Hersh: children raped at Abu Ghraib, Pentagon has videos [

[8bitagent]

no, still dont like the praise geo. brilliant it aint.
awe? why, you think the acts of demeaning others and behaving barbarously to helpless captors is what, original? courageous? inventive? daring? subtle? scary in a thrilling way?
dont get the irony either - arab or anyone else, we're all human, all have human needs and human values and rights. put a different racial or national group in that situation, exactly how is it different?
banal I agree with. but then I dont find HL fascinating, and have heard expressed that serial killers are generally the most boring of people. Refute serial violence as an interesting or worthwhile way of using a life. Its trivial, uncreative, sensation driven,cowardly, demeaning and narrow.

maybe you are in awe because you think you could never do the same? that it somehow takes exceptional qualities to be exceptionally evil?

9/11 was one of the most brilliant things ever, and not a day goes by that I dont feel sad knowing how much evil and destruction it's wrought.

We're talking about an elite who doesnt just blow up people, put em into death camps, slaugher millions and use atomic weapons

This is an elite who organizes the massive kidnap of small children for use as sex toys and slave labor.

These people are evil, and it aint just "greed and hubris" guiding them either.

This is why I continually lamblast the American left:

They think Iraq was merely a "screwup"(it was planned to be a chaos vaccuum)

They think Abu Gharib was just some guys posed in embarassing poses and done by some pranksters(it was a high level operation for mind control and pysops purposes)

They think that somehow 9/11 was merely incompetence but Iraq was "done by a malicious neocon conspiracy". The left in America is a joke...

and so is Sy Hersh for not helping to expose this stuff if he knows it to be true

[blanc]

I should explain this. When I read phrases like 'brilliant' applied to these kind of acts, I have in mind not, particularly, the individual poster who wrote them. perhaps not expressing his:her idea unambiguously, (my posts are frequently a bit garbled), but a clear image of both a group of sadists I knew well, and persons who suffered at their hands. I envisage similar people reading those words, and I don't want them to stand unchallenged. I still do not think these acts are brilliant, setting out to do evil is not beyond the scope of any human being, it is not superhuman. Brilliant, is work which shows extraordinary perception or initiative or intelligence, a new scientific discovery for example, or something wonderfully perceptive or creative in arts philosophy etc.
That psychopathic acts are covered with subterfuges which not everyone sees through immediately does not imo make them brilliant. That they serve greed (financial) and power (political), does not make them brilliant, unless of course your viewpoint is that gaining extraordinary wealth and power by any means is a worthy goal, and you really believe that putting your mind to it, you couldn't have found a similar path.
The con trick is usually revealed eventually, despite that old saw of history being written by the vanquors, a power base does ultimately depend on the agreement of other people.

[geogeo]

au contraire! Cons "usually revealed eventually"? Gunpowder Plot? USS Liberty? USS Maine? Armenian Genocide? Assassination of Olaf Palme? Reichstag Fire? the list could stretch forever. This is not to mention some more recent assassinations of US notables. Occasionally, people don't get away with their nefarious acts--some of the Nazis, for example--but in many or even most cases, they are richly rewarded. Turkey has never fessed up; Japan got away with a slap on the wrist for what it did in WWII to the Chinese and others.

Bantering semantics doesn't get us anywhere, but it is worthwhile mentioning that the "brilliancy" of great artists and thinkers is often tainted by association with great evil--take Heidegger or Wagner, or Furtwangler, for example. But I'll conceded that you can have your definition of the word and its associations, and I'll stick with mine.

[theeKultleeder]

One should remember a being changes continually through time.

If Hitler had abandoned anti-Semitism to become a shining example of progressive reform, we would applaud him still today.


(I'm thinking about Giuseppe Tucci, the Italian Tibet and Buddhist scholar who has been connected to Fascism.)

[lunarose]

geo:

"I am in awe of Abu Ghraib sort of like I am in awe of the Balrog and Sauron in the Lord of the Rings--it's such a friggin' evil thing, and yet it's so brilliant--it goes so, so far, and it was SOOO effective. A psy-op on many levels, but primarily, a brilliant way to humiliate the enemy--Arab Manhood--and I mean in the clever Sy Hersh leakages on top of the photos released. All cleverly and purposively staged. What people don't get about this sort of stuff is that IT WORKS, just like your Contra face-peeling )not a cosmetic treatment) and the stuff they did to commies in Mozambique, and so forth and so on."

What's so brilliant about doing the same damn stuff soldiers have done in every war for at least the last three thousand years? what's so original? do you think u.s. citizens would not be scandalized by pictures of 'their' soldiers in similar situations to what was perpetrated in Abu Graib? How humiliated has 'arab manhood' been - they have enough gumption left to be fighting the occupiers with every means at hand every hour of the day....how exactly did this brilliant psy op 'work'? or do you have information that 'arab manhood' has been having ED troubles or something due to all this humiliation......?

[nomo]

Bantering semantics doesn't get us anywhere, but it is worthwhile mentioning that the "brilliancy" of great artists and thinkers is often tainted by association with great evil--take Heidegger or Wagner, or Furtwangler, for example. But I'll conceded that you can have your definition of the word and its associations, and I'll stick with mine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlheinz_ ... ontroversy

In a press conference in Hamburg on September 16, 2001, Stockhausen was asked by a journalist whether the characters in Licht were for him "merely some figures out of a common cultural history" or rather "material appearances". The composer replied "I pray daily to Michael, but not to Lucifer. I have renounced him. But he is very much present, like in New York recently". A journalist then asked how the recent September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks affected him, and how he viewed these reports in connection with the harmony of humanity represented in Hymnen.

Well, what happened there is, of course — now all of you must adjust your brains — the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't achieve that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process." (Stockhausen 2002, 75–76.)

[8bitagent]

Bantering semantics doesn't get us anywhere, but it is worthwhile mentioning that the "brilliancy" of great artists and thinkers is often tainted by association with great evil--take Heidegger or Wagner, or Furtwangler, for example. But I'll conceded that you can have your definition of the word and its associations, and I'll stick with mine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlheinz_ ... ontroversy

In a press conference in Hamburg on September 16, 2001, Stockhausen was asked by a journalist whether the characters in Licht were for him "merely some figures out of a common cultural history" or rather "material appearances". The composer replied "I pray daily to Michael, but not to Lucifer. I have renounced him. But he is very much present, like in New York recently". A journalist then asked how the recent September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks affected him, and how he viewed these reports in connection with the harmony of humanity represented in Hymnen.

Well, what happened there is, of course — now all of you must adjust your brains — the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't achieve that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process." (Stockhausen 2002, 75–76.)

So if I'm getting this right...this highly influential world reknowned composter used to be a Lucerferian, believes the Devil was behind 9/11, and that in a way 9/11 was like a giant epic Aria?

Hmmm...

well, that's definately some food for thought.

[blanc]

an artist or scientists work may be brilliant while they are slime -yes

my quibble was with calling the works of evil brilliant

actually, per a docu I saw on the murder of an Afghan taxi driver by US guards, the guards themselves did not come across as evil, merely too stupid to understand that in following the orders given to them about how to keep someone standing for long periods, and how to apply non lethal force to get compliance, they were fatally injuring their captive, no doubt both parties caught up in an impossible situation by those giving orders. so a non evil man may perpetrate evil just by going along with it. hence the second reason for my quibble over the 'brilliant' term, these bully tactics are not brilliant, they can be done by anyone, even people too stupid to understand that repeated blunt instrument blows to the lower limbs of a person strung up by the arms can cause sufficient traumatic injury to tissue to result in death, on orders given by a heirarchy too deliberately remote from the situation to evaluate the effects of their orders properly, and too stupid to learn from the mistakes of their nazi antecedents, who also offered large sums of money to subjected peoples to shop anyone of their countrymen, and also didnt apparently clock that this could lead them to torture someone who knew nothing, but was considered expendable for the right sum of money by someone else.

[mentalgongfu2]

EDITED: misplaced post. please ignore

[FourthBase]

Actually, it's a relevant bump considering the current Hersh thread.

[pepsified thinker]

that is, the New Yorker interview with Harman, who mentions the presence of 10 year olds in Abu Ghraib.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/03/24/080324_children

[battleshipkropotkin]

THE NEU WORLD ORDER! "is the culture of human rights, human dignity and the enforcement of international law to all, regardless of race, creed, sex or age. "

Over all? No divisions?

Hope?

Dare not.

[compared2what?]

These people are evil, and it aint just "greed and hubris" guiding them either.

Adduce some evidence in support of this assertion, please.

I'd also like to note that fascination with Hannibal Lecter is not fascination with evil, but with an imaginary person who certainly has his peccadilloes, but also a very strong if idiosyncratic code of ethics, and who is indeed portrayed as not only brilliant, but also charismatic, and when push comes to shove pretty close to omnipotent. On film he is played by Anthony Hopkins, whose performance is fascinating. And if there were such a non-fictional person, he would be fascinating. But not evil. But that's a moot point. Because there isn't.

Someone may have already noted that. If my eye skipped over it, I apologize.

[Searcher08]

Hannibal fits rather a lot of these, particularly when in his "We will dine on Ray Liotta's brain tonight, dear" period


1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.
–noun
6. that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
7. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
8. the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
9. harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
10. anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.
11. a harmful aspect, effect, or consequence: the evils of alcohol.
12. a disease, as king's evil.
–adverb
13. in an evil manner; badly; ill: It went evil with him.
—Idiom
14. the evil one, the devil; Satan.

[JoseFreitas]

We frequently think of people as having simple, straightforward, undivided, one-opinion minds. Nothing could be further from the truth. Individual minds are chaotic, disconnected, made up of tons of different sub-routines working at the same time, frequently with bad "interfaces", filled with unconscious biases and opinions, etc.... Shit, I don't even know why I like half the things I like and dislike half the things I do. So I believe that people can be simultaneously evil, sometimes ethical (under certain circumstances or perspectives), brilliant and stupid, all at the same time. It's not as if their (our) minds were solid, unified blocks.

That's why Hannibal is such a fascinating character (even though I am not sure that such a clear pathological personality could give rise to the sort of brilliancy portrayed in the novels - not the movies). He has a certain unity of purpose, and a capacity to understand himself and take informed decisions by himself, that mark him as a different from the average personality. He is portrayed in a way as a personality that has resolved all his unconscious issues, achieved some sort of breakthrough in his mind, illuminated all the unconscious factors that made him what he is, and embraced this ability to then become what he wants. In a way, he has achieved a certain freedom and that is why he is so fascinating. He represents in some ways (not all) a true illuminated personality.

I would describe Hannibal really as evil, but in a way, he embodies a sort of evil that has its own ethical guidelines. I am not sure, though, that such a free personality could exist and be "evil" as he is. But we should remember that many of the traits ascribed to illuminated personalities would be described in some ways as psychopatical (or in a better word sociopathical), if they weren't tempered by the fact that most of those who achieved a certain breakthrough seem to also have had compassion birthed in their minds.