse
“What is it?
“Humiliations, spankings and beatings, slaps in the face, betrayal, sexual exploitation, derision, neglect, etc. are all forms of mistreatment, because they injure the integrity and dignity of a child, even if their consequences are not visible right away.
“However, as adults, most abused children will suffer, and let others suffer, from these injuries. This dynamic of violence can deform some victims into hangmen who take revenge even on whole nations and become willing executors to dictators as unutterably appalling as Hitler and other cruel leaders.
[Emphasis added]
“Beaten children very early on assimilate the violence they endured, which they may glorify and apply later as parents, in believing that they deserved the punishment and were beaten out of love. They don’t know that the only reason for the punishments they have ( or in retrospect, had) to endure is the fact that their parents themselves endured and learned violence without being able to question it. Later, the adults, once abused children, beat their own children and often feel grateful to their parents who mistreated them when they were small and defenseless.”
http://www.alice-miller.com/en/
(See her many books and essays on this critically important subject)
Altemeyer does indicate some strategies for defending oneself from the predations of authoritarians against others (and themselves) in both private and public arenas, and I highly coimmend them to your attention.
With nuclear weapons already in the hands of authoritarian governments, and potentially available to non-state actors, the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been in human history.
The Canadian psychologist Dr. Robert Altemeyer
Called by one Australian social psychologist, “The Clown Prince of political psychology”. Among his astute observations has been ‘there is no left-wing authoritarian type’ and that anti-abortion protesters are ‘proto-fascist’. This is what passes for a distinguished academic in Canada.
Ken,
Well, I do live in my parent’s basement!
Thanks for the reading recommendations. I have read some of them but not others. The only problem I have is calling this a right wing phenomena. The left wing is fully engaged in totalitarianism. You see this from commenters on this blog and in various lefty journals who call people psychologically deranged for daring to question the greatness of Clinton. Meanwhile, the candidate they love so well says things that might be considered similar to the things Duterte says-things like being willing to obliterate Iran (genocide). Or, can’t we just drone him? (meaning Assange).
I agree that this system is spitting out some really bad actors. I think this would not be so prevalent if people stopped using partisanship as a religion for telling us what to believe. If we instead started having an ethical basis for our thoughts and actions, we would understand when things were wrong, no matter who said or did them.
@Ken
I have no idea what you were going on about. Did you agree with me about Duterte, or did you support the drug pushers???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“you’re either with us or you’re with the terrists”.
With all due respect, you seem unaware of U.S. involvement with the entire chain of the illegal narcotics business.
You seem almost totally ignorant of what Duterte is all about. Do yourself a favor. Read this so you can make a propaganda-free case …maybe.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/09/09/obama-duterte-blow-up-what-corporate-media-doesnt-get.html
Obama-Duterte Blow Up: What the Corporate Media Doesn’t Get
The explanation by the Western corporate media, which caters to a very basic secondary school level of education, about the reasons behind the recent war of words between U.S. President Barack Obama and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, had little to do with the leader of the Philippines calling Obama a «Putang ina» or «son of a whore» in Tagalog. The breakdown in relations between the Philippines, a former and much-abused American colony, and the United States is based on renewed Philippines nationalism, a disgust by Duterte for the selective human rights agenda of the Obama administration, and the Philippines leader’s antipathy for those schooled in Muslim beliefs in neighboring Indonesia.
Duterte knows full well that Obama prayed in a mosque and recited from the Koran in his early childhood years at a quasi-Islamic state school in Jakarta. And for Duterte, a former mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, — a southern Philippines island plagued by Saudi-financed Abu Sayyaf Group Wahhabist terrorism nurtured from radicalized mosques across the Sulu Sea in Indonesia — Obama’s upbringing in Southeast Asia is very germane.
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/09/09/obama-duterte-blow-up-what-corporate-media-doesnt-get.html
bill mcwilliams – Duterte is not the only one who has called Obama the son of a whore. There are probably a couple of hundred thousand in that group. 😉
Heck, that’s what I call him on a good day, when I half-way agree with him on something. The other days- – – – whew! 😯
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Great insight, Paul. I think you nailed it. After all, that WAS the major point of the article.
Here you go! “http://www.skepticfiles.org/silly/aliendem.htm
the picture: with Bush
http://astro.wsu.edu/worthey/astro/html/im-ufo/im-aliens/aliens9.html
That’s awesome! I think I remembered seeing that at the time! Maybe one of these days… Thanks Jill!
Been enjoying my I book version of this:
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Earth-Holocaust-History-Warning/dp/1101903473/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1475521398&sr=8-1&keywords=black+earth
“Black Earth” By Timothy Snyder
Man,what a perspective.
Can’t recommend it enough.
I think all of you would love it.
I went ahead and added this to my wish list at Amazon. I have already ordered one Nazi Book this month, that being Swan Song. And I think the NSA visits you if you order too much Nazi stuff. Plus, I have Arthur Machen’s book celebrating White People on the list, sooo I will maybe get yours next month or so. Plus, I am about 4 unread Jungian books down this month, and I have catch up on them, and a few graphic novels.
The Jungian stuff can be kind of slow because a lot of writers in that field lump “everything into everything else” as Marie-Louise Von Franz says. And everything can’t be everything else, as she also says.
Sooo, that the book I am reading on Parsifal and the Handless Maiden (who the Nazis banned that opera-Parsifal, because I am not sure there is a handless maiden opera), is slow because I am not sure the writer isn’t just throwing in the kitchen sink with all the “go down the road a bit, turn left, and cross the drawbridge” type stuff.
Anyway, I digress. Where was I??? Oh, yes! I wishlisted your book! Thank you for the tip!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
PS! Well, I’ll be damned! I double-checked, and there is a Handless Maiden mini opera! Here it is on youtube. Heck, live and learn!
Squeeky – just finished “Dead Wake” about the sinking of the Lusitania. Well-written and researched. Looks at it from all sides: Cunard, Room 40 (British code room), Germans, passengers, and the sub. It is a downer, but worth the read.
Oh I couldn’t read that. I didn’t even watch Titanic. The new one. Because when I was a little kid I watched the old one on TV, and was like crying forever. I am not afraid of water or anything, but I am scared to death about being on a life boat, or piece of jetsam, and a shark comes to get me. Because I also watched Jaws on TV when I was a little kid. But it could be worse because I could be on a piece of flotsam, and the owners could just repossess it right out from under me!
But I will look it up on Amazon!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky – they do not spend much time on the people in the water, but it is a downer.
Squeek,
Thanks for posting. I would love to see this live!
Live by the sword, die by the sword.