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.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Saturday, October 06, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
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' 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
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.
Friday, August 17, 2007
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.
Friday, May 18, 2007
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.
-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.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
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.
"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.
Monday, May 07, 2007
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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.
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.
----------------------------------------------------
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.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
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."
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.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
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
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
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
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.
~ 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.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
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.
----------------------------
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.
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.
----------------------------
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.
Monday, September 11, 2006
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.
Yeah, we've been spreading our own special brand of goodwill around the world for a long time now.
Read all about it.
Friday, August 18, 2006
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.
Friday, June 16, 2006
Creeping Fascism
I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.
~ Mark Twain
Does anyone recall the scary days right after September 11, 2001? No I don't mean anthrax scary...I mean worse...when criticism of the United States, God and the Republican Party was strictly verboten. There was heavy censorship of anything that questioned the natural order of things, namely that Jesus Christ would get vengeance on Mohammed in the big sand box. I remember all the shiny gas-guzzling SUVs toting big flags, then brightly colored decals (made in Chinese prisons) and asking how stoopid could some folk be? They didn't see it coming. 3 buck a gallon gas. The attack on civil liberties, which has been non-stop. The diversion into Iraq. The decals have faded, bleached by the sun and the letdown of a quick high followed by a quicker withdrawal into reality. You been had, people, you been took. Bamboozled. I sensed it immediately, not because I am clairvoyant, but because I saw it all before. I knew where the media was being lead, willingly, complicitly. Most of all, I knew that the righteous warlords would get PAID in big stacks of pure blood money. Yes sir, a quick infusion right into their icy cold veins. And the worst part was that I couldn't call them on it. No one could or your words would disappear right off the page as if they, and you...never existed. I've studied enough history to know that these things go in cycles. I was there in 1991 when the same thing happened with Poppy taking down his doublecrossing drug runner buddy in Panama and then Oil War Numero Uno. I was there when Raygun atoned for all the dead marines in Lebanon by gangbanging a tiny island that neither he or his voting bloc could find on a map. Going back further in the same tragic history there was Nixon bombing the entrails outta SE Asia all through Christmas and Chanukah 1972 and beyond. There were so many lies ringing and echoing further back to the Red Menace, the Rosenbergs, McCarthy's lists of names, but most of all, the cowardice of the people to stand up to creeping fascism. What a tremendous let down, when you see what you thought was a free society crumble so quickly through fear and nationalistic hysteria. You would never think it was that fragile until you watch it fall. And it continues to fall little by little, brick by brick, even though the censorship loosened up slowly during 2002 as it become obvious that the struggle was taking an obvious detour to (quite literally) take care of business in Iraq. The criticism is there now, mostly uncensored. But so are the stealth prisons and the disappeared and the watch lists and the NSA data mining and the quid pro quo of the telecommunications companies. Freedom isn't free, it is a constant struggle against against opportunists, nationalists and believers in the supernatural. The fight against global capitalistic extremists will continue.
~ Mark Twain
Does anyone recall the scary days right after September 11, 2001? No I don't mean anthrax scary...I mean worse...when criticism of the United States, God and the Republican Party was strictly verboten. There was heavy censorship of anything that questioned the natural order of things, namely that Jesus Christ would get vengeance on Mohammed in the big sand box. I remember all the shiny gas-guzzling SUVs toting big flags, then brightly colored decals (made in Chinese prisons) and asking how stoopid could some folk be? They didn't see it coming. 3 buck a gallon gas. The attack on civil liberties, which has been non-stop. The diversion into Iraq. The decals have faded, bleached by the sun and the letdown of a quick high followed by a quicker withdrawal into reality. You been had, people, you been took. Bamboozled. I sensed it immediately, not because I am clairvoyant, but because I saw it all before. I knew where the media was being lead, willingly, complicitly. Most of all, I knew that the righteous warlords would get PAID in big stacks of pure blood money. Yes sir, a quick infusion right into their icy cold veins. And the worst part was that I couldn't call them on it. No one could or your words would disappear right off the page as if they, and you...never existed. I've studied enough history to know that these things go in cycles. I was there in 1991 when the same thing happened with Poppy taking down his doublecrossing drug runner buddy in Panama and then Oil War Numero Uno. I was there when Raygun atoned for all the dead marines in Lebanon by gangbanging a tiny island that neither he or his voting bloc could find on a map. Going back further in the same tragic history there was Nixon bombing the entrails outta SE Asia all through Christmas and Chanukah 1972 and beyond. There were so many lies ringing and echoing further back to the Red Menace, the Rosenbergs, McCarthy's lists of names, but most of all, the cowardice of the people to stand up to creeping fascism. What a tremendous let down, when you see what you thought was a free society crumble so quickly through fear and nationalistic hysteria. You would never think it was that fragile until you watch it fall. And it continues to fall little by little, brick by brick, even though the censorship loosened up slowly during 2002 as it become obvious that the struggle was taking an obvious detour to (quite literally) take care of business in Iraq. The criticism is there now, mostly uncensored. But so are the stealth prisons and the disappeared and the watch lists and the NSA data mining and the quid pro quo of the telecommunications companies. Freedom isn't free, it is a constant struggle against against opportunists, nationalists and believers in the supernatural. The fight against global capitalistic extremists will continue.
Monday, January 23, 2006
Off the Plantation
"I freed thousands of slaves in my life and I could have freed thousands more, had they known they were slaves".
- Harriet Tubman
Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!
-KRS-ONE
The society of the U.S.A is remarkably similar to the plantation system. A very small minority of the population owns a large majority of the wealth and sets policy for the rest of the people to live and die by. Along with these modern planatation owners there are the latter day equivalents of the rest of the system: the wait staff and mammies living in the Big House. Most of them like their position and will work hard to retain their place of priviledge. The overseers who relish the use of force to keep the fieldhands in check. They see this excercise as validation of their superiority, when in fact it is a symptom of a deeper pathology. Finally, we have the large majority composed of field hands, who are given just enough table scraps, kept just exhausted enough, and threatened with enough violence/promised eternal salvation to prevent a large scale insurrection. It is a tenuous balance, but the glue that holds it together is the economic dependency of all involved, backed up by the threat of violence. But the system is doomed, as all unsustainable systems are. It is only a matter of time before declining natural resources result in the the standard of living reaching critical mass and a mass exodus off/collapse of the plantation. There will be a revolution and the new equilibrium will be established. But this revolution is less likely to resemble the American Revolution of 1776 and more likely to resemble the French Revolution of 1789. Payback is a muffa and overseers/collaborating house servants get cut no slack.
- Harriet Tubman
Yeah, officer from overseer
You need a little clarity?
Check the similarity!
-KRS-ONE
The society of the U.S.A is remarkably similar to the plantation system. A very small minority of the population owns a large majority of the wealth and sets policy for the rest of the people to live and die by. Along with these modern planatation owners there are the latter day equivalents of the rest of the system: the wait staff and mammies living in the Big House. Most of them like their position and will work hard to retain their place of priviledge. The overseers who relish the use of force to keep the fieldhands in check. They see this excercise as validation of their superiority, when in fact it is a symptom of a deeper pathology. Finally, we have the large majority composed of field hands, who are given just enough table scraps, kept just exhausted enough, and threatened with enough violence/promised eternal salvation to prevent a large scale insurrection. It is a tenuous balance, but the glue that holds it together is the economic dependency of all involved, backed up by the threat of violence. But the system is doomed, as all unsustainable systems are. It is only a matter of time before declining natural resources result in the the standard of living reaching critical mass and a mass exodus off/collapse of the plantation. There will be a revolution and the new equilibrium will be established. But this revolution is less likely to resemble the American Revolution of 1776 and more likely to resemble the French Revolution of 1789. Payback is a muffa and overseers/collaborating house servants get cut no slack.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
I'm Not Buying It
The most radical thing by far that you can do in America is to realize you can have a perfectly good time without buying anything. That means of course, that our entire society is built upon the premise of selling you things that you don’t actually need. This time of year it is especially obvious, as we have Christmas, a holiday that celebrates the concept. Jesus may have died for our sins, but it appears he was born as a way of selling a bunch of plastic crap made in Chinese prisons. Think about the way we are living for a moment: the better the economy is doing, the faster the landfills are filled up. The volume of garbage we generate is the leading economic indicator. This is not healthy for the planet and by extension, for us. So this season and every season, don’t buy the crap. And don’t ask for it. Be creative with your gifts and make/give things that mean something, like the little drummer boy did. Here’s a rule of thumb, the more space it takes up in a landfill or the quicker it gets there, the more it is to be avoided. Live gently, but love sincerely. All year round.
Friday, November 11, 2005
Uncle Scam Wants You
11/11/05
"I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar soaked fingers out of the business of these [Third World] nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the 'haves' refuse to share with the 'have-nots' by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans."
-General David Shoup, United States Marine Commandant Retired, 1966
At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?
-Maj. General Smedley Butler, two-time Medal of Honor winner, 1933
November 11, 1918 was the end of the “war to end all wars”. And the date became a holiday called Armistice Day, later renamed Veteran’s Day to honor those who were part of the many wars that followed. Honoring veterans is a noble idea. But we must ask why there have been so many more wars after the Armistice. And why some of them were started by deceptions that were abetted by a news media owned by companies that stood to profit from the wars. But most of all we must ask why it is that those who beat the drums for war the loudest aren’t on the front lines fighting it. This is nothing new of course. The old men who thought up this current war all managed to avoid the front lines of Vietnam, although they no doubt supported that disastrous conflict. The tradition of a ruling class avoiding combat goes back to at least the Civil War. We read the following passage from Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”:
"In premodern times, the maldistribution of wealth was accomplished by simple force. In modern times, exploitation is disguised—it is accomplished by law, which has the look of neutrality and fairness. By the time of the Civil War, modernization was well underway in the United States”.
So much so, that we learn the Northern industrialist robber barons could buy their family’s way out of military duty in the war. J.P. Morgan paid 300 dollars for a substitute to go off to war in his place. James Mellon was told by his father that “a man may be a patriot without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty of lives less valuable”. That attitude is more alive than ever. And here’s the kicker: it is most alive in the people that have the gall not only to talk about supporting the troops, but to claim that those opposed to their war, the one they refuse to fight in, are on the side of the enemy! The only thing I can hear them saying is “Bleed for me and shut up about it”. To which I reply, “you want a war, you fight in it.” This of course, falls on deaf ears. Which leads to the inevitable conclusion: Support the troops, kill a chickenhawk. Smedley Butler said it best: WAR IS A RACKET.
Friday, October 28, 2005
In Remembrance (aka "Camilo's Airplane")
October 28, 2005
Who killed the man who, in the lives of others like him, lives on in the people? The enemy killed him, killed him because they wanted him dead…
“Camilo” by Ernesto Guevara
John Brown, him dead and gone.
Jah know that him history still live on
As him dead more John Brown born…
“Terrorists in the City” by Eeka-Mouse
Perhaps the most absurd manifestation of the market economy is the industry of Death. I am not talking about the funeral business, but the nostalgia marketing of dead celebrity. The more tragic and unexpected the death, the more meteoric the career of the dead, the more profitable is the selling of the legendary demise. All but the bones of the deceased are packaged and sold. In this country we watch this curious spectacle from within the framework of the marketing system, where everything has a price tag of value. Here, our numbed minds are incapable of fully seeing the macabre aspect of marketing based on the level of morbid, sensational, prurient interest in the dead.
In other societies this interest can manifest itself somewhat differently. The dead become iconic, martyrs, symbols of virtue that are not mourned, but celebrated. Here, the industry is non-profit, but the dead are still sold. The selling is that of the legacy of the dead as a moral lesson. The weaknesses, the human frailty, the very humanity is replaced by the image of resolute zeal and uncompromising character. No more realistic than the glamorized selling of a dead icon for profit, though one hopes that the sentiment is at least more authentic and heartfelt.
But what is the fascination with the storied cliché of the sudden demise of someone in the prime of life? Actor, athlete, musician, rebel, seditionary, become the eternal…celebrity. The fascination is that of what might have been. And the imagined course is always a powerful antidote to the omnipresent failings of those contemporaries that have survived and turned out very mortal, or even banal, compromised, or just plain uninteresting. Longevity and relevance seem to have a natural inverse relationship, particularly in a consumer driven society. But in the perfect society there is no need for heroes, icons, or martyrs. Those things are to motivate the masses to strive for selfless effort, to work for the common good of all. This effort would already be innate. As long as the struggle to achieve this perfect society is ongoing, the search for Camilo’s airplane will not end. We who struggle to see that day arrive, say to Camilo:
You are a spirit, not a ghost.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Operation Northwoods
In 1962 the United States military signed off on a plan called Operation Northwoods. The point was the overthrow of Fidel Castro. The means to justify the end result was to stage terrorist attacks on American soil, attack airliners in flight, kill American civilians, and a few other things, then blame it on Castro. This was the pretext for launching a massive attack on Cuba and installing the U.S.-approved government that the mercenary attack of the previous year had failed to do. If the documents of this plan were never released no one except conspiracy nutcases would believe it. But they were. In the spring of 2001 the story broke, receiving some attention in mainstream media circles, where it was dismissed as the work of a general gone insane...even though all the members of the Joint Chiefs approved it. John Kennedy, still smarting over the dismal failure of the last plan to invade Cuba, rejected it. One can only wonder what course history would have taken if one Richard Nixon had claimed the presidency in the extremely close election of 1960. Fast forward to September 2000, when there was another plan written. This one mentioned a “catalyzing event” similar to a latter day “Pearl Harbor” as a means of justifying the ends of establishing U.S.-approved governments across the globe. Say what you will about them, but the people who wrote the plan don’t dream small. One year later, in September 2001after an extremely close election went the way of the party of Richard Nixon, came a catalyzing event. Even if one believes the “official version” of who planned the attack, then the facts are that an organization founded with great expense by the CIA and U.S. military to give the Soviet Union “their Vietnam” not only did that, but 15 years later went on to give the newly installed marginally unpopular government of the United States their “latter day Peal Harbor”. What is three thousand lives worth to killers? Apparently not much since the latest justification to stay in Iraq and reach the 3,000 dead benchmark is in order to…get this… pay homage to those who have already died. This is the logic of the end justifying the means. This is the same logic that produced Operation Northwoods. And September 11th, even if you believe the official story.
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