Monday OT: July 1 is International Tartan Day

July 1 is the 182nd day of the Gregorian Calendar year, Boomtime, Confusion 36, 3185 YOLD (discordian), And let us not forget 13.0.6.11.3 by the Mayan Long Count

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So today, The Church burned some wrong thinkers. Esch and Voes' burnings were actually at the hands of Church authorities. This was not the case for Francois Jean de-la Barre, who bought it at the hands of the so-called secular authorities. So what does it mean that de-la Barre's torture murder was, as any good apologist will tell you, done by the secular authorities. This was a principal guilt shifting dodging scam perpetrated by the Church of Rome throughout its early history both during and outside of formal Inquisitions. They would accuse somebody of blasphemy, heresy or other thought crime, and then leave it to the secular authorities whose job it was to enforce and carry out Church law to do exactly that, which was normally done by torturing suspects until they confessed, then killing or exiling them and taking their assets which were then turned over to the church. There are many versions of de-la Barre's tale, but they all include that he was guilty of at lest one blasphemous act, for which, possibly in addition to others, he was tortured, beheaded and burned with a copy of Voltaire's Dictionnaire Philosophique nailed to his body, that of failing to remove his hat when a procession of the Corpus Christi went by. (This is some sort of cracker carried through town in an ornate sedan chair, some of which are valuable and guady beyong belief.)

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The creation of the Congo Free State, and its eventual annexation by the Belgian government in 1908 set the stage for a whole host of later wars and horrors, but the horrors perpetrated under Leopold himself were truly incredible. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is loosely based on, and not remotely evocative or descriptive of the enormities perpetrated therein. The Horror, The Horror indeed.

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The Phoenix program was your basis quintessential CIA bag of criminality and horrors. Iniltration, spying, lying, armed raids on peaceful civilian villages, kidnapping, torture, assassination, more torture, and, generally, terrorism. The perps claim over 80,000 VC "neutralized" which probably means at least 2,000 bona fide VC murdered without any trial or any evidence beyond somebody identifying them under torture and over 80,000 probable civilians murdered. The admitted, formal start and end dates were 65 to 72, but we were doing that before 65 and after 72. We eventually left, so, unlike cointelpro, we can be sure that it did, at some point, actually end and not simply get renamed or continued without a formal name and budget. And, to this day nobody has yet been able to come up with a remotely credible answer to one simple question about Nam, what the hell were we over there killing people for? The CIA cut its teeth on war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq overhtrowing Mossadegh, and feeding anybody suspected of insufficient idolatry toward the US and the Shah to the SAVAK. It is mankind's history of shit like that that led to the creation of the International Criminal Court in 2002, and the fact that it is a major mainstay of US behavior that led the US to refuse to recognize it or to accept that it has any authority over the US or any of its people.

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Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift, look out kid, ...  

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On this day in history:  

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1523 – Johann Esch and Heinrich Voes were burned at the stake for thought crime by the Catholic authorities 1766 – François-Jean de la Barre was tortured and burned on a pyre for not saluting a Catholic procession 1858 – Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society of London. 1863 – The Battle of Gettysburg began. 1870 – The United States Department of No Justice became official 1885 – The Congo Free State was established, proving Leopold II to be a master of NewSpeak 1922 – The Great Railroad Strike of 1922 began. A Nationwide strike, boyz and girls, can you say Nationwide Strike? 1957 – The International Geophysical Year began 1958 – Flooding of Canada's Saint Lawrence Seaway began 1968 – The CIA's Phoenix Program officially began government sponsored terrorism and crimes against humanity galore 1979 – The Sony Walkman was introduced. 2002 – The ICC was established to prosecute non-US and Israeli individuals for crimes against humanity and shit

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Born this day in: 1646 – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, mathematician and philosopher. 1804 – George Sand, author and playwright 1869 – William Strunk Jr., stylish author and educator 1912 – David Brower, eco-terrorist environmentalist who founded Sierra Club Foundation 1915 – Willie Dixon, singer, songwriter, bass player, guitarist, superstitious back-door man, and producer 1935 – James Cotton, singer, songwriter and harmonica player 1939 – Delaney Bramlett, singer,songwriter, guitarist, and producer 1941 – Twyla Tharp, dancer and choreographer 1945 – Debbie Harry, singer, songwriter and actress 1952 – Dan Aykroyd, actor, producer, blues-brother, and screenwriter who channels The Chips like nobody else  

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Died this day in: 1860 – Charles Goodyear, chemist who vulcanized rubber 1896 – Harriet Beecher Stowe, activist and author 1925 – Erik Satie, composer and pianist 1983 – Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller, inventor, engineer, futurist, author, architect, systems theorist and designer 1995 – Wolfman Jack, THE DJ 2003 – Herbie Mann, flautist and sax player 2012 – Ossie Hibbert, keyboards player and producer  

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: International Tartan Day  

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Music goes here, iirc, well,

Project Phoenix

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The Great Railroad Strike

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David Brower

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Willie Dixon

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James Cotton

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Delaney Bramlett

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Debbie Harry

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Dan Aykroyd

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Erik Satie

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Herbie Mann

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Ossie Hibbert

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Image is a typical Clan Tartan and is in the public domain  

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It's an open thread, so do your thing

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Go up, up, up to Donner Pass and there I hang a left to wander off north to where no signals reach. There's birds and bugs and trees and rocks and dirt and annoying small mammals, and, about the time this posts the dawn chorus will be fading out. Everybody do your thing and have a good time, because I sure am.

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Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com