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Who is the Greatest Perpetrator of Evil in the World?

Go, read, find out.

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13 Comments

  1. jo6pac

    Change we can believe in, the new boss is the same as well you get the idea. I on record with family and friends that there was going to be no change any time soon. The great uniter is gone and has been replaced with more of the same. Sad,but peoples of the world still didn’t blame the Amerikan public but that will change before 2012. I wasn’t suprised when I saw this earlier today, just sadden. They hate us for are freedom Right?

  2. Celsius 233

    The reason Allan Nairn got a fractured skull was because he threw himself on top of Amy Goodman after she was knocked to the ground by Indonesian troops, likely saving her life.

    In answer to the question; the preponderance of evidence would put the U.S. at the top of that list.

  3. Celsius 233

    Oh yeah, I forgot about “bug splat”! I wonder who the twisted sister was who came up with that?

  4. b.

    hostis humani generis

  5. Celsius 233

    @ b.
    hostis humani generis
    ================================

    Well, you made me look it up; which is a good thing.
    From Wikipedia;
    As John Yoo points out, the term “hostis humani generis” and the peculiar status of the “enemies of mankind” that it conveys continues to be relevant up until the present day. However, the only actual extension of “hostis humani generis” blessed by courts of law has been its extension to torturers. This has been done by decisions of U.S. and international courts; specifically, in a case tried in the United States in 1980, Filártiga v. Peña-Irala, 630 F.2d 876, the United States 2nd Circuit Court ruled that it could exercise jurisdiction over agents of the Government of Paraguay (in their individual capacity[6]) who were found to have committed the crime of torture against a Paraguayan citizen, using its jurisdiction under the Offenses Clause[7] of the Constitution of the United States, the Alien Tort Claims Act, and customary international law. In deciding this, the court famously stated that “Indeed, for purposes of civil liability, the torturer has become like the pirate and slave trader before him hostis humani generis, an enemy of all mankind.” This usage of the term hostis humani generis has been reinforced by the ruling of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the conviction of a torturer in Prosecutor v. Furundžija[8][9], marking its acceptance as a peremptory norm, part of the customary international law, held as jus cogens, applying erga omnes, upon any and every state and human individual without exception or reservation whatsoever.
    =========================================================

    It would appear we are in serious breach of hostis humani generis, no?

  6. Celsius 233

    Addendum;
    Hell, I could have told you that without dragging in John Yoo. 😉

  7. Jim

    Does it have to be a person?

    I was in the military in 1968 and spent part of my time in the German countryside playing war games. In the process of playing these games we would drive through German farmers’ fields, destroying whatever crops they had planted. Sometimes we would do minimal damage. I remember watching German farmers come out the next day and finish destroying the field. They could make more money being reimbursed by the U.S. government than selling their crop on the open market.

    I was raised on a dairy farm and remember a time when my father would pour the milk out on the ground. He explained to me (I was ten at the time) that he would lose money if he tried to sell it because the prices had fallen so low. I remember thinking at the time…at least I think it was at the time…anyway, thinking this is not right.

    If we can feed, clothe, house and provide health care for every person on this planet and we don’t, can we blame a person–an individual–like my father or the German farmer? If we can make more money selling arms and killing people than we can providing health care what does this say? Is it not the profit-first economic system that demands this behavior? Is it not the system itself, rather than a person, which is the greatest perpetrator of evil?

  8. Formerly T-Bear

    There is an essay by an Irish barrister, Peter Charleton, which answers your question. “Lies in a Mirror” (ISBN 1-84218-101-7). Written from the lifetime experiences, Peter Charleton firmly associates evil with deceit, he may be right.

    In recommending books, do not fail to obtain and read:

    Niccolò Machiavelli “Discourses on Livy” ISBN 978-0-19-955555-0
    and
    Sir Henry Sumner Maine “Ancient Law” ISBN 0-88029-092-7

    the three make for a sound beacon for troubled times.

  9. Big Brass Band

    man, these multiple choice examinations can be tough !!

    thinking …..

    still thinking ….

    I KNOW !!!

    Countries that have OIL underneath their soil !!!

    because just like cheap scantily clad harlots and hussies, they are just begging to be invaded and you know how that lust can drive some men and countries to do the wrong thing for all of the right reasons.

    there.

    what do i win ??

  10. Tim McGovern

    I agree with all of the above, but the damn website of Democracy Now flaring up all the time, it’s a rough ride to get the truth. One would think one of those Pirate Bay types from Europe would help em out with bandwidth.

    That said, the money’s just… well… campaign finance reform says…

    Doh.

    It’s like what Stirling used to say about the Old Money sitting pat on the Rent and telling the New Money to go outside. I never really understood his bit about the American Revolution’s decision to buy up the old debt (to shore up the currency), but it looks like the obvious solution to a Where’s Waldo? book – if you make eleventy trillion dollars doing what you do, how much return can you make bribing the gov-ment? Answer, lots. Somehow I blame Alexander Hamilton, but apparently he was a good guy, though I’ve given up on bios after Twain and Grant.

    But, well, with the big amplified scare about the Taint Bomber (courtesy Rude Pundit), Google and the like are happy to let another mini-bubble of Homeland Security cash slide, let alone the lies spread by the Bernie Keriks of the world. That betrays my pessimistic leanings, but, well, I give up! Perhaps I’ve been listening to too many podcasts by James Howard Kunstler, but that Shadow Elite I’ve been reading about at FDL has struck me as too obvious yet too important to pass up.

  11. Celsius 233

    @ Jim;
    Does it have to be a person?
    ================================
    Not “a” person, but people. People who don’t give a damn and selfish people who give a damn about power. It certainly isn’t about money either; it’s all about power.
    Humans are incapable of doing anything unnatural, because everything they do is within their nature.
    What does that say about us?

  12. Rupert Murdoch, hands down.

  13. Formerly T-Bear

    Addendum to comment above:

    Adam Smith “The Wealth of Nations”, The Modern Library – Cannan Edition (sorry no ISBN for you)

    These four volumes mark the cardinal critical directions needed to extract the republic from its present peril, and, as so often is the case, by knowing from whence we originated, a clear view may be had for what is in store, have the republic the knowledge and the will to act. Taken together, these also provide an antidote to ignorance as well as stay the sweet sounding siren call of the demagogue, the would be authoritarian. Read them and find out why.

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