Dick Cheney is the One True Antichrist

I got a chain email a while ago from a Hillary supporter that claims Obama is the Antichrist. Recently, as expected, the wingnuts have been reviving the meme since Obama hasn't assuaged their fears that he is not a true warmongering, torture-endorsing, tax-protesting, electric chair switch-pulling nutcase disciple of Jesus Christ, Our (Their perverted) Lord and Savior.

What's truly amazing is that wingnuts are so into projection and have been so out of touch with reality for so effing long is that they can call Obama, someone who actually is not out to destroy the world, the antichrist, whilst they ignore the mass murders and economic catastrophes foisted on the world and nation of our own Dick Darth Duck! Mutherfukkin' Cheney. A guy who has so much clout he can shoot someone in the face and make THEM apologize TO HIM for it. Think about it. That's right, think. Something the wingnuts and the corporate media have conditioned us not to do. As the classic blues song goes: That's EVIL, evil is going on wrong!

So wingnuts, please spare us the pathetic projection and STFU for the next several months...no make that decades. Thanks.

On Olympic Coverage and My Grand Plan for the Future of Telecommunications

NBC's Olympic coverage so far has been less than impressive. In fact, it's been a steaming pile of bullshit. I wanna see real Olympic sports like boxing, sprints, long jumping, etc. Not water polo or horse riding or fucking volleyball. Especially not volleyball, which has been on wall to wall coverage today. They spent 6 hours on indoor volleyball then another 6 on beach volleyball. Who gives a fuck!? The entire premise there is to set up a spike. That's it. That's the entire strategy. Jesus hopping Christ on a pogo stick, they broadcast 12 hours of that today! Setting up a spike!

Why are there so many lame ass sports that have been added to the Olympics in recent years? Badminton!? This is a gold medal sport? WTF is next, lawn jarts and bocce ball? Who wants to see this shit? Do soccer moms really wanna see this? Is that who NBC is pandering to? There's GOTTA be a way to see the sports I wanna see, w/o having this shit dictated to me. Here's my idea:

INTERACTIVE TELEVISION.

Imagine combining your PC and TV and picking ANY sporting event (or movie, or music video) that you want to see ANY time you want to see it. It would be like Youtube, except better. You can get anything that exists in all the archives of all the entertainment outlets, anything that was ever recorded. There would be a kickass search function, better than google, that would identify that long ago song or movie whose name you can't quite remember, but all you had to do was type in (your TV would come with a keyboard/text message/remote type thing that I haven't fully thought out yet) and voila! There's that movie you saw when you were a kid that you vaguely recall, but always wanted to see again. And of course, it would also allow you to bypass the crappy excuses for Olympic sports that saturate NBC's current Olympic coverage and let you get right to the stuff you want to see. Freedom of choice! Where is it? Is this not the land of the free!? Interactive TV now!!

Thank you internet for letting me vent.

On Presidential Role Models

“It’s impossible for a chicken to produce a duck egg. It can only produce according to what that particular system was constructed to produce. The system in this country cannot produce freedom for the Afro-American. It is impossible for this system, this economic system, this political system, this social system, this system period. ...And if ever a chicken did produce a duck egg, you would say it was certainly a revolutionary chicken.”
~Malcolm X

“What can a cloth suit tell me about the wealth of a soul?”
~ Randell Robinson

This presidential election of 2008, still being decided, has often been spoken of in terms of history. Even more so, it has been constantly spoken of, by virtually all the candidates as a watershed for "change". In actuality, barring a miracle, the only historical change that there may be...maybe... someone other than a white male elected President of the United States this year. This change, important yet ultimately superficial, in these days of greatly diminished expectations, is cause for rapturous awe, and a strange mix of delirious optimism and great anxiety. We have given up on a fair system. We have long given up on even a slightly less bloodthirsty imperialism (which we are actually supposed to be proud of!) All we have to hope for is a symbolic victory, one that gaurantees no substantive change in policy in terms of what really matters.

I will not downplay the power of the symbolism. The United States, with something other than a white male as president, will look a lot different. It will even feel a lot different. Alas, I fear it won't actually be much different. We will have a duck as president. Perhaps a female duck, or a black duck, but a duck just the same. This system can only produce one species. Only if we change the internal workings of the system or the interaction with the environment can we force a mutation. We are told to hope...to wish for...to dream of...this significant change. For in 2008, the greatest expectation is a role model that will inspire the next generation to actually accomplish the substantive change that is needed now and has been needed for many past generations. This is what diminished expecations give you...dreams deferred. No thank you. I won't believe in presidential role models until there is some substantive reason for believing.

Handicapping the 2008 Presidential Election

Hey, it's presidential primary season again. Has it already been four years since the American electorate, in their infinite wisdom, handed the Boy Monkey Ass four more years of raping and plundering the known universe? I had been blissfully semi-unaware of this mess until I was watching football the other night and went to switch to the NFL channel and landed on C-SPAN by mistake. There they were talking about momentum and likeability and blowing the usual smoke and nonsense that makes about 60 percent of the people not bother to vote. There they were once again ignoring the two most important things about any election in this country...who is giving each candidate their money to run, and which candidate has the best hair. As every pundit knows, but none will admit, these are the two things that will determine the next president.

Unfortunately, I have no idea who is getting what percentage of their bribe money from what grossly misanthropic segment of the American capitalist rogue's gallery. They never print this stuff anywhere in the McPapers or on the McNews Channels. But I have seen the candidate's hair. Oh yeah, they do show you the hair and make-up. So without further ado, here's how I see it panning out.

Republican:

Rudy Guiliani: Bald. NEXT!

Fred Thompson: Bald with huge bags under his eyes. Who the fuck begged him to join the race? Nobody, that's who. Keep it moving, Uncle Fester.

McCain: Silver hair, thinning. Very Old...not as bad as Thompson, but you just can't picture him getting an intern to drop to her knees, except maybe under duress.

Huckabee: Dyes his hair, slightly thinning. Looks like Dick Nixon around the time of the Checkers Speech. Same nose, jowels, shifty eyes and 5 o'clock shadow. At the first sign of sweat on his upper lip this mofo is DONE.

Romney: Pure televangelist hair. Dyed.


So Romney has the best hair. He's a very slick dude that tries too hard to be sincere sounding. He's totally transparent, though and totally full of shit with no moral compass whatsoever. He's also the big money candidate. In any other year he would be a lock for the presidency. But a large percentage of the electorate who would normally be easy pickings have sore rectums from the last 8 years of getting the 50-inch GOP elephant dick in that azzzz. Some of them still might fall for it, though. In the words of Bugs Bunny "don't these ducks ever learn?" The Republicans also have a protest candidate this year, Ron Paul. He is against the Iraq War so of course he is insane. Anyone against the Iraq War is insane and believes in UFOs. Just ask the corporate media, they'll tell ya. But I digress...

Democrats:

Obama: Closely-cropped natural. I thought for sure he would go for the waves at some point in the last 4 years, but he's keeping it very basic and unassuming. I think he would still do well if he grew it out a little, but how much is too much for the mainstream voter??

Clinton: Her hubby rocked the undyed "poof" look all the way to the top back in the day and she is staying with what got them there, with the perfect business-like corporate cut.

Edwards: Best in show, his hair got all the press so far and gave him a huge boost in Iowa. Hard to hold back the Little Lord Fauntelroy factor and I see him being a force at the convention, with his well-groomed mane good for at least a couple hundred delegates.

So taking in all of the above, look for the impeccably coifed Democrats to easily take the Presidency over the follically (and morally) challenged Republicans this fall.

Message to the Black Athlete in America

I live in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is a staunch Republican outpost located about halfway between Chicago and Detroit. Perhaps our most famous living native son is the champion boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr. I bring this up because recently Floyd beat up some Brit to win some kind of middle weight boxing title. You see I don't follow the sport closely. In fact, I truly wonder why if it's illegal for chickens and dogs to fight then it's perfectly acceptable for people to scramble eachother's brains for sport. I have my theories as to why, but I will save that for another day. Anyway, the point is that you would think our local newspaper and TeeVee stations would be closely following this story. But I watched the local news last night and they did not mention anything about the fight (which was going on at the time) until the sports section. Yet, last year when the Tigers (which play in a city 180 miles away) were in the World Series, they led off the news with coverage and reporters covering the story in front of wide screen TVs at local sports bars.

Now let's go back in time a few years to 1998. At that time Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs and was a modern day folk hero. Three years later Barry Bonds broke that record and was subpoenaed. He then went on to break the all time home run record in 2007 and was subsequently indicted.

Ok disclosure time. Barry Bonds and Floyd Mayweather Jr. are black men. So, to borrow a sports anaolgy, they have two strikes against them starting out. They are also considered arrogant by many sports writers who happen to be caucasion. STRIKE THREE!

They are outta there. No front page headlines and you better watch your step. That's the price you must pay if you insist on being the UBA, or Uppity Black Athlete. This is the CLS, or Carl Lewis Syndrome at play here. Named after a famous UBA from the '80s, who didn't play by the rules of the caucasian media and was even suspected of being gay. That killed his megastar and even star status in America (though not elsewhere in the sissy world of Europe and Japan).

If you want to be well liked and black in the world of sports you have to be at least humble if not downright deferential. Caucasian athletes can do as they damn well please, they get a pass. These are the rules. Michael Jordan was a possible exception. He would not suck up, but he still became the megastar because he bit his lip and let the Nike money do the talking. Be like Mike. And they will at least tolerate you.

Joe Lieberman in the Garden of Gethsemane

And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

Mark 14:35

Of the many rouses that politicians use to cow people, religion is perhaps the most effective. The sight of a senator or president appearing as a moral standardbearer while backing wars of agression is as common as suicide bombers in Baghdad these days. Case in point: "Holy" Joe Lieberman, the orthodox Jew that so pompously chastised Bill Clinton for sticking his penis in unauthorized areas, has since devoutly endorsed the decidedly not-so-moral Bush/Cheney cabal and its spreading of torture and death hither and yon.

Now he is in the unenviable position of having to vote yay or no for the next advocate of torture and genocide that Bush has nominated for Attorney General. Our Mr. Morality can take a righteous stand against these evils just as he did against the philandering Clenis. Or he can give the green light to torture and death. Or he could use the sleazy, torture-enabling Mr. Schumer and Mrs. Feinstein as cover and give a purely symbolic vote against the nominee. It will be interesting, in a disgusting kind of way, to see how it pans out.

Must Be Halloween Again

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

~ Bertrand Russell


In WingnutLand, it is always Halloween, that dark, spooky place where danger lurks in every shadow and evil ghouls are ready pounce without warning. Of course the only real ghoulish characters involved here are those who have so tragically appointed themselves as the guardians of our safety. The latter day Pearl Harbor aka 9/11 allows them to wield fear as the most powerful weapon in their arsenal since it allows them to unleash all the others. The sad fact is that the public has wised up to them before many cowardly people in congress have.

So now they want to attack Iran. Why? I guess it's because the Iraq thing went so wonderfully smooth. Yep, mission accomplished. Err...or not. Never mind, let's move on. These Iranians are terrrorists ya know and they umm...have these nookular things that they plan on using to ehh...kill us all with. Yep, that's what they wanna do...kill us all. With their bombs. Yeah. Their bombs. Nookular ones.

Well that's good enough for me. I am convinced. Wait a minute...my attention span being longer than three seconds, it just occurred to me that I heard this bullshit before. But where? Oh yeah, from these same assholes. About Iraq. OK...can someone arrest these motherfuckers now? Oh wait, congress is going along with them again. Way to go Democrats. Take AIPAC money much?

So let's listen for that little satanic hobgoblin Dick Cheney, here he comes now with his Halloween ditty:

Trick or Treat
Smell my Feat
Gimme sum more Blood to Drink

But there's hope...the media will expose them this time. Certainly after the last disaster they won't be made to look like criminally negligent accomplices to genocide AGAIN will they? No effing way...they are gonna totally expose these shysters this time I can feel it. You believe me don't you?

If you do then I have some Revolutionary Guard nooks to sell you.

Slavery...Again

I will begin my comments this very, very serious topic with a somewhat light-hearted aside. I am that rare type of person that actually enjoys certain uncomfortably awkward social situations. Don't get me wrong...I don't try bringing them about. It's just that some other damn fool invariably does and when it happens I actually welcome it, for a couple reasons. First, there's the very funny aspect of watching ignorant people stutter and spit while other less brash, but no less ignorant people, shift from foot to foot uncomfortably and stare off into space yearning for immediate deliverance from the here and now. And there's the emotional catharsis of "educating" on some fool that is just mindlessly regurgitating the talking points meant to reinforce their own lack of historical perspective.

Speaking of which, one of the most insidious and downright amusing-in-a-perverse-sort-of way talking points are those that deal with the topic of Slavery in America. These, I believe, are being cooked up by the modern day equivalent of plantation owners and their enormous PR machine that consists of an army of intellectual charlatans to do their bidding on the propaganda circuit. Well recently one of these charlatans, a movie critic turned culture warrior (only in America!!), decided to join the long list of right-wing nutcases that have expounded on the "Slavery Wasn't so Bad, Actually" meme that resonates so strongly with most white people benefitting from a socio-economic lansdcape descended directly from the plantation Big House. I will not even name the author because he deserves no special recognition, being one of the more unremarkable of the wingnut hired mouthpieces (maybe making a name on the freak show parade was one of the motives here). It's highly doubtful that he, as a supposedly educated person, even believes what he writes. So let's go down the list of the author's six "inconvenient truths" of slavery and see just how truthful they are. Why bother? Because this is the internet and we (still) have the opportunity.

1. SLAVERY WAS AN ANCIENT AND UNIVERSAL INSTITUTION, NOT A DISTINCTIVELY AMERICAN INNOVATION.

OOOOhhhhh. Good call. "But Mom, everyone else was doing it!". How far did that justification get you, when you were a 5 YEAR OLD? I could see how this argument would play well with the spoiled ass young Republicans that it was meant for, though.


2. SLAVERY EXISTED ONLY BRIEFLY, AND IN LIMITED LOCALES, IN THE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLIC – INVOLVING ONLY A TINY PERCENTAGE OF THE ANCESTORS OF TODAY’S AMERICANS.

It existed almost 200 years before The Republic was even declared, after which African slaves were denoted as 3/5ths of a person for another 89 years. The tiny percentage is misleading on a number of counts. Number one slave owners were rather small segment of the population to begin with. Number two, it involved a large percentage of the ancestors of Black people and one of the reasons for this is that, number three, the slave owning men sired quite a few black children. In fact, this can be traced through modern methods, and the thought of a lot of lilly-white trust funds being called into question on those grounds is a very scary thought indeed for some folks!

3. THOUGH BRUTAL, SLAVERY WASN’T GENOCIDAL: LIVE SLAVES WERE VALUABLE BUT DEAD CAPTIVES BROUGHT NO PROFIT.

Oh my favorite one, the old "My Holocaust was Bigger Than Yours" argument. He even does the Auschwitz comparison. Just because slaves were murdered for being sick, just because slaves were murdered for wanting to be free, just because slaves were murdered just because, this doesn't mean that all of them were MEANT to be murdered. They were really just meant to be WORKED TO DEATH. But the underlying theme is more along the lines of "the profit motive is your friend, even if you are a lowly slave". Meanwhile, people are still dying in this country because of profit-driven health care. Not to mention those in Africa consigned to death by the Big Pharma patent obsession. But I digress...

4. IT’S NOT TRUE THAT THE U.S. BECAME A WEALTHY NATION THROUGH THE ABUSE OF SLAVE LABOR: THE MOST PROSPEROUS STATES IN THE COUNTRY WERE THOSE THAT FIRST FREED THEIR SLAVES.

All this says is that Northern manufacturing was more profitable than the Southern agriculture. That's not to say that temendous wealth was not built on the backs of slaves working the plantations. The author also neglects to mention that Northern wealth was built on the backs of immigrants and children in factory sweatshops. Even so, if given the choice, I'd take the sweatshop over the plantation experience any day, tyvm. I bet the author would, too.

5. AMERICA DESERVES NO UNIQUE BLAME FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SLAVERY, THE UNITED STATES MERITS SPECIAL CREDIT FOR ITS RAPID ABOLITION.

It took 89 years and about the bloodiest civil war any country has ever fought to get rid of it. It was then replaced with a system almost as brutal that lasted another 100 years. And all the while there were people justifying slavery by saying it was God's will as expressed in the Bible. Of course there is little doubt that if slavery were still around the author would be listing the six "inconvenient truths" about "why slavery ISN'T that bad" instead of why it WASN'T that bad.

6. THERE IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT TODAY’S AFRICAN-AMERICANS WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF THEIR ANCESTORS HAD REMAINED BEHIND IN AFRICA.

There's also no reason to believe that if Europeans had not continued to exploit the people and resources of Africa to this very day that large segments of Africa would not have the turmoil and misery they have had. But getting beyond that often overlooked truth, this statement is like saying that "hey, at least the Jews that were murdered by the Nazis in Europe didn't have to go to Israel and worry about being attacked by Palestinians".


OK I'm done. Now after having gone through all that trouble...I am beginning to think that the whole point of the drivel cascading from the right-wing parade of assclowns is to have forward thinking people waste their time and energy debating and debunking obvious bullshit. They are no more than internet trolls. Unfortunately, they are too well funded to be ignored.

Spreading What?

The Iraq Fiasco, againt all odds, continues to smell even worse lately. Two stories to follow (that the Money Media certainly won't) are the plans by our beloved U.S. oil companies to privatize the entire national oil sector, and the continued subjugation of the Iraqi government by crazed terrorrists aka Blackwater mercs. Both of these things can be traced right back to that caricature of evil incarnate, Darth Cheney. This reptilian mafioso creep was part of the Poppy Bush junta in the early 90s at which time he came up with the concept of privatizing large segments of the military, and contracting that business out to Republican-owned companies. He had to wait about 10 years before he could fully exploit the system he created, but now it's ON, thanks to 9/11 and the all too predictable scenario of the U.S. public not paying attention. So our tax bucks go to a few of his favorite violent charities, and some of that gets funneled back into the Republican campaign slush fund. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been redistributed that way in the past 4 years. It's a remarkable achievement for someone who lacks a heart, and soul. And with this killing machine we are in the process of spreading democracy in the Middle East.

But what exactly are we spreading? It seems that democracy in Iraq is the kind of democracy that we have in the United States. One where the vast majority of people have important decisions made for them by people who are corrupt in the most basic sense: they put cash money ahead of everything else, most notably the lives of their fellow people. What kind of democracy prevents a sovereign government from kicking out psychotic death squads like the Blackwater mercs? What kind of democracy sees politicians bribed in order to sell off the vast wealth of the nation to foreign oil companies, allowing billions of dollars to be swiped out of the national treasury?

Answer: The kind that we want to spread to Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.

What's in a name: Katrina

You know I rowed a little boat, five miles 'cross the pond

You know I rowed a little boat, 'bout five miles 'cross the pond

I throwed my things in the little boat, it rolled me right along
It was thunderin' and lightnin', but it rolled me right along

It was thunderin', it was lightnin', Oh yeah, it rolled me right along

There were thousands of people, they didn't have no place to go, mmm
Little children they were screamin'and cryin', Oh yeah

The wind was howlin', they didn't have no place to go, mmm

There were thousands o' people, they's goin' from door to door, mmm

- I Rowed a Little Boat

Traditional, from the 1927 Mississippi River Flood

On August 29, 2005, almost 80 years after the terrible Mississippi flood of 1927, the levees broke and flooded the poorest, lowest-lying sections of New Orleans, Louisiana, drowning over one thousand people. Two years later, many of those sections are still deserted, their inhabitants scattered across the country, many with no plans or desire to return. For several weeks the sight of the survivors, stranded by the floods and by the harsh economic realities of a country that consistently puts money ahead of life, was out there for all the world to see. And the world did see it, more clearly and objectively than most people in this country were willing to. I remember going to the BBC and other foriegn news outlets to get the most in-depth look at why the richest country on earth could doom its own citizens to a watery grave. How that country that could spend a trillion dollars on invading and occupying countries halfway around the world was not willing to spend less than one hundredth of that cost to shore up the levees that protected one of its own cities.

Coming almost exactly four years after the 2001 attacks, with a similarly horrific death toll, this disaster in many ways stood in stark contrast to that event. This time, the lie was put to the term "Homeland Security" the reactionary name and department that was born of 9/11. It was exposed as a grand farce as floating corpses were eaten by dogs and people died of dehydration, waiting for help that never came. This government was obviously not capable to secure this country, much less Iraq.

And then there the were people stranded and dying even after they were rescued, or waded out of the flood waters. As Wolf Blitzer observed in a moment of live-TV stream of consciousness "These people are so poor, so Black". And they were. They were not the wavy-haired, light complected Louisiana ruling class Moriels et al., but their darker brethren, lowest on the economic and social totem pole that is the living legacy of the plantations. They were "left behind" even as the pets were flown out of harm's way while the monstrous swirl of clouds and wind approached.

Perhaps the sickest tendency in the wake of the event was to blame the victims, which is elevated to something of an art form by our media giants. So we have LOOTERS and SHOOTERS and all kinds of hysteria that turned out to be 99 percent bullshit, all in the name of making people think "yep those niggers are animals and they brought this on themselves. Nope, there's no helping those people". What they didn't report that most of the poor people in New Orleans and all across our land of bounty, have jobs, often more than one. And they still can't afford a car to get the hell out of town. No they never spoke of poverty wages, but the first thing Bush and Cheney did was foist an executive order making it legal to pay slave wages to workers reconstructing the city!

Oh and one more thing the media never told you. The lower 9th ward, the lowest of the low lands, was created when the New Orleans Superdome was built, destroying a more prosperous (and elevated) working class community and relegating its inhabitants to the place that is now a wasteland. It is sadly ironic that the Superdome became their terrordome again during Katrina and their middle passage out of New Orleans.

The Great (Non) Debate

Listen to me! A two-legged animal will believe anything, and the more preposterous the better. Whales speak French at the bottom of the sea. The horses of Arabia have silver wings. Pygmies mate with elephants in darkest Africa. I have sold all those propositions...and more.

~Allardyce Meriweather, snake oil salesman in the movie "Little Big Man"

Americans like to be fooled. It's in our blood. We are suckers for hucksters with good sales pitches. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of politics. How else can you explain so many people voting against their own economic self interests? Karl Rove was no genius, despite what some frustrated non-wingnuts may think. It's not hard to fool people who are raised up as consumers, the human equivalent of a grazing bovine herd animal. It's been done before, many times. Just play to the fear and ignorance. Genius means inventing something new...and ole fat Rover just took the ancient turgid playbook of American politics and ran through the mud one more time with it. The genius part of politics exists elsewhere, however...to wit: the entire "left/right" debate on Fox News and CNNBCBS. How is this desultory bit of theatrics genius you ask? First of all, the true left is nowhere to be found in the mainstream media. Rather we have center-right debating with the rabid wingnuts. It's a sham, designed to make people believe that the likes of Bill Clinton is actually a "leftist" rather than the big chubby, amiable friend of carnivorous capitalism that he is. It's also designed to make people believe that there is an opposition to a system that puts profit ahead of life on earth when there isn't. Not one that can get elected president anyway.

So in campaign 2008 we have the Republican side already proudly advertising themselves as the worst in human nature. Shameless boorish hypocrites willing to squander whatever resources (both human and natural) they can to maximize the profits of the top 1 percent of the population. On the other side we have the Democrats, divided into the so-called "top tier" candidates who are undercover Wall Street stealth operatives ready to sign more disastrous trade agreements and the more true representatives of the long battered working class who are already being termed the "also-rans" by the money pundits before a single vote is cast. These are our choices. We are told the only people that are willing to make any meaningful change cannot be elected to make that change.

This is the democracy we want to export to the rest of the world? No wonder no one wants us occupying their country.

Perversions of Christianity

"Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

-Matthew 19:24

I don't recognize anything remotely Christ-like in the biggest purveyors of Christianity in the United States these days. Backers of religious wars, vilifiers of the poor, supporters of the continued acceleration of maldistribution of wealth and resources among the economic classes; on virtually every important issue, they are more akin to Roman rulers rather than the humble servants of God they pass themselves off as. The great paradox here is that those who most closely preach the true word of Jesus are more often than not agnostics or non-Christians. Jesus set an example for not judging others, lest ye be judged. But all these people are good for is passing judgement, and a harsh judgement at that. I'm telling you, if the current crop of right wing religious hucksters were around back then, they would have hurled stones in response to the statement "let he who is without sin...", because they truly believe they are without sin. That is the level of their hubris and hypocrisy. You have to be seriously blind to any faith in order to take a message and change it to suit your own prejudices and class perspectives. This is the modus operandi of the faith hustlers, southern white conservatives that were never in touch with the true teachings of Jesus Christ having grown up in segregated churches and in a culture where black people as subservient, almost invisible members of the world was the norm. And they preferred to keep it that way, and they still do. Listen to them speak about the past in nostalgic terms, and you know what I mean. Once having any concern for others ceases, then religion loses any purpose it had. This ain't coming from me, either. Read your good book, whatever that good book may be...ALL religions have the Golden Rule as their central message. Realizing that, we see how many people in the world today are TRULY LOST. Those that preach the message along with those that follow them into the hell they inevitably create.

So Much for Living in a Free Country

This is classic hypocrisy from the ruling elite...in fact it doesn't get any more in-your-muhfukkin-face obvious than this:

"Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore is under investigation by the U.S. Treasury Department for taking ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary 'Sicko'."

Now this story requires some background info so let me set the stage for you. About 50 years ago the people of Cuba overthrew centuries of autocratic despotic rule, promulgated by Spain and the United States. They installed a socialist regime, and that resulted in a large number of rich and/or corrupt Cubans fleeing to Miami, where they proceeded to rent out a bunch of whores that we commonly refer to as U.S. politicians. These whores took the old casino/brothel money from the Cuban exiles and, among other dirty things, made laws preventing U.S. citizens from travelling to Cuba. Let me repeat that part with emphasis: THEY MADE IT ILLEGAL FOR US TO TRAVEL TO CUBA.

Now ask yourself, what kind of country makes it illegal for its own people to go where ever the hell they want to? A despotic regime? A banana republic? Yes, that's what we are living in. So the next time you hear some right wing clown talking about how repressive things are in Cuba (or any other country currently out of favor with the State Dept.) ask in a loud and clear voice: WHY IS IT ILLEGAL FOR AN AMERICAN CITIZEN TO TRAVEL WHERE THEY WANT TO?

Now back to the story. Among the most corrupt element of United States society is the propensity for politicians to take money from big corporations and then make laws benefitting them. And about the worst offenders in this practice are big pharmaceutical companies, a special breed of people that ALWAYS put profits ahead of people's lives. A case in point, these are the people that condemned millions of sub-Saharan Africans TO DEATH because they were worried about losing a few dollars to generic drugs that fight AIDS. They are the lowest of the low. Well maybe with the exception of the U.S. State Department.

So Michael Moore is making a movie about how our health care system is basically, criminal. But you can't call very huge and powerful corporations what they are. Nope, not in the United States. Because where there is a lot of money, there are a lot of people being paid to lie. So in those rare instances when someone attempts to bring up the unpleasant and obvious truth, such as our health care system is an embarrassment and criminally neglectful, these people will spring into action. They will write stories, they will go on talk shows and yes, they will run for political office:

"Moore's opponents have accused him of distorting the facts, and his Cuba trip provoked criticism from conservatives including former Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, who assailed the filmmaker in a blog at National Review Online."

Remember when I mentioned how U.S. politicians are whores? Fred Thompson is a big whore. Now he may play a tough guy on TV, but he is really a soft pussycat when it comes to standing up to deadly corporate behavior. He rolls over and arches his back for those who are going to sponsor his potential presidential run. And that's where we are in this free country right now, being ruled by people like that.

All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us

Breaking News: F5 Iraqi Shytstorm hits Kansas:

In Kansas, the governor said the state's response was limited by the shifting of emergency equipment, such as tents, trucks and semitrailers, to the war in Iraq .
"Not having the National Guard equipment, which used to be positioned in various parts of the state, to bring in immediately is really going to handicap this effort to rebuild," she said.
Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the adjutant general's office, which manages state resources during emergencies, said the state has a shortage of heavy equipment transport trailers, pallet-sized loading systems, Humvees, dump trucks and other large equipment that would be help move massive amount of debris.
"We are never at 100 percent because we are allocated a certain amount from the National Guard Bureau. With the war, we are much shorter than we would be. We have about 40 percent of what is allocated," Watson said.
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Yet more proof that the scam wars in the Mideast are not to make us any safer. Nothing has changed since Katrina, people. Our health and safety is about the last thing the war makers are worried about; up top of the list is lining their pockets.

Peggy Noonan: Blood Drinking Zombie from Hell

This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes.

-Peggy Noonan, advocating genocide against Iraqi children, April 2004

An indian who is as bad as the white man cannot live in our nation; he would be put to death and eaten by the wolves. We told them to leave us alone and keep away from us but they followed on and beset our paths and coiled themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch. This is the cause of us making war; and they know it. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. Indians are not deceitful. Indians do not tell lies. Indians do not steal. But they look at the indian spitefully and speak bad of us... It is true that the white men do not scalp the head: but they do worse - they poison the heart.

-Cheif Black Hawk, 1832

Well this is some old business that needed taking care of, so it may be some days late and a few hundred billion dollars short, but here goes. As some of you may recall way back in early April 2004 four Blackwater mercenaries got the George Armstrong Custer/Mogadishu treatment in Fallujah, Iraq. The grotesquley macabre images of which quickly reverberated throughout the world and sparked one of the most grotesquely macabre editorials ever written. This was penned by none other than Ronald "Ketchup is a Vegetable" Reagan's former propagandist, Peggy Noonan. Yes the same subhuman creature that trumpeted it was "Morning in Amerikkka" as poor children saw their school lunches evaporate, death squads crank up in Central America and Osama Bin Laden's Afghan Mujahadeen get sent many millions of dollars and hundreds of Stinger missiles to boot, circa 1984.

This creature, this...this thing, sat down and banged out some of the most bloodthirsty prose seen since the days of Manifest Destiny sought justification for the Twin Godheads of this country's foundation: African Slavery and Indian Genocide. Fittingly enough, it appeared in the editorial section of The Wall Street Journal, the very mouthpiece of Capitalist Exploitation and Those Without Souls aka the ruling class. Let's take a look (take a deep breath and if you have just eaten you might want to wait a few minutes before continuing) shall we?:

"The world is used to bad news and always has been, but now and then there occurs something so brutal, so outside the normal limits of what used to be called man's inhumanity to man, that you have to look away. Then you force yourself to look and see and only one thought is possible: This must stop now. You wonder, how can we do it? And your mind says, immediately: Whatever it takes."

Wow, where to begin... Well, let's start with some muuuuch needed perspective. These haughtily indignant words were written well after the last vestiges of any moral justification for the invasion/occupation of Iraq (which resulted in the slaughter of countless thousands of Iraqi civilians) had disappeared. We knew there were no WMD there and therefore we knew that Bush/Cheney were two big lying sacks of murderous shit. Whatever it takes? How 'bout some fucking TRUTH you pig, or have you been writing your lame ass propaganda so long that the truth is an abstract quantity, something impossible for you to grasp? But Wait it gets better...or worse, since I hope we are all living outside of Peggys "Up is Down Bizarro World":

"The pictures that television appropriately mostly did not show and the Internet inevitably mostly did were horrifying in a way that was reminiscent of the first still pictures of the Trade Center victims of 9/11. It was like seeing people in business suits falling through the air again. It was as if someone pointed a camera at evil and actually caught it in the act."

Ah several of the most amazing "qualities" of the propagandist are on display here in all their sick glory. To whit:

EMOTIVE PANDERING: Hey, let's exploit the 9/11 dead ONE MORE TIME, Peggy.

SELECTIVE MEMORY: I guess you don't recall the sight of hundreds of massive bombs dropped on Baghdad just a year earlier do you? Oh, but those were just Iraqis being shredded into little pieces by them, many of them not even wearing business suits. Their lives ain't worth remembering much, huh Peggy?

LACK OF PERSPECTIVE: Comparing civilians going about their workday to armed mercenaries in an illegal war halfway around the world.

And it still gets better (worse):

"This stops nothing, the terrorists will not win. A State Department spokesman said the contractors "were trying to make a difference and to help others." Indeed they were. There are many such in Iraq. They are risking their lives for many reasons, including improving the prospects for health and safety of 12-year-old boys like the one quoted by Reuters who witnessed the actions of his elders after the attack on the civilians. "I am happy to see this," he said."

"It is hard not to hate the teenagers and young men who celebrated under the bridge where they hanged the charred bodies. They are human expressions of nihilism. They take pleasure in evil, and they were not shy to show it. They are arrogant. They think barbarity is their right.
If this time, in this incident, these young men are left unchecked, their ways and attitudes, their assumptions and method of operating will only be encouraged, and spread. So we had better check them."

Those fucking savages, Peggy!! How DARE they not throw rose petals at our glorious mercenaries while they were applying symbolic bandaids after kneecapping them with a machine gun. Ungrateful sand niggers, the lot of them! Why can't they be civilized like the lilly white neighbors in your gated community, Peggy!? (You know, the ones heavy with Boeing, Raytheon and Halliburton in their investment portfolios.) Why didn't they invite the mercs over for a spot of tea? You just can't reason with those savages Peggy, much less understand them. There's only one solution Peggy and you know what it is...to check them, Peggy. Yes we must check them. Umm, what are you suggesting?

"We know what the men and boys who did the atrocity of Fallujah look like; they posed for the cameras. We know exactly what they did--again, the cameras. We know they massed on a bridge and raised their guns triumphantly. It's all there on film. It would be good not only for elemental justice but for Iraq and its future if a large force of coalition troops led by U.S. Marines would go into Fallujah, find the young men, arrest them or kill them, and, to make sure the point isn't lost on them, blow up the bridge. "

That's right. Arrest them and/or kill them, whichever comes first. Then blow them up. And nuke them and their damn bridge, too. Wow Peggy, I didn't know you were taking testosterone injections. Check your adams apple, baby. Thump your chest like the big wholesome silverback gorilla that you are. Well guess what, Pegs...you got your wish. Your boys lobbed several thousand rounds of white phosphorus all over that motherfucker. Enough to melt the skin off every first born (and second and third born) son in the whole city. We depopulated it, too, just like Andy Jackson did the USA of the troublemaking savage Indians more than 150 years ago. Like the Nazis did to Lidice more than 60 years ago. Are you happy Peggy? Do you sleep better at night knowing that white people will not be dishonored by brown savages anywhere on earth?

Not long after this the story of Abu Ghraib broke, and Peggy shut the hell up about Iraq. And of course, it should come as no surprise that Peggy had not a damn thing to say about Hurricane Katrina, except praising Bush's inaction and empty rhetoric while the underclass were being washed away.

You Had a Billion Chances...

Don't kill the old lady
Nor the baby where a suck 'pon titty
Jah Jah Him no go have no mercy
-Eeka Mouse "Terrorists in the City"

April is the cruelest month
- T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land"

Gunshots punctuate a sad song on the early morning radio
Was it just static or an automatic
My brain says no but my ears say so

You had a billion chances to change history
But you kept right on walking
You had the time to end it all
But you listened to other heads talking

No one is born to go out like that
Chemical imbalance put you in a trance?
Set you down a different path
He's gonna shoot, now you can dance

You just kept piling it on each day
Looking ahead with a sideways glance
You can't stop looking at the prize, no way
He's gonna shoot, and you can dance

It's the cruelest month of a cruel year
Look far away and it gets much worse
Ask yourself what you're doing here
Filled with a hunger that hangs like a curse

You have a billion chances to change
Before the time comes around
You don't have to keep insane
Before you go dormant underground

Numbed Down, Dumbed Down

Life is cheap here. People accept it or leave it with very little fanfare.
~ Ernesto Guevara commenting on the Bolivian peasantry, 1953

We have already looked at the plantation system and the way our current economic structure approximates it. Now I'd like to look at the natural world and the predator/prey relationship as a way of illustrating how things work in our society. So let's talk about herbivores and carnivores.

The herbivores are composed of the workers/consumers and the predators are the ruling class that prey off of them. Great big herds of herbivores roam the plains and forests, grazing on the fields of grass and browsing the branches of trees and shrubs. Their two primary means of defense against predators are either size or speed. The predators feast off the weakest and slowest, continuosly culling the herd. The predator prey ratio is held rather constant despite changes in population. The increase in the predator population is dependent on an increase in prey. The sytem depends on two main things: there is always a steady prey base for the predators and the prey base does not evolve new defenses that thwarts the predators. Although this is the natural order of an ecosystem in the natural world, it is not to be confused with being a natural order of human society. We have evolved past that!

In our society there will always be a prey base, those that can be sold things or made to work with the surplus value of their labor supplying the predators. So the system will not be evolved out of until the prey is able to develop new defenses. The development will include an increase in intelligence, in the same way that a certain species of omnivorous primate was able to climb to the top of the food chain. In order to develop that intelligence, we must apply ourselves and reject the torrent of cultural propaganda meant to reinforce and perpetuate the stats quo. If you have read this far, you are a suitable herbivore to begin evolving away from the predators. Kill your TV, develop your ability to question societal norms and economic realities versus the possibilities of a world with no one being preyed upon. Then you will have the predators on the run., screeching like jackals. Like they are in Bolivia these days. If it can happen there, we can do it here.

Calling Things by their Real Names: Hugo Chavez Speech to the U.N

What a shame we never hear the truth plainly spoken by our own media or elected officials. What a shame we have to import the truth unwillingly then have it drowned out in a wave of righteous lying indignation. What a shame that those same liars that are so upset to hear the truth have turned this country into the world's biggest whorehouse. What a shame so many want so much to believe those liars.

Oh man, this was good. Best thing I've heard since Dick Cheney was told to go f-ck himself down in Mississippi after Katrina. Here's a partial transcript:

I think that the first people who should read this book (Chomsky's "Hedgemony or Survival") are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house. The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house. And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. [crosses himself]

And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world. I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world. An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe." As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons. What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy. What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace." That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes. But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless. Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches... But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world.

There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now? What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision. We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.
Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier. And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists. And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner. And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.
And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to. And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace. Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.
But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations. And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.
You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.

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OK for all of you who want to faint at the sight of a world leader calling the President of The United States the devil...who else but the devil would try to justify a big moneymaking operation into Iraq as being a plan that JESUS put in his feeble mind?

My main beef with religious people is their unwillingness to question the dogma foisted on them, including the many perversions of Christian doctrine. Here's a hint for you weakminded types...if someone is using Jesus Christ as a tool for starting and maintaining hatred and war, then he is the very definition of the DEVIL.

There's still time to save your soul, but it's running out fast. Wake up or burn, suckers.

Hey Speaking of Anniversaries...

This is also the 33rd anniversary of the U.S. government-inspired slaughter in Chile, where democracy was crushed and 3,000 people were rounded up, tortured and murdered.

Yeah, we've been spreading our own special brand of goodwill around the world for a long time now.

Read all about it.

Fermi's Paradox Answered

I am in the vast minority. I am one of those people that finds reality more interesting than fantasy. If everyone were like me, Hollywood and the cult of celebrity would not exist. Instead scientists would be celebrities and we would have cured most diseases, developed a susatainable economy and be exploring the universe. Well...once we finally sobered up. ;) But seriously, I think I have the answer to Fermi's Paradox, which asks why there are no aliens colonizing Earth. It follows that if there were other planets that harbored life that evolved to the point where they could master interplanetary space travel, then one such civilization would have reached Earth by now. There are several assumptions here, one is that interplanetary space travel is possible. We suppose it is, although we have not attempted it yet. Think about why that is... Then you will have the answer, too.