Don’t taser me bro! Don’t touch my junk! These pleas have become the emblematic slogans of life in the US Imperial “Homeland” and they are just the most publicized examples of a far bigger trend: the US is slowly turning into one giant prison.
I am not referring here to the fact that the USA has the highest per capita incarceration rate on the planet or to the fact that its prisons are amongst the worst on the planet. No, I am referring to what is going every day out outside the prison walls, in the daily life of Americans.
I have lived in the USA from 1986 to 1991 and again from 2002 to today and this gradual but unstoppable evolution towards a Fascist state is really quite obvious to me. There are three main layers of state intimidation which surround Americans 24/7.
First, private security companies are literally everywhere. At the mall, inside stores, public libraries or chiropractic clinics. Nevermind that crime has been in free fall since many years, these rent-a-cops are everywhere. Their agents feature cop-like uniforms and badges with names like “Internal Intelligence”. The agents themselves are typically overweight, old, sleepy or borderline mentally restarted. Still, these minimal-wage rent-a-cops are here to send a simple message: we are watching you.
The second layer of intimidation is provided by the numerous police forces also seen everywhere: the city police, the sheriff departments, the state troopers, the park rangers – taser and gun toting coppers are also everywhere. Even in a small town, a banal traffic stop will result in 2-3 police cars with flashing lights surrounding the offending car. Vans with ominous “K9” signs often join in the action. Often, police helicopters overfly my little town, adding a “vertical” feeling to this constant parade of state power.
Lastly, mostly in bigger towns, other agencies can be seen, ranging from the Border Patrol (even if the nearest border is hundreds of miles away) to DOT police, to DEA, FBI, ATF and God only knows how many more 3 letter security agencies.
The general feeling from all this is “you better obey, NOW! And don’t even think of talking back!”.
The most significant development since 9/11 is that cop impunity has now reached quasi-official status. Cops can arrest you, throw you on the ground, handcuff you, taser you and, yes, even shoot you with something approaching 99.999% impunity. Sure, if some cop is dumb enough to shoot somebody for absolutely no reason at all, and do that on video, then he might get a slap on the wrist, even a minimal jail sentence (in extreme cases), but short of murdering somebody on camera cops can do anything they want.
This is what happened to the Russia Today reporters covering the anti-SOA protests yesterday. And, typically, the courts will fully support whatever the cops do.
This is why the latest outrage over the TSA’s porno’scanners and genital-gropings is so important. It’s not just a matter of Mr. Chertoff making money. Far more relevant is the fact that these TSA measures are really designed to make Americans loose any and all sense of personal freedom or dignity. Absolute and total subservience to the state is what is expected from everybody. And if you refuse, you ain’t flying pal!
My bet is that tomorrow’s “opt-out” action will be a failure. I just don’t see Americans taking any collective action. Yes, there are hundreds and possibly even thousands of courageous and principled Americans out there, but that is a country of 300’000’000 people, most of whom are passive, frightened, depressed and brainwashed sheep, incapable of any meaningful reaction.
The TSA will probably end up make some minor, cosmetic, adjustments to its most crazy policies, but the policy of “submission through humiliation” is here to stay.
The Saker
Like most everybody who lives with their eyes open in the US, I can of course confirm first-hand what you wrote here. What to do about it, though. Leave?
I sleep well at night, knowing I am merely a resident here, remaining a European citizen. So I actually can leave quite easily, once I decide to do it.
I am still stunned though that I really have come to view, beyond all hyperbole, what had become my adopted country as a tyrannical polity. I also feel a tremendous amount of sadness and pain… Lot, his wife and Gomorrha come to mind — and again, without hyperbole.
@Guthman: I totally share in your feelings, also being a European exiled in the USA. I also can leave tomorrow morning and go back to any European country I want and I also feel deeply upset and saddened about what is going on in the USA. To make things worse, I have two boys aged 10 and 13 who eventually will become conscriptable (my wife and kids all have US citizenship, which I refuse to take on principle and because I will never pledge allegiance to their flag and what it stands for).
But consider this: things in Europe are ALSO very bad. Fascism is clearly rampant there, and in many aspects, it is worse in Europe (freedom of speech is still better defended in the USA, I would argue). For all practical purposes, Europe has become a US colony (via NATO, among other means). Sure, we are much better at rioting than the Yanks, but does that make a difference? France burned in 2005 and several times since, Greece rioted too, and our cops are not as murderous than their US counterparts, but that is just a matter of time.
The big advantage that we in Europe had is that we lived with real (not imaginary) terrorism for many years and we are not hysterical about it. Unlike Americans, we know that a) terrorism is part of life, just like car accidents or disease and b) we know that it really does not kill as much as it try to frighten them.
I suppose that our courts are better. And our social system is at least civilized, if not decent or sometimes rather good.
But that’s it. We are as much subjects of the Empire as the Americans and I don’t see moving back to Europe as an obvious solution.
Of course, if the “deep state” organizes another 9/11, possibly with a nuke this time, the USA will completely collapse into overt Nazism, at which point emigration will be the only option. But we are not quite there yet, at least I want to hope that we are not.
I guess I am lucky that I am neither Black, nor Muslim, nor an immigrant from a poor country. The situation is immeasurably worse for all of these categories.
I sincerely do love many things in this country. I frankly don’t miss Europe very much, and most definitely not the country I actually came from. But yes, if my family goes bankrupt, or if my kids are threatened with conscription, or if we need civilized medical care, or if another 9/11 is organized by the US “deep state”, then emigration is a real option. Possibly to Quebec, if not, then back to Europe or even Latin America (I can get an Argentinian passport very easily).
We shall see.
Good luck,
The Saker
“Things in Europe are ALSO very bad.”
Yes they are. The general darkness depressingly brings to mind the Shiite concept of occultation. Plus in my own imaginarium, since childhood, Europe has always figured as a place with an inspiring past and an uninspiring present, whereas the US, good or bad, good and bad, inspired me, even as a child. But perhaps that was a case of “lieber wär ich anderswo, denn hier bin ich sowieso“. Now, many years later, I look around, and am shocked where I’ve ended up.
@Guthman: “lieber wär ich anderswo, denn hier bin ich sowieso”
But that is also where you and I are today :-)
One of the things which keeps me going is to see all the good stuff that the USA still has. I listen to David Rovics, for example, and I feel that I am not so alone. Living in Florida, I am often surrounded by what the great Floridian author Carl Hiaasen calls “Neanderthals”: this unique breed of inbred, Harley driving, pitbull raising, flag waving, tattoo featuring, trailer living, “wife-beater” vearing “Walmart people” which make me think that I am living on the set of some horror flick. And then I listen to Rovics, say a song like “we are everywhere”, and I realize that the Neanderthals don’t matter, this place is still filled with beautiful, kind, honorable people. There are at least as many of these true humans here, in the USA, as in Europe, and going back is really not going to change much, if anything at all. Sure, some days I feel like just flying away to the moon or further, but then I go and spend a day deep in the Florida wilderness (one of the most beautiful ones on earth!) and I feel re-energized and somewhat less pessimistic.
For me, it’s a day to day thing. Keeping my eyes on the good stuff in life which this Empire has not managed to crush (yet?) helps a lot.
But I sure do miss real food. “Der Mensch ist ein Tier der Gewohnheit” but I still cannot get used to the shit they eat around here ;-)
I can’t see the Empire actually going so far as to allow a military coup or cancelling the next election and turning the President in to an Emperor. This would be very bad ideologically and make it far harder to brainwash the sheeple that they are living in the Land of the Free.
Besides they don’t need to. No presidential candidate gets very far in the primaries without being acceptable to the Plutocracy. I reckon the USA is already as bad as its going to get. Maybe if there was a total economic meltdown things would change but again I can’t see the powers that be allowing the US economy to collapse. What makes sense when it comes to disciplining periphery countries like Argentina via the IMF won’t be imposed on the Plutocracy’s main power base, the USA.
I also doubt your kids are in any danger of being conscripted. One thing Vietnam achieved was to abolish the draft.
I agree that fascism, or at least a kind of soft fascim, is on the rise in many European countries. When I was in Sicily a couple of years ago they were selling busts of Mussolini in the tourist areas and also had a small monument to those Italians who fought alongside the Wehrmacht in Russia.
The Soviet Union may have been a chaotic tyranny but the collapse of communism seems to have given the right, both the free market brigade and the fascists, a huge shot in the arm. The old USSR did prove there was an alternative to the capitalist system even if it was a worse one. It also provided a check on the Empire. I doubt the attack on Yugoslavia or Iraq would have happened during the Cold War.
@robert: I can’t see the Empire actually going so far as to allow a military coup or cancelling the next election and turning the President in to an Emperor. This would be very bad ideologically and make it far harder to brainwash the sheeple that they are living in the Land of the Free.
Agreed.
Maybe if there was a total economic meltdown things would change but again I can’t see the powers that be allowing the US economy to collapse.
Here I dis-agree. The economic meltdown is ALREADY taking place with all the political risks this entails, and it is only going to get worse. I think that most Americans are ALREADY angry, and the multi-election betrayal of the Democrats and Obama have only added to that rage. The one thing which has so far prevented this rage from focusing on the plutocracy, is the world-class propaganda machine of the US corporate media. But never say never, as it only takes a spark to ignite any society with simmering rage. And then the state repression will come down hard, the “US Gulag” capabilities are excellent, and far from being overstreched. No need for a President-Emperor. The slogan of “national security” or “national emergency” will do just fine.
I also doubt your kids are in any danger of being conscripted.
Right now no, I agree. But in 3-5 years time? Right now the USA is involved in 2 major wars (Iraq, Afghanistan), one middle war (Pakistan) and three covert wars (Iran, Yemen, Somalia). Some kind of military intervention in Latin America is, I would say, very likely, a war in Asia is not likely, but very possible (DPRK or even against China), various countries in Africa also are potential targets (Nigeria, Sudan, Congo), the attack on Iran will be a major undertaking too as will an Israeli attack on Lebanon (the USA has dramatically increased its stockpile of weapons in Israel). And there is only that much crap that NATO politicians can feed their public opinion, so NATO will not become a real proxy for US wars. Add to this an “enhanced” role for the National Guard inside the USA to “protect” border or “maintain peace” and you can easily see that the US military is hopelessly and grotesquely over-stretched. So some form of conscription down the road is, I would say, a very real danger.
I agree that fascism, or at least a kind of soft fascim, is on the rise in many European countries.
Absolutely. That is the case in almost every single European country.
The Soviet Union may have been (…) I doubt the attack on Yugoslavia or Iraq would have happened during the Cold War.
Of course not. Sadly enough, Russia is clearly taking a pro-US position, making the CSTO and the SCO hopelessly weak and unable to play the counter-weight role which the USSR did.
But that is also where you and I are today :-)
…hahaha got me good there Saker.
As far as the US as imperialist global “PNAC T-Rex” is concerned, that’s of course obviously failing. But while imploding the US might still successfully poison the well for many others.
The draft? That would be Sparta, I don’t see it in this Land of Lumbering Marshmallows…
Shooting fish in a barrel is the only form of war the US has successfully practiced in the last 150 years.
The TSA in that sense epitomizes the American Way of War: Expensive, pointless and noone is even resisting.
Meanwhile life continued in Gomorrha (and in NYC at least the food is actually pretty good) …
@Guthman: Shooting fish in a barrel is the only form of war the US has successfully practiced in the last 150 years.
I am not so sure here. The war against Japan was really no joke (like the US late intervention in Europe) – I don’t envy anybody having to fight the Japanese in the air, sea or land (especially when by “land” we talk about small pacific islands). And the war in Korea was no laughing matter either, I think. But yes, most American wars are about shooting fish in a barrel.
The TSA in that sense epitomizes the American Way of War: Expensive, pointless and noone is even resisting.
HAHAHAHA!!! So true. The TSA really is the ultimate symbol of absolutely idiotic and pointless over-reaction.
in NYC at least the food is actually pretty good
True. Ditto for Boston or San Francisco. But rural Florida is really depressing. Once in Orlano, I can go to Whole Foods or a good restaurant and get some real food. But you guys in New York have great stuff all over the place. Every time I visit NY, DC or New England, I eat myself full of good stuff.
Well, we have some world-class fish down here, crabs, clams. Oysters are as good as the French Belons. I like our oranges and kumquats too. So I can’t bitch, really.
If only we had less Neanderthals… (sigh)
Hang in there, there is always hope. And we are not alone :-)
Inbred, trailer-living Walmart people? I’ve always respected you Saker, but I have to say I am disappointed to see you resort to racist, classist invective like this. This is classic bourgeois bigotry, from the very class of people who service and maintain the empire, directed at one of its primary victims.
“Rednecks” and “trailer trash” are one of the few groups in America it is politically correct and acceptable to hate and strereotype. Basically, these terms apply to the white working class in general, so they apply to me, as well, as I come from a working class background. Denunciation of the white working class is a sort of bonding ritual among the liberal elite, who fancy themselves superior by virtue of their professed love of the liberal catechism even as they whore themselves out as academics, journalists and other servants of the system and throw the entire working class under the bus.
Historically, Rednecks have been far more anti-establishment than just about any other demographic in this country. They have always been the first to create and sign on to any populist movement that seeks to challenge the status quo. The Tea Partiers, understanding this, have hijacked their rebellious nature with a faux-populist movevement that, lunatic as it may be, has the good bloody sense to never denounce these people as “trash.”
As a child, hatred of the cops, of authority and of the government was ingrained into me, as well as the virtue of rebellion and resistance. Part of this was Irish culture, but also white working class American culture. My Italian, German and Norwegian neighbors would have felt the same way.
If there is ever a rebellion in this country, I am confident it will be fought by Bubba with his Confederate flag tattoo and his gun, not by Noam Chomsky and his typewriter. Ditto for all the pompous, pretentious intellectuals posing as leftists and infesting the ‘net with their pedantic, self-fellating Edwardian flourishes and rampant thesaurus abuse (think Hitchens as a working model).
I fully expect the card-carrying members of the WWLD set (What would Lenin Do) to occupy their usual positions on the sidelines, waiting for the moment to hijack a populist uprising and use it to elevate themselves to the positions of power in the upper echelons they have always dreamed of.
I wouldn’t say it is a lack of courage that prevents an uprising in this country, but the fact we are so terribly divided against each other, and no one knows what to do next.
Every now and then you get a Cindy Sheehan who wakes up and, not having a blessed clue what to do, goes out and does whatever comes to mind. She didn’t bring the system down, but for a while there, she scared the fuck out of them. If we all followed her example, just doing whatever act of resistance comes to mind without waiting for a master plan to be handed to us, there’d be hell to pay. But I’m not sure such a disorganized resistance without a solid plan of action could destroy the system.
Re the economic crisis here’s a sketch explaining quantative easing and the nefarious role of Goldman Sachs.
http://madammiaow.blogspot.com/2010/11/quantitave-easing-explained-utterly.html
It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
My guess for what it’s worth is that the Fed will try to inflate away its debt, as governments have often done before. What that will do to the dollar and whether America’s creditors will put up with being paid in funny money is anyone’s guess.
Military control of the Middle East’s oilfields is the only thing that maintains the dollar as the world’s reserve currency for as long as oil is priced in dollars.
The tragedy is that Russia appears to have caved in to US pressure and Europe is absolutely hopeless. If the BRIC countries and EU got together they could set up an alternative world monetary system between them with a new global currency based on a basket of currencies of the leading powers.
Right now it seems that only China is putting up significant resistance to the Empire.
Inbred, trailer-living Walmart people? I’ve always respected you Saker, but I have to say I am disappointed to see you resort to racist, classist invective like this. Basically, these terms apply to the white working class in general.
Hell NO! Absolutely totally no!
The vast majority of White working people do not have the money to drive a Harley-Davidson or the inclination to shelp around a pitbull in their oversized SUV or truck. Most White working class people do not wear T-Shirts with American flags and angry looking eagles. Nor do most White working class people dress in “wife-beaters”. All this has nothing to do with income or skin color.
And trailers to do not entail “trailer trash”. In fact, some trailer trash does not even live in a trailer at all (I have one just down the road from me living in a very “proper” house).
I come from a family of refugees and I have been so poor in my life that I had to go and steal corn in the field with my mother just to eat. I know about poverty. Most of my family lived in a very poor neighborhood in Latin America where slums were all over the place. And I have seen real poverty in Asia, South America and Africa, and nowhere, NOWHERE have I seen something so utterly disgusting as the US “trailer trash” (with accent on *trash*). I don’t know what you call Redneck or trailer trash, but I know what I call trash:
These are immensely self-satisfied morons, who spend their days trying to be as ugly and as ignorant as can be, and they sure succeed at it. Just north of where I live is Daytona Beach. This place is full of folks who could be featured on “Jerry Springer” anytime. In fact, that is exactly the kind of trash TV that these inbred degenerates watch all day long. My brother in law ended up marrying one of those inbred degenerates: crackhead, multi-time prison and jail tenant, dumped her kids, involved in several shootings, thefts, makes a living – so to speak – as a prostitute; and you come tell me that I am RACIST bourgeois classicist?!
Dude – I live with these Neanderthals and I assure you that this condition has absolutely nothing to do with skin color or income, nothing at all. And make no mistake, these Neanderthal are *all* systematically racists, they hate “niggers”, “wetbacks” , “gooks” or “sand niggers” (when they are in the Middle-East). These guys would gladly lynch Cindy Sheehan and her “communist” friends (for them any person left of Adolf Hitler is a “commie”).
And nobody, NOBODY, is more loyal to the system and the entire fucking EMPIRE as these Neanderthals. Just wave a US flag at them, and they are willing to go kill, maim, or bomb any “foreigner” who dares to oppose the USA.
Their trucks feature the obligatory set of patriotic bumper stickers: “United We Stand”, “Freedom is not Free”, “Thank a vet”, “These Colors don’t Run”, “NRA”, a Confederate flag and, last but not least, the absolutely obligatory “Terrorist Hunting Permit” (I am sure that al-Qaeda is terrified)
I saw a good one recently: “This is America – speak English!”. I thought “that dumb motherfucker does not even realize that
a) the USA is not America
b) most people in America do NOT speak English
c) that most Latinos, God bless their soul, don’t give a damn about what Anglo Neanderthals and their bumper stickers.
to be continued…
… continued:
Another good one was during the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. A local Neanderthal had painted “boycott France” on his pickup truck. Like he ever in his disgusting life of coleslaw and onion rings had ever purchased anything French…
Sean – I absolutely HATE these Neanderthals. And I am as white as snow, and my family barely makes ends meet. Yeah, I got two college degrees. So what? Does that have to make me feel guilty for not being “blue collar” myself or should that somehow make me less disgusted with what I consider the most bigoted, ignorant, arrogant, racist, stupid, ugly and offensive bunch of creeps I have ever met?
Have you seen the wannabe Koran-burning preacher from Florida who was in the news recently? That is exactly the kind I am describing. An evil, self-satisfied, ignorant bastard who seriously believes that Christ would just be so proud of these gun-toting SUV driving and hatred-spewing Neanderthals.
Frankly, how you could construe what I wrote as anti-White or anti-worker is totally beyond me. I don’t know where in the USA you live (Vermont?), but down here, in Florida, there is no mistaking the difference. I will give you one last example.
I used to do some volunteer work as a guardian at litem: a person who works for the courts to defend the interests and rights of abused, neglected or abandoned children. And you can imagine, trailer trash was our prime “field of activity”. There used to be a mother of many kids in a city not far, who had such horrible hygene conditions that ANIMAL CONTROL came to take away her cats. And they found her KIDS living in such horrible conditions that they called in the cops, who had to wear masks when they enteterd the house and who were quite literally sobbing when they came out. This woman had roadkill (a deer) in her refrigerator, and insects crawling all over the place. Her defense was “this is Florida, this is our local culture”. Let me tell you this, nobody was more angry at her than one of my colleagues from the At Litem program who, in her youth, was so poor that they lived in a house in central Florida with a dirt floor. And yet, as she told me, “we never, never, had a single insect in our house; we were poor, but we kept clean; this is not culture, this is a lack of culture!”. She is 100% right.
Ok, I am done with my rant, but I have to tell you that your comment really angered and offended me. So this is why I wanted to make absolutely damn sure that there is no misunderstanding here about where I come from, or what I believe. And if you still think that I am a petty bourgeois racist, then so be it.
The Saker
@Sean: one more thing I forgot to mention:
That woman, with roadkill in her fridge, was not poor at all. In fact, at the time of her arrest she had a brand new oversized red truck in her yard. The kid with double wheels in the back (I think they are called “deweys” or something like that).
No, she was not working, of course not. But she had gotten inheritance money from somebody. So she got herself that cool red Neanderthal truck while her kids were covered with lice, scabies and other insects.
I say shoot that Neanderthal bitch behind the barn. They did not shoot her, but they did take away her kids and TPRed her for the rest of her life and even gave her some jail time (TPR: termination of parental rights).
Saker, what you are portraying here is a stereoype. You are taking the behavior of a handful of people, and extending it to an entire demographic based on meaningless things like the clothes they wear or their bumper stickers. My brother is a union man, leftist, hates the system, non-racist. He drives a pick up truck with patriotic stickers all over it so that if he gets pulled over by the cops, they’ll think he’s one of theirs. He wears wife-beater T-shirts, but has never raised his hand to his wife or kids. Does this make him “trash?” My sister used to have a rottweiler, and my younger brother dated a tattoo artist, and is tattooed all over like a yakuza. Does this make them trash?
I was also raised in poverty, as both my father and mother were disabled for a time and unable to support us. We lived in a Black working class neighborhood in NYC when I was eleven. Not the inner city or the slums. I went to an all-Black school where every day I was subjected to racist harassment, abuse or violence, and I lived in constant terror of violence.
I had to map out routes through the neighborhood to get home where I was less likely to be attacked or harassed, and where I had access to my weapon of choice: the metal garbage can cover. I soon learned to take the bus to a bank along the main commercial strip, from where it was relatively safe to walk home as there were stores I could duck into. Every day the whole bus would sing racist songs to me like “Ungawa, Black Power. Destroy, White Boy.”
By the time I was 13, I had been stabbed in the face, slashed in the hand, had my nose broken at least twice and been beaten more times than I can count. I had at least three separate knife fights. But not all the violence I or my family experienced came from that neighborhood. Not a single member of my immediate or extended family spread out all over the NY, NJ and Mass area has escaped violence at the hands of Blacks or Hispanics at some point in their lives.
Part 2
Tell me, Saker, what label should I apply to the tribe of people who did this to me and my family? “Ghetto trash?” “Niggers?” Did the whole community warrant the label or just the bad ones? Now tell me what you would call a young friend of mine at age 11, Black, and matching the demographic of those who abused me in every way, except that he was a lot younger. When a street gang was about to beat the crap out of me, this kid stood up and told them they would have to fight him first. Because of his courage, they let us both go. But in every way, he was a product of that neighborhood indistinguishable from anyone else and even sang the same racist songs as everyone else. All my friends did. Does he qualify as trash because of the demographic he was born in? Was he a racist? He was more of a man than most men I have met in this life.
Yet somehow, I am able to convey this story without any need to condemn an entire neighborhood or demographic based on the clothes they wore, the presence of Black Power flags, red, black and green afro picks or the houses they lived in. Nearly everybody had those symbols. How is that? I don’t think of Black people as “ghetto trash.” I think of them as people like anyone, with a certain minority amongst them prone to depraved and anti-social behavior, exacerbated by poverty, same as anywhere else on the planet. In fact I have always found I have more in common with working class Blacks and Hispanics than I do with most white liberals, simply because I come from the same world they do. Perhaps I can use the dodge of saying, “I am not condemning black people here, most of who are decent folks, but niggers,” and get to safely apply a racist label to my tormentors?
The terms “trailer trash” and “white trash” are definitely racist and classist terms that have a long history, just like “nigger.” That may not be the way you intend the term, but that’s the meaning those terms are understood to convey. The people who use this term are usually white, middle class liberals. You might want to look it up. I’m sorry you can’t realize how offensive these terms are to those who have been on the receiving end of them. I would suggest you read “The Redneck Manifesto” by Jim Goad. It is one of the most powerful books on the realities of class and race in America I have ever read.
http://books.google.com/books?id=YF5U4IkcFS4C&printsec=frontcover&cd=1&source=gbs_ViewAPI#v=onepage&q&f=false
@Robert
BRIC is a trap just like the EU.
They control BRIC which was created by Goldman Sachs in the 70’s through Brazil economy is controlled by British aligned banks.
LaRouche describes and predicted how and why the global economy is collapsing staring with Greece then Ireland and Spain.
@ Sean: Saker, what you are portraying here is a stereoype.
No, that is what I live with on a daily basis
You are taking the behavior of a handful of people, and extending it to an entire demographic
No, I never spoke of skin color, social class, or income level
based on meaningless things like the clothes they wear or their bumper stickers
To me things things are meaninful. A guy with “This is America – speak English” is, IMNSHO, a Neanderthal
He wears wife-beater T-shirts, but has never raised his hand to his wife or kids. Does this make him “trash?” My sister used to have a rottweiler, and my younger brother dated a tattoo artist, and is tattooed all over like a yakuza. Does this make them trash?
No, but it sure makes them *look* like Neanderthals, IMNSHO
I went to an all-Black school where every day I was subjected to racist harassment, abuse or violence, and I lived in constant terror of violence.
So? I lived in DC under Marion Barry. I know how racist some US Blacks can be. I dislike the dumb “ghetto niggers” (their words, not mine) no less than I despise Neanderthals. Believe me, this is NOT a skincolor issue for me. BTW – my best friend in DC was a coal black Black girl from Mali. She called the “ghetto niggers” “animals”. Was she a racist? It’s an American disease to reduce all such issues to skin color. None of us, foreign students living in DC thought in such categories.
Tell me, Saker, what label should I apply to the tribe of people who did this to me and my family? “Ghetto trash?” Yep. And if they call me “racist” I will tell them all the exact same thing I told you.
Does he qualify as trash because of the demographic he was born in?
No. Because as I wrote over and over and over again, being a Neanderthal is not a condition, its a BEHAVIOR.
The terms “trailer trash” and “white trash” are definitely racist and classist
No, because they refer to a behavior, not a condition.
I’m sorry you can’t realize how offensive these terms are to those who have been on the receiving end of them
My experience with Neanderthals is that they are quite proud of their “Neanderthality”, they try to exacerbate it, get it “in your face”. That is their right, of course, but they should not come whining when a normal human being calls them Neanderthals.
Look, I will try to give you what I consider a *PERFECT* example of what I think you are missing.
Lot’s of teenage boys nowadays have pants that drop down their butts and their underwear sticks out, you have seen that I am sure. Besides making them look like morons, it also makes them look exactly like the models they are trying to copy: people in jail who have had their belts taken away and who have their pants dropping down as a result.
Likewise, a lot of teenage girls wear vulgar make-up, mini-skirts, tight mini-shorts that are really big belts, they wear shirts which reveal their belly buttons, etc. They have become indistinguishable from hookers. That is their right.
But they should not get all self-righteous and offended if somebody like me tells them that they look like convicts and hookers. That is their CHOICE. Does that mean that all of them are, in reality, convict and hookers? Of course not. But their behavior makes them look like convicts and hookers. Ditto for a Black guy wearing huge red pants, strolling down the street with a typical pimp-roll, with a comb stuck in his afro, while carrying a boom-box. He might well be a very fine gentleman, but he sure looks like a pimp or like “ghetto trash”.
And if they don’t want to be seen as such, they all should get dressed, washed and make a minimal effort into NOT looking like thugs, hookers or pimps. That is THEIR issue, not mine.
Folks cannot live in Jerry Springer world and expect respect.
I sort of promote clan-ism and I have mine and other people have theirs, and certainly there is a horrible abuse but the opposite of clan-ism (cantonization) is centralism, in which a syntetic national culture prevails in the country, which is run by a clique of mandarins which control it, politics, media, banking … to their own ends- they are the uber-clique. This top down organization is so dangerous because it can take a nuclear armed country to war, gin up the threadbare rationale, and write the history books about it later. Within a more medieval cantonized country, nobody would have that power. The cantons would determine what is best for them. There is no uber-clan that has cast a spell over the land explaining to people what their duty is to world democracy and capitalism, and serving their own interests with the blood of fools.
The level of corruption within some clans would be extreme. It is a whole distribution of conditions, but one can leave, and bad actor clans can be shunned. Some fighting may occur over resources etc, but everybody must come to an understanding that internal affairs, no matter now repugnant, are not a cause for war. This organization is what the founders of the country had in mind. A loose federation to present a common front for trade mostly.This will not leave us defenseless against predation by foreign nation states and interests. so far as cultural issues, we need to retreat to our own ghettos and leave other people the hell alone in theirs.
[I apologize in advance for my English. My mother tongue is Spanish]
Just a minute, Saker. I have been following your posts for some time now and I can see the rightfulness of many of them, but I would like to add a little comment now, because I think that a matter of principle —or a contradiction in terms— is implied here. In one of your answers you say: “I guess I am lucky that I am neither Black, nor Muslim, nor an immigrant from a poor country” (and you even mention the word “category”; you say “these categories”). Well, the burning question here is: ¿what gives anybody the possibility of saying “I am lucky of not being so and so (a “black”, a “latin”, a “muslim”, a “martian”, etc.? A quick digging in the question reveals that what gives anybody) this [unhuman] possibility is the same fascist system that you have been rightly criticizing for its obscene policies in many of your posts. I don’t think that as human being we have any “luck” or “privilege” at all, because the only thing we really have/are is that light that no one can define (nothing to do with a “god” or “supreme being”). Precisely, the attempt to (and the illusory succeed in) defining or enclosing the humanness —that’s the light I am talking about— is the very principle of fascism, because fascism is only the ideology of exclusion). A light (I repeat) that no-one can (nor should) define (because it is literally indefinable), but that anybody (in even condition) can recognize. And so, any perception of a “category”, “color” or “privilege” is a terrible illusion in two parts: a) because emanates from a power whose very modus operandi is the (it is what I call the US power grid, or the Grid implanted in the US: a blueprint of exclusion —but that Grid began and continues today in Europe), and b) because the human condition have no-thing that you can define or categorize in any form.
I propose a simple example to prove it. ¿Is it logical to think that, if a bomb suddenly explodes in a subway wagon somebody will be saved or killed because he is “this” or “that”, because he has some “education” or none, because he is “righteous” man or a thieve? Nobody will be saved or killed for any “category”, “hue”, “rank” or “privilege”? The real condition (of humanness-and-of-reality) is spontaneity, in which it is not possible to find a trace of anything at all. All those are illusions that the power and the people with/in the power have learned to use very well. But (following with the example of the bombing), just after the explosion, and just for some nanoseconds, when people (like in the explosions in Madrid) discover that they are absolutely deprived of any “category” or “privilege”, that light (the humanness) shines and reveals itself (just for some seconds), and the people recognize each other as they really are: only that light without borders, “categories” or “privileges”. (But of course, some minutes after they will be acting again from that cages that are the categories, the privileges, etc. etc.) What I intend to say in short is that the origin of all of this is not in the actual trend of West societies (and yes: fascism is rampant in Europe) but in the primal attitude in front of that essential or absolute condition that is not definable but recognizable, and that the real mistake occurs when some-one (not simply the power, because this comes from an entire trend of thought and behavior extended over the years and involving full societies) try to (and illusory succeed in) define and enclose the human condition, reducing it to some “categories”, “hues”, “conditions” or “privileges”. As long as this behavior continues, the seed of un-humannes will continue to bear fruits.
@anonymous: I apologize in advance for my English. My mother tongue is Spanish
Your English is EXCELLENT and you have no need to apologize for anything. Besides, this blog happens to be in English, but this is not a rule. I have posted in other languages and I have often had discussions in other languages. You can also write in Spanish, which I am fluent in, and which is a language I absolutely love :-)
¿what gives anybody the possibility of saying “I am lucky of not being so and so (a “black”, a “latin”, a “muslim”, a “martian”, etc.?
I did not mean that in the sense of a Jew in his daily prayers thanks God for not making him a Gentile, a slave or a woman. What I meant that objectively being European, White and Christian subjects me to a smaller probability of abuse by the US authorities than other people. And I fully agree that only a racist system can make such differences possible. I was not endorsing this, I was DESCRIBING it.
I hope that this clears any misunderstanding.
No, that is what I live with on a daily basis
No, it’s what you think you live with, based on stereotypes.
No, I never spoke of skin color, social class, or income level
You spoke of inbred, trailer trash, and “walmart shoppers,” derogatory terms that were designed to convey a statement about race and class. No one would accuse Ben Bernanke of being a “Walmart shopper.”
“Trailer trash (or trailer park trash) is a derogatory North American English term for poor white people.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailer_trash
To me things things are meaninful. A guy with “This is America – speak English” is, IMNSHO, a Neanderthal
A man who advertises his ignorance thus should certainly be called on it, as should a man who says “This is America—dress conservatively.” An American flag sticker or a sleeveless T-shirt isn’t quite on the same level.
“He wears wife-beater T-shirts, but has never raised his hand to his wife or kids. Does this make him “trash?” My sister used to have a rottweiler, and my younger brother dated a tattoo artist, and is tattooed all over like a yakuza. Does this make them trash?”
No, but it sure makes them *look* like Neanderthals, IMNSHO
It’s good to know a man’s character can be judged by his choice of T-shirt, with those wearing the one of two T-shirt styles that is more practical for working class people laboring in hot weather falling squarely into the “neanderthal” category. Nothing classist about that. Perhaps you should produce a list of non-Neanderthal dog breeds, that I might judge the character of my neighbors by their canines.
I dislike the dumb “ghetto niggers” (their words, not mine)
Your words, and theirs.
no less than I despise Neanderthals. Believe me, this is NOT a skincolor issue for me.
Then why the need of one derogatory term to apply to poor whites and another to apply to poor blacks? “Assholes” is race, gender and class neutral. “Trailer trash” and “nigger” aren’t.
BTW – my best friend in DC was a coal black Black girl from Mali. She called the “ghetto niggers” “animals”. Was she a racist? It’s an American disease to reduce all such issues to skin color. None of us, foreign students living in DC thought in such categories.
Obviously not.
The terms “trailer trash” and “white trash” are definitely racist and classist
No, because they refer to a behavior, not a condition.
As I’ve already pointed out and as the definition of these terms make clear, they refer to a particular race and class: poor whites.
But they should not get all self-righteous and offended if somebody like me tells them that they look like convicts and hookers. That is their CHOICE
No, it’s your choice to reduce people to caricatures, based on outward appearance. Your attitude is indistinguishable from the people who tell Muslims who wear the hijab or other traditional Muslim clothing that if they don’t want to be treated like terrorists, they shouldn’t dress like them.
Perhaps we should encourage young people to wear a suit and tie or pantsuit at all times, like our congressmen. This way, no one will confuse them for whores.
@Sean: No one would accuse Ben Bernanke of being a “Walmart shopper.
Walmart shoppers? Ok, this is what I was referring to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjuTDBnFTfo
(notice the non-Whites in that vid?)
Muslims who wear the hijab or other traditional Muslim clothing that if they don’t want to be treated like terrorists, they shouldn’t dress like them.
Muslims who wear traditional Muslim clothes do not look like terrorists. They look like Muslims. But if they start wearing bomb-belts, AK-47s and pins of Bin Laden, then they should not whine if somebody says that they look like terrorists.
Perhaps we should encourage young people to wear a suit and tie or pantsuit at all times, like our congressmen.
If they want to be mistaken for congressmen, they should indeed. If they wear a wetsuit, chances are they will be mistaken for a diver. If they wear white scrubs and a stethoscope, they will be mistaken for MDs. And if they want to look Jerry Springer guests, they can take their inspiration from the “People of Walmart” video above. It’s their choice, really.
I would not want to be mistaken for a Hassidic Jew. So I will not wear Hassidic clothes. Likewise, if Neanderthal looking folks don’t want to look like Neanderthals, they should not dress the part.
There are *plenty* more choices out there than Bernanke or Neanderthal. I spent the last 10 years wearing shorts, a Tshirt and flip-flops. If somebody tells me that I look like a beachbum, I will just laugh and say “yep, sure do!”
Walmart shoppers? Ok, this is what I was referring to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjuTDBnFTfo
(notice the non-Whites in that vid?)
Notice the classism in that vid?
This is what I’m referring to, and how the term “Wal-Mart Shopper” is usually used by elitist liberals like Bill Maher:
“Barack Obama can’t help it if he’s a magna cum laude Harvard grad and you’re a Wal-Mart shopper who resurfaces driveways with your brother-in-law.”
Maher’s meaning here is plain to his intended audience. Sure, can’t be any other reason for the white working class to despise a merit class neocon scumbag like Obama but that they are unsophisticated, racist rubes who shop at Wal-Mart, repave driveways for a living and resent their betters.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2008/09/05/maher_obama
Muslims who wear traditional Muslim clothes do not look like terrorists. They look like Muslims. But if they start wearing bomb-belts, AK-47s and pins of Bin Laden, then they should not whine if somebody says that they look like terrorists.
I agree, But people who dress like Muslims are routinely perceived to be terrorists. Merely having an Arab-sounding name is enough in the minds of some to justify profiling, as is wearing a Sikh turban. Let’s not be disingenuous here. Recall the Juan Williams flap. Even Justin Raimondo from Antiwar.com reported being made nervous by people in Muslim dress and expressed the opinion the reaction was normal, not bigoted, in the wake of 9-11, as if a Muslim terrorist would out himself by wearing a dashdishi on a mission to blow a plane up. If some people falsely perceive Sikhs to be Muslims and therefore, terrorists, whose fault is that, the Sikhs? Now apply the same logic to wife-beater T-shirts and see where it takes you.
If they want to be mistaken for congressmen, they should indeed. If they wear a wetsuit, chances are they will be mistaken for a diver. If they wear white scrubs and a stethoscope, they will be mistaken for MDs. And if they want to look Jerry Springer guests, they can take their inspiration from the “People of Walmart” video above. It’s their choice, really.
The people on the Springer Show were mostly actors, playing to a stereotype. Like everything else on TV, it wasn’t real.
I would not want to be mistaken for a Hassidic Jew. So I will not wear Hassidic clothes. Likewise, if Neanderthal looking folks don’t want to look like Neanderthals, they should not dress the part.
If you dress like an Hassidic Jew, there is a strong probability that you are in fact an Hassidic Jew. If you wear a police uniform, you are probably a cop. These are reasonable assumptions. Assuming everyone in a “wife-beater” T-shirt is an inbred, trailer-trash Wal-Mart shopper who beats his wife isn’t. As they say in the legal profession, this is “assuming facts not in evidence.”
There are *plenty* more choices out there than Bernanke or Neanderthal. I spent the last 10 years wearing shorts, a Tshirt and flip-flops. If somebody tells me that I look like a beachbum, I will just laugh and say “yep, sure do!”
In other words, you recognize people’s perceptions of you based on your dress are meaningless, but feel no need to extend this realization to your own perceptions.
If you don’t want to be confused for an elitist white bourgeois liberal, you should avoid using racist and classist terms for the white working class that have become the lingua franca of their class supremicism and class hostility.
@Sean:Notice the classism in that vid?
No. Unless, of course, being a Neanderthal is a function of class, which I don’t accept.
But at least you dropped race. Progress, FINALLY!
Maher’s meaning here is plain to his intended audience
Ok. You and Maher have a class reading of this and I do not. I would say that you are in bad company then :-)
Now apply the same logic to wife-beater T-shirts and see where it takes you.
It takes me to what I said above. That a person with a wife-beater T-shirt might or might not be a wife beater, but he sure looks like one. And a Sikhs does not look like a Muslim, except to an ignoramous, and a Muslim does not look like a terrorist, except to an ignoramous again. But a guy trying to look like a Neanderthal does come across as a Neanderthal except, I suppose, to somebody who considers that category as “racist” in itself, nevermind that it denotes a behavior, in this case a “fashion statement”.
The people on the Springer Show were mostly actors, playing to a stereotype.
Then Springer needs to come down to Volusia County and meet the locals. The entire family of my brother-in-law would qualify for this show (that’s 3 generations!)
Assuming everyone in a “wife-beater” T-shirt is an inbred, trailer-trash Wal-Mart shopper who beats his wife isn’t.
Correct. My assumptions are that 1) that kind dress does not make you a Neanderthal, only that it sure makes LOOK LIKE one and 2) that looking like a Neanderthal is not a function of class or race, but a CHOICE.
In other words, you recognize people’s perceptions of you based on your dress are meaningless
Not at all! If people think of me as a beach bum they would be correct in assuming that I like looking like one. I do. I spend *years* with a tie and suit in a disgusting cold climate. I enjoy dressing like a beach bum. And I sure don’t bitch if somebody points that out to me
If you don’t want to be confused for an elitist white bourgeois liberal, you should avoid using racist and classist terms for the white working class that have become the lingua franca of their class supremicism and class hostility.
Circular argument which assumes that I have used racist and classist terms. In fact, all you did is exactly what Jews do when they hear somebody critical of Israel – you have stated that there are ugly “overtones” in somebody else’s words. I said what I said and none of it was racist or classist. The fact that you PERCEIVED is as such is a reflection of what associations take place in YOUR mind, not my mind.
Dude, wife beater shirts, tatoos, pitbull, Harleys, moronic bumper stickers and the rest of the typical Neanderthal paraphanelia are ugly and they reflect poorly on those sporting them. You have the right to disagree with that, but don’t come telling me that my disgust with “Neanderthalia” is racist or class-based. The simple fact that there are poor White people all over the world, but that the Jerry Springer types only live in the USA should alert you to the fallacy of your perceptions
Dialog from the movie “Up in the Air”:
“Bingo. Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and have a thing for slip on shoes, god love ‘em.”
“That’s racist!”
“I’m like my mother. I stereotype – it’s faster.”
More bad news for Russia a FSB agent has defected Major Aleksi Potyomkin and says that a botched anti-terrorist raid during a cease fire agreement that killed 6 Red Cross workers was resulted of an anti-terrorist search and destroy squad which he was involved in.
http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/times0046.html
@jack:very very very interesting newsitem which I need to think about. I cannot give any details here, but I will tell you that these events in Novye Atagi played a crucial, and dramatic, role in my life and I know a lot about what was going on behind the scenes. I would say that there is a high probability that a lot of what is in this report is true.
I am very sorry that I cannot comment any further on this topic, but I will say this: there is more than one party responsible for the death of these innocent ICRC delegates.
@VINEYARDSAKER:
You mean other senior Russian military and intelligence involved?
Where you in Chechnya, the Caucasus region or Russia at the time?
Anyway I think Russia is pretty much fucked.
It should prepare for the break-up of the country into smaller countries like the former Yugoslavia and develop a strategy to secure territory along a pro-Russian axis preferably ethnic Russian Orthodox when the inevitable civil war breaks out.
I bet Russia does not even have such a plan given the regimes immigration policy of importing tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants from Central Asia into Russia annually and that is just legal immigration.
@jack: sorry, I really said all I could say on that topic.
“It should prepare for the break-up of the country into smaller countries like the former Yugoslavia”
I disagree. The Russian economy is stable, the living conditions didn’t suffer much with the crisis (and wages and unemployment have already returned to pre-crisis level), the leadership is still popular (though less than it used to be 2 years ago), so I don’t see how could the country get into a civil war.
Unless comes a second wave of international crisis that hits Russia worse than in late 2008/2009, or a breakup between the Medvedev and Putin factions begins causing serious political and economical troubles , it’s impossible that a civil war may break in Russia in a foreseeable future.
@VINEYARDSAKER
When was the last time you were in Russia and how were you able to talk to senior Russian people?
Were are you are journalist or something?
Anyway the story itself is not that big a deal and that Russia covered it up apart from it being during a cease fire agreement except for the fact that a) it was the Red Cross and b) it was foreign nationals killed.
Anyway Russia is screwed lets hope there is a Chinese intervention into Siberia.
@Jack: are you are journalist or something?
or something :-)
@Carlo
Russia’s economy is still primarily based on natural resources which the US can control and manipulate through the control of Saudi Arabia and OPEC and speculation on the stock market which they control and Russian major industry and companies that are not based on state oil and gas are registered in British offshore tax havens outside the control of Russia coupled with a large multi-billion dollar multi-national organised crime and terror network that runs most of the country and the US creating a new even more powerful drug basin for Islamic militants to destabilise Eurasia.
Now with Medvedev and his Gorbachev era trained shock therapy dictating Russia policy and essentially sabotaging Russia from the BRIC trap to NATO concessions, destroying regional alliances like that of Belarus, etc.
Putin had bad points which could be looked past in most instances but Russian policy now is a disaster.
It is not if but when the civil war will take place and how fast it will spread.
This has been Western policy since the collapse of the USSR in fact they have wrote about how this is their agenda the most provocative being in late 2008 when a scholar at Carnegie Endowment in Russia wrote 3 strategic papers outlining a scenario where Putin is killed and the country is involved in mass civil conflict concentration camps and all.
What is happening now in Russia is exactly the same external pressure and forces working against Tsarist Russia up to 1917 when they successfully installed Communism in Russia a carbon copy but instead of using socialism they use Islam.
Ok. You and Maher have a class reading of this and I do not. I would say that you are in bad company then :-)
I’m not sure what other reading there of the “Walmart Shopper” strereotype than classist, besides elitist. Walmart shoppers tend to be poor, and the idea that poor people are losers who always deviate from the norm due to their inherent bad taste and lack of class is fairly typical of classist put-downs. We’re invited to mock and despise people for no other reason than the fact they don’t dress like everyone else, wear their hair funny, or are overweight, as if any of this is a measure of their character of worth as human beings. To understand this, you have only have to observe the fact there are no websites mocking warmongers, banksters, corporate rent boys and other assorted sociopaths who generally wear nice clothes, speak with proper diction, and behave in the manner expected of their class. This behavior, it would appear, is normal and above reproach. Wearing purple hair isn’t.
You might find the comments on this site about the classisim underlying the “Walmart shopper” website that got this partiuclar stereotype rolling illustrative. “attack_laurel” points out all the classist elements inherent in just one photo and its accompanying caption on that site. Note too, how the author changes his opinion when people set him straight.
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/09/make-classist-web-sites.html
It takes me to what I said above. That a person with a wife-beater T-shirt might or might not be a wife beater, but he sure looks like one.
That’s entirely your own opinion. The shirt is called a wife-beater because Marlon Brando played a wife beater wearing one in “A streetcar Named Desire,” not because people who wear them are more likely to beat their wives.
The idea that someone wearing a particular T-shirt appears to be a “Neanderthal” is your opinion, not a statement of fact. I am reasonably certain most people would consider judging a man’s character by the T-shirt he wears to be absurd.
Part 2
Correct. My assumptions are that 1) that kind dress does not make you a Neanderthal, only that it sure makes LOOK LIKE one and 2) that looking like a Neanderthal is not a function of class or race, but a CHOICE.
The idea that wearing a particular piece of clothing makes you a Neanderthal is false. We agree on that. Therefore, anybody thinking that wearing such a shirt makes you look like one is also false, as this opinion is based on the false premise that a shirt determines your character. Some people might see it that way, some might think it’s pretty cool. Healthy people could care less.
Since it is impossible to dress in a way that pleases everyone, the usual response of most people is to dress how they feel and fuck anyone who has a problem with it. That is, IMNSHO, is vastly preferable on a psychological health level than fussing over how other people present themselves and what is says about their character.
Circular argument which assumes that I have used racist and classist terms.
You have. I gave you the definition of the term trailer trash. “Inbred” couldn’t be anything other than racist, as it entails an unproven assumption that someone’s genetics is somehow faulty due to inbreeding. It is used to explain why someone might be genetically fucked up despite being white and therefore, presumably superior.
In fact, all you did is exactly what Jews do when they hear somebody critical of Israel – you have stated that there are ugly “overtones” in somebody else’s words. I said what I said and none of it was racist or classist. The fact that you PERCEIVED is as such is a reflection of what associations take place in YOUR mind, not my mind.
This has nothing to do with my perception, it is what these words are understood to mean in America. Again, you have only to look them up to see that this is true. When you say “trailer trash” that is understood to mean poor white people, especially those who live in trailers. Your further elaboration of the stereotype with pit bulls, Harleys, etc only confirms this.
You have the right to disagree with that, but don’t come telling me that my disgust with “Neanderthalia” is racist or class-based. The simple fact that there are poor White people all over the world, but that the Jerry Springer types only live in the USA should alert you to the fallacy of your perceptions
The fact that you are using a fake TV show as an authority for anything should alert you to the fallacy of your own perceptions.
You used terms that are understood as racist and classist by most people. Just as most people recognize the word “nigger” as racist, or “kike” as anti-Semitic. Maybe that’s not how you intended it, but that’s how it came across. No one could possibly confuse what you said as flattering to poor white people living in trailers, even if your intent was just to attack the “Neanderthals” among them. You’d have to read a lot into those terms to see that as your intent, as the terms themselves allow of no such nuance. I’m sorry you can’t see that.
At this point it’s clear we are not going to reach a consensus on the matter so I’ll let you have the last word, Saker. I’ll allow that you didn’t intend the terms as they appeared and leave it at that, but hope in the future you will realize how damaging these terms are to the credibility of anti-imperialists in general, of whom you are as fine an example as any. I hope our future debates are not so contentious.