Burgers, Chips, Soldiers, Pigs & Taxes - Irish Style!
The Irish Independant reports today that 160 burgers and chips were
"taken under garda escort to Shannon Airport yesterday because the airport restaurant was closed"
Fast Food Citizenship
I'm sure the Irish public will be overjoyed to hear that their taxes are going to pay for
'"Operation Fast Food", organised by U.S. army officers',who used a fast food outlet in Shannon town to feed their soldiers. One can only presume that it was McDonald's who supplied the "junk", as it's hard to imagine any other fast food business in Shannon having the capacity to dish out this quantity of shite food in such a short period of time.
Since the outbreak of the Iraq war and the increasing use of Shannon as a transport hub for the U.S. military, I have met many people who complained that too much taxpayers' money was being used to secure Shannon from anti-war protests, damage to planes et al. I wonder whether they are just as annoyed now that their hard-earned money is being utilised for "McCrap" food being specially protected to feed a participants in a war that has unleashed civil war in Iraq.
Napolean - A Wise Asshole
Napolean once stated that an army marches on its' stomach - well, in my opinion, it's fair to say that in this instance the lack of quality of the U.S. army's taste in food is clearly comparable to their terrible standards of morality in the theatre of war.
But sure there's nothing like a lump of meat between two buns, chips (albeit deficient in potatoes), a pint of guinness, and an Easter communion wafer from the army chaplain to prepare one to maim and be maimed in a place 8,000 miles from your hometown and family. What more could a body ask for?
Comments
Lies and fries – nice one. The dots are all beginning to join up visa vie the profitability of war over diplomacy as a means of securing resources and just how much we've been reduced to passive consumers.
Dependency and excess is hoisted over sufficiency and control on every level.
I watched 'Who killed the electric car' and noted how it merely quoted the profits made by the petro-companies and not their gross turnover in the global corporate economy.
Last time I checked $4 trillion of the $16 trillion turnover of the world’s top 500 MNCs was accounted by the extractive, oil, processing, auto-motive and transport sectors.
A sector which controls 25% of the global corporate turnover and the entire pattern of trade controls the world regardless of profitability.
The major players within that scenario – the major petro-corporates - are in reality driving the world to destruction in the interests of profit. And in reality the profits are not immense. A Minister for Health might expect to spend between 5-10 percent of GDP and as we know in Ireland the lions share goes to a virtual imperial elite within the sector. So what’s it’s all about… 2billion, 5billion 10billion…It’s so fucking Austin Powers it would be laughable if it were not for the implications.
Clearly key corporations have decided to hold humanity to ransom for the right to process the remaining 1 trillion barrels of oil and there preferred option is to do this through conflict so as to increase profitability and control…Buddies in Boardrooms.
This is not just about a critique of capitalism or globalism – which I am perfectly happy to drift with - it's about a satanic pre-disposition to conflict scenarios where the streets and market places are washed with the blood of innocents so that some corporate lackey can produce the right figures for his boss… For what? More sex; more faster cars; whatever, whoever…Bigger burgers!
What to do? Today I've decided to break the energy link in my own life by going bio-diesel and to spread that like a gospel.
The more shit we give up the better: abstinence, alternatives and ascetics.... Abastansa "Enough is Enough'... and the belly is a good place to begin...
And once I get my shit together to be more active particularly with regard to web activism and publishing...Where do you get the time and focus?
Nice pics, nice folks too
I got this theory about blogs. That if you give a story ‘value added’ people will read it.
If bloggers just reprint a few paragraphs from MSM and then go “yeah, right on, man!” …and that’s it – like many do – then no one is gonna read them again.
But if you create something new, add to their interest or understanding about something…add to what they know already, or make the subject more interesting – then you will get readers.
The comment box thing is not something you can control: cither you get something going, or you don’t. Most don’t. Don’t know why.
But you are doing the right thing in my opinion: writing! You write good.
I spent a good bit of time sexing it up recently when my girlfriend was away - needless to say, I blog inconsistently. It all depends on when I am home alone! I tend to get in trouble when I spend too much time on the computer when she's around and can easily see how web addiction leads to relationship problems - hard to find a balance between healthy living, work, leisure, relationship, political activism, reflection et al.
I agree with the mantra that we should live more simply so tht others can simply live - current development models that are being pushed in developing countries by the developed countries are nightmarishly unsustainable. Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and Attenborough's "Can we sdav planet earth?" are good documentaries to help reflection.
BR, thanks for the guidance. For sure, comments received can be affirmating or annoying - as you well know. I used to write a lot on paper, fell away for a while, now find the web writing more creative with resources easily at hand to reflect and write upon.
To cut down on burgers, chips and food miles check out The Meatrix
To see how we can cut down on current forms of soldiering see We Need Little Non-Violent Insurgents
Re. Pigs, I love Ammon Hennacy's statement that "good people don't need cops to tell them what to do, and bad people don't do what cops tell them to do, so what's the point of having them"
Re. Taxes, I find HD Thoreau's life a great example and challenge.
Well, I'm off to breathe some country asir and rob a few apples.
Unreliable sources have told me that they have since moved back into the work force as a mercenary force within the Baghdad Green Zone!