Halcyon Days

Why Afghans cannot tie their own shoelaces

2012-01-30T23:13:00.000-08:00

The absurdity of Western exceptionalism and the thin propaganda gurgled up by Western news media never fails to amaze me. That the US and their romping toy poodles over in Europe wish to stay in Afghanistan forever and a day just as they are still in Iraq despite all the hype that we have left that monument to hegemony is well known to anyone with an operational brain pan yet the news media like some idiotic child telling us the dog ate its homework regales us with this gem of wisdom.

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human rights watchdogs inside and outside Afghanistan fear women's rights may be sacrificed when foregin combat troops leave the country in 2014

This in lieu of the following story from the Guardian that is supposed to make us gasp in surprised shock and is held up as proof positive that if left to their own designs the Afghan males would surely murder all their women for wearing lipstick under their Burqas.

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An Afghan man killed his wife for giving birth to a third daughter rather than the son he hoped for, police in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province have said.

The victim, 28, known by the one name of Storai, was strangled by her husband, a local militia member, and his mother on Saturday "in revenge" for bearing the couple's third daughter three months ago in Mohasili village, police said.

Yes, this was a horrible act. To murder is always a horrid thing. But the way the story is presented it’s as if nothing of the sort ever happens in the progressive West. If the Western news media reported every murder that happened in the US alone there wouldn’t be any room left for reporting anything else. It is also as if the great and noble progressive West hasn’t been slaughtering not only Afghan women but children as well. In Obama’s very first week as Dear Leader he murdered children in Pakistan in what was to become his signature feature which is Obama’s lovely little drone war against civilians who have done nothing against Obama or the US.

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From Times Online January 23, 2009

President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks'

(US Air Force/EPA)

A Predator drone

Tim Reid in Washington

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W Bush has not changed.

Security officials said the strikes, which saw up to five missiles slam into houses in separate villages, killed seven "foreigners" - a term that usually means al-Qaeda - but locals also said that three children lost their lives.

The hypocrisy that is on display, that has been on display for years, decades, and centuries goes unheeded, ignored, and pooh-pooed by most Americans. Indeed the only thing exceptional regarding Americans is their ability and adamantine determination to not see what is right in front of their upturned noses. The fact is Americans and the rest of the West murder on a wholesale basis for much less reason than a woman not giving birth to a male child. The West murders to continue their domination of most of the rest of the world, a worthless and needless endeavor.

Still, this transparent and bungling propaganda is supposed to convince that should we leave Afghanistan the place would surely go to the devil as if we have not created our own little corner of hell on earth for the people of Afghanistan (and Iraq as well as numerous other lands). One wonders how ever did the human world survive before the coming of America for surely it is the most vexing conundrum that it had survived for thousands of years without the good graces and guiding hand of American know-how.

Democracy in action

2012-01-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

Old bloohgergger saying; if you say bad things about poowuh widdle Isarel people stop visiting. Three billion a year is sent by the US to poowuh widdle Israel so that they can do the following...

Well at least this time they weren’t slaughtering Palestinian children just scaring what looks like a three year old girl. Americans and Israeli – big heroes.

“World” recalls holocaust but what about Gaza?

2012-01-27T07:49:00.000-08:00

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Holocaust Memorial Day will be marked across the world on Friday with a series of events including services, talks, concerts and vigils remembering not only those who died in the second world war but the victims of many genocides since.

Ceremonies will take place at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, in Israel and at Auschwitz in Poland. The day is commemorated worldwide every 27 January, the date the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops in 1945.

Sure, who doesn’t recall the holocaust yet very few seem to recall even recent history regarding Gaza and the Israeli brutal massacre against the people of Gaza on the eve of Obama’s ascension to power called “Operation Cast Lead”.

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The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals.

A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target.

The testimonies form the basis of three Guardian films which add weight to calls this week for a full inquiry into the events surrounding Operation Cast Lead, which was aimed at Hamas but left about 1,400 Palestinians dead, including more than 300 children.

While Israel receives a cool 3 billion a year of American “aid” and while Israel dictates which Americans can run for political office not to mention being one of the main causes of the American invasion of Iraq which has decimated the American economy and far worse destroyed an entire nation, Iraq, all to protect “poor little Israel” from the hobgoblins of their dreams Gazans continue to suffer in what amounts to the world’s largest open air prison. Who cares about them?

Apparently not the San Francisco Bay Area, that bastion of wine sipping upwardly mobile rich white liberals.

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In September 2011, the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland (MOCHA) was expected to open an exhibition called “A Child’s View of Gaza.” The selection of artwork drawn by Palestinian children in the wake of the 2009 Gaza War, known as Operation Cast Lead, had been assembled by MECA, the Middle East Children’s Alliance and was scheduled to stay at the museum for two months. Had things gone as planned, it’s likely this article never would have been written — but things most definitely did not go as planned.

What happened is not fully clear, but pressure from the Jewish community and worries that some of the imagery would be disturbing to children caused MOCHA to cancel the exhibition. The move was celebrated by some Bay Area Jewish organizations. According to The Forward, the Federation called the cancellation “great news,” and said that “the ‘Child’s View of Gaza’ exhibit at MOCHA has been canceled thanks to some great East Bay Jewish community organizing.”

Others outside the Jewish community were not so thrilled. Online petitions were circulated to attempt to force the museum to reconsider. One person angry about the museum’s decision was the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, who penned a blog post calling the decision “sad” and lamenting that censorship still exists in the United States of the 21st century. It was a post of more muted tones than her interview with Foreign Policy magazine three months prior, when she’d opined: “I think Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves.”

While I appreciate Alice Walker’s sentiment she is incorrect when she says poor little defenseless Israel with its estimated 300 nuclear warheads is the greatest terrorist in “that part of the world” the reality is that it is the United States that is the greatest terrorist in that part of world who’s terrorist agenda has been largely expanded by our peace laureate president, Obama.

And while many Bay Area residents look down their nose at Los Angeles it would seem Los Angeles didn’t have the same reservations of offending their children with the suffering of Palestinian children who continue to suffer to this day under the jackboot of Israeli domination.

The more measured, regretful tones of Walker’s blog post about the situation in Oakland caught the eye of Jordan Elgrably, an Arab Jew and one of the co-founders of the Levantine Center in Los Angeles. “I said, ‘Well, what are people really afraid of?’ ” Elgrably said recently, speaking on the phone from the park, his children at play a few feet away. “This is kids, and it’s from their experience. It’s searing; it’s real. We should host this.”

Around the same time Elgrably was contemplating Walker’s op-ed, an e-mail from MECA, the organizers of the failed Oakland exhibition, popped into the in-box of Amani Jabsheh, a Los Angeles-based peace activist. MECA was looking for places to show the work around the country, and they needed help. Jabsheh knew she had to do something. “When I saw what they painted — that’s their reality. I want people to see how the children suffer there under the occupation.”

According to Jabsheh, it was Rachel Corrie, a young American woman who was killed while protesting in front of an Israeli bulldozer, who inspired her to get involved in promoting peace in the Middle East. She saw what Corrie had done and thought to herself that if someone like Corrie, who shared no background with Palestinians, was getting involved, she couldn’t sit on the sidelines. “She was not Muslim, she couldn’t speak the language, you know, [had] nothing [in common] with us, and since that time, I’ve felt an obligation as a human being to do my part,” Jabsheh said.

Read the rest.

America pisses on people of Iraq

2012-01-25T08:56:00.000-08:00

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In all, 24 Iraqi civilians were killed – 19 in several houses along with five men who pulled up in a car where the marines were on patrol in Haditha on November 19, 2005.

The victims included 10 women and children killed at point-blank range. Six people were killed in one house, most shot in the head, including women and children huddled in a bedroom.

Wuterich voiced sorrow after accepting the deal, but insisted he was not a “cold-blooded baby killer.”

Frank Wuterich, he’s such a nice looking boy, and so polite as well. In the first place he wasn’t even charged with murder rather it was involuntary manslaughter but now he walks free with a pay cut. Looking at his picture as he arrives for a “court session” one can see (above) the deep remorse written all over his face. As I mentioned in a post the other day the alleged, rumored, supposed, possibly, maybe video of marines pissing on murdered Afghans was the perfect symbol of what Americans have been doing to the people of the Middle East. Perhaps the military “courts” will send our rosy cheeked cherub back to Iraq so that he can piss on the bodies of his victims. Another great American hero, a symbol of American greatness, goodness, and love, and dude, he’s not even special ops!

Meanwhile, another soldier, Manning, has been incarcerated and tortured with the blessing of president Obama for whistle blowing on people like the ever so polite sweet little Wuterich of the rosy cheeks even facing a possible deaths sentence for doing what any sane person would consider the right thing. But when it comes to America sanity rarely enters the picture.

In the end there is nothing remarkable about Butcher Boy Wuterich for Americans have always been a blood thirsty sadistic bunch from the earliest of times. America was born of slavery and murder, indeed were murdering Native Americans long before the American Revolution. Christopher Columbus murdered several indigenous people because they would not tell him where the gold was.

This is why I don’t give a flying fuck over the upcoming elections. Americans deserve which ever jack ass murdering sack of shit that they elect for turning their back on what is done in our name. The elections are a joke, indeed, America is a sick joke as Americans look in a mirror and admire themselves day after day in a sick aggregate of self-pity, self grandeur, propaganda, and self absorbed military worship. Americans turn their backs on what the leaders they support do telling themselves that whichever monster they like at the moment is the lesser of two evils. There is no lesser of two evils, it’s a myth, it’s a lie, and is small comfort to our victims.

So go back to your fucking SOPA and PIPA, your electronic gadgets, your self absorbed fantasy world, your “justice” and fraudulent history, and pray to whichever deity you prefer that there is no justice in the world for the people of Iraq have no such choice.

Obama's state of the union speech

2012-01-24T15:14:00.001-08:00

Moe’s Art

2012-01-22T10:43:00.000-08:00

Did Mozart really hate the flute?

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The composer understandably chafed at having to write this music - the aforementioned (possible) four concertos and six quartets - for a merely competent amateur. But he was also an impatient young man, ready to conquer the world, with Paris in his sights. Thus, a series of rather implausible excuses, the most startling one contained in a letter from Wolfgang to Leopold: "You know that I become powerless whenever I am obliged to write for an instrument I cannot bear." Viewed in context, it seems little more than a slap at his overbearing father for failing to come up to his expectations. In light of the music that he did write on this occasion - and perhaps even more for the superb, indispensable flute parts in his piano concertos, beginning in 1784 with K. 453 and ending with K. 595, written in his last year of life - the remark can be dismissed. The flute was clearly a magic instrument for Mozart, as was every other instrument available, whether in a solo or ensemble capacity. Perhaps the full measure of the necessary flute-love had to wait until the Vienna years. But still, Mozart's unconvincing disclaimer has been taken at face value by putative Mozart scholars, picked up by the herd, and turned into one of those canards that simply refuses to stop quacking: "Mozart hated the flute."

Well, personally I’ve never really bought into Mozart hated the flute and when you listen to the following with the incomparable Pierre Rampal playing the Allegro maestoto of Mozart’s Concerto in G for flute it really is difficult to believe that Mozart “hated” the flute. The Concerto in G is simply one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written for flute and an all time favorite of mine. Notice how much edge Rampal uses on his beautifully liquid tone but then you can hear him over the entire orchestra; he must really roll in…

And here is the rest (Adagio and Rondo).

To more interesting times

2012-01-19T23:26:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine in an email mentioned the Moody Blues who were one of my favorite bands back in the day. Sure the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones were likely the most famous rock bands back in Grandpa’s days but I tended more to the American rock groups than the Brit groups with the exception of the Moody Blues. In particular, I liked their composition Tuesday Afternoon. At any rate I thought it would be fun to put up some of my favorites including the Moody Blues and the long version of Tuesday Afternoon. Here ya go…

Moody Blues playing Tuesday Afternoon, long version 1970.

Lee Michaels plays Stormy Monday at Fillmore East in New York City 1970.

Steppenwolf plays Born to be Wild 1969.

Canned Heat playing Going up the Country at Woodstock 1969.

Quicksilver Messenger Service plays Mona from their Happy Trails album 1969.

Not so much

2012-01-19T00:12:00.000-08:00

I gotta hand it to Marrcunns, they certainly have their priorities straight! When it comes to money they protest loudly and long. When it comes to protecting the internet, massive protests. When it comes to the slaughter of human beings including innocent women and small children, as well as other pastimes, not so much. When it comes to draconian laws that enables Obama and succeeding presidents to murder anyone including Marrcunns with impunity, not so much. Is this a great fucking country or what?

Catching up

2012-01-18T22:13:00.000-08:00

I was grocery shopping the other day and when I was looking for a bottle of ketchup I saw Heinz had it all covered. On one bottle it said “perfect for game time.” On another bottle it said “thank you vets.” I like my veterinarian as well! He takes great care of Mr. Bebe the Cat.

For a hamburger today I would gladly pay you Tuesday, or: How to tilt at phantoms in one easy lesson

2012-01-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

Davidly has an interesting post with a link to someone who seems to like or not like something I wrote regarding Americans, the OWS movement, and the ongoing wars America wages against other nations, mostly those weaker than Russia and China.

I admit that writing a bloyg is likely one of the most useless things there is. Firstly my bloerg has so few visitors it is laughable. Mr. Ioz kindly linked to me the other day for which I thank him for since his own writings are about a zillion times better than my own amateurish efforts. Still, I should be clear that I am not trying to save the world for future generations of humanity. I’m not sure humanity is worth saving or that humanity even needs saving whatever that may mean. Different things to different people I suppose. In the end none of us can be saved since we are all going to die at some point.

I write because apparently I enjoy attempting to write. I can think of no other reason. I have been writing this blugger for a number of years without much notice which makes it abundantly clear that it likely isn’t the best bloog ever, and indeed in my own opinion there are others who write that are far more interesting. But then again I really don’t care about that since I am only trying to please myself not the greater part of humanity. If this bloorger became popular I would likely be so disturbed that a large number of people thought I had some kind of wisdom of the ages that I would nuke this bligg fairly quickly. Something like that just scares the crap out of me. I’d much rather people thought for themselves as rare as such a thing might be. Mostly I just see a lot of hypocrisy – including my own which is more prevalent than I am comfortable with—and I like to point it out, perhaps laugh at some of it while being sickened by the rest of it.

The arguments regarding” is bloating helpful” or is “action” more helpful is nothing new. Indeed I could probably make a list of certain themes that repeat themselves to no end in the world of the blarg. These themes are regurgitated, reworded, amplified, modified, scrutinized, argued over, stolen, and commented on with no clear result other than people disagree on them. Probably the worst thing about bloocking is that sometimes after reading a particularly good one people go away with some kind of sense of accomplishment when in truth nothing at all was accomplished.

So no, I will not go out and join up with OWS or any other movement. For one thing I don’t like crowds nor do I care much for movements of any sort these days. It’s not that I do not sympathize with OWS but I also have noted that they seem more adamant regarding money than they are regarding the deaths of America’s victims of unprovoked wars. I know that isn’t a popular view but I don’t care if it is or not. Actually I don’t regard this as a view as much as I see it as a fact. And why anyone should care what I think or do is beyond me. I have no power to change the world nor do I want it. Scary. Super scary. The ramifications of anyone’s actions are often unknowable as well as unfortunate for others with the emphasis on for others.

And let me also be perfectly clear about this; I am not of the left, I am not a progressive, I am not of the right, nor am I conservative, nor any other meaningless label. The whole left/right thing is a mirage, or to be blunt, bullshit. This left/right thing is nothing more than a device devised by people more dishonest than most of humanity to divide and conquer, to keep the top one percent at the top, to manipulate people like puppets and it has worked quite well to that end for people are easily manipulated. If they weren’t easily manipulated we wouldn’t have “leaders.”

Often I see things that just piss me off and I write to let off steam though in the end it usually just makes me angrier than I was. None of this is helpful I suppose yet what of it? In the end I am as delusional as anyone else but it is fun to piss on other’s delusions. So thar ya go.

To who-to who

2012-01-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Is Ron Paul the anti-war candidate as the “oh save us Ron Paul” crowd claims? According to Open Secrets, Barack Obama, the peace laureate liar received $111,745 smackeroos in campaign donations from the defense (read war industry) industry. Walter Mitty Romney received $56,050 with Ron Paul receiving $49,833. While a distant third from Obama’s cool $111,745 one could say $49,833 is naught to sneeze at. And why would an anti-war candidate receive that much money from the war industry?

At any rate following the money is always a good compass for who is doing what to who so check out the Open Secrets website and look at who the other donor sectors are and how much they are giving to who. What was that Obama said about lobbyists in the last election? LOL.

Like I’ve said, all these guyz ‘n’ galz is seeking power. None of them have any intention of saving you, they all just have a slightly different line of crap but at the end of the day there isn’t much difference twixt them except for their rhetoric and style.

A fine representation

2012-01-12T00:33:00.000-08:00

The reaction in the main stream news to the video of marines urinating on dead Afghans is the perfect example of how Americans just can’t help but delude themselves.

MSNBC has a short video on the video which is quickly followed by a much more in depth story on soldiers who are suicidal even though the headline refers to the urinating soldiers. It’s like, don’t look, don’t listen, don’t say anything bad.

Watch it here.

USA Today covers the story with words like ‘alleged’ and “what appears to be” as if you just can’t believe your own eyes:

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In the video, four men wearing what appear to be Marine combat uniforms are seen standing around three dead bodies, quietly talking and joking as the camera rolls. They are equipped with chest rigs, grenades, body armor and some specialized gear. One is holding a precision rifle.

Right, perhaps they are just actors, likely Iranians dressed up like marines who want to besmirch Americans. Still, I’m glad the news media is being ever so careful as not to jump to any conclusions like say Iran is trying to build nuclear bombs or anything like that. I’m glad they are ever so careful like they are when it comes to repeating anything the Pentagon or Obama and his administration say without question no matter how far-fetched their statements are. This is really good practice for the news media to really try hard to report the alleged facts as they appear to be. They have done so little of it in the past the poor dears are a bit rusty but I’m sure they’ll get better with a little more practice.

So far the main concern seems to be that the marines are urinating on the bodies of the dead Afghans but nobody seems very concerned that the Afghans are dead. I’m not holding my breath for anyone to mention this.

I can’t think of anything that could possibly represent better what America has been doing to the people of the Middle East for the last ten years than the video of Americans pissing on Afghans.

Living the lie

2012-01-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

Why all the attention over the Republican candidates? Has there ever been a more ludicrous or absurd bunch? They make Reagan and Nixon look good. They make Bush look like a thoughtful president. Their main concern seems to be “how can I make sure Obama gets re-elected?” Me, I could care less, I don’t support any candidate. I don’t even support the election since it is about obtaining the most evil and vile position of power that you can imagine. Being president is about being a liar and a con man, it’s about overseeing a corrupt hegemony that thrives on the rape of the third world, a rape that has been ongoing since the American invasion of the Philippines in 1900 where Americans slaughtered and used water torture. We have been doing it somewhere in the world ever since. How can you support that?

If you want to live a lie that’s your business. America is good, America is great, America is beneficent, and America is a fraud just like the election. Americans live a life of malarkey bombarded by commercialism from every angle. You surf the web and they keep track of what you buy on the internet and the ads you come across are tailored to your buying habits. Turn on the television and immediately people start lying to you. The news lies to you, the commercials lie to you, the politicians lie to you, and Americans lie to themselves. Even the programs are propaganda with stupid morality stories that prove just how good you are being an American and all. By all rights we don’t even belong here since we invaded this land and stole it. Americans defend this by saying it happened a long time ago and besides, the Native Americans were nothing but savages. Savages. We find a piece of rewritten history/propaganda where maybe some Indians did something we didn’t approve of and then lump them altogether as if Native Americans were a homogenous aggregate with one culture and thus all acted the same. How absurd. How typical.

America is the product of genocide and we accuse the victims of being bad. Right.

And no, I don’t care for Ron Paul. If you pay close attention to what he says just like you didn’t with Obama when he was first running for office you get a glimmer of what Ron Paul is all about. Ron Paul said Israel has the right to protect itself yet all thinking people know that Israel is a fraud just like the United States is a fraud. A bunch of East European Jews and American Jews invaded Palestine and began murdering Palestinians, stole their land, and haven’t stopped. They have attacked all their neighbors at one time or another and these aggressors love to say they are just protecting themselves. Hogwash. Ron Paul said that justice was served when bin Laden was murdered by Obama who would use bin Laden’s head as a hood ornament to win the election. The FBI investigation never came up with evidence that said bin Laden was behind 9/11. That bin Laden was behind 9/11 is pure conjecture. He may have, he may have not. We don’t really know. How the hell is that justice? Ron Paul derides – correctly - Newt Gingrich for being a chicken hawk but then Ron Paul says at least he went to Vietnam as if he is proud of that fact. Yet Vietnam was nothing if it wasn’t a war crime where millions of innocent people were slaughtered by American “kids” for no reason at all. Ron Paul should make up his mind if he is anti-war or not. A lot of people chose not to participate in the Vietnam bloodbath and they weren’t all Newt Gingriches who refused the draft and then later became pro-war, some people have principles and retained them, does Ron Paul?

Ron Paul wants you to believe that you need to choose between having safety nets or endless wars. Why is that? If we ended the wars the safety nets wouldn’t need to be dismantled. So why should Americans have to choose between one and the other? What does Ron Paul have against safety nets any way? As a professional politician he certainly doesn’t need them himself. If we are going to have a capitalistic monetary system and a government that abuses it we are going to need those safety nets even if Ron Paul does not. Of course as a member of congress Ron Paul will be covered by free health insurance for the rest of his life, will you?

President Obama’s record as Murderer-in-Chief speaks for itself. He ignored the economy in favor of pursuing more wars than any other president in the history of this nation, peace Laureate that he is. Now he has jobs pasted on his lips as if he is going to magically produce more jobs in the remaining months and days prior to the election. He will give lip service to jobs because he knows that in part that his continuance as Murderer-in-Chief depends on giving the impression that he can return Americans to their former glorious prosperity when indeed it is beyond his ability to do so. More lies from the Liar-in-Chief. Obama has reduced the taxes that pay for Social Security by two percent which has already damaged Social Security and out of the other side of his mouth he claims he isn’t attacking Social Security. I shot you in the head but don’t worry; it’s only a flesh wound!

Bottom line is that if you participate in this vile thing we call elections you are supporting the murder of men, women, and children who have never, ever, done anything to hurt poor little ol’ you. Sniff. Poor Americans, we are so abused. We rape the third world, steal their stuff, murder their children but we are just so abused, oh double sniff, sniff. Poor us. Perhaps you see a pattern here, I know I do. All these candidates, all these liars and frauds are pursuing power. That in itself speaks volumes.

Piles of piles

2012-01-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

Why is Obama piling up bodies with his futuristic drone war? According to the Washington Post and a plethora of other federal mouthpieces, lackeys, and hacks, Obama is “furthering national security.” We will never know the true numbers of innocents that have died at the behest of Obama the Bloody Handed since the federal government and most especially Obama, an accomplished liar, is incredibly unreliable when it comes to honesty. Couple that with an obedient news media that lives in fear of being accused of being unpatriotic and what we have is a blanket that covers up the cruel nature of the Obama presidency by simply repeating what they are told by a parade of unidentified sources, that is to say various unnamed government “officials” (whatever that may be, perhaps bottle washers and parking lot attendants) without any real investigative reporting or even the most obvious questions.

According to Noor Behram the body count is something quite different than we are being told:

But Noor Behram says his painstaking work has uncovered an important – and unreported – truth about the US drone campaign in Pakistan's tribal region: that far more civilians are being injured or dying than the Americans and Pakistanis admit. The world's media quickly reports on how many militants were killed in each strike. But reporters don't go to the spot, relying on unnamed Pakistani intelligence officials. Noor Behram believes you have to go to the spot to figure out whether those killed were really extremists or ordinary people living in Waziristan. And he's in no doubt.

"For every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant," he said. "I don't go to count how many Taliban are killed. I go to count how many children, women, innocent people, are killed."

The drone strikes are a secret programme run by the CIA to assassinate al-Qaida and Taliban extremists using remote, wild Waziristan as a refuge. The CIA does not comment on drones, but privately claims civilian casualties are rare.

Many will say, “Oh, I don’t believe it, and who is this guy Behram anyway?” Well go read the entire article. Then ask yourself this: Who has the most to gain from lying about body counts? Noor Behram or Barack Obama and his administration? Be honest now. I know that a lot of Americans believe that the government is basically good and provides a service to the teeming masses even though Obama has bailed out Wall Street, broken every promise he campaigned on, claims the right to murder Americans without trial or imprison them for all eternity. It was NAFTA signed into being by another liar, Bill Clinton, which has helped destroy the economy by shipping needed jobs to China. It was Obama who threw away any chance of affordable medical costs by delivering us to the rapacious insurance industry, actually mandating everyone buy insurance or face heavy fines. It was Obama who ignored the high jobless rates in favor of pursuing more and more wars. It was congress who cheered like fat little pigs when Netanyahu came to town in order that they may be re-elected slavering over the prospect of AIPAC money and the threat of being overthrown by not kissing Israeli ass. You think Israel has our best interests at heart? Not on your life. But oh no, this fellow Noor Behram has some dark and secret plan of his own, perhaps he single handedly wishes to defame the golden boy, Obama. Right.

Okay, even though you still believe in the abundant wonderfulness of the federal government and their overriding concern to see that you are fat and sassy let me make a suggestion as to why Obama loves his piles of bodies. First, I think we can eliminate the “I am protecting you from bad people” theme. We already know that al-Qaida has been decimated and the puny attempts of sad sack terrorists like the undy bomber or the Times Square bomber have been laughable. And since Obama has broken all his promises we realize that the only time Obama needs you is during that month of November when Americans shoot themselves in the head, er, I mean vote in elections. Let’s also forget about bringing democracy to the heathens since that is the last thing that is plausible. Iraq is a mess, Libya is a mess, Afghanistan is a mess, and it isn’t a question of incompetence rather it is the fact that Americans and their government don’t give a flying fuck about these people. What the mountains of bodies are about is domestic politics, to be more precise it is about keeping the money men happy who profit from war, those who pay for the ultra expensive elections; it is about being re-elected and hanging on to power. To be blunt, Obama is murdering untold numbers of innocents, people who have done nothing against the United States, in order to win another election. If that doesn’t disgust you then I have no idea what would.

America’s rosy cheeked cherubs

2012-01-03T17:56:00.000-08:00

The woman behind the counter asked if I had survived the holidays. I told her I was glad they were over. Then she started to blather about Dick Clark still being where ever Dick Clark is and whatever he does on New Year’s Eve of which I am blithely and thankfully ignorant of. She told me how positive he was, I suppose a retort to my being glad the holidays were over. The only thing I know regarding Dick Clark is that he never ages which I suppose is due to plastic surgery and hair die or whatever so I asked her if Clark still looked the same. The conversation seemed to stumble. I thanked her and left having better things to do than reminiscing over Dick Clark and the America he supposedly distills like Wally and the Beave, or Father Knows Best. As far as I can determine it seems clear that that America has never existed except in some fantastical alternate universe which is just beyond that sign post up ahead announcing you are entering the Twilight Zone and the pit of man’s fear or some such thing.

This led me to ponder over how much people invent their reality. Can you blame them? Yes you can because it isn’t terribly helpful. People laughed at the neocon who blasted out that we make our own reality now as if this had never been true before. It’s always been true, actually, at least for a lot of people and not just Americans. Obama is a wonderful example of this phenomenon. Loyal Democrats cannot listen to any criticism of Obama because like Dick Clark, Obama, among other things, is a symbol of something that just doesn’t exist which would be the idea of America as a champion of truth, justice and benevolence. The news media loves stories of Americans who went to some god-fucked land and hepped out the poor ignorant slobs who populated said land and are continually regaling us with such stories whenever they are found. The news media also ignores bloody and diabolical events like American troops raping young girls in front of their families followed by murdering the family and burning their houses down to cover their half-time entertainment. In America it’s always cherry picking time, an eternal harvest of all that’s good about our boyz and girlz in uniform. After all, murder and rape doesn’t fit in with the current fantasy and false realities many Americans abide in. And those rosy cheeked cherubs in the military are just so polite it’s difficult for Americans to imagine that many of them are just murdering thugs. Bring up the subject and it’s time to whip Dick Clark out or to remember you are late for a colonoscopy while you have a bad case of hemorrhoids.

For others more thoughtful if you bring up the topic of our uniformed thugs it’s time to whip out the old our leaders are really the ones who are at fault. Now I don’t really disagree that our leaders are most certainly at fault but that is no excuse for what soldiers are. We all are presented with certain choices in our life and it’s our decisions regarding our choices that define us. Without a draft nobody is forced to join the military and no matter how ignorant one is we all know that the military is used to kill people. As people say, power comes from the end of a rifle and it is these soldiers, among others, who give our leaders the ability to wage their wars of choice. Or as that Beatles song warbles, what if they gave a war and nobody came? Unfortunately, since there is nothing on the planet more sadistic and murderous than young men there will always be somebody willing to go to war. When people actually enjoy the act of murder it is useless to say that our leaders are more to blame because that isn’t really the point. The point is, our culture, like all western cultures, and others as well, create these rosy cheeked cherubic monsters and then set them loose to do their thing however polite they may be.

Oh Cuomo on

2012-01-02T16:49:00.000-08:00

Link

"The four reported attacks on Sunday night go against everything we stand for as New Yorkers and Americans," Cuomo said in a statement. "Attacks such as this have no place in our open and inclusive society."

Actually the fires are the epitome of what America stands for unless you have been asleep for the last decade. After all the American Revolution took place because the colonist slave owners were afraid England was about to abolish slavery in the New World. Violence and racism is exactly what we are all about. Still, Americans fritter away their lives wrapped in a cocoon of fantasy. What a waste. As for open and inclusive just look at all the hate aimed against “illegal” aliens, meaning Mexicans who come to the States seeking work after NAFTA destroyed their economy. America is hardly inclusive regarding them and most of the animosity is racist in nature. Our government and the news media have been maligning peoples of the Middle East for years now. The whole concept of spreading democracycapitalisticslavery is racist in nature. Those dumb brown people can’t even tie their fucking shoe laces without the help of white male Americans. And how open was America when FDR imprisoned Americans of Japanese descent during WWII while at the same time refusing to let Jews from Europe immigrate to America?

Weaver of Dreams

2012-01-02T00:47:00.000-08:00

The sun died on the horizon, ruddy light fades to deep purple, silence.

He was old and acted it. Crushed by years of false hopes and yearnings his face was lined with time. Friendlier now, no rush or urgency, and I was happy to see him. Time takes its own time.

I showed him around the place, he seemed to like it, a quiet place, nothing shiny, edges time worn, a comfortable shabbiness. No need to impress.

I awoke to find morning reborn again, dust motes suspended in sunlight. Slowly I realized it was just a dream, and felt the sadness weighted by the long years now passing with a quickening pace. How long has it been?

There was no need to read the news that mourning morning. I already knew what it would say. The stories are always the same. They never change. An infinite cascade of repetition, a tide of the horrors of the day, of our time. One need only check the tide tables, an odd reflection of moon time.

Strange how people come and go, leave and return, though sometimes not, an oddity in the steady rhythmic beat of the universe. All too soon the clamor and the yammer would return as it always will but it matters little. This is the way madness is. Energy expended reaping nothing in the end. Entropy is a remorseless tyrant.

Still, I wonder what the weaver of dreams shall weave tonight and wonder if it means anything at all. Or is it just a reflection of remorse for things done or perhaps not done, maybe just broken glass strewn on the ground, a shattered reality of no substance, the stuff of humanity.

American robots

2011-12-31T01:16:00.000-08:00

What the hell is wrong with Americans? Do they feel anything, anything at all? Ensconced in their gadgets, living in their keyboard fantasy world, admiration and adulation for the evil that abides in the White House, it engulfs their juvenile minds immune to the murder done in their names, they trundle on knee deep in gore and blood, eyes on their navels.

Why do Americans ignore the obvious? The only thing that moves Americans is their bloody patriotism, their nationalistic fervor, their obvious insecurity, their stuff of which they have far too much of. The stuff of nightmares. Americans invent themselves, are invented, and then are reinvented again. Americans ignore the slave labor that allows their frivolous monotony of middle class absurdities. They moan over the founding fathers who were naught but interlopers and invaders, the cream of the colonial crop, racists and murderers. A land created with the stench of death.

Big trucks driven by pinheads with big ears roam the wasted American landscape. Their clanking beasts belching smoke sounding like elephantine farts echoing in the decrepit streets of their crumbling cities as their four by fours become ever taller and bigger like some kind of phallic motorized erections.

What? No parades for the conquering murdering rapists returning from their death fest in Iraq? These progeny of their murdering forefathers, big men with small brains and even smaller morals can feel nothing. Big heroes and heroines, patriots all. Some, after indulging in their violence feel a pang of remorse and write tear sodden rebukes for what they did. But why did so many have to die for them to feel these heart rending pangs? Are their brains shriveled? Do they have brains? What stunted their morals? Do they have any morals?

There is quite a spectacle that occurred in Turkey. Turks moved to tears over the mistaken murder of Kurds. Read about it here:

Link

ISTANBUL – Thousands of mourners gathered in southeast Turkey on Friday for the funerals of 35 Kurdish civilians who were killed in a botched raid by Turkish military jets that mistook the group for Kurdish rebels based in Iraq.

Turkish television footage showed people, many weeping and lamenting the dead, as they gathered after the air strikes Wednesday that killed a group of smugglers along the border, one of the deadliest episodes in the conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish rebels who took up arms in 1984.

Turks weep for the death of thirty five Kurdish victims of war. Americans ignore, dismiss, or revel in the death of over one million Iraqi civilians. Are Americans robots? Some Americans even brag about murdering millions, dance in the streets over murdering millions, while people of other nations are aghast with horror. There is something terribly wrong with Americans something sick and twisted beyond recognition. Some Americans weep over the injustice of the banksters and the demise of their money but they had better hope and pray that there is no justice in the world because if there were, Americans would be in deep trouble, far deeper than anything they now experience.

Eskimos and Sasquatch to invade Iraq says New York Times, and Kenneth Pollack as well, and he’s an expert

2011-12-28T23:16:00.000-08:00

There seems to be much silence regarding Iraq these days. Very few in the blog-o-stink-o-sphere seem to think Iraq is important. After all we have another hysterical, excuse me, historical and most important election ever coming up and all the “changes” it shall bring which don’t amount to anything more than a desert mirage shimmering in a distant landscape. The Republicans are desperate because running against Obama is like running against a Republican since Obama is just George W. Bush on steroids. A Bush with charisma minus the phony Texas twang. And then of course there is the holiday season, ho-ho-ho with the inevitable holiday horseshit. Hell, even Libya is off the map these days and look what we done did for them! Well, those who haven’t fled or aren’t dead at any rate.

The only blogger I see (I admit I visit very few blogs these days so I could be wrong here) is Chris Floyd who writes about the ever present American exceptionalism of Americans who think Iraq is seeing violence for the first time since the American troopers, our “fightin’ lads and lassies, heroes all, complete with their souvenirs of Iraqi body parts like fingers and what not are leaving or at least a large number are leaving not forgetting those who shall remain in their Baghdad fortress along with Rin-tin-tin, the CIA, the DEA, and AAA, not mention five thousand murdering knuckle dragging mercenaries that like to use Iraqi people for target practice when things get too slow. Chris Floyd is correct as usual, Americans are amazed that the people of Iraq aren’t just ever so grateful for wut we dun fer’ ‘em. Why right now Obama is sellin’ the heathens eleven billion bucks worth of American arms. And such a deal it is folks because you can just bet that the money the Iraqi government – if it can be called that – will be using comes from American tax dollars. So Obama sells ‘em billions worth of guns and the American public pays the bill. Cool. Now before you get upset it’s all for a good cause. The New York Times, that ancient gatekeeper of all the news that’s fit to print and a lot that isn’t tells us that Iraq is at risk since that same awesome Iraqi army that melted away into the mist on shock ‘n’ awe day is now gone leaving Iraq open for invasion most likely from the ten thousand American troops massed along the Iraq/Kuwait border and possibly Eskimos in Alaska who’ve had their eye on Iraq for some time now.Meanwhile the Chinese are getting all the Iraqi oil so you could say America is making Iraqi oil safe for China, the one’s Obama has been rattling his saber at recently.

Just think about this for one second. Eleven billion bucks for arms and training. Apparently all the training we have been doing for ten long years has been for naught but now, now it’s going to be different just like after Obama wins the election he is going to reveal his true inner self to prove once and for all he is a left wing liberal died in the wool big D Democrat. I see rainbows and puppy dogs with free cotton candy for every American! Yes sirree Bob. Y’all can count on that. And jobs too, yup, jobs just about everywhere, why in just over a year we are all going to be billionaires with nary a care in the world. I promise! Scouts honor. Cross my heart and, well, you know. Why tempt fate?

Kenneth Pollack, cited in the New York Times article had this to say regarding Maliki:

“I think he would like to get the weapons from the U.S.,” Mr. Pollack said. “But he believes that an economically challenged American administration cannot afford to jeopardize $10 billion worth of jobs.”

If the United States stops the sales, Mr. Pollack said, Mr. Maliki “would simply get his weapons elsewhere.”

Of course we can count on Pollack who helped get us into Iraq along with the New York Times who still cites him as an “expert” even though he wrote a book called The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq with a wonderful review over at Amazon.com which says:

In The Threatening Storm, Kenneth M. Pollack, one of the world’s leading experts on Iraq, provides a masterly insider’s perspective on the crucial issues facing the United States as it moves toward a new confrontation with Saddam Hussein.

For the past fifteen years, as an analyst on Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, Kenneth Pollack has studied Saddam as closely as anyone else in the United States. In 1990, he was one of only three CIA analysts to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. As the principal author of the CIA’s history of Iraqi military strategy and operations during the Gulf War, Pollack gained rare insight into the methods and workings of what he believes to be the most brutal regime since Stalinist Russia.

Examining all sides of the debate and bringing a keen eye to the military and geopolitical forces at work, Pollack ultimately comes to this controversial conclusion: through our own mistakes, the perfidy of others, and Saddam’s cunning, the United States is left with few good policy options regarding Iraq. Increasingly, the option that makes the most sense is for the United States to launch a full-scale invasion, eradicate Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and rebuild Iraq as a prosperous and stable society—for the good of the United States, the Iraqi people, and the entire region.

Oh my! Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! With experts like Pollack who needs experts? Just look at all those WMD we found in Iraq. Such rare insights are truly rare folks. Kenny predicted it all, and just look at how stable and prosperous Iraq is now, those ingrates. And look at what it did for the U.S., why it was just for the good of all, the Iraqi people, the entire region, all just busting out in flowers and candy and big eyed kittens. Thank god for the New York Times who can’t even recall what it said yesterday, or even just a few hours ago. There is no past, only the present which is why Obama always wants to look forward not backwards.

Stupid Americans have high school mentality and admire mass murderers

2011-12-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

Link

While nearly 48 percent of voters disapprove of Barack Obama’s performance as president, Americans say Mr. Obama is the man they most admire, according to a Gallup survey. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is the most admired woman

Gee, why don’t we have a “who is most likely to succeed” contest? Perhaps we should have an Obama/Hillary class ring to take to the prom. Between Obama and Hillary who knows how many people have been slaughtered. Oh wait, I just heard the recess bell ring, gotta run to the next class. Rah, rah, rah. Don’t forget to come to the football rally after school! Rah, rah, rah. I hear bin Laden’s bullet punctured head is going to be the team mascot. Should be very exciting. After the rally there will be a barbecue of dead brown people babies followed by movies of marines shooting seven year old girls in the head. Rah, rah, rah. It takes a few good men after all.

It’s almost mesmerizing to see how Americans worship power and the powerful no matter how much the powerful abuse their power. It would seem that the process of maturation for Americans arrests at the high school level which is only matched by their lack of concern for the people murdered in their name.

Screwed

2011-12-23T17:02:00.000-08:00

The root cause of America’s intractable problems is deeply cultural driven by many engines of willful self destruction. One of the most obvious of these engines is a feckless and irresponsible news media that while pretending to the throne of “liberalism” has played the part of cheerleader for every war to traipse down the pike from both sides of the aisle. Never mind that both sides of the aisle are almost identical in every respect that is important as the cultural differences among Americans has most Americans living in a specter haunted land of dreams where so-called liberals and conservatives are caught up in a spin of their own cultural past. Conservatives believe the news media to be liberal as do liberals yet the news media has provided plenty of cover for the worst both major political parties can deliver.

Last January Obama cut taxes for Social Security by two percent but this barely had mention in the news media and was soon forgotten. What this two percent tax cut ostensibly meant was that it was a gift to the working classes, but in reality can be considered the first shot across the bow for the demise of Social Security for when you cut funds for Social Security you can then use it as an excuse to “save” Social Security by insuring that it will become insolvent thus opening the groundwork for a death of a thousand cuts keeping in mind that Social Security if left alone would have been solvent for the next twenty five years and likely beyond. The news media has done its best to make it seem otherwise by refusing to publish any analysis that shows this to be a fact rather they have merely repeated what lying politicians have said regarding the false narrative that Social Security was in financial straits. And if left to political hacks like Obama it soon shall be.

Going back a decade there was the start of the Iraq War driven by Israel, their American mouthpieces the neocons, and George W. Bush with plenty of compliance from Democratic congressionals who were all too willing to join the Bush bandwagon on its way to a pointless and destructive war in Iraq. During that period the New York Times cheered the war on with its irresponsible reporting since wars inevitably increase circulation harking back to that old worn out tropism that if it bleeds it leads. I can still recall a TV news broadcast from that woe begotten era showing a rousing film of American troops charging through a sand storm with a pounding rock song blasting in the background. It was very dramatic but was also devoid of any kind of sane reporting or logical questions that should have been asked by the news media such as what the devil did Iraq have to do with 9/11. In fact, Iraq had never done anything against the U.S. much less the dire threat that the news media loved to report it as. A decade later Iraq is a rubble heap utterly destroyed as a sovereign nation with what is likely over one million murdered, millions more driven from their homes, and an American government that is on the brink of bankruptcy and incapable of generating jobs for the roughly six million Americans out of work. Today the violence in Iraq continues as the thugs and criminals that make up its American puppet government vie with one another for the leftovers.

This is where the cultural aspects of American stupidity come into play. The military since WWII has become the sacred cow of American life. Even anti-war activists cannot help but tag “and our brave troops fighting in service to America” onto every anti-war piece that they write. Whatever the troops may be they are not in anyone’s service except perhaps that of Wall Street and the oil industries. The true nature of the troops is that they are parasites, very expensive parasites that produce nothing except misery at home and abroad costing the American tax payers dearly in billions every year that could have been put to much better use back in the States. Yet because of the intractable culture of all things military that lives on in the hearts and minds of most Americans very few can see much less admit to such a simple and obvious truth regarding “the troops.” The “liberal” news media of course do their best to keep such noxious beliefs alive and well with their embedded reporters and absurdly sentimental reporting on “the troops” ever portraying them as heroes and brave lads and lasses fighting for their country.

Yet the worst thing the news does is portray our wars as though they are not actually wars at all. One need only recall the recent tragic war against Libyans where NATO – which is just another word for the US – bombed the living daylights out of heavily populated Libyan cities which were invariably reported as without casualties among the civilian population. The Libyan thug-a-lugs, racists, murderers, thieves, and rapists were reported as noble freedom fighters though today many Libyans wish they would disappear and the sooner the better. Scant mention of the blacks these freedom fighters murdered on a wholesale basis is heard anywhere to this day. We see a similar pattern in Afghanistan where innocents are continually slaughtered while their deaths are whitewashed with much help from the news media. It is certainly remarkable that the US can wage wars today without civilian casualties as the news media would have us all believe even though it is thoroughly absurd to believe such gibbering nonsense. Still, the American love of all things military helps Americans to believe just about anything no matter how outrageous it may be.

American culture has become militarized to the point where people are mostly blind to the awful fact that congress has just passed legislation that gives our government the right to assassinate American citizens or imprison them for the rest of their lives on the say-so and whims of a bloody handed tyrant who goes by the name of Barack Obama. This legislation is so vague that it can be construed by the American government to the broadest interpretations possible and is in fact a loaded gun in the hands of the unscrupulous such as Barack Obama our Peace Laureate president. US citizens have just been stripped of their most basic and important rights, the right to trial by jury, and the very right to life itself, the ultimate and most important of all rights. Yet Americans continue on as if in a daze more enthralled with the latest telephone gadgets with large screens then they are with important legislation that shall soon impact them in a most destructive manner. If you ponder this as you might well it is no accident that this legislation that smacks of the Nazi movement comes on the heels of the recent OWS movement where some Americans are on the brink of realizing that the government is not what they thought it was. What better way to keep the great unwashed in line than this draconian legislation that Obama once said he would veto but now shall not – now that it is more in line with his own wishes for more power.

If you doubt any of this – as many will – just consider this upcoming election where you have the choice between Obama (who has clearly shown he is completely enthralled to his corporate backers) and the dingbats on the Republican hopeful aisle. There is simply no choice at all in fact we are all completely screwed, blued, and tattooed. Gosh, I sure hope we have a white Christmas, don’t you?

Ye Gods

2011-12-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

Gods, I’m getting sick of this pointless half-assed bloug. I would direct you to some people who actually have some writing talent, Dennis Perrin, and Ioz of the Who Is, as well as Davidly.

I’ll tell you, watching liberals/progressives ignoring the wars where people are dying every day is just getting too fucking depressing. Save the fucking whales, save the Scarlet Pimpernickel Butterfly, Newt Gingrich said this, Bachman said that, Obama as Moses, OWS, the most overrated movie in town, and all while people are fucking dying at the hands of American fat-asses, it just makes my head spin and the vomit rise. I may be back, I may not.

Iraq: A withdrawal or a change of tactics?

2011-12-12T05:36:00.000-08:00

The claims that we are leaving Iraq are ludicrous.

In a CBS news article one has to read to the very end of the article hidden beneath a large map to read that 16,000 Americans (they don’t say what kind of Americans) shall being staying in Iraq. This is really just too absurd, 16,000 is still a very large number. We aren’t leaving.

Link

The U.S. has warned Iraq's neighbors that even though American troops are leaving, the U.S. will maintain a significant presence there. About 16,000 people are working at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, making it America's largest mission in the world.

So, 16,000 “people”, Americans, will be staying in Iraq and we know that roughly 5,000 of them are mercenaries, thugs by any other name but what about the rest? We aren’t being told. Still, here is a snippet from Ted Koppel which gives us an idea of who and what will be lingering in Iraq:

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MR. KOPPEL: I realize you can't go into it in any detail, but I would assume that there is a healthy CIA mission here. I would assume that JSOC may still be active in this country, the joint special operations. You've got FBI here. You've got DEA here. Can, can you give me sort of a, a menu of, of who all falls under your control?

AMB. JAMES JEFFREY: You're actually doing pretty well, were I authorized to talk about half of this stuff.

The JSOC is part of the United States Special Operations Command that oversees the special operations of the Navy, Army, Air Force, and the Marines, you know the fabled special ops like the type they sent into Pakistan to assassinate bin Laden. This indicates that part of those left in Iraq will be special forces units, in other words military personnel. We are all familiar with the CIA, the shadowy private army of whoever is president which has been waging its own drone war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The FBI? You go figure that one. The DEA is a federal law enforcement agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency to be exact, a rather odd addition to be left in Iraq. Much of this actually fits in with Obama’s affinity for using special ops military personnel as well as his preference for using drone warfare rather than regular army and marines. All this in effect allows Obama to continue the occupation of Iraq while enabling him to claim we are leaving, just before the upcoming elections but I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing as it were.

During Obama’s campaign for president he insisted that Iraq was a “stupid” war though later he changed his mind (something most have become accustomed with) calling it a brilliant success. Though how over one million dead Iraqi people and 4,500 dead Americans can be construed as a success is a bit of a stretch, even for Obama and his chameleon ability to be all things to all people.

So the only conclusion we can walk away with is that this more of a change of tactics rather than a withdrawal. And it goes without saying that there are Iraqi who will not be happy with a fake withdrawal no matter how slickly it is being misrepresented by Obama and ilk.

The fact that George W. Bush lied about WMD in Iraq and yet isn’t in prison shows very few people seem to be upset by this. We know that Obama never pursued an investigation into Bush’s wrong doings for Obama as he is wont to say doesn’t care to look back but to the future (his own political future mostly).

So there you have it, or at least a rough idea of the true nature of our alleged withdrawal that isn’t really a withdrawal from Iraq. Afghanistan will likely have little variance from this shifting of tactics enabled by new technologies and the fact that America never had enough troops to occupy Afghanistan to begin with. Rather we have the old Wild West practice of fortified forts dotting the landscape of our conquests if you can call them by that name. Also keep in mind that future violence in Iraq which seems to be inevitable considering the bloody civil war that took place there that American troops could be ordered back into that rubble heap we call Iraq at a moment’s notice.

Then there is Kuwait. And in fact there will be ten thousand American soldiers staying in Kuwait.

Link

In fact, more than 10,000 will stay in nearby Kuwait, reinforcing an already-major U.S. military presence in the Gulf and keeping a watchful eye on Iran which may seek even more sway over Iraqi affairs with the departure of the Americans.

This seems to be rarely mentioned by the major news outlets yet as we all know Kuwait lies along the southern most border of Iraq but that is just a coincidence of course. It would seem that as with all of Obama’s policies and actions that there is more to it than meets the eye.

Charlie Parker never went to college

2011-12-10T11:24:00.000-08:00

Charlie Yardbird Parker, surrounded by myth, abused when alive as well as after his death, changed everything when it comes to jazz. Louis Armstrong once said that Charlie Parker played “Chinese jazz.” Carl Woideck claims that Parker’s improvisations consists of little bits of licks strung together.

Mostly I dislike the views of jazz critics and college music professors. Louis Armstrong I can forgive since Parker’s music was two generations removed from the music Armstrong helped to shape. Most jazz educators come from a classical music background who took a few courses in college on jazz and then try to teach others their own misconceptions and erroneous thinking. To understand what Charlie Parker represented one needs to understand that there is more than one form of jazz. Some of the main forms are Dixieland, Swing, Be- bop (an unfortunate moniker for something so sophisticated), Hard bop, and Fusion. Swing jazz was basically dance music – the pop music of its day. It was something people danced to rather than listened to as serious music. Charlie Parker changed that conception of jazz completely moving it into the realm of serious music that one would sit down and listen to. For this alone all modern jazz musicians owe Parker a great deal whether they care to admit or not and some do not even though it is like denying that the sun rises in the morning and sets at night.

Charlie Parker was what I think of as an anti-hero, not exactly an angel whose eccentric behavior was mythologized, aggrandized, and exaggerated yet was due to the unhappy fact of his drug addiction reportedly which came about after becoming addicted to morphine in a hospital following an auto accident though drug use by jazz musicians was hardly a novelty. Parker – wrongly in my opinion— blamed himself for influencing other jazz musicians into becoming heroin addicts. One only need consider that drug abuse in America crosses all social levels and creeds and had done so before Parker was born. Though not exactly an angel and altogether only human Parker was always willing to help other musicians with their music. If Parker did some unsavory things it wasn’t any different from any other heroin addict that ever was. What remains as astonishing is that Parker could play so brilliantly despite his addiction rather than because of it. The fact is drug usage inhibits one’s playing ability rather than adds to it. One can only wonder how much better Parker’s music would have been without the drugs and alcohol abuse. It is almost certain that he would have lived a much longer life without the drugs and booze at any rate.

Still, there is one thing critics and college professors do get correct and that is that Charlie Parker was a phenomenal jazz musician who had mastered every aspect of improvising to the point of where there really was nobody before or after Parker that could play so well or had mastered all the aspects of improvising in such a brilliant and inspiring manner. Parker was truly one of a kind that likely only occurs once in the entire history of western music.

Though I don’t agree with some of Carl Woideck’s analysis of Parker’s music he has written what is likely the most honest and well thought out biography of Charlie Parker though certainly not as entertaining as the biographies—which seem to either romanticize and exaggerate – that have been written prior so his book is worth reading for that aspect alone. I also suspect that Woideck’s observations on Parker’s music are subject to the fact that he must rely on only what has been recorded which is but a fraction of Parker’s music as well as Woideck’s own perceptions on how jazz is played which is only one man’s opinion and certainly doesn’t encompass the views of all jazz musicians because in the end there is more than one way of approaching the analyzing of the technical aspects of jazz improvisation. And let’s face it, back in the day jazz musicians didn’t go to college to learn their art. Woideck’s biggest mistake is he confuses musical devices with licks. A lick is a memorized fragment of melody, basically a cop-out by the musician using it while a musical device is a method for accomplishing something in a musical manner such as the use of surrounds which are useful for changing the direction of a melodic line of which Parker used an interesting variation and of which Woideck mistakenly calls a small fragment of melody.

While there is little doubt that Parker did use licks especially in the last years of his life it needs to be said that all musicians have them and use them. There are levels of musicianship when it comes to improvising and to become even just say competent takes a great deal of work. To take it to the heights that Parker achieved requires even more work and it isn’t sustainable like turning on a water faucet. Nobody is capable of “making history” every time they pick up a horn and there are only so many times that one is inspired to play at their absolute best when creating an improvised solo. It’s like requiring an artist to produce a masterpiece for every painting or sculpture created. And in fact, Parker was likely getting tired of the music he helped create and had expressed interest in studying composition in Europe.

The fact remains that Charlie Parker was a true original and though I notice some try to attribute the creation of what is (sadly) called Be-bop to some of his contemporaries this just isn’t true and is a disservice to Parker. And despite Parker’s usage of extended chord tones Parker was essentially and irrevocably steeped in what is called the blues, and his main contribution to changing jazz (another unhappy term derived from the word jizz since early jazz was often played in what were called jizz houses or whore houses) was the way he phrased his music and his belief that jazz should be played “cleanly” without heavy vibrato or imitations of animal sounds, etc. that were popular in early swing music. It was also Parker’s incredible technique that forever changed the face of jazz. In the end Parker did it first despite some of the absurd claims of jazz historians.

Listen to Paul Desmond interviewing Charlie Parker where he explains his approach to jazz:

Oleo

2011-12-07T21:28:00.000-08:00

Sonny Rollins is not only one of the great tenor sax players of all time he was also responsible for many original compositions that are still the favorite of many a jazz musician. Here is a wonderful and inspiring rendition of Oleo by Rollins as played by Michael Brecker who sadly passed away in 2007 due to complications from his illness.

Now here is a video of Rollins playing the same tune which brings up a sore point with yours truly which is that the composition is as important as the solo yet many seem to think that the solo is the only important aspect of jazz music thus we see the melody has been edited from the video. How stupid. Still at least we can see and hear Rollins play, a rare treat.

In comparing the two versions notice that Brecker doesn’t imitate Rollins’ approach rather he uses his own approach. This is called originality which is somewhat of a rarity even among jazz musicians. If you asked me which one was better I couldn’t answer you. Both musicians are so good it doesn’t even matter which one is “better.” As Charlie Parker once said there is plenty of room at the top. Why not just enjoy both for what they are?

The duality prez

2011-12-07T12:10:00.000-08:00

Is Obama president of OWS or president of Wall Street? Let’s follow the money, that time worn compass of truth, justice, and the Marecun way. Obama’s largest contributor was Wall Street in the last election, Obama has overseen the largest transfer of wealth to the already wealthy. I’d say, despite his rousing speech, Obama is still president of Wall Street. I’ll say this regarding “The One”, he is slicker than slick.

Apparently Obama or one of his staff actually heard about OWS echoing up to Mount Olympus and a new opportunity was seen and adroitly latched onto as a lever to secure another four historic years as the first White Black Man to be president of Marricuh.

Predictably, for Maarcuns, the wars which aren’t really wars have passed into passé as Maarcuns leave the fabled and never defined region of middle class. Obama has taken the “Oh you poor dears, look at what those mean repooblicans hath done upon your pates” routine as a means to a means. As that fateful and most important election ever looms nearer Obama has been scrambling to find meaning in life to save his political life and OWS has neatly provided it. His other saving grace has been delivered unto Obama in the form of the nuttiest replooblikan candidates ever. Some of these repo-publicans pledge their allegiance to Israel whose importance to average Maarkuns has always been exaggerated while others just make funny faces while inventing history as their whims allow. All this be good fer Saint Oreblama.

For the rest of the world we see the results of Obama’s wars that are not wars from Libya to Afghanistan. In a local yokel talk and comment site one army wife woman sez that the occupiers should “occupy this city” accompanied by a picture of Maricuh’s finest camped out in Afghanerstand. It was difficult for yours truly not to laugh. She saw OWS as the enemy while the wars wuz our friend. The military is noble as they rape fourteen year old girls and shoot seven year olds in the head. Of course, neither she nor the OWS gives a shit about any of this but never mind folks, for the majority is always right. We have reached that point where reality is fantasy and fantasy is reality in a kaleidoscope of rumpled thought patterns.

Whazzat?

2011-12-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

Bill Clinton was often called the first Black man to be president and though Cain who promised to be the first Black Bill Clinton to be president Barack Obama isn’t the first White man to be president.

Iran has shot down its first American drone and thus presents us with the conundrum of having a live but dead pilot who after emerging from whatever benighted and dark hole he or she lived in to come to his or her own funeral!

MacDonald’s, anxious to cash in on OWS is introducing its own OWS burger which causes the consumer to pass air repeatedly after eating it.

While in Afghanistan the new morality is to insist that a rape victim must marry the rapist in order that she be forgiven for being raped this holds the promise that many American soldiers will return with an Afghan wife.

Faithful Democrats though unhappy with Obama have forgiven all since Obama has now passed legislation requiring all American cars made in China to be five percent more fuel efficient by 2025.

After the congressional passing of legislation that allows the military to arrest American citizens that have taken up with terrorist groups the military is expanding their jails around the country in anticipation of a large turnout in the upcoming presidential elections.

Wag your beards

2011-12-01T19:45:00.000-08:00

While the occupiers of Wall Street are preoccupied with their lack of a financially secure future they should have been paying more attention to the murderous wars their hero Obama has been waging against brown people. Using the war against al Qaida, (which had been reduced to almost nothing before Obama’s meteoric ascent to power) as an excuse to murder millions Obama and his crackpot lawyers have turned their sites on Americans themselves. The White house now claims the right to arrest any American without any need to present evidence and detain them for as long as they live. While you dolts have been regurgitating the meaning of OWS your most basic right (the right to life) has just been rescinded by Barack Obama the twit you voted into office. Nice going twits. The real enemy to Americans has been the wars all along. The wars have given Obama the excuse to implement such an abomination. Now we are really and truly screwed. Too bad Americans didn’t have more empathy for the victims in Iraq and Afghanistan because if they had we might not have reached this point where we have no rights at all much less a right to financially sound future which by the way has never existed any way.

Am I exaggerating? After all they say it is only if an American takes up arms with al Qaida against America, right? The kicker is that they need no evidence and it is Obama who decides who gets fingered. That means Obama has declared he can arrest anyone for any reason that he deems proper not just if you take up arms with the almost non-existent al Qaida since he is beholding to no other power other than his own and that he need not present evidence or proofs. That’s a wild card that he can use at any time and in any manner. Think about it or not, or go back to your belly button study of OWS and all the rationalizations of why it is a world changing event. Your world has changed alright, but it had nothing to do with OWS.

All the great circle jerking wise ones who link to each other as if they were all savants of unprecedented analytical power can wag their beards all they want, fat lot of good it will do you now. Good fucking grief, what a bunch of self-absorbed poop wads.

Ko-motion in Pakistan

2011-12-01T08:18:00.000-08:00

When Dogan, the American youth murdered by the knuckle dragging Israeli goon squad that attacked the flotilla bringing aid to the Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza there was very little commotion here in the States if any over Dogan’s death. Rather his death was downplayed by the news media which kept referring to him as Turkish though he was born right here in the shining citadel on a hill.

Of course, hardly anyone has opened their yappers over the expansion of the wars in the Middle East under president Slowbamavitch the newest and bestest wonder of the ages. In fact the only thing that has gotten what appears to be white affluent lefties to do anything is their economic decline in our new gilded age. Meanwhile over in Pakistan, a much poorer nation than the U.S., people are protesting what appears to be a deliberate attack that ended up murdering a reported twenty four Pakistan Soldiers. The obvious conclusion is that while our mighty leaders have in essence murdered thousands of American troops by sending them to their deaths for political gain and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghans the great liberal holier than thou schmucks that call themselves progressives are as phony as a two dollar bill while the people of the Middle East appear to be far less robotic and far more human.

People who ought to know better continue to tell you that we are leaving Iraq. We. Are. Not. Leaving. Iraq. We. Are. Not. Leaving. Afghanistan. These are simple facts to keep in mind as the blizzard of bullshit and propaganda coming from the White House and the news media buries reality. Speaking of reality while Pakistan says that a simple apology isn’t enough for the murder of twenty four of their soldiers Obama has said that he will not apologize “formally” for their deaths until the “investigation” into what happened has concluded.

So, what did happen? The U.S. insists that the attack on Pakistan soil was not deliberate. Pakistan insists that it could be nothing but deliberate. The news media has been useless as always with conflicting reports, bad reporting, incompetent reporting, and slanted reporting. This leaves us in the position of guessing. If we consider the belligerent nature of the Obama administration towards most of the rest of the world and that Pakistan is an unlikely partner in the War On Terror that the Western powers are using as a supply route to their Afghan War it may just be Obama’s way of slapping the brown people down just to remind them who is boss. Still, the result has been that Pakistan has closed those supply routes defeating such strong arm tactics by the United States. This merely raises another question which would be, is Obama just incompetent when it comes to bullying the brown people? I hardly think so. We are told that we are leaving Iraq yet Obama is leaving thousands of mercenaries, many of them former U.S. soldiers inside of Iraq while he will be shifting thousands of troops to Kuwait, just in case you understand. A promise to leave Afghanistan in 2014 is just like all of Obama’s promises which is to say more worthless than a plug nickel and I would be willing to bet that if you asked most Americans they would say we are leaving Iraq. Who is smart and who is stupid here? Obama is a slick manipulator and Americans are easily manipulated.

In the end the Pakistan government is between a rock and a hard place. Addicted to American moolah they don’t want to cut off the money spigot but the citizens of Pakistan seem to be largely anti-American and with good cause. So why not a little dog and pony show? The Americans kill some Pakistan troops and since troops are nothing but cannon fodder for national leaders the Pakistan government could hardly care but it gives them an opportunity to make a show of standing up to the Americans even while collecting money from them. The Pakistan civilians demonstrate, but not against the Pakistan government rather against the Americans. It could actually be a win-win situation for both governments while the masses have been merely manipulated again.

A brief interruption

2011-11-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

While many Americans are focused on their ability to feel comfortable, or lack of, NATO continues the American war against brown women and children.

And as always the death of brown children is “unfortunate” though acceptable and necessary to the continuance of the rape of the Middle East that is seen by Obama as important to his tenuous grasp on retaining his power and to placate his source of campaign funds.

All the links given here are via Jason Ditz over at Antiwar.com.

Pardon for this brief interruption of the “holiday spirit” and you can now go back to your pudding pie and the burning question of whether or not American stores and outlets will do better this year than last.

Mobs through the looking glass

2011-11-29T16:26:00.000-08:00

Don’t you ever
you up in the sky
don’t you ever get tired
of having clouds
between you and us?

Nootka

I don’t like crowds and I like mobs even less. I don’t need to belong to a group, I don’t like groups either. Yet that is what makes up the majority of humanity these days, unlucky me. And what is democracy? People like to tell me “it’s the best we got.” Well you can keep it. The majority is always right? Oh please, since when.

Oh holy democracy, sanctified democracy, does anyone stop to ponder what it is? Is it really any better than a tyrant, beneficent or not? There are many forms of democracy but they all have one thing in common, they want to tell you what to do and how to do it. Democracy is a tyrant.

Looking at the American version of democracy it is but an ugly ravening beast. What a blood thirsty bunch democracies are. A man collapses in a store during the rush of Christmas shoppers, people step over him, ignore him in their rush to be separated from their money. Greedy little fuckwads forever grasping with one thought only –me. Me, me, me, me first, don’t be a sucker, me first! Hours later the fallen shopper dies. A woman pepper sprays the massing throng of morons, me first, me, me, me! These people’s only purpose in the scheme of things is to fill the oceans with their bowel movements spiked with drugs. The fish were never so high.

Today democracy bestrides the world smashing everything in its gory path. Men, women, children, cities, whole nations fall before the onslaught of democracy, the majority is always right, squawk. It’s the mindless mob, the drooling nightmare monster from your id devouring itself and everyone else like the Worm Ouroboros that eats its own tail. Democracy is the best, squawk!

Only a mob mentality could believe that democracy is good. Tyranny is tyranny even when it hides behind the mask of justice and legitimacy. And when has there ever been justice of any kind? All there is to see is mob justice, and mob government, and mob rule, and mob mentality. Government has always been about the strong taking from the weak. The mob is strong, therefore the mob takes what it wants and the weak go to the wall or die mashed to bloody ribbons by rivers of trampling mob feet.

Mobs for democracy, mobs for money, mobs for jobs, mobs kicking ass, mobs for justice, mobs for trees, mobs for racism, mobs for revenge, mobs for this, mobs for that, the bloody ever present mobs, you fucking mobs, you make want to vomit.

It’s thanksgiving and you’re the turkey

2011-11-24T01:05:00.000-08:00

The best description of American culture is that it is made up of self-absorbed twits. Americans voted for another self-absorbed twit whose campaign slogan was, “Yes we can.” Nobody stopped to ask, yes we can – what? Exactly. This self absorbed twit went on to not only screw you blue but worse than that he went on a lovely little murder spree dropping bombs on heavily populated cities, sending drones to attack in the dead of night regardless of who was greased, and what do the self absorbed twits do? They turn their back on their humanity though I have serious doubts that the word humanity has any meaning other than an identification of a human tribe occupying what they call North America.

Hardly anyone gave a fuck about the wars and bombings led by their beloved historical self-absorbed twit. Hardly anyone twitched an eye or raised an eyebrow. Americans just turned on their boob tubes and turned off their brains. All these wars, all in distant and fabled lands that most Americans never heard of before in their self-absorbed little bubble were largely ignored. Who could care about people with funny names and customs? Certainly not Americans. Oh, tisk-tisk, Abdul and his family were blown to smithereens but you know, America is still a great place to live and they might have been bad people after all. They probably don’t even watch football! In the end all that mattered was the symbol of their commander in twit, Barack Obama the historical wonder of the ages.

And you know we are only occupying these strange nations, it isn’t really war. The news tells us time and again nobody was really killed, just a few bad guys. Good guys, bad guys. That’s the extent of the depth of thought generated by the feeble minds that occupy North America. Occupy, occupy, occupy. The word has no meaning it is repeated so often. The noble protesters who voted this murdering jack-ass of a self-absorbed twit into office as their beloved symbol of goodness and purity have even been anointed with the name of occupiers, the Wall Street Occupiers. And it is only now that after nearly four long years of endless bloodletting that they begin to suspect that their beloved symbol of twitology is only that, a fucking symbol. Wow. Americans have occupy on the brain.

Truly, the occupiers are now beginning to see, perhaps, after being savagely beaten and pepper sprayed by the thugs of the realm, the police, who for years were enshrined on tv as noble knights with shows that I used to watch like Hawaii Five-O, Starsky and Hutch, etc., in an endless parade of tear jerking goodness. Michael Landon produced a show where he was an angel that came to the rescue in tear jerker after tear jerker. Can you imagine? I’m an angel, I’m an angel, and I’m here to save you, oh let’s all have a good cry. It’ll cleanse your soul. See? We are so good! Americans awash in their self-absorbed little bubble having their emotions jerked around like puppets on a string by self-absorbed ding bats, I’m an angel, a white man angel saving stupid minorities from stupid bad guys, gosh, aren’t we wonderful?

And in all this goodness and wonderfulness who had time to protest, excuse me, the word now is occupy which is actually appropriate since Americans are so preoccupied with their own lard asses who couldn’t give a shit about the people their wondrous and symbolic superman, Obama, was murdering day in and day out, and all through the night, but now that their level of comfort is in jeopardy the little darlings are out there raising Cain in protest of the unfair practices that threaten their ability to buy hamburgers at MacDonald’s. Gosh, that’s really terrible. After devastating Afghanistan where millions are now facing starvation after the predations of American goon squads and the effects of a drought nobody still gives a fuck. The most important thing now is of course Americans and their threatened ability to buy useless junk, the latest technological wonder from whatever goober company is selling them.

Americans cry over their little goon squads over in Eye-rack and Afghanistan as they cut off fingers and pull teeth for mementos to hand down to their grandchildren so that they can recall grand pops the old Eye-rackie war hero who left them the lamp with the shade made from human skin. Personally I think Americans deserve Obama, and Hillary, and Shelly, and Newty, and Perry, and all the rest of the buffoons awaiting their turn at the wheel of American power and justice. In fact, Americans are the turkey and these are the people that will be eating it. Ignorant of the past, ignorant of the present, Americans will make great drumsticks on this thanksgiving day. Don’t gobble too much food.

The man who stole music

2011-11-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

When asked what he thought of Stan Getz, Zoot Sims said “He’s a nice bunch of people.” Sadly, like so many Jazz musicians Getz went through a period of drugs and booze. Why so many famous jazz musicians fell victim to this would make an interesting study. I have no theory on it except perhaps that the life of a jazz musician isn’t an easy road to follow. People have wondered what makes the truly talented and exceptionally good musicians talented and exceptional and I think the answer is that you have to be a little crazy. It takes an enormous amount of effort and time to be really good, there isn’t any secret other than mucho hard work. Even then there is no guarantee that you will become famous no matter how good you might be. Certainly luck and social conditions play a role in this. But if you have ever been on the road you know it can be tiresome living out of hotels and eating in restaurants which gets old very quickly so you have to be very committed to music to pursue such a course.

Jazz fans can be incredibly ignorant and opinionated when it comes to the music they love. Some dismiss White jazz musicians even going so far as saying that only Blacks should play jazz. If one takes that sort of attitude than you should also say that minorities shouldn’t play classical music, after all its “White” music. Tell that to Yo-Yo Ma. I’ve even heard one person give a list of which races play Jazz the best in the following order: Blacks, Jews, Italians, Whites, and then Orientals. You go figure - and this from people who consider themselves to be liberals. Hypocrisy is the natural condition of humanity it seems.

One of the most incredibly stupid things I’ve heard is that Stan Getz stole Latin music from Latins. They accuse him of making money off of Latin music. It was during the sixties that Stan Getz started incorporating what is called Latin jazz into his music where he collaborated with Latin musicians to make some incredibly beautiful music. I suppose this is when he pocketed Latin music and put it in his Swiss bank account. Of course if you know how little money jazz musicians make when compared to famous Rock and Pop musicians you would know how laughable these incredible claims truly are. What a funny world it would be if only Whites could play classical, and only Blacks could play jazz. Perhaps you could continue to say that only French artists should be allowed to paint in the impressionist style. Or maybe only Italians could paint frescos or do sculpture. Maybe Taco Bell should be prohibited from selling Mexican food to Whites and only French and Italians should be allowed to sing opera. I could go on and on with this.

When criticized by other members of his band for hiring a white pianist, Bill Evans, Miles Davis replied, “I don’t care if he’s green as long as he can play.”

Here is a video of Stan Getz caught in the act of stealing Latin music:

And this:

Thoughts on Jazz

2011-11-20T21:04:00.000-08:00

From talking to people and reading stuff on album liners I think there is a lot of misconception regarding jazz. First there is the idea that jazz soloists are at war with each other doing battle in some kind of gladiator duel to the death. I think most jazz musicians instead of battling are learning from each other, getting ideas or new ways to think about their music. If they are in a battle it is a battle with themselves for self improvement. The trap that needs to be avoided is the one where you end up sounding too much like someone else. The thing is originality is difficult or can be difficult to attain since listening to other players is important but it needs to be balanced with your own style of playing. Here is a quote from Sonny Rollins speaking about John Coltrane that is relevant to this where he speaks about his Tenor Madness recording with Coltrane:

Link

John came into the “Tenor Madness” session by accident; he just happened to be at the date. He had his horn and someone suggested it. In those days, guys just kind of hung out together. I first met him in Miles Davis’ band. He had a big reputation preceding him around New York. The idea of two tenors tangling was a media hype – it always is. It goes back to the big band horn battles. But it was overdone; John and I were close personal friends, and the music was paramount. Saxophone battles and all that didn’t add up to much. We were into developing ideas and finding applications for them.

I first heard him in a band with Kenny Clarke. I remember very well. John and Kenny – it was fantastic. And I recall thinking that John was a puzzle. I could never figure out how he arrived at, or how he came up with, what he played. It was one of the things that made him unique. I never got a better fix on it through the years. Like any genius, it’s hard to get a handle on how they come up with their ideas.

His influence was pervasive. It’s inevitable to have influences. Any guy who’s that much into music is bound to be listening heavily to someone before them…like I did with Coleman Hawkins. The individuality will come out if it’s there. It depends whether the player can transcend the influence. To play what we call modern music, you’d have to have some antecedents.

Now listen to the recording below. Coltrane takes the first chorus of soloing followed by Rollins after which they trade fours after the piano (Red Garland) and bass solo(Paul Chambers) along with the drummer Philly Joe Jones. For those unfamiliar with trading fours this is where musicians take turns soloing for four bars. Notice how they give each other ideas, this isn’t a battle of tenor saxes it’s two musicians having a lot of fun and bouncing ideas off each other. Coltrane takes the first four bars:

Another misconception is the angry young jazz musician striking out at the injustice of life. This is, to me at any rate, just more hype likely projected by producers to generate more interest though it seems to me the music speaks for itself without any of the hype. Listen to this early interview with John Coltrane where Coltrane speaks about this idea of the angry young musician. I think he dispels this idea rather neatly at the very beginning of the interview:

In the interview Coltrane also makes some interesting comments regarding musical devices that allow him to play new ideas. Getting back to originality here is a quote from Down Beat Magazine Coltrane interview where Coltrane discusses the people that influenced him in his early years.

Link

I've been listening to jazzmen, especially saxophonists, since the time of the early Count Basie records, which featured Lester Young (Pres) was my first real influence, but the first horn I got was an alto, not a tenor. I wanted a tenor, but some friends of my mother advised her to buy an alto because it was a smaller horn and easier for a youngster to handle, this was 1943.

Johnny Hodges became my first main influence on alto, and he still kills me. I stayed with alto through 1947, and by then I'd come under the influence of Charlie Parker. The first time I heard Bird play, it hit me right between the eyes. Before I switched from alto in that year, it had been strictly a Bird thing with me, but when I bought a tenor to go with Eddie Vinson's band, a wider area of listening opened up for me.

I found I was able to be more varied in my musical interests. On alto, Bird had been my whole influence, but on tenor I found there was no one man whose ideas were so dominant as Charlie's were on alto. Therefore, I drew from all the men I heard during this period. I have listened to about all the good tenor men, beginning with Lester, and believe me, I've picked up something from them all, including several who have never recorded.

The reason I liked Lester so much was that I could feel that line, that simplicity, my phrasing was very much in Lester's vein at this time.

You should read the whole interview where Coltrane also discusses some things he learned from other players especially playing more than one note at one time. Check out this video of Coltrane playing his song Impressions where he uses false fingerings to play more than one note at the same time which creates a lot interest in what he is doing. Keeping the audience interested rather than boring them to death is of course important, something young musician usually need to learn. Miles Davis used his famous “empty spaces” or pauses to create interest in what he was playing, but that is food for thought on perhaps another post on jazz.

If you are interested in a more technical discussion of jazz you might find my other website (that I never finished) to be of interest.

Flight of the wild passenger pigeon lost in time

2011-11-19T11:39:00.000-08:00

There seems little reality in reality these days. OWS ilk, while interesting, is people who realize too late that they were suckered by Obama, the latter day Jesus Christ of latter day realists that seem now more like cattle as the cowboy cops prod them here and there and shove them into jail. Emotions run high and hopes run low. Israel the midget gadfly of the Middle East used as a political pawn here in the states by politicians and right wing religious fruit cakes acts like a three year old pounding the floor with fists and feet in the midst of a temper tantrum. Being the big fat sitting duck that they are it is difficult believe that they really will attack Iran, the Great Hitler Satan for today’s modern world at least until another nation/leader ascends to this dubious throne, perhaps Syria?

People tell me that Libya and Iraq are Obama’s success while I envision puke and blood dripping from their chins, their wild eyes rotating in their empty skulls. Mount Rushmore was carved out of a sacred Native American place into the gargoyle visages of ugly drooling monsters forever leering at stupid white people while pigeons shit on their heads. A woman dies in a Harvard pregame tailgater at the hands of a U-haul trailer gone berserk but the game must go on since we must know who will win, not the dead woman, that’s for sure. Life just stomped her into the dirt like a bug, we’re all bugs now.

I wrote about Obama since his unholy conception, I wrote about what he was, what he would do and it all came true but you still don’t believe me. People point to the republican candidates who – except for a woman and a black man with stage fright – all look like they came out of a Sears catalog with just the right amount of grey in their hair, square chinned, Father Knows Best white boy look-alikes screaming about flying monkeys flinging feces, and ask where is the choice? The choice is don’t vote period, how’s that suit you? You think this election is going change anything? If I drank I’d need a drink.

Some travel back in time to the sixties and seventies, lost in time they find succor, I wish you luck with that. I prefer the here and the now because it’s real, at least here and now. Memories are memories and are revised and regurgitated to make them what we want, it isn’t real. Here and now is all we have but it’s leaving on the next train out of town in fifteen minutes. All aboard! Sometimes I travel back in time but in the end I find nothing but longing and sadness, and what good is that? Better to live your life than yearn for what never was.

When people talk of the elections my eyes glaze over and I think about what I might have for lunch today. Even though people are earnest regarding this election which to date has avoided that “most important election ever” perception I cannot take it seriously. There are labels flying like fan driven crap. Libertarian, anarchist, left, right, progressive, which one are you? Why not be none of them, take your labels and stick them up your rectum, they might do some good there as some kind of suppository against the fall of darkness. Why not just be human? On second thought…

You know, you aren’t going to live forever so is this how you want go through life?

Why I dislike the boob tube

2011-11-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.
--Groucho Marx

I stopped watching television years ago and I haven’t missed it one bit. My objection to television is manifold. First, the news media, it’s horrendous. Yet this is where many people get their news not that rags like the New York Times or the Washington Post are any better, they are pretty much identical with the televised news in the way they slant the news when not outright lying because reporting only half of what occurs in any given story is the same as lying. The New York Times, when you google it, their link says “Breaking news.” How appropriate that they say this since that’s what they do, they break the news into little pieces editing out important aspects, and facts – at times things they wrote about themselves only the day before. It’s as if there isn’t any past only the here and now as if everything is disconnected when the reality is many things that occur are connected intimately.

Certainly I do recall exceptions to this God-awful reporting when they actually reported something in its entirety and without the typical slant but these instances were far and few between and almost instantly forgotten buried in a blizzard of bullshit minutes or seconds later. And no, I don’t believe that the PBS News Hour is any better. The people they bring on are almost always “toe the line” types, subservient and mediocre, like the fellow that is often on the News Hour who loves to write about the history of American presidents, putting them on a pedestal when they are for the most part nothing but monsters responsible for the mass murder of untold millions in their aggregate. FDR, Teddy Roosevelt, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, both Bushes, Obama and if you went further back in history you would find more of the same barbarous acts of chaos and mayhem always ending on blood drenched ground.

Ask yourself this. Where was the news media during the build up to war in Iraq, a war that has ended badly to say the least with over one million dead Iraqi and a bankrupt nation here in the U.S., the lousy economy and the Iraq War are tied together in no uncertain terms. If you recall the news media was shouting for war as loud as possible. And when war came they went overboard with their enthusiasm showing U.S. troops running toward their cameras in Iraq with the wind blowing a sandstorm and drums and loud music blasting away. It was no doubt all very thrilling and moving, got the old adrenaline pumping with a hip, hip, hoorah. Yet they still claim the mantle of legitimacy to this day while every other source of news is marginal and fraught with a lack of legitimacy according to “conventional” beliefs. After all, these huge news media conglomerates are too big to be wrong. The fact is they wouldn’t know integrity if it dropped on their heads from on high.

But what I truly and fervently dislike about television is the way it shapes our culture such as it is or what is left of it. The narrow views that permeate every aspect of television from fiction programs to “educational” programs is nothing less than a flagrant shaping and sculpting of our culture. The main theme is good versus evil as if the world is made up of good and evil. The world of human concerns isn’t made up of good and evil it is made up of disparate groups that are in competition for survival with one another with alliances forming and dissolving on a regular basis. People that are referred to as terrorists are often just people defending their homes from invaders just as Americans would if the U.S. was invaded by powerful forces. Still it goes way beyond that with maudlin sentimentality thick as syrup flowing like water out of a wide open spigot laden with self pity and self aggrandizing that’s enough to make you want to vomit or at least it does yours truly. Yes there are dualities in the universe that surrounds us but it doesn’t apply to everything and certainly good and evil are only the spawn of perception, not reality.

The reality created by television is a nightmare scenario with a high school mentality, rah, rah, rah. According to television all Americans are just so cutesie wootsie or he-man and women who are all hot. Americans just want to be loved and admired and that’s our sum total. How ridiculous. History wasn’t cast in cement, the Iraq War wasn’t inevitable, all these things and more are just variables with many other possibilities. The same thing can be said of American culture. But television would have you believe that the world is made up of good guys and bad guys. Television has helped stunt the American world view to that of a childish and spoiled brat, ignorant of other cultures and what they might offer where instead we are buried with the next new evil after evil. Today Iran is the super villain like Dr. No in the first James Bond movie.

I have nothing against people who enjoy organized sports but I can tell you I don’t care for it and what of it? Are you shocked? Are you dismayed? Y-y-y-you mean you d-d-don’t like sports? Sure, I don’t like sports, I mean big fucking deal yet this shocks some to no end. This is a product of television which would have us all as a monolithic and collective being. I’ve had people look at me like I just fell out of a UFO sporting three heads and a forked tail when I tell them I don’t care for sports. It’s boring to me, and I don’t like the military aspect of it. My view of sports doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s crazy that anyone would care what I think of sports.

The crux of the matter is that television is an incredibly powerful tool for shaping world views and cultures and I don’t mean in a positive way. Other cultures don’t hate us for our freedom because freedom of thought has been hijacked years ago through the powerful medium of television. They hate us because we kill them – indiscriminately – and without any more thought to it than blowing your nose. You don’t need to be a master of anthropology to understand such a simple thing yet through television many Americans cannot grasp such a fundamental thing.

Culture is a powerful force that dictates what we think, what we wear, even what we eat. Underestimate the power of culture at your own risk for it has led us to this awful reality that we now face. This is why I dislike the boob tube.

A semi-human view

2011-11-14T22:00:00.000-08:00

In the area where I live, at least, the majority of “affordable” houses are short sales or foreclosures. Since banks will not give loans on foreclosures you will need to pay cash for them which most cannot do. The other type of sales are called short sales where people are trying to sell their house for less than the mortgage is worth. Regarding these short sales you cannot get a loan for those either because the banks won’t allow you enough time to do so. For “regular” sales, banks are playing a different game. Homeowner Mary wants to sell her house for 115,000 dollars, half of what she bought it for. She puts her house on the market and gets a bid for 110,000 dollars. She accepts. Enter the banks. Fred, who bid on the house for 110,000 dollars, needs to get a loan. The banks send their assessor to view the house. The assessor assesses the house to be worth only 88,000 dollars because of the foreclosures and short sales. Mary refuses to sell her house for 88,000 dollars and the deal falls through. The banks don’t care because they don’t lose any money, indeed, they are subsidized by the government for all the foreclosed houses that they own. Wall Street was Obama’s largest money donors in the last election so don’t look to Obama for any help.

When Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into being during his term as president he signed the death certificate of the American economy. All the manufacturing jobs left taking all the middle to high paying jobs with them which are now being performed by people earning a fraction of what their American counterparts earned. During that period everyone had “think globally” on their lips since they had been convinced by Clinton and his gang that the global economy would actually generate jobs for Americans which of course it did not since manufacturing is the keystone to having good jobs. The Mexican economy was also destroyed in the process sending a new flood of so-called illegal immigrants to seek jobs in the U.S. though no doubt most would have preferred to stay in Mexico with their families. Now Mexico is sinking in a boat of drug related violence. Even if Obama was sincere about creating jobs there is little he could do to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. for once you let the genie out of the lamp there is no way to lure the genie back. For corporations profit is god not patriotism or nationalism though they extol these dubious virtues on the public. While it is reasonable for the Wall Street protesters to want the unfair balance between the super wealthy and the masses to be made more even I do not see how it is even possible to do so in the short term. I suspect that the conditions we see today are pretty much what it is going to be like for decades to come even if God touched our government on the head and ordered them to make things right. The damage is so extensive that it cannot be repaired overnight.

Being semi-human I commiserate with the underdogs as most humans do. The underdogs are the protesters and those who aren’t protesting even though they suffer from the same conditions wrought by an unscrupulous government wedded to Wall Street and the military-industrial complex, as well as the Israeli influence on our so-called foreign policy which is nothing but high-seas piracy. The debate over violence or non-violence is a mere distraction from these conditions that I have outlined, lacking though they may be. Neither violence nor non-violence is capable of making things better for anybody. The coming election is a mere distraction as well for none of the candidates that will appear in the last hours of the campaign are even capable of rising above the severe conditioning of their minds by the culture that they abide in. All the candidates are completely conditioned to mainstream thought and American exceptionalism which has the totality of their world view warped to such an extreme degree that they are incapable of seeing their own hypocrisy much less any hope that they might attempt to right the many wrongs that they and their predecessors have initiated nor could they do much in the short term. Since these people only live for the moment their whole philosophy is one of what can be done now. There is no long term planning that is ongoing except for a vague and general plan to instigate and propagate war for as long as circumstances allow them to.

The driving force behind American exceptionalism is the rape of third world nations which has been ongoing since the year 1900, the true beginning of the American Empire which is now in decline though it is one of shallow declination and could go on for years to come. If it will continue for a long period or if it will end sooner it is past the ability of this particular fool (myself) to determine. So it is of a highly dubious nature that it is even right or fair that Americans should expect to return to more prosperous times when their prosperity was based on the enslavement and rape of third world nations in the first place. It is questionable that the more prosperous times have made Americans happier. Owning half a dozen cars and big gas guzzling trucks along with all terrain vehicles is not a recipe for happiness anyway. It is a recipe for a different sort of malady that can only be described as shallow and empty, devoid of any kind of betterment that can only be obtained through discipline of the mind and body, not owning stuff that you don’t actually need.

I do not say these things to let the top one percent off the hook. They and their pointless greed have helped cook up an American culture that has deformed the human spirit beyond recognition creating a reality that is ugly to behold. Cheap thrills, adrenaline rushes, and rampant commercialism that invades every aspect of your life are the rule of the day. While the sciences have helped medical practices achieve new heights most Americans are extremely unhealthy with most people addicted to drugs whether that is alcohol, fast foods, or meth. Also it goes without saying that these medical miracles are now only available to the wealthiest Americans leaving the rest to swing in the wind. The advent of pointless technology such as personal computers and I-pads is a mere distraction that merely continues to enrich the top one percent while distracting the public from their misery generated by a pointless existence that promises only instant gratification achieved with little or no effort thus robbing most of attaining any sense of fulfillment or an ability to enrich their lives in any meaningful way.

Freedom rings along the great white way

2011-11-14T01:25:00.000-08:00

Everyone has their own take on reality it would seem. The GOP candidates inhabit a weird universe made up of black holes and strange matter. All of them would attack Iran driven by their need for Israeli backing in the upcoming election which is nothing but fraudulent from beginning to end. Obama defends his position on Iran even if he isn’t going to tell us what that would be. All of them tell us Iran is the greatest threat to the entire planet though Iran hasn’t attacked anyone in two hundred years. Where is the reality in this quicksand? I feel no need to analyze this strange detour into some deformed universe created to separate you from your reality. The fact remains adamantine in its clarity that there is no need to attack Iran other than to propel Obama into another four historic years so that he can go down into history books as a great man who saw the great white way and made it his own.

Recently we were treated to what is supposedly a gaff by Obama and Sarkozy who said bad things about Netanyahu the former bar bouncer working on becoming Napoleon. Sarkozy called Netanyahu a liar while Obama lamented his long suffering and humiliation at the hands of Netanyahu. Well, perhaps. Or is it that Netanyahu provides convenient cover for the machinations of these two liars. Is it really that Netanyahu made them do things that these criminals of murder and mayhem would rather not have done? It’s rather like a young child having been caught with its hand in the cookie jar blaming the family pooch for making him do it. Make no mistake, Israel does wield power over Obama and his partners in crime but that is only because Obama is a spineless sack of over cooked noodles pretending to greatness with a mouth full of jumbled lies and vague allusions to some LSD derived destination that to date defies description or definition.

The noble protesters are climbing the Mount Everest of nobleness having awoken one morning to find that their money was stolen and won’t be able to get it back. Ah, sweet liberty. They are constantly anointed with their purity of heart by admiring savants as they vie for economic security that shall never return to these dark shores. What does this have to do with liberty and freedom? They don’t seem to understand that what they are pining for is slavery to the paycheck and the commercialism of owning stuff. While I admire their tenacity in the face of the Stygian darkness that seems to engulf them they crave for what they already have gained -- a step toward freedom by losing everything. You don’t own stuff, it owns you. Now they want to give up this new found freedom and trade it in on the used car of more security and more sameness. People don’t want freedom and liberty they want to know that nothing will ever change. This is what made MacDonald’s dog burgers so popular and their CEO so wealthy, that every time you buy a dog burger made up of dog tripe and pig neck cartilage it will be exactly the same, every single time. The owners of MacDonald’s read the human soul better than anyone I can think of.

If people truly wanted freedom it is there for, well, for free. Give your house away, give whatever money remains away, throw your stuff into a cyclone and watch it wend away to disappear down a worm hole. Get rid of your family and get rid of your friends so that their spinning webs and thoughts don’t weigh you down like the cement shoes provided by the Mafia as they toss you off a bridge for not paying into their protection racket. That’s freedom. No wonder nobody wants freedom.

The entire history of civilization is a story told by slaves who self enslaved themselves in order to achieve a meteoric mediocrity of unrequited sameness. Civilization is a security blanket that covers the entire world with nary a hole in it to let the light of day in. Everyone wears blue jeans and a baseball hat. Some put their hat on backwards as a show of profound rebellion against the establishment that they would never dare to leave. Ah, sweet liberty. People wonder if they have souls yet they have sold their souls long ago along the ancient shores of the Nile, that ancient land of pyramids and the sphinx. Why do you think Mona Lisa smiles so demurely? Surely she knows the cosmic joke of liberty and how people avoid it like the plague. If you are going to pursue slavery at least be honest about it. Please don’t ply me with your tales of the fight for freedom and liberty with which people wrap themselves like patriots mummified in a flag. Oh spare me your droll delusions. You offer me food and shelter then melt away like a mirage floating over a desert horizon like some demented nightmare from which we cannot awaken from to frolic in the morning dew sparkling in the sun with the birds tweeting and flowers swaying in a playful high summer breeze.

Down with the intellectuals or sometimes it takes a two by four upside yo head

2011-11-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

I still recall the day when visiting with an old friend I saw one of his son’s toys. It was a figure of what I suppose is one of our modern day cartoon characters that are unleashed on the boob tube but it distilled for me what is the anti-intellectual nature of America. Of course this happens every time I go out and see the tattooed knuckle draggers who usually seem as wide as they are tall and who apparently delight in looking as revolting as possible in their dress and mannerisms. But this little figurine was something else, bulging with exaggerated muscles and adorned with a head that was maybe four times too small for its body. That’s the America of today folks. The answer to everything is violence. Don’t think, just grow your muscles, shrink your head (I understand there are some folks in South America who will do this for you for a small fee.), howl like monkey, and kick the shit out of something. Beautiful. This is no doubt part of the militarization of the U.S. which is now fairly complete I imagine. Violence, stupidity, ignorance, and an all around cruddy crudity is the essence of America. It’s beautiful, it really is.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the “intellectuals” usually well educated and adept in the art of propaganda like David Brooks, Tom Friedman, and ilk. These people work very hard at taking reality and twisting it into something resembling a pretzel so if you find yourself arguing for whatever abstraction that tickles your fancy and working very hard at it (usually the more words the better) you are probably on the wrong track. To me, at any rate, the intellectuals are far worse than the knuckle dragger contingent. The knuckle draggers usually just end up doing what the intellectuals want so they are just fools but the intellectuals, they cause or at least grease the rails for most of what ails us today. They root for the banks, they root for the military, but most of all they root for war and plenty of it.

Fer example here is Friedman blathering about the poor in India (as if he really cared) and how a new Indian I-pad like gadget will launch a new era for India one of the poorest nations in the world:

Link

“How will we reach the last person?” Kalra asked me during a visit to his campus here in Jodhpur in the Thar Desert of western India. The “last person” in his view is the poorest person in India. And the question consuming Kalra is can “the financially worst-off person” in India “be empowered” — be given the basic tools to acquire enough skills to overcome dire poverty.

In a country where 75 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day, that’s a big question. It is why, one year ago, India’s Human Resources Development Ministry put out a very specific proposal that Kalra and his technology institute decided to take up, when no one else would: Could someone design and make a stripped-down iPad-like, Internet-enabled, wirelessly connected tablet that the poorest Indian family, saving about $2.50 a month for a year, could afford if the government subsidized the rest? Specifically, could they make a simple tablet usable for distance learning, teaching English and math or just tracking commodity prices for under $50, including the manufacturer’s profit?

Education isn’t going to save India so what is Friedman talking about? This is the typical neo-liberal garbage about how much they care for the poor of the world and the fantasy that education is going to save you. If you think about it if you were living on two bucks a day what are you going to need most? Food or a computer where maybe you could blog about how hungry you are? Give me a break. Friedman is just agrandizing himself like most neo-liberals and he wants you to know just how much he cares.

Now here is the real Tom Friedman, the one who rooted for war in Iraq when Bush the Younger was prez:

Link

The French position is utterly incoherent. The inspections have not worked yet, says Mr. de Villepin, because Saddam has not fully cooperated, and, therefore, we should triple the number of inspectors. But the inspections have failed not because of a shortage of inspectors. They have failed because of a shortage of compliance on Saddam's part, as the French know. The way you get that compliance out of a thug like Saddam is not by tripling the inspectors, but by tripling the threat that if he does not comply he will be faced with a U.N.-approved war.

And...

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?" You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This. ..We could have hit Saudi Arabia. It was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth...

And...

.. and sometimes it takes a 2-by-4 across the side of the head to get that message.

Why anyone takes this guy seriously is beyond me. I don’t think he ever got anything right that he has ever written about yet Tom is an intellectual and read by millions who take him seriously. It mattered not at all that tens of thousands of Iraqi children have perished in that war or that tens of thousands of Iraqi children died because of U.S. sanctions against Iraq prior to the invasion of “Shock and Awe.” No, all that matters to Tom is how great Tom is, how smart he is, and just how much he cares for the poor children of the world. Tom is an intellectual and worse than that, he is a liberal intellectual, and one that ceaselessly promotes violence as the answer to everything.

Happy day

2011-11-11T08:17:00.000-08:00

On this happy day, happy occasion, let us not forget that if you have kids of military age don’t encourage them to join the military.

Soldier Is Convicted of Killing Afghan Civilians for Sport

The soldier, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, 26, of Billings, Mont., was found guilty of three counts of murder, of conspiring to commit murder and several other charges, including assaulting a fellow soldier and taking fingers and a tooth from the dead. He was sentenced to life in prison but could be eligible for parole in less than 10 years.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when you consider the hundreds of thousands of people that have been murdered by those servers of their country, those bloody patriots. They aren’t serving anyone but themselves satiating their sadistic desires bred into them by the sick culture that made them. They are the very definition of parasite because they produce nothing, they just take. You might as well put the Iceman on a pedestal and weep oceans of tears for him.

The Joke

2011-11-09T01:19:00.000-08:00

Nature created man as a joke. Man is nothing but a bag of empty symbols signifying nothing but a conceit so immense that it is unbearable in its contemplation. The intellect that humanity hurls at an indifferent universe is nothing but a game like mathematics. There is nothing holy or special about mathematics any more than science which is but the latest game that will play itself out like all beliefs have in the past. Nature has a sense of humor.

Humanity sails across the ocean, dives twenty fathoms deep and pops up like a cork and proclaims “We have conquered the oceans.” When the ocean sends a tidal wave that engulfs whole towns man clings to his symbols of science and logic. Through science, math, and logic man describes the tidal wave giving it names and measurements, causes and effects, and once again claims victory over what it cannot control.

Humanity ascends into space, perhaps lands on the pale blue moon in what is an infinitesimal distance when compared to the vastness of space and time and beats his breast and proclaims “We have conquered space.” Hardly. The idea of conquering itself is but a game of syntax conceived from the stupidity of war in the illusion that wars are won or lost. Winning and losing becomes the be all of everything as if either concept is real. All of these are nothing but symbols which are meaningless in the universe at large. The universe doesn’t win or lose. The universe just is.

The game of symbols imbues humanity with the illusion of control. This is why we name things; it gives us a sense of control that isn’t there at all. Humans climb the highest peaks of the Himalayas created by forces so titanic that they dwarf the explosion of a nuclear bomb once again proclaiming “We have conquered these mountains.” The mountains sleep on no more aware of humanity than humanity is aware of the microbes that swarm over their bodies. Humanity takes its syntax and plasters it on everything it sees changing nothing, doing nothing.

Humanity says, “The universe will expand and then it will die.” Humanity once again proclaims another hollow victory and pats itself on the back for being so especially clever never realizing that they are merely playing a game that time will swallow as if it never were. Humans grow and then die, the universe just is. The universe is turtles all the way down. As Sherlock Holmes once said, “What possible difference does it make to me if the moon orbits the sun or the sun orbits the moon”? Our syntax forms our world view not the other way around. Life is a joke, humanity is a joke, and the universe laughs.

Humanity wages its puny wars, dying like flies for nothing once again proclaiming “We have conquered this land, these people”, and in five thousand years those conquered people will still be there but the memory of the conquering war will be lost in time, forgotten as if it never was because it is all an illusion and it never really was. It was nothing but a mote of dust floating in the air blown out the door by a draft of wind with no importance at all. Historians will pour over the records of syntax claiming to know the war, its causes and effects, its importance measured and named but nobody will care except for a few who will see themselves as clever for knowing what wasn’t important. Surely the universe has a sense of humor or it never would have created humanity.

Humanity, through syntax, concludes its own importance, “We are killing the world, we are heating it like a pumpkin pie, oh my.” The human desire for importance colors our perception, warps it, strangles it, and shapes it like dough or clay. “We have string theory, molecules and the sub atomic particle", proclaims humanity as it staggers down the street like a drunk in search of light pole with which to prop itself up. “We have the strong force, the weak force, and electromagnetism, not to forget gravity”, humanity proclaims as it searches for a simple truth to explain the inexplicable calling it the finger print of God forgetting that God is but a symbol, described and debated like string theory and no more real than phantoms squeaking in the dusty corner of an old house creaking under its own decrepit weight.

The Finite

2011-11-08T12:44:00.000-08:00

Waves of golden grass stirs the silence,

hills roll down to the sundering sea sparkling like diamonds in the sun.

An immense sky of corn flower blue,

punctuated by a floating raptor on wings of obsidian night,

its savage cry falls from solitary heights to haunt your dreams.

Humanity creates the finite time,

the world laughs at man’s conceits,

knowing that time is but a shimmer in the corner of your eye.

The violence factor

2011-11-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

Protests are one thing while violent revolutions are something else entirely. Anyone who suggests that violence is a good path to take for the Wall Street protests should probably be ignored as really bad advice. It’s not that I don’t have sympathy for people who protest because I do yet we have seen the results of so-called revolutions in the so-called Arab spring and all I can say is that they don’t work very well. In Egypt the peaceful protests were taken for a ride by their military that still controls Egypt. In others we have seen their governments react with extreme violence resulting in much death. If you don’t think our government wouldn’t react to violence with violence I think you are mistaken. All governments suck, they sucketh big time. Government has always been about repressing groups for the benefit of other groups. If all you are doing is replacing one government with another you are playing a fool’s game. If you replace a government with nothing then you might get somewhere but people are far from reaching that point and I doubt it would be the result of a violent revolution. People have – since the advent of science— been trying to determine the difference between people and animals when there is no difference other than people are the only animals that kill others for what they believe. Other animals will kill for food or for mating or in defense of their lives but a lion never killed an antelope because of what the antelope believed. In the end the main difference between animals and people are that animals are sane while people are insane.

This thing we call civilization has only been around a few thousand years such as it is. It is quite possible that this is only one phase in human affairs though it might well be the last one. If it is then that is very sad. Civilization is based on violence, promotes violence, and worships violence. Civilization is a rather rancid form of slavery, self induced or otherwise and there is no aspect of it that is worth dying for. Dying for ideas and non-existent abstracts is just fucking stupid. But then people aren’t terribly bright including yours truly. Revolutions do one thing only, and that is that if they “succeed” all they do is take power from one group and give it to another who then begin to exert that power over you and others for their own benefit no matter how glorious the patter. If you want to die for that then all I can say is good luck. The only thing you really have in this life is your life and as far as anyone knows all you get is one shot at it. Don’t throw yours away because some other idiot thinks it’s a good idea.

Timing can be interesting

2011-11-06T09:34:00.000-08:00

So why are Israel and the western powers creating the groundwork for war with Iran at this moment in time? Nobody can answer that with any certainty except the two main proponents for war with Iran which are Barack Obama and Netanyahu. Still we can look at the timing for some interesting food for thought. At this moment the Palestinians, or some of them, are making a bid for legitimacy as a state before the UN. This is the last thing Israeli leadership wants because it would throw a wrench in their decades long effort to eliminate Palestinians from their land either by murdering them on a wholesale basis (also called genocide) or by making their lives so miserable that they will leave. Despite all the hype about a peace process neither Israel nor the U.S. has wanted peace, they just want the Palestinian State such as it is to disappear which is why the peace process as presented has always been nothing but fraudulent. If Israel and the U.S. went to war with Iran one can easily imagine that the violence between Israel and its neighbors would escalate giving Israel the excuse to essentially wipe the Palestinians from the map which has been their long term goal.

We can dismiss the nonsense spouting from the so-called intelligence agencies about Iran and its supposed nuclear program. While it is true the IAEA reported that there was no evidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in their last report they are now poised to tell us in a new report that Iran is indeed once again “years” away from developing a nuclear weapon. This is the danger of using the IAEA as a source of information for arguments against invading Iran. The IAEA is a political tool that can be used as needed and therefore has no credibility. For now that they are about to announce that Iran is working toward nuclear armaments they will pull the rug out from under those who do not wish to see a war with Iran leaving those who used them in the past as a reason not to invade Iran with egg on their face. This is why it would be better not to use such questionable sources such as the IAEA and the UN in arguing against the looming violence and mayhem resulting from attacking Iran.

Another possible reason for the interesting timing is Obama’s historical presidency. Obama’s popularity is now in the shit-can, the honeymoon is over except for the lunatic fringe that still supports him. Presidents ignore bad economies at their own risk and Obama is perceived by independent voters as not only ignoring the economy but actually making it worse through the pursuit of endless wars and his continued Bush policy of bailing out the banks while the rest of the American population sinks into economic oblivion. Looking at the so-called Wall Street protesters one can ask where were they when the bombs began to fall on Iraq and Afghanistan. Except for a few protests they were nowhere to be found but when they finally woke up to the fact that they had no future or hope for economic betterment they are now found everywhere, loudly. This illustrates the importance of economies, something Obama failed to heed. A war with Iran would likely make the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq look like the cakewalks that they never were. War time presidents have much more power than peace time presidents. Obama might declare martial law here in the States or he even might use a war with Iran to cancel the presidential elections, all in the interest of protecting Americans of course. If Obama did declare martial law you can say goodbye to the Wall Street protesters and their tents, something our owners would appreciate though it is difficult to imagine that they give much of a hoot about the protests. Our owners own the National Guard and the police agencies not to mention the military that would have little hesitancy when it comes to blowing protesters to smithereens. Our military might even enjoy it since they are no doubt a patriotic bunch and the essence of patriotism is the abolishment of thought or a sense of right from wrong. So while a war with Iran would have horrific consequences for the masses it might just be what the doctor ordered for Obama and Israel.

The Hitler syndrome and Iran

2011-11-02T17:52:00.000-07:00

For years now there have been rumors of a U.S. war against Iran. There have been so many, in fact, that I am usually inclined to dismiss them but considering Obama’s performance as President I no longer dismiss such rumors. First we have Netanyahu, a first class yahoo, who has been pressuring the rest of the Israeli government to attack Iran.

Then we have Obama’s subservience to Israel which is linked to his and all other American politicians desire to be elected or re-elected who perceive their chances of doing so as being dependent on the approval of Israel which wields an undue influence on American foreign policy. Keep in mind that for all those seeking power, and retaining it, that they will do anything to achieve their ends which includes doing things that are knowingly disastrous for the U.S. since for them staying in power or achieving is their highest god.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union the military-industrial complex has sought mightily for another outlet for their cash cow of war be it hot or cold. There was Saddam Hussein, bin Laden, and more recently Gaddafi who fit the bill for the Hitler for a day award. All these have been ludicrous in the extreme. None of these people were a real threat to America’s choke hold on the rest of the world. None of them were capable of overturning the American Empire and its puppet dictators and tyrants. One only need recall how the feared Iraqi red army melted away at the beginning of the American invasion and there certainly were no WMD or Condi Rice’s mushroom clouds. Hussein was a threat only to his people and his neighbors but certainly not Israel the possessor of WMD and a modern well equipped army with the full backing of the American war machine. Regarding bin Laden it was never proven that he was behind 9/11 though if he was it still was no real threat to America who spends more on its military than all other nations combined. I would also remind that even the paramount threat of the Russian army and nuclear warheads was greatly exaggerated as their collapse clearly illustrated. The only threat Gaddafi represented was to the international banking cartels. That Gaddafi was going to murder his people on a wholesale basis was clearly a lie. So, as election time grows nearer and with Obama’s popularity in the trash can, Obama is desperate to clinch the election and his need for a Hitler for a day can easily be found in Iran which he, his cronies, and the lying news media, have been portraying as the great Satan of our time.

Another thing that needs consideration with all the hype over Obama’s great and wondrous victory on the shores of Tripoli which again is fueled by the warmongers of the news media (if it bleeds it leads) it just might help Obama come to the conclusion that a war with Iran could pull is ass out of the fire just in time for elections. Remember that for the most part the pliable American public loves to have enemies to hate and only lose their taste for war when America is perceived as losing whatever war they are engaged in. So victory in Libya could fuel the fires for victory in Iran which would be as meaningless as his victory in Libya though far more costly.

It matters not at all whether Iran is pursuing WMD or isn’t. If they are pursuing it one can reason that it is entirely defensive in nature for surely the lesson taken from Gaddafi’s demise was his abandonment of his own nuclear program which only exposed him as a weak target for western pirates and thugs, meaning of course the U.S. and NATO which represents the European thumb in the pie of imperialism which of course they are old hands at, most especially France and Britain whose leaders yearn for those years of greatness and profit from human slavery and death, that is to say their empires of yore.

Obama was the worst thing that could have happened to American politics. Weak, venal, self serving, a habitual and incurable liar, Obama has almost single handedly wiped out what passed for the anti-war movement in America. Obama had a mandate and full support of the majority of Americans to overturn the past eight years of Bush policy but instead of a president who might have tried we got Obama. That opportunity is long gone thanks to Obama and will likely not return for many years. He is committed to proving that a black man can be as ruthless and murderous as any white could possibly be, indeed for all intents and purposes Obama is whiter than white, a black white man who is entirely acculturated to the white world of politics and power. Obama is entirely immune to the murders that he so clearly thrives on and enjoys as only the most sadistic can. Even his predecessor, as bad as he was, balked on making war against Iran for even Bush had more imagination than Obama possesses. It is the unimaginative that we need to watch out for since they cannot imagine anything other than victory no matter the cost in human life. Obama is for Obama and nobody else, a self centered egotistical well educated mobster boss whose hit men consist of the CIA, the entire American military as well as the murdering mercenaries who will take the place of the U.S. military in Iraq though Obama is merely moving the U.S. troops to Kuwait in order to be handily on hand in case things go south in Iraq as if they could possibly could go souther though with Obama anything is possible. I would have to say of all the presidents past, and possible future, that Obama is by far the most likely to enter the U.S. into a war with Iran. And if he does you can kiss away whatever miserly safety nets we still maintain including Social Security as well as any kind of stimulus for the economy. The Wall Street protesters rightly think things are bad but if Obama goes to war again they ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

The difference between

2011-10-31T10:32:00.000-07:00

While Americans are protesting the demise of the middle class that is to say their level of economic comfort and the lack of a steady paycheck the people in Pakistan are protesting the rain of American bombs blowing up their villages, along with children, women, and men. This is the difference between America and much of the rest of the world.

Link

Via Jason Ditz

"Our leaders owned this war on terror for the sake of dollars," Khan told the crowd assembled around the country's most important national monument, the Minar-e-Pakistan. "Let me curse you. You sold out the blood of innocent people."

Pakistan's state news agency, The Associated Press of Pakistan, estimated the crowd was over 100,000 people.

Mosharraf Zaidi, a Pakistani political analyst, said the rally was significant because Khan's party has not been able to attract such large crowds in the past.

Much ado has been made over the sad case of the fellow beaned on the head by a “police projectile” and everyone has been making an even bigger deal out of the fact that he was a marine in Iraq, an Iraq War veteran and therefore a hero. While I don’t believe anyone should be the victim of State Violence I think it should be pointed out that there are no heroes from the Iraq War. The Iraq War was wrong, and marines killing people in Iraq was wrong so to put it bluntly to make a big deal out of the fact that this guy was an “Iraq Veteran” is wrong, it’s sick in the head. It’s indicative of just how fucked in the head liberals and conservatives are. Neither group can keep their morals straight in their own head. I recall seeing a picture of a marine with a sign that said something like “I didn’t fight for Wall Street I fought for my country.” While I can understand his sentiment as far as I’m concerned the guy is a prick. He thinks murdering small children was right as long as it was for a good cause. Americans are a deeply confused and violent bunch eternally confusing murder with love of country and patriotism. This is why I hate patriotism or one of the reasons. It is a button pushed which turns off rational thought and the result has been devastating for many people around the world. Far more devastating than America’s economic woes.

Consider what Davidly writes:

Link

I think the reason why the vets are called "Iraqi" is because this particular group of vets used to kill Iraqi babies. Some of the vets are camping because they now believe that their killing of the Iraqi babies was wrong. Some of them are still proud of having killed Iraqi babies, but are camping for some other reason. My friends tell me that this is a complex issue, but that the vets are all heroes as long as they are for the Democrats. The only reason they killed babies is because the Republicans told them to, or it was a mistake.

While some moral issues may be complex this was never the case with the Iraq War or for the people that willingly participated in it for whatever foul or deluded reason. While it is true many Americans are suffering from a high jobless rate and stagnant wages it hardly compares to the devastation Americans have wrought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Libya, Pakistan to name just a small fraction. Yet how quickly did American protesters take up the banner of “Iraqi War Hero” forgetting instantly what this really means as long as it furthered their own cause.

I also note that if the main theme of the protests is economic inequality rather than the murder of millions of innocents I’m not all that impressed with today’s protest movement. One wonders if they are even aware that Obama is the president of Wall Street since almost every one of his policies has benefitted Wall Street including his continuance of slaughtering people the world over which should be no surprise since Wall Street was Obama’s largest backer in the last presidential elections. The level of moral clarity and awareness in this nation seems to have fallen to an all-time low or perhaps more accurately has remained as it always has been from the earliest of times.

Libya, land of opportunity

2011-10-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

Those clever Americans! Already turning Libya into the new land of opportunity:

Link

Western security, construction and infrastructure companies that see profit-making opportunities receding in Iraq and Afghanistan have turned their sights on Libya, now free of four decades of dictatorship. Entrepreneurs are abuzz about the business potential of a country with huge needs and the oil to pay for them, plus the competitive advantage of Libyan gratitude toward the United States and its NATO partners

Thousands of dead Libyans, bodies rotting in the streets of Sirte, entire towns demolished, opportunity knocks, time to grab that brass ring boys! It’s the rebirth of American can-do-ism. Violence and chaos is what matters, it’s the means and the ends. Be sure to vote for Obama and you too can be part of the ghoulish feast.

The Darkling Land

2011-10-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

Moonlight crept over the darkling land.

Trees danced under starry skies,

to the tune of an idiot wind.

Mad monsters are laughing with glee,

as they spin their webs far into the night.

It’s the violence that counts the monsters agreed,

chaos and madness is our delight.

To feed on death is our consuming need,

power is what makes us tick,

said the monster as it picked its teeth.

Power is what drives our lurid ways,

for all the nights and blood drenched days.

The dead are gone, they’ve left us now,

food for the lunatic monsters.

Yet their screams can be seen when they take flight,

as the idiot wind that dances with trees,

deep in the moonlit night.

Oakland, out of the past

2011-10-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

What is there to say about Oakland, its police, and the protesters? I suppose since the days of Kent State where protesters were shot with a shoot to kill intent you could say we are making progress with “police projectiles” (rubber bullets?) that only fracture your skull thus making violence more of a humanitarian affair, if you survive the more kindly love tap of today’s police projectile that is.

It seems likely that the protests are a bit late in the day though the same could be said regarding the Vietnam protests a lifetime ago. Better late than never may be a truism regarding protests yet is it too late? I have no idea. No doubt we have seen the mouthpieces of the powerful spin the protest movement like David Brooks who waxes nostalgic over the quiet American of a mythological past who apparently used to protest in silence and with gooderer and betterer politeness and quietness than those dirty hippy types of the seventies and those dirty hippy types of the todayies-es. I often wonder what planet David and his buddy Friedman originate from. Maybe the planet Analprobes.

Still, this is what is expected of Brooks as an official mouthpiece for the corporate rule. And creating a false past is part of his job among others. If today’s Americans are “too soft and decadent” as Brooks claims this is what our leaders hope for and have done their best to create. Keeping people out of work and on drugs of one sort or another is their goal. We are more pliant that way, the sort of pliancy Brooks yearns for. After all, it’s more difficult to keep up with current events if you are looking for your next meal or your next fix, or if you read Brooks’ masterful propaganda, and Brooks is a great propagandist or he wouldn’t have risen to such a prominent position in the NYT.

Letting loose the dogs of war

2011-10-25T15:22:00.000-07:00

Today we present a fitting monument to Obama that great and wondrous humanitarian. While the news media has seen fit to relegate itself to being a court jester stenographer of whatever issues from any national leader’s mouth occasionally they let part of the truth loose.

As Obama and Hillary (and company) pat themselves on the back over their mission accomplished moment in what remains of Libya their humanitarianism is eclipsed by this tidbit from the Telegraph, not exactly known as the defender of the downtrodden, regarding the demolition of Sirte, Libya in the last few weeks of its life:

Link

No building was spared in the weeks of fierce combat backed by daily NATO air strikes that reduced the Mediterranean city to rubble, a ghost town filled with the stench of death, where bodies still littered the streets on Monday.

No building was spared…a ghost town filled with the stench of death, where bodies still littered the streets…

Let’s not forget that this brutal war was sold to Americans as protecting civilians. Let’s not forget that this is Obama’s war, not Bush’s. The real truth is that at Obama’s behest NATO blanket bombed Sirte into oblivion from which ashes democracy that paean for all that ails you shall rise like the Phoenix of legend spreading light and goodness throughout the now thoroughly liberated and bombed out Libya.

So this is Obama’s great monument, a gutted land filled with the dead and the dying flung aside in the dirt and blood soaked earth by the wake of Obama’s passing. Obama certainly has that golden Midas touch except everything that he touches turns not to gold but rather to the rotting corrupted corpses that now populate Libya. The very people that Obama swore he was protecting. Long gone are those claims of surgical strikes that hurt no one and the three day picnic excursion to Libya where every big eyed kitten would be protected. All that’s left is the stink of Obama, Hillary, and Rice, and the fact that NATO blanket bombed city after city with no regard at all for the human life they destroyed.

Again and again

2011-10-21T06:06:00.000-07:00

With the death of Gaddafi and the splintering of Libya into likely future violence it seems everyone has a lesson we should learn. The trouble with lessons is that they aren’t always good, or relevant, or even connected to the brutal edicts of reality. Still, one thing that might be true is just how quickly civilization can break down; evaporate to reveal the stench of corruption and violence that only nation states can breed.

Pictures and videos of Gaddafi’s death flood the net. We see the epitome of our basest nature in action. The conquering heroes, those “rebels” ululating like banshees no doubt thinking more of the flood of Western money soon to come their way, flowing mostly from Obama, more than the presumed object of their hate, Gaddafi.

One is reminded of the death of another “Hitler of our time”, bin Laden, where we were treated to videos of American college girls attired in shorts made from the cloth of Old Glory (or is that Old Gory) humping themselves into a state of ecstasy over his death. We have come a long way from the supposed lessons we supposedly learned from the Vietnam War, when “never again” was the supposed theme of the time. Never again soon became again and again. The lesson learned by our civilized government was that they must control the media during wars of dubious nature. No pictures of children running and screaming in pain from the burst of napalm, no body counts of the always so regrettable collateral damage, no pictures of troops coming home in a box. War would now be presented as being done with surgical precision for humanitarian reasons. Killing people for their own good is the banner we wave.

As the cowardly and venal Obama shakes in his shoes over the upcoming election his one route to retaining his historical presidency for four more miserable years he uses the only other lesson our civilized government has learned from the past which is when in doubt, start a new war. Already I have seen pictures of Hillary posing like a psychotic buffoon, hamming it up for the camera people along with the local Libyan goon squad. Apparently Hillary believes us all to be one year olds who can be pacified by shaking a rattle in our face while making funny faces of her own. We are told by Hillary and Obama that this is a great victory. Recent history is revealed as malleable and plastic in its ability to conform to any shape imaginable. Long forgotten is Obama’s promise of a three day war and that we were only providing a no fly zone to protect civilians. If Obama had not seen Libya as an opportunity how many innocent lives might have been saved, we will never really know. How many innocent lives will be lost as the heady days of Gaddafi’s death fade quickly replaced by years of repression and violence if Obama had not seen Libya as a political opportunity to save his skinny political ass? We will never know but can only guess if you have a mind for such gruesome pastimes. In the end I suppose one cannot compare the death of thousands when weighed against the all important stoking of Obama’s over-sized and amoral ego. No contest, no problem.

So along with the celebration by Obama and his supporters we can all celebrate the continuance of violence for votes, the continued cessation of our civil rights the most important being the right to life itself for is anyone safe from Obama and his secret death panel? Although Obama promised more and more betterer transparency in government Obama has done his level best to shroud his darkest pastimes in total secrecy. One lesson we can all learn regarding Obama is that whatever he promises we can be sure that he will do the exact opposite, the only exception being his promise to widen the war in Afghanistan.

Some people worry about Obama being a republican in disguise as a democrat yet that is like saying he is a wolf in wolf’s clothing because the difference between the two parties is pure imagination. As you no doubt have seen the grotesque videos of the Libyan rebels bellowing and shooting into the air as they drag the object of their ire through the streets you can see the future of American culture with its ossification into a police state that surely breeds the violent and the ignorant bringing it to the forefront of our great civilization led by the Great Betrayer. Oh unhappy land, there shall be no succor from the upcoming elections for whoever emerges victorious will continue to lead us into the heart of darkness.

This Time

2011-10-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

People are like ghosts that drift around from nowhere to nowhere.

Some of the ghosts smile and laugh, a hollow sound fading into distant landscapes. Ghosts thinking ghost thoughts about a ghost world, and ghost times past.

The tinny sound of a television trammels out an open window. Lunatics laugh. It’s the new reality. Don’t have your own reality? Make one up.

An old newspaper blowing down a cracked and dilapidated sidewalk imitates life, its words written by ghosts for other ghosts whirls away, history in the making.

Reality stretches, bends, turns on itself, and eats its tail.

LIBERA NOS A MALO

2011-10-15T23:26:00.000-07:00

Via Angela Keaton

I found this video to be terribly upsetting for obvious reasons. If you aren’t moved by what you see on this video you are as good as dead. This is what Obama stands for, the mutilation and death of small children as well as much pain and sorrow resulting from the wars he has refused to stop and the wars he has begun.

Granted there is no choice in the upcoming farce of an election with the screwballs on the right bellowing for war with Iran and the screwballs on the left bellowing for war with Iran. There is no candidate forthcoming from the Democratic Party that can challenge Obama for the nomination. Obama will be the Democratic candidate. If he wins or loses the presidency I have no idea nor do I care. I am not interested in whether or not Obama can win or if the Republican Party can win. Both are evil and vile beyond redemption.

Any candidate who wins the nomination will do so only with the blessing of the warmongers who approve presidential candidates. Only a candidate who is willing to murder small children will be allowed to run for office. This holds true for Republicans and Democrats alike. A vote for either party makes you part of the evil done. The results of which you see in the video, and keep in mind that what you see is only a minute fraction of the totality of the evil president Obama has willingly and enthusiastically embraced in order to secure and further his power.

I suppose the Americans you see clapping for the few children saved can feel good about themselves as American doctors heal what was wrought by the monsters that inhabit the federal government led by Obama but I do not. The horrible mutilations you see never should have happened. The horrible deaths that we don’t see never should have happened.

In the process of turning America into a military state our puppet government has turned us all into monsters more hideous than anything Hollywood could have dreamed up because this is real, this is what we are. Our stench must surely reach all the way to the heavens and beyond.

I have been watching the shills shilling for Obama as if they were being paid to do so. And maybe they are. I have watched people who claim to be sane ignore the monstrous actions of president Obama hiding behind a misguided belief that the Democrats are somewhat less evil than the Republicans. The shills squeak and squawk, and congratulate themselves on just how clever they are to support a monster like Obama. These people make me sick to my stomach. I wish I could spit in their faces.

They hide behind the façade that the Democrats will somehow make jobs more plentiful and console themselves with this fantasy. Obama isn’t going to create more jobs because it is beyond his power to do so even if it was his most dear desire, which of course it isn’t. The jobs are gone and will not return in my lifetime, however short or long that may be.

There is no real choice other than the one you will have to take and live with. If you vote for a candidate of either major party you are joining hands with ghouls that feed on human flesh in order to promote their own careers as politicians. It is not a choice between the lesser of two evils. It is not a choice of war or peace because the only thing either party will bring is more war, more death. The candidates are like vultures circling the dead and the dying waiting for the right moment to swoop down and gorge on the carrion left in the wake of people like Obama. And it is most certainly not a choice between supporting war or having jobs. It is a choice on doing the right thing which is to withdraw your support of not only whatever political party you prefer but your support of an election run by gangsters who are in charge. They are the Pentagon, the Israeli Lobby, the so-called defense industry, Wall Street, the oil or energy industry to name the main criminals and they are criminals. And anyone who takes their money to run for office is a criminal and anyone who votes for either candidate is a criminal. There is no way anyone can vote without adding legitimacy to the evil done in our name.

You either support what you see in the video above or you do not. That is the real choice. There is no other. So you decide, you decide if you wish to be a slavering ghoulish monster or if you wish to retain some semblance of your humanity, if any such thing remains. And to the shills that freely lie to the people you influence, I have but one thing to say to you. FUCK YOU. You know who you are.

Paranoid in America

2011-10-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

There is a certain segment of the American population that seems genuinely frightened by the propaganda that spews out of the government and the news media. But their fear goes much deeper than that. In fact, they wear their fear like a coat of armor and the word traitor is always at the tip of their tongue to be applied whenever someone doesn’t conform to their sense of normalcy. They insist that you should like what they like, see things the way they see them because they are first and foremost cowards. They are the first to put a large flag at the front of their abode and “god bless America” is the skirt they hide behind.

You can find them anywhere from the small little hick towns that dot the American landscape to suburbia and the large metropolis they surround. Little narrow minded weasels always eager to please, to be one with the society they find themselves enslaved within. Their pointy little noggins always wagging to the beat of their fear, they just want to belong. You’ll know them for they are the first to join in witch hunts since they are deeply afraid of being the object of a witch hunts themselves. They are all little carbon copies of people like Obama, sadistic fuck heads who worship authority even as they mouth their fear of it.

During the last election Hillary Clinton did her level best to grease Obama by saying that someone might shoot him, hopefully planting the idea in some patri-idiot’s mind. Ironically now everyone has to worry about Obama greasing them with his secret death panel but Hillary fits the bill for cowardly patriotic weasels. Hillary is a weasel just like Obama, just like the sniveling little shits who hide behind their red white and blue.

These people feel cornered, are cornered, by their fears, and that makes them the most dangerous people in the world. There is nothing more dangerous than a cornered frightened animal. They talk bravely about how they oppose government but are the first to go running to the government every time they become frightened which is about once every five minutes. You’ll find them rummaging through your garbage and sniffing your underwear always on the lookout for something they deem unpatriotic or un-nationalistic. Patriots are basically offensive, that is to say they believe in attacking any foreign land that might be a danger to them, nationalists are defensive and are the first to say “well, it may not be perfect but it is the best we got.”

There is nothing in this world more despicable than the self-proclaimed patriot.

From the absurd to the sublime

2011-10-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

I’m a great believer in Occam’s razor, which is that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. For example the so-called terror wars which on the surface are seemingly meaningless especially when one is confronted by the constant flow of lies that emanate from the White House are still the subject of debate. You are familiar with them, we went to war in Afghanistan to promote women’s rights may be among the silliest of them, next comes protecting Americans from exploding underwear bombers lurking in America’s airports. I suspect very few people in America buy into these noble causalities, much to their credit. Still, a CNN/Time poll in 1997 showed that eighty percent of Americans believe that the government is hiding secret knowledge of aliens from outer space.

That space aliens have visited our little corner of the galaxy is completely absurd doesn’t seem to faze Americans. To be sure one would expect life on other planets but there are too many assumptions being made. The first assumption is that alien life would want to travel through space. Would they really? Why would they? Certainly anal probes can be ruled out. This assumption is based on another assumption which is that aliens would be somehow similar to us if they are intelligent yet the more likely scenario is that they are nothing like us in any way. There simply would be no common ground at all. Then there are the vast distances between stars and galaxies. It would take vast amounts of energy and resources not to mention time to travel these distances.

The simplest explanation for this unreasoning belief in UFOs is that suddenly humanity somehow becomes the center of the universe (though astronomers tell us there is no center). We are just so important and wonderful that benevolent aliens wish to study us, no doubt to learn the secret of how to make potato salad. Humans have always had a problem with their own importance in the scheme of things. For starters we once believed that we were the center of creation, then we were the center of the solar system, and when this belief fell to the grim reaper of science humanity was so bereaved that it latched onto UFOs who visit us because we are just so special and hold great promise for some kind of evolutionary magical transformation into beings of pure thought with no corporal manifestation. People would no longer have to poop, apparently, and this belief in some kind of evolutionary process that is supposedly taking us to this god-like state shows a complete ignorance of what evolution is as well. In fact with the invention of civilization it is far more likely that humans are no longer evolving at all.

You have often no doubt heard people say that humans are the dominant life form on earth yet insects and bacteria outnumber us exponentially. We are not the dominant life form on this planet by any stretch of the imagination. Television has no doubt played a huge role in this nonsense. In the second incarnation of Star Trek the very first episode revolved around Captain Picard defending humanity in an alien court of law, whining about our potential, even going so far as to claiming a god-like future. It still sticks in my mind as the most sickening form of narcissism imaginable. I never liked that show. It had none of the charm of the first Star Trek. One cannot help but conjecture that this belief in a secret alien presence hidden by the government is based on the need for people to feel important and special in an indifferent universe.

While science fiction can be fun to read, it is after all, fiction. It seems highly unlikely to me that humanity is going to spread out among the stars to time and again defeat the enemy of entropy as we flee from a dying sun to travel to other suns. It is just too absurd to contemplate. Humanity is in denial. The record is written in the very land we walk on. Extinction is a reality, it happens, it has happened all through the history of planet earth and the reality is that humans will go extinct some day. One way or another. The universe would hardly miss us.

And what of 9/11? Isn’t the most obvious and simplest explanation that after years of America’s predation of the Arab nations that it finally blew up in our face in what people like to refer as blowback? No, the Jews did it, or Bush did it, or maybe space aliens did it. We are entirely blameless, after all are we not Americans? Are we not the most important thing ever to have happened in the entire panoply of history? Don’t we build schools and hospitals in far-flung lands of exotic rumor? Hasn’t our science propelled us to godhood so that invariably in our infinite goodness we must share that enlightenment with other people who are obviously inferior when compared to America’s wealth, science, and all around humanitarianism? Such monumental conceit can hardly be borne without making one ill yet it is so prevalent in the makeup of American self regard.

From the earliest times of human civilization people have believed in all manner of ridiculous ideas mostly all having to do with our self importance from religion to our present American exceptionalism and all of them have been patently idiotic and untrue. What in this wide wonderful universe makes you believe that what you believe is any different? Isn’t it amazing and wonderful enough that life exists, that we exist at all? Some people are never satisfied.

Just Friends, Old Friends

2011-10-08T04:30:00.000-07:00

I didn’t become serious about playing music until I was in high school. What inspired me was Jazz. I was at first fascinated by Jazz pianists, and more specifically, the chord voicings they used. Typically in Jazz musicians make use of extended chord tones and altered tones which gives their chord voicings their unique and lovely sound. However it was Charlie Parker that really got me interested in playing Jazz. When I went to a community college (where I was majoring in performance on the flute) in Los Altos, California I met Steve Elliott who was already a very accomplished player on the alto saxophone. Steve got me into the college big band (Steve was playing lead alto) where I played baritone saxophone and it was, now that I think of it, the best time I ever had. After hearing Steve play I wanted to take sax lessons from him, which I did. Steve then wanted me to take lessons from Don Raffell (who played in many well known big bands during the big band heyday) in Los Angeles which again I did, this was in 1982.

Don Raffell had been Steve’s teacher. Don Raffell was one of those rare musicians who not only was a great musician but also had a knack for teaching, in fact people would say Don had at one time or another taught almost all the Jazz musicians in the LA area which is likely a fact. Don also wrote arrangements for television shows as well as played in the studios besides teaching when I first met him. Don dropped out of law school to be a musician, though he had told me he was a baseball pitcher and had to quit when he wrecked his throwing arm. That was Don, LOL. Don knew I never cared much for organized sports and that was his gentle way of kidding me. Besides taking lessons from Don Raffell I was playing in the Cal state big band and Pasadena City College big band led by Gary Foster as well as working at Sears and doing janitor work late at night in Hollywood of all places. Ah, the glamorous life of young musicians.

Steve Elliott went on to play professionally in Los Angeles and many other places around the world playing with many famous musicians and bands. Like I said, Steve was very accomplished. I hadn’t seen Steve in many years but I looked him up and we got together for a few more times. It was at that time that Steve told me Don Raffell was very ill so I told Steve that we should drive down to Los Angeles and see Don before he passed away. I called Don on the phone and was able to speak with him. Steve and I drove down but by the time we arrived in Los Angeles Don was too ill to see anyone and passed away soon after that. Still, I was glad I was able to at least speak with him on the phone one more time.

Steve had started a big band with Roger Ingram, a well known trumpet player some years ago before I ran into Steve again and was wondering if there might have been some videos of them on the net and was looking for one. I have a recording of their band and though it is a recording made on one of those crappy little micro cassettes you can hear it well enough to know that their band was kick-ass to say the least. But in the process of looking I learned that Steve had passed away. So, I’m feeling bummed out by this. Steve was a few years younger than me and was among the best alto players I’ve ever heard bar none. But I guess if you live long enough people start to fall away as we all must sooner or later. But it somehow it seems really unfair that Steve passed away really before his time.

Here is a brief sketch of Steve’s career taken from his obituary:

His career as a saxophonist took him around the world performing with a multitude of well-known entertainers including; Ray Charles, Mel Torme, Tony Bennett, Al Jareau, The Temptations, The Four Tops, The Spinners, Lionel Hampton, Les Brown, Harry James, Rita Moreno, Della Reese, Maureen McGovern, Shirley Jones, and Debbie Reynolds, to name some of the many. He also performed with many Los Angeles big bands, including the Steve Elliott/Roger Ingram Big Band, which he co-founded, and his own Steve Elliott Quintet.

So the only thing that seems cool right now is that Steve had a great musical career as is only fitting since Steve was such a great player. He was also a great band director. Most sax players want to play the tenor or so it seems so there is always a shortage of baritone players and I found myself playing in both the A and the B big bands in the community college where I had met Steve though now I mostly play alto. Steve took over directing the B band which soon sounded better than the A band. That was Steve’s work as director. Though I was able to say goodbye to Don Raffell, not so Steve as I hadn’t seen him for a number of years and now this. I wish I could have said goodbye to Steve as well.

Reading...

2011-10-06T15:19:00.000-07:00

Dennis Perrin gives us a paleontologist’s view of Wall Street.

Davidly gives one of my rants a new title.

John Caruso on Susan “Bomb Them ALL” Rice.

Ioz on Wall Street and much else.

Jack crow with more on the Wall Street protests.

Thanks to Davidly

2011-10-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

I’m adding a new link to my blugh roll,Diary Von Davidly. Davidly is a very astute and decent human being who did much better than I could. Thank you Davidly. Be sure to check out his website.

Song of the cosmos

2011-10-04T23:02:00.000-07:00

The Nobel Prize goes to three physicists who have proven (at least for the present) that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. They have studied the deaths of distant suns and proclaim their belief in dark energy though they know not what this may be only what it may mean. For years Alan Sandage heir apparent of the godly Hubble spent countless lonely nights not in a computer room but up in an iron cage exposed to the elements taking pictures of the heavens plotting the very curve of the cosmos in an effort to determine if the universe was open or closed. And it would seem with the latest paradigms that the universe is open and shall expand forever until it ends in a frigid grave in a lightless and frozen state of no return. There was, after all, a certain comfort in the Big Crunch where scientists posited that the universe might be reborn again in a never ending dance of expansion and contraction, sadly no more. There seems little comfort in a universe that was born, lives out its life and then dies never to confound us with its mysteries again.

This is of course the problem with science, scientists are people and therefore perceive the universe in a very human manner so it is perhaps no coincidence that they see the universe as being born like humans, live out its life like humans, and then grows old and hoary to die like a human. Humanity seems unable to escape its own humanity. Many people revere scientists as seekers of truth finding bits of the ephemeral stuff along heavenly seashores like children finding seashells and other brickabrack as they wander along a favorite beach. It was astronomers, not paleontologists who proclaimed that the great age of the dinosaurs ended with a comet or meteor streaking out of a hostile void and plunging the earth into an eternal darkness from which the great saurians could not escape. Many top paleontologists dismiss the idea since dinosaurs were well on their way out before the hammer of God struck mother earth like a celestial gong. Is it a coincidence that astronomers love the death by comet theory while paleontologists laugh? I think not, astronomers are after all human and can only perceive the world around them through the syntax of their mother tongue as we all must.

It was less than a lifetime ago that astronomers were perplexed by what they saw at the edge of the universe, bright objects that burned with more energy than the Milky Way galaxy itself, the mysterious quasars or quasi star-like objects. Today, the mystery is gone or so they tell us, to be replaced with bigger mysteries like dark energy and dark matter, forces beyond the ken of human imagination and industry. Astonomers love to perplex us with an expanding universe that has no center born of a titanic collision with another dimension that cannot be seen or felt, a cosmic rumor. Has science plunged over the precipice of sanity? Physicists speak of vibrating strings, the song of creation, and of a perfect and symmetrical truth regarding the nature of a primordial energy that splintered into electromagnetism, gravity, the weak and the strong forces that bind atoms to slavery, and now dark energy that mysterious force now driving the universe like some manic taxi cab, slave to an unavoidable destination of death.

Yet before we place these modern day alchemists on a pedestal of godhood we should at least recall if only for a moment that there are limits to human perception. Not everything is solvable. Everything that has been broken cannot be made whole again no matter how much we may yearn for this to be. Not all scientists are searchers of truth. Many physicists work for vile institutions in the so-called defense industry developing horrid weapons with which to destroy human life and wreak havoc on an already endangered environment existing on the fragile edge of destruction. Some of these futuristic weapons were tested out in Iraq where Iraqi doctors were presented with victims suffering strange maladies that were new to modern medicine, the work of scientists whose views on life were too narrow to encompass compassion for their fellow humans rather the goal was money, not some heroic achievement with which to bathe the world in its illumination.

And what of the Nobel Prize itself? The bequeathers of these prestigious if questionable awards tripped over their own two feet in their hurry to bless president Obama with a peace prize, not to mention the dark and shadowy Henry Kissinger, a mass murderer of ill repute. Today we are blighted with the presence of a madman in the Whitehouse, a vicious whore that murders for his own personal gain whose narrow views on life and humanity have been reduced to good and evil as if the entire human experience is the duality of an imbecile. And where is that peace prize now? Does it hang in Obama’s Whitehouse redoubt proudly displayed by our peace loving helot? Maybe it lives in Obama’s presidential dirty clothes box along with his dirty socks. Who knows? Who cares? Not I.

Awlaki, Dogan, and the politics of murder

2011-10-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

Awlaki is not the first American murdered by president Obama. Like Awlaki, Furkan Dogan was also murdered by president Obama. Dogan, if you recall, was the 19 year old American murdered aboard the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship that was part of the Freedom Flotilla attempting to break the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza in May of 2010.

While American politicians may fawn over Israel during elections true power comes from the end of a rifle and Israel knows it despite the theatrics of Netanyahu. After all, Israel may have hundreds of nuclear warheads, America has thousands, no contest. In September of 2008 Israel was seeking permission to fly over Iraqi airspace in order to attack Iran which Israel claimed was pursuing nuclear weapons. In the end then President Bush refused to give Israel permission to do so. Israel complied. So you can bet that before Israel sneezes they seek permission from the Whitehouse to do so.

Link

Last week, the Guardian newspaper confirmed that Israel was actively considering a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities last spring. It reported that when Israel’s then prime minister, Ehud Olmert, raised this during US President George W. Bush’s visit to Israel last May, Bush vetoed it.

The Guardian’s veteran Middle East commentator, Jonathan Steele, cited senior diplomatic personnel working for a European head of government who met Olmert some time after Bush’s visit.

According to the Guardian’s sources, the talks were so sensitive that they were held in private, with no note-takers in attendance. They said that Olmert “took it [the refusal of a US green light] as where they were at the moment, and that the US position was unlikely to change as long as Bush was in office.”

Bush’s refusal to sanction an attack was apparently based on several factors. Firstly, the US was concerned that such an attack would provoke Iran to retaliate, which would probably include a wave of attacks on US military and contract personnel in Iraq, and Afghanistan and US shipping in the Gulf. Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government, installed by the US, retains close ties with and is dependent upon Tehran.

Secondly, it was unlikely that an Israeli air raid—even with dozens of aircraft—would succeed in knocking out Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are widely dispersed in fortified underground locations throughout the country.

It is obvious that Israel would have sought permission to attack the Freedom Flotilla from president Obama and it is just as obvious that Obama gave them permission thus sealing Dogan’s and eight other murder victim's fate.

For both Dogan and Awlaki the news media has downplayed the fact that both were American citizens. Dogan was referred to as a Turkish-American while Awlaki is “American-born” as if to say he was born in America but not really a citizen. Both of these people were Americans. Still, what of it? What difference does it make what nation they belonged to? Were they not both human beings? The news says all manner of things regarding Awlaki but their information comes from the Whitehouse and we know how reliable information from the Whitehouse is, completely unreliable. The true source of this “information” is the result of torture in dark places like Guantanamo where the torture victims no doubt say anything to stop the torture. We also know that most of those who ended up in Guantanamo were innocent people who likely knew nothing regarding al Qaida and the like.

Then there are the terror wars where thousands of American troops have lost their lives. Since Obama has refused to end the terror wars as promised, rather expanding them to new horizons, all those American troops who died were condemned to death by Obama, sacrificed to further Obama’s political career which he obviously believes hinges in part on his willingness to look tough. There is little doubt in my mind that the murder of Awlaki is part of this “looking tough” business that is so important to Obama. And there is little doubt that many Americans concur with this assessment of political “realities.” And where else do Obama’s faithful have to turn come election time? Liberal democrats rarely vote for republicans in any election. Liberals are good at hating and make no mistake they hate and loathe their republican counterparts in no uncertain terms.

It seems to me that people use the wrong arguments to criticize Obama over the murder of Awlaki. Critics zero in on the constitutionality as well as well as the lack of due process yet the constitution is a worn out rag that has been ignored and reviled by American presidents for well over one hundred years and the due process so near and dear to these gentle souls is responsible for an inordinate number of Blacks being imprisoned when the lion’s share of crime in the U.S. is carried out by white punks on drugs. Obama is a sadistic monster who weighs human life in terms of his re-election and the furtherance of his own power so while the murder of Awlaki is certainly spectacular like the murder of bin Laden it is neither original nor anything particularly new in America’s blood soaked history.

The only real argument for criticizing Obama’s love of murder from my perspective is that murder is wrong regardless of whatever state legitimacy it may hide behind.

Oh, Due who

2011-10-02T12:09:00.000-07:00

It’s easy to fall into the trap that Obama murdered Awlaki without due process. Fuck due process. Due process implies it’s okay to kill people as long as there is due process. No it isn’t.

Give me money and I’ll be your friend

2011-10-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

I rarely read the NYT any longer preferring to get my news elsewhere though I occasionally do read that venerable rag which I consider to be among the worst of the news outlets. I can barely read it without feeling the vomit rise in my gorge.

Though Obama didn’t invent the idea of murdering Americans he has certainly made it front page news. I find it little wonder that Americans are such ignoramuses when they are lied to constantly by their leaders and the garbage that passes for news. Still, even though Americans are assholes I don’t think that murdering them is called for. Obama disagrees. Obama has time and again shown that he actually enjoys murdering people; he certainly seems to think it is clever in some way.

This from today’s NYT regarding the murder of two Americans by Barry Huey Obama: (Sorry, but I refuse to link to the New York Times, go look for yourself if you care that much).

WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. drone strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born propagandist for Al Qaeda’s rising franchise in Yemen, was one more demonstration of what American officials describe as a cheap, safe and precise tool to eliminate enemies. It was also a sign that the decade-old American campaign against terrorism has reached a turning point.

Quite as a matter of course the NYT begins with a lie. Awlaki was not a member of al Qaida.

Der Spiegel: (Via Jason Ditz)

Link

Never an Official al-Qaida Member

Ironically enough, despite all his efforts in support of al-Qaida, al-Awlaki had never become a formal member of the terrorist organization or its branch in Yemen. Indeed, it's unclear whether he ever swore the "bai'a," the oath of allegiance necessary to become a member. The first time he showed up in an official AQAP video was in May 2010 -- and that was only as a kind of interview guest.

Maybe the people working for the NYT ought to read the news more often, no? The NYT goes on to regale us with its extraordinary perception that so-called terror wars have become unpopular at home, cost too much, are unpredictable, so now the Spineless One is now embracing these drone strikes in a decisive way. LOL, Obama, decisive? The only thing Obama is decisive about is his whoreishness. Give me money and I’ll be your friend should have been Obama’s campaign motto.

The rest of the article is so much swill and I have better things to do than spend any more time on this nonsense. I will finish by saying that the NYT calling Alwaki a propagandist is certainly one of those great moments in American hypocrisy since the NYT prints very little except propaganda. Just recall how they hooted and hollered to get us into every war in recent history including Iraq, Afghanistan, and numerous others.

I thank you.

I’m an expert, just ask me and I’ll tell you so

2011-09-30T10:58:00.000-07:00

The fantasy has always been, “our leaders know what they are doing and have a plan because they know things we don’t know.”

I’m always suspicious of people who claim to be experts, “I’m an expert, just ask me and I’ll tell you so.”

Regarding Libya, we can see how experts are often led far astray but most of all how Obama entered us into that stew of racism and violence without any thoughts of the ramifications or possible results – other than what it might do for his sagging poll numbers which is to say his re-election.

The Libyan so-called rebels who are incapable of anything without big brother NATO (read U.S.) other than retreating into the sunset while shooting their rifles into the air while shouting” Grape Nuts is Great” and terrorizing the residents of Libya, looting, murdering black Africans, and likely stuffing their pockets with money, are far from creating order from the chaos they instigated. There are reports of rebel ties to al Qaida. Of course, today, al Qaida is a catch all phrase, almost meaningless but remains the utility knife of liars like Obama to justify everything from murdering Americans to invading foreign lands that have never done anything against the sacred homeland of Amerifreaks home of the knave.

While Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq have a certain geopolitical importance to controlling the flow of oil from the Mideast in Washington’s desire to deprive China and Russia of the black ichor it would seem Libya though an oil producing nation seems almost like an afterthought.

Most of our wars in the Mideast have been carried out with the idea of encircling the Caspian Basin, home to vast amounts of oil and natural gas which became of great interest after the fall of communist Russia, and indeed America has been fervently pursuing the creation of a military vice around that area with the establishment of military bases in that area ever since. But our involvement in Libya has never made any sense other than a prop for Obama’s grandstanding as a rather moronic president who couldn’t find his own ass with a mirror.

People have written, “well he fooled you into voting for him so he must be smart” yet when people are looking to be fooled, determined to be fooled, adamantine about being fooled, it doesn’t take much to fool them, and in my opinion Obama isn’t much. Obama has no magnetism, he acts and talks like an idiot, his speeches consist of three word sentences and clumps of overused and tired clichés delivered in what seems to be a hilarious parody of Bush Jr., he even seems to emulate Bush’s phony Texas accent. The guy is dipped in green shit as far as I can tell. Still, there was no lack of people who enthusiastically waxed orgasmic over Obama’s “uplifting” speeches. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. The proof is in the pie, dearies, and Obama’s involvement in Libya stands as a monument to Obama’s idiocy.

Bully boy

2011-09-29T15:45:00.000-07:00

This article regarding the suicide of an 11 year old after he was attacked by a 12 year old for his cell phone suggests that being a bully is somehow not part of our culture. The truth is all westerners are bullies. It is how we are raised to act and interact with others. Our entire culture is one where we have taken what we wanted with violence from the earliest times. One only needs to consider what we did to the Native Americans to realize that acting like assholes is second nature to everyone who was raised in any western culture. Obama is the perfect example of this as he threatens and commits acts of violence the world over.

Chord Transitions

2011-09-29T15:29:00.000-07:00

Before I write about chord substitutions I want to cover some information regarding how to deal with chords as an improviser. I’m taking this from my
other website and though it repeats some of what I discussed earlier regarding chord tones this will be a bit more specific and should be read before I discuss substitutes for reasons that will become clear when I discuss them. I’m not sure why I’m doing this, but if anyone finds this useful email me at altosax40@netscape.net and I will continue to write about the topic of improvising Jazz.

Chord tones are the most important notes in improvisation. Chord tones define the tonal center of your melodic lines. The best and most straightforward manner to play with logic is to place your chord tones on the downbeat and non chord tones on the upbeat. This leads us to the problem of changing keys or making the transition from one chord to the next chord as you play over a chord progression of a tune. What you are aiming for is to make the transition as smooth as possible. In order to do this make the transition using a chord tone from one chord to a chord tone of the next chord with a half step or a whole step. In this lesson I will give you an exercise that will help you to develop this skill. It goes without saying that you need to know your chords by heart. The types of chords you will need to memorize are:

Major chords (Triads, Major 6, Major7)

minor chords (Triads, minor 6, minor 7)

minor +7 chords

dominant 7 chords

dominant 7+5 chords

dominant 7b5 chords

half diminished chords

diminished chords

I will be discussing scales later but for now you should be able to play these chords over the entire range of your instrument without struggling for the notes.

To get you started with using chord tones if you look below at figure 2 you will see an example of an exercise. Notice the repeating rhythmic figure of 6 eighth notes ending with a quarter note. The idea here is to become familiar with chord tones as well as crossing from one chord to the next with either a half or a whole step using chord tones.

Begin by writing a solo over a chord progression, you may want to use the same tune you chose to work on your swing feel in Lesson 2, using the same rhythmic pattern shown in figure 2. On Major and minor chords use only the first, third, and fifth chord tones but on dominant 7 chords you can also use the lowered seventh as that is an important chord tone for dominant 7 chords, Hint; the seventh wants to resolve down. Write it in a manner that you think will sound musical and then play it to see if it sounds as you expected which will help you develop your ear. Change any part that you do not like. Now since you are using only chord tones it is not going to sound like a masterpiece but this is just an exercise to get you accustomed to chord tones and changing keys. After you have done that practice improvising over the chord progression in the same manner, you may wish to break the tune up into smaller pieces but eventually you need to get to the point where you can do this over the entire tune. The next step is do the same thing but this time using only eighth notes. This is a lot like lifting weights but if you have the patience for it the benefits will be great.

More mendacity from Obama

2011-09-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

Despite that a majority of Americans wanted a single payer plan for health care in order to reduce the cost of health insurance Obama unloaded his mandatory enrollment in health care insurance on an unsuspecting public. That is to say Obama required everyone to purchase expensive health care insurance regardless of whether they could afford it or not. This is by now a classic Obummer, typical of his majesty where his words and actions contradict each other in no uncertain terms. The whole problem has been many people are no longer able to pay the high cost of medical insurance especially when you consider we have an actual 22 percent unemployment rate.

Link

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to back the centerpiece of Barack Obama's sweeping healthcare overhaul -- the requirement that all Americans have health insurance.

The appeal was largely expected as a high court ruling against the law could be a fatal blow to the president's signature domestic policy achievement and could have major implications for his re-election bid.

The same day the administration filed its appeal, 26 states and a major business group urged the justices to strike down the entire law, which would have a far-reaching impact on future healthcare coverage for Americans and company costs.

The case is likely to be heard and decided in the Supreme Court's upcoming term that begins next week and lasts through June 2012. A ruling is likely in the midst of the campaign for the November 2012 elections.

Yes, Obama’s “signature” domestic policy achievement indeed, and it’s quite an achievement for the medical insurance industry to have mandatory health care enrollment and for the lobbyists that likely wrote the legislation. But Obama is adamant for not doubt he lusts after the campaign funds provided by said insurance companies. Like I have said, Obama is for Obama. All of this on top of a nine percent increase in health care insurance.

Link

Employers’ spending on health coverage for workers spiked abruptly this year, with the average cost of a family plan rising by 9 percent, triple the growth seen in 2010. Family plan premiums hit $15,073 on average, while coverage for single employees grew 8 percent to $5,429, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. (KHN is an editorially-independent program of the foundation.)

Workers paid an average of $921 toward the premium of single coverage and $4,129 for family plans.

The results mark a sharp departure from 2010, when the same survey found average family premiums up only 3 percent.

Although many benefit analysts say the federal health law’s requirements played only a small part in the rise, the results could provide political fodder for both supporters and opponents of the law.

“It’s problematic,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, because the No. 1 concern cited about the health law is a fear that it will increase costs. Still, Lake notes that many Americans don’t know much about the law, so the news of rising premiums “could also fuel support for provisions in the law that require insurance premiums of 10 percent or more to be reviewed.”

Premium increases have played a starring role throughout the debate over the health care law.

Or as a famous president once said, “ask not what your lobbyists can do for you, but what you can do for your lobbyists.”

With high unemployment we are in fact not in a recession we are in a depression comparable to the Great Depression and Obama seems hell bent on making our lives far more miserable than is needed. Yes we can.

Playing Jazz outside the key

2011-09-28T16:01:00.000-07:00

To add interest to their solos Jazz musicians will employ devices to play outside of a given key. As you know for an improviser the key signature is disregarded since almost all Jazz tunes as well as “standards” modulate to different keys making the key signature given at the beginning of the tune beside the point. In other words if you play in the key given you will not be harmonically correct except in the places where the tune is within the key signature. Having said that Jazz musicians typically will add some notes outside the given chords.

The simplest way Jazz musicians employ non key tones is the use of chromatics. Typically half steps are added between the 7th and the root, between the root and the ninth (which is actually the second as there are only eight notes in a scale) and between the fifth and the sixth. These notes outside the key should be thought of as leading tones that are tones that lead to chord tones which typically sound at rest. In other words you don’t sit on a non-key tone for a long duration rather you use it to lead to a more consonant chord tone.

This brings us to a device called the surround. The term surround refers to the use of two notes to surround and lead to a chord tone. Let’s say you are surrounding a chord tone on an Ab chord. The way to do this is you play the scale tone that is a step above the chord tone you intend to surround that is inside the key of Ab. Then you play a note that is one half step below the chord tone you are surrounding which leads to the chord tone regardless of whether or not the half step is in the key of the chord or not. For example to surround the root of Ab you would play Bb then G then Ab. To surround the third of Ab (C) you would play Db, followed by B leading to C. As you will note, B is outside of the Ab chord key. Surrounding the fifth of Ab (Eb) you would play F then D followed by Eb. You will note that the note D isn’t in the key of Ab. You may also reverse the order of the first two notes by playing the note one half step from the chord tone you are surrounding first followed by the note that is a step above the chord tone (and within the key of the chord) and finally playing the surrounded tone. In the case of the last example you would play D, then F, then the chord tone Eb.

A variation of the above is the “half surround” where you merely play a note one half step below the chord tone and then the chord tone itself. For example to half surround the third of Ab Major you would merely play the note B, and then the chord tone C (the third).

Surrounds not only sound good but allow you to play momentarily outside a given key and they are also quite useful for changing direction. Next time I will discuss chord substitutes, another device to play outside of the key of a given chord.

A written example of surrounds:

Obama is for Obama

2011-09-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

Barry Huey Obama is without a doubt one of the most belligerent and dedicated of warmongers ever to achieve power in the Whitehouse. This should come as no surprise as historically speaking Democratic presidents have entered us into the most destructive wars in history. FDR the poster boy for liberals entered us into WWII while Kennedy entered us into the Vietnam War escalated by LBJ which ended in humiliation for the United States from which the U.S. has never recovered. President Truman, another Democratic president proved he too was an avid mass murderer when he nuked Japan, which many historians now deem to have been needless.

Not only has Obama refused to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan he has also ramped up the wars on Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, not to mention involving the U.S. in an utterly pointless civil war in Libya. He has and is trading war for any kind of economic recovery in the United States in order to have a second term as president. He is provoking the entire Arab world with his threat to veto a Palestinian bid for statehood. Has there ever been anyone so mendacious in recent history? Obama makes me wish for the Bush years which now seem like the good old days of yore, those Halcyon Days.

Obama also seems intent on turning our raids on Pakistan soil into a full blown war, and Pakistan as you know does possess nuclear warheads. Even John McCain was aghast at Obama’s crowing for war with Pakistan during the last election. Congress is if anything worse than Obama and that includes most of the congressional Democrats who helped give Bush Junior the green light to attack Iraq which has helped land us where we are today.

The result of this is some 20,000 heat seeking missiles have disappeared in Libya, and Iran is now announcing it will place ships of war off the U.S. coast along the American eastern seaboard. Frankly, if I were the Iranians I would not do this, it is a very stupid move and is just the kind of thing Obama has been hoping for, to enrage the Iranians into a foolish move that he could use to begin a war with Iran. Something even the Bush administration balked at carrying out despite constant pressure from Israel. Where Bush refused to let Israel send war planes over Iraq air space to attack Iran Obama the Peace Laureate liberal is selling Israel bunker buster bombs which Israel no doubt would like to use against Iran.

People say republican candidates are crazy yet it seems to me that Obama is the biggest lunatic of them all. The motivations behind Obama’s war mongery can be held up as proof as to just exactly what Obama is. Obama possesses at best an average mediocre intelligence and everything he does, every policy is aimed at furthering Obama’s political career with no regard at all for his constituents, the few diehards that still support him. Americans surely overestimated Obama’s motives and abilities when they elected him. Obama is for Obama and is nothing more than one more inept hack of a politician who cannot see beyond his own nose. Everything Obama does is for Obama.

Chord tones are where it’s at

2011-09-26T18:50:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you are a young musician, maybe playing in the local community college big band or high school big band, or maybe you are taking an improv class. Perhaps you have wondered as you listen to your class mates improvising why it doesn’t really sound like the Jazz you hear coming from accomplished and famous players. It is due to much more than just inexperience.

Most Jazz educators will base their teaching on what they like to call scale/chords. That is to say, you are presented with a choice of scales that go with a particular chord. There is nothing wrong with this as far as it goes but the end result of this is a lot of mediocre music. The problem with this approach is it gives you enough knowledge to become extremely dangerous to your listeners, as in boring them to death.

Here’s the deal, chord tones are where it’s at. No, I’m not saying you should only play chord tones though that is how Dixieland Jazz is played. Actually the most melodic lines result from scales but you need to know how to handle the notes in order to make it interesting and logical. The best way to improvise and sound logical is to give chord tones importance. This is done by playing chord tones on the downbeat and non-chord tones (or think of them as leading tones) on the upbeat. It’s not as hard as it first sounds. For example if you start on the fifth and go down to the root in eighth notes you will automatically be playing chord tones on the down beat. Not that much of brain attack as you know that chords are made up of thirds.

Also what Jazz players typically do when crossing from one chord to the next is to cross the bar line with a chord tone that is one half step or one whole step away from a chord tone in the next bar. For example say you are going from a D7 chord to a G Major chord. You could play an F# (third of D7) on the upbeat of the fourth beat of D7 and then follow by playing the note G on the down beat of the next bar of G Major. By the way, this is typical of what bass players do but this will always sound good, because it sounds logical. It’s a place to begin and at least it will give you some direction in developing musical ideas.

Get your goat

2011-09-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Versen has an excellent post regarding the alleged peace process between Israel and Palestine.

Link

While many people claim that recognition of Palestine as a state will not help the Palestinians not everyone agrees with this analysis. For example read Philip Giraldi’s column on the issue, here is a snippet:

Link

First of all, since it will certainly pass with a huge majority in the General Assembly if the Palestinians opt to go that route, it will provide overwhelming international confirmation of Palestinian rights with the U.S. and Israel standing on the wrong side on the issue. It will also severely undermine Israel’s moral position, such as it is, and emphasize the illegality of the Israeli occupation of parts of the West Bank. The process is already illegal in the eyes of the rest of the world, including the United States, but it will be even less tenable if a convincing majority of the world’s countries recognize Palestine as a state with defined borders and a national identity.

Second, recognition of statehood carries with it recognition that the state exists within defined space, in this case the 1967 borders. This has enormous significance because those borders include many areas being colonized by the Israelis, as well as East Jerusalem. It means that any Israeli settlement that is on the other side of that border is considered completely illegal and that Israel is therefore a rogue state that is occupying and settling lands belonging to a neighboring state 44 years after the cessation of hostilities. Even the New York Times in an article on Sept. 10 regarding the recent unrest in Egypt, noting that Islamic groups were not involved, conceded that criticism of Israel has a basis in the widespread popular perception that “Muslims, Arabs, and indeed many around the globe believe Israel is unjustly occupying Palestinian territories, and they are furious at Israel for it.” The rejection of Palestinian statehood and the debate surrounding it will only heighten that sentiment.

It seems to me the bottom line is that after years and years of phony peace talks that have left the Palestinians in the Twilight Zone and suffering under inhumane conditions rendered by Israel and her partner in crime, the United States, the Palestinians are left with little choice on the matter and so are seeking recognition as a state.

Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist and one of my favorite writers weighs in:

Link

Abbas has placed the quest for Palestinian freedom squarely on the international table. For more than a week, Palestine has been the center of international attention. Scores of international statesmen and -women, including the leader of the world’s only superpower, have been busy with Palestine.

For a national movement, that is of the utmost importance. Cynics may ask: “So what did they gain from it?” But cynics are fools. A liberation movement gains from the very fact that the world pays attention, that the media grapple with the problem, that people of conscience all over the world are aroused. It strengthens morale at home and brings the struggle a step nearer its goal.

Oppression shuns the limelight. Occupation, settlements, ethnic cleansing thrive in the shadows. It is the oppressed who need the light of day. Abbas’ move provided it, at least for the time being.

A typically brilliant piece by Avnery, and one that should be read in full. The whole fantasy surrounding Israel nurtured and fertilized by rags like the NYT has been this:

Poor little Israel is surrounded by implacable enemies! Not only that, but they are brown people, crazy brown people that hate us for our freedom. What is missing is that Israel has the most powerful army in the region and possesses an estimated 300 nuclear weapons while the Palestinians have rocks and sticks to defend themselves from Israel’s military onslaughts.

The bottom line is that Israel wants to rid itself of Palestinians and if the Palestinian bid for statehood is not an important step then why is Israel resisting it so mightily? And if you are still wondering why 9/11 occurred you need look no further than the United States' undying and unreasonable support of Israel which certainly is one reason they hate us. Other reasons are or should be obvious.

America, the land of big blubbering babies

2011-09-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Whatever you think of Ahmadinejad he sure nailed the U.S. and Europe at the UN and apparently the truth hurt so much that the American “diplomats” picked up their ball and took it home with them followed by their little cadre of ass kissers in Europe, the so called international community which is nothing but a gang of thugs and murdering pirates. Of course diplomacy is nothing but the threat of violence so diplomats are usually vile creatures, usually rich friends of other rich friends who were appointed so that they could get even richer off of our taxes but check this out.

Link

(UNITED NATIONS) — American diplomats led a walkout at the U.N. General Assembly Thursday as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a sweeping attack on the United States and major West European nations, calling them "arrogant powers" ruled by greed and eager for military adventurism.

The two U.S. diplomats, who specialize in the Middle East, were followed out of the chamber by diplomats from more than 30 countries. They included the 27 European Union members, Australia, New Zealand, Somalia, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Macedonia, a U.N. diplomat said.

Ahmadinejad's speech contrasted what he called the poverty and unhappiness in most countries against the riches and power of the U.S. and unnamed European nations that he accused of perpetuating wars, causing the current global economic crisis and infringing on "the rights and sovereignty of nations."

He attacked the United States and European colonial powers for abducting tens of millions of Africans and making them slaves, for their readiness "to drop thousands of bombs on other countries," and for dominating the U.N. Security Council He singled out the U.S. for using a nuclear bomb against Japan in World War II and imposing and supporting military dictatorships and totalitarian regimes in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"It is as lucid as daylight that the same slave masters and colonial powers that once instigated the two world wars have caused widespread misery and disorder with far-reaching effects across the globe since then," Ahmadinejad said. "Do these arrogant powers really have the competence and ability to run or govern the world?"

Ahmadinejad seems to have a better grasp of American history than most Americans though that is not very surprising. Every word is true. The early American economy was slave based, Truman the murdering sack of garbage dropped two atomic bombs on Japan murdering tens of thousands in one great flash of light. Truman was a monster by any other name. It matters little why Truman dropped them, the fact is he deliberately targeted civilians and though you can argue about the reason the fact remains he did it. Of course many Americans have trouble with facts, they wouldn’t know one if it fell in their lap.

I enjoyed the last statement in the above quote because it is obvious that our leaders cannot even competently run their own government much less the entire world. Just look at us, no jobs, no health care, no money, the miserly and inadequate safety nets or as most assholes like to say, what’s the word, oh yeah, entitlements. Entitlements. What a fucking word. It matters little that it all comes out of American pockets and is paid for by the people who use them they are still entitlements. Need I point out that the only people who seem to be entitled are the super rich who keep stealing our money which they believe is their own just reward for being whatever it is they think they are?

Ah well, nothing will come of it but it was enjoyable for a brief moment.

Libya-erated

2011-09-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

Taking time out from lynching blacks, looting stores, shooting into the air, retreating, and retreating once again, the Libyan “rebels” seem to be getting ahead of themselves even while running backwards from Gadaffy’s faithful.

Link

Since taking Tripoli last month, National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters have tried several times to storm Bani Walid, 150 km (90 miles) southeast of the capital, only to retreat under heavy fire and in disorder.

NTC fighters said they had planned for tanks and pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers to lead Sunday's attack, but foot soldiers had piled in first.

"There is a lack of organization so far. Infantry men are running in all directions," said Zakaria Tuham, a senior fighter with a Tripoli-based unit.

"Our commanders had been told that heavy artillery units had already gone ahead, but when we advanced into Bani Walid they were nowhere to be seen.

"Gaddafi forces were hitting us heavily with rockets and mortars, so we have pulled out."

A Reuters reporter saw fighters withdraw around two km (more than a mile) after they had stormed into the town.

NATO planes circled above the town later on Sunday and loud explosions were heard from the center, though it was not clear whether the planes had attacked.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters from Bani Walid blamed comrades from elsewhere in Libya for being unwilling to coordinate. Those from elsewhere accused some local fighters of being traitors and passing information to Gaddafi loyalists.

"Commanders who are from the Warfalla tribe, they tell us one thing and then commanders from the other cities say something else. We do not understand anything," said pro-NTC fighter Mohamed Saleh.

Some fighters openly disobeyed orders. In one incident, an officer from Bani Walid was heckled by troops from Tripoli after he tried to order them to stop randomly shooting in the air as they celebrated seizing a mortar from Gaddafi forces.

Libyan rebels storming Bani Walid from News at 11:

"The situation is very dangerous. There are so many snipers and all the types of weapons you can imagine," said fighter Mohamed Abdullah as rockets whooshed through the air and black smoke rose above the city.

Apparently this is the Libya rebels “mission accomplished” moment. Well, no doubt NATO will eventually win the war for them but again, if the intent was to protect civilians then NATO defeated itself. There is no way to know how many people have died as a result of Obama’s commitment to prolonging the bombing of civilians but is there any doubt that Obama has caused the war to continue well past the time it surely would have ended if the U.S. had not interfered? I mean, the intent was to protect civilians, right? But the big swinging dicks of the U.S. and NATO have turned this into a machismo contest, “Que es muy macho?” NATO or Gaddafy? So now more civilians will die as a result of prolonging the conflict.

When asked about the situation in Libya, Obama said, “[T]he pumpkin is a popular western berry often used in the baking of pies, also thousands of turnips are ruined every harvest because people pluck them from the tree when it is much better to shake them down.”

The New York Times faithfully repeated what Obama said without any further questions as to how this related to Libya.

Thrill kill

2011-09-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

Racism seems to be an indelible part of the wars we see such as the war against Palestinians that is being waged by Israel backed by the American leadership. Or consider the whole concept of the American war on terrorism, it is rooted in racism. It is our racism that makes us so contemptuous and dismissive of the darkies, the Arabs. Racism makes it easier to slaughter them as we continue to do. The whole religious aspect of this conflict which will go down in history as invasion (well, maybe) is overblown. What the so-called terrorists want is for America to leave their lands. What Israel wants is for the Palestinians to be not only stateless but gone though that hardly seems a realistic goal considering the demographics of Israel. What America wants is anybody’s guess. Well, not really, it’s the oil for Americans as well as political concerns that are entirely domestic in nature.

Of course there is one other aspect. Our leaders like to kill. They enjoy it immensely whatever else they may say regarding this unsavory topic, so ugly, so distasteful. If you recall the glee of the soldiers in the video of the American helicopter slaughtering civilians in a square in Iraq one must consider that the whole murderous attitude emanates from the very top. Just consider the disgusting assassination of bin Laden, so brutal, ordered by such a smiley president. Obama likes to kill people, he murdered small children in the very first week of his office through a drone attack ordered by his own royalness Obamaness self to establish his resolve to use military force. But it isn’t just Obama because they all enjoy it, especially Hillary.

Conditioning the troops through the tool of dehumanizing the enemy is an old story. In Vietnam the Vietnamese were referred to as gooks, slope heads, and other charming names. Americans have long been used to referring to Arabs as wrap-heads, towel-heads, or sand niggers. Very charming. It’s that thread of racism that runs throughout our wars. We have also seen the worst kind of racism in Libya, a nation already well known for its racist attitude toward blacks.

Racism may not be the igniter of our current wars, and it may not even be a driving force behind them but it sure greases the wheels of progress. Racism makes it easier for Americans to feel superior to Arab nations, it reinforces the inane idea that Americans should “help” other nations to govern their own affairs; it highlights our exceptionalism, and our exceptionalism helps lead to war by making that terrible path somehow more palatable to tender western sensibilities by admiring our own lofty nobleness. And after yesterday’s astounding display of putrid and revolting self pity we can see just how tender Americans are – when it comes to themselves at any rate.

It’s entirely credible

2011-09-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

That’s right, stand firm boys, there is a credible terrorist threat. Obama says “boo” and the boys in blue are strutting their stuff. Plenty of photo ops in front of a flag, gun raised in phallic salute, America at war. 9/11 changed the way we put our pants on forever! Never forget.

The message is clear; Obama sees that Americans want to be protected from two men with a firecracker. Sending out the cops in battle regalia is to reinforce the idea of government caring for the minions, millions of minions, and a few onions. See? It’s all worthwhile, really and truly. All that money spent, all that destruction, all those lives lost just to protect you and me. We are in good hands. I want to feel safe, and Obama is just the father figure to make us safe. Safe from everything, terrorists, sour milk, and herpes too.

Wait, I just got an email from Obama. He says that I should be a better father and should play ball more often with junior. It’s the responsible thing to do. See? Isn’t Obama the greatest? He cares about you and me. He really cares a whole lot. A bunch. Mucho.

This just in, ninety foot pterodactyls are attacking the Brooklyn Bridge. Also, mars may someday move out of its orbit and crash into our planet destroying all dinosaurs unless they leave on a comet. This is entirely credible. By the way your hair is on fire, be sure to vote for Obama in November. Thank God he is here so the bad republicans who don’t want to protect us can’t be bad people any longer. They should have heeded Obama. They need to trust their president more. It’s their whole problem.

I trust Obama because he is so smart. Liberals are really smart. And progressives too, sometimes. I trust Obama to make smarter stuff ‘cause he knows all this stuff we don’t know. He’s kinda like Jesus. That’s why Obama sometimes looks like a crazy guy, it’s because he knows stuff we don’t know. He’s got the FBI and the CIA and several other letters to boot, pretty near the whole alphabet. They tell him things in the cone of silence so we can’t hear and ruin it for them. The letter people get their information from the news media mostly. Sometimes they can read.

The thing is, see, we are too stupid to know stuff like Obama knows stuff. His stuff is ever so much better than our crappy stuff. I mean, I got no secrets like Obama does. Most people don’t. That’s because Obama is so smart, they don’t let dumb people be president. Not ever. We don’t need to worry about that, they’ll take care of everything for us.

I thank you.

Christ on the lam

2011-09-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

Once manufacturing was outsourced it made job creation extremely difficult, at least for creating the same kind of well paying jobs that was typical of manufacturing firms prior to outsourcing. Even then things weren’t always rosy. Jobs began to dry up on the North Eastern seaboard in the late fifties but California was calling. Companies like Lockheed were so in need of workers that they were head hunting qualified workers in the east, paying for moving them, and locating housing rentals for them to make the move easier. Later Silicon Valley boomed, a second California gold rush only to go bust after Bill Clinton signed the NAFTA into being. However the main difference was that prior to outsourcing certain areas might lose their manufacturing for whatever reasons but there would usually be jobs elsewhere if you were willing to move and move people did. Today, this doesn’t seem to be the case, the bad economy is everywhere from the eastern sea boards to the west, and much of rest of the world as well. So the question is, just how realistic is Obama’s belated interest in Americans and the need for more and better employment? Now that we are endowed with this new free-wheeling “global economy”, whatever the fuck that is, you just can’t turn the clock back and say, hey presto change-o, it’s 1965 again!

One problem is can America even manufacture any longer? Manufacturing is dependent on having experienced engineers who know what they are doing in order for companies to make a profit. Where are these engineers now? By now they are all aging and likely have turned to other means of earning a living or just gave up the ghost and retired. If you have to import engineers from Taiwan you are not addressing the problem of employing domestic engineers and sundry. Still, that could be overcome but it is difficult to see how you could bring manufacturing back. I think it would take a good deal of time and effort, much more than the fast talking Obama can fit in between now and elections. The most likely scenario is Obama will have his statisticians play with the numbers but as someone once said; statistics are like the lamppost that holds up a drunk. Maybe Obama has a drinking problem. It seems to me that it is unlikely that our Obama, or any other politico, is actually interested in the job situation, at least not beyond the point of fiddling with numbers and a lot of BS.

This is how fucked up our government is. They could care less about the masses. For ten years it has been pedal to the metal with one dumb-ass war after another, I ran out fingers counting them! And in all that time they haven’t done a damn thing for Americans other than a typically-written-by-lobbyists so-called health care reform legislation that somehow ended up as more profit for the insurance companies. Small wonder since the insurance companies wrote the legislation themselves. Why bother with government, just turn everything over to the lobbies. And recall that when President Christ ascended to that mighty office he also had a majority in congress and they still did nothing. Not a thing, nada, zip, zero, not one bloody thing besides give more of your money to the banksters on Wall Street and add a new war once every hour. Will President Christ rise from the dead? Who gives a fuck?

The empire stumbles on

2011-09-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

When is war not a war?

When it is being waged by the U.S, that's when.

The news media has been waging a simultaneous war to those ongoing sponsored by, and delivered by, the American death machine. The wars in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, among others, is according to the so-called MSM (main-stream media) not really war. They have consistently not reported deaths so that people are left with the impression that in places like Libya the gentle administrations of NATO bombs aren’t hurting the populace of Tripoli and other targets of our love.

Our leaders regale with endless and passionate tales of humanitarian aid, and the news media dutifully repeats what they are told. No thought is even given to what happened yesterday, yesterday is erased, and history is muffled transforming blowing people to bits into a non-war humanitarian intervention. With our left hand we deal out death and with our right we scold China over humanitarian issues. The empire stumbles on like a senile imbecile.

Back here in the States one sees such sights as a truck with the words, “Don’t retreat, just reload”, painted on the rear bumper. Retreat from what, one wonders. Who are we fighting? Who is the enemy? Surely this never occurs to someone prone to such a mentality. Show me a patriot and I’ll show you a lunatic.

Rapidly now, Libya seems to be taking on a remarkable resemblance to that monument of American know-how and ingenuity, Iraq. A lack of water, power, and other infrastructure, a decapitated government, there are different factions within the so-called rebels who are already at each other’s throats and it’s anyone’s guess as to how this could possibly end up in a positive light despite the narcissistic self-congratulation of the faithful over Gaddafy’s flight, Obama’s great and wondrous victory which surely will be better than George W. Bush’s triumphant if ill-advised “Mission Accomplished” moment. What is plain is that the entire adventure is a disaster from any angle. Fifty to sixty thousand are now reportedly dead and thirty thousand bombs have taken their toll on the infrastructure as well. Some success. We have not seen the last of violence in Libya by a long shot if Iraq is any example.

One can view the parade of wars as monuments to their presidential origins. Iraq shall be a monument to George W. Bush where over one million died and four million fled for many years to come. Libya will be Obama’s monument as was his now dubious claim to fighting only smart wars, this is one Obama can wear around his neck like a dead chicken, and there it will stay to rot. How smart Obama was to instigate a civil war in Libya remains to be seen despite the crowing of liberal blogs. The carnage has been horrific if the number of deaths being reported are anywhere near the mark. The power vacuum left by Gaddafy cannot be repopulated quickly, especially by a band of bickering and money hungry thugs that make up the rebel alliance (Feel the force, Luke).

Speaking of monuments, fifty gazillion light years from now Americans will still be stigmatized by 9/11. Truly one wonders when Americans will stop blubbering over 9/11. If you want to blubber over something blubber over the poor nation of Iraq which we kindly dismantled for them at a new reduced rate along with a swell rebate. All they have to do is mail in the coupon with their confirmed email address, and two fingers. This narcissism is something to behold. Here we are pulverizing several nations concurrently which predictably results in large numbers of civilian death, and keep in mind this has been going on year after year while the 9/11 event was less than one day in length, yet we ignore the astounding damage we do round the world so that we may focus on our own self-pity for something that we are entirely to blame for in the first place, not to put too fine a point on it. In the end as horrible as three thousand deaths may be, it was nothing compared to the evil it enabled and the carnage that followed. Today Americans have their own dead chicken to wear around their neck in the form of the myriad new restrictions on our rights (which apparently can be eliminated without fuss) and the deteriorating job situation which a government paralyzed by and obsessed with war is now unable to address or at least chooses not to. Maybe if someone declared it was a war on joblessness then the government could spring into action. The obvious answer is to execute the unemployed, another intricate and delicate job for a few good men.

The very fact that Americans often come up with slogans that all begin with “[T]he war on…”, you fill in the blanks – the war on drugs, or the war on poverty, or the war on cancer, illustrates how Americans always see everything as a war because war is the only thing that defines us any longer. America isn’t a homogeneous melting pot of fable, it’s a fractured society where Mexicans, Blacks, Orientals, Whites, etc. all still tend to live in their respective neighborhoods, the quality of life indelibly tied to the amount of money one has accumulated and the color of your skin which seems to me to be a much larger problem than 9/11 because it means that nothing will change. A grass roots movement would have to contain many disparate groups because of our fractured nature. The enemy is the excessive power wielded by the federal government but they have done an excellent job of nurturing deep divisions in people who have more in common than they ever dreamt for the most part. And thus I conclude, as always, that the government is not, has not, and will not be our friend and savior. It would seem that the only thing left us is to watch the empire stumble and then crumble, then wait to see what emerges from the wreckage of broken and wasted lives. There have been no major attacks in the ten long years since 9/11, and though some would argue other reasons Occam’s razor says that there really was no great terrorist threat other than that radiating from the Whitehouse and our own infantile minds. I submit that exploding penises on airplanes are no grave threat, nor is an exploding fire cracker in Times Square.

The American reaction to 9/11 has been appalling from the beginning. We insulted and we blustered and then we went on a rampage like a child of the terrible twos, lying on its stomach, little arms flailing, legs kicking, all accompanied by loud wails of grief and self pity. Americans may be exceptional even if it is not quite clear what exactly we are exceptional for.

No such thing as a good candidate

2011-09-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

So how come I don’t care for candidates like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich? The quick answer is I don’t care for the office that they would be running for. I don’t support the system so there is no way I would support anyone who wished to be part of that system no matter how right they may sound on issues. The system itself is flawed far beyond redemption. The industrial-military complex (AKA defense industry) banking behemoths, the undue influence of the right wing Israel government, and most especially the ongoing wars which you may have noticed take on a life of their own, the first perpetual motion machines, ensure that nothing will or can change. The die is cast and a huge gravity well made of money will draw us inexorably to our fate, a broken slab heap of a has-been empire much like England, France, Holland, Germany, Spain, Rome, to name just a few who trail blazed the way before us.

Things have not changed one iota since the dawn of civilization in the sun drenched lands of Mesopotamia. Leaders of nations be they kings, queens, presidents, feudal lords, have been much the same, some claim godhood, others don’t, but their actions and motives differ little. Today we hide behind our modernity based on technology and propaganda and the assumption has been “we are better”, we live now, we have this and that, we now know this. Instead of hacking with swords we murder with robotic planes. Progress marches on. So why in the face of all this history of warfare, and empire would anyone believe that voting for a candidate that wishes to willingly become a cog in the death machine would really change anything? The first clue is that they wish to participate in a monstrous conspiracy to kill commonly called government. Would they stop the wars? The answer to that is that no candidate that opposes the imperial prerogative would be allowed nomination. So if your guy or gal is nominated it is more cause for alarm than not.

This is why I disliked Obama before it became popular. I read his early speeches which were rife with the same old buzz words, cliché’s, and regurgitated phrases. Clearly, even in those early days of Obama’s career there was nothing special or exceptional about Obama as his congressional record already attested. Obama was even clear on what he would do, he told you he would attack social security, he told you he believed in the right sort of wars, he told you he would screw you every which way and from every direction. Perhaps more people should have listened to what he was saying. I still don’t know what people were listening to but it surely wasn’t common sense or Obama’s speech content.

Upon gossamer wings they come, sliding down the silvery wake of the Milky Way, epiphanies for the next lame brained defense of The Obama. Already we hear the liberal vanguard braying about Obama’s success in Libya. There is no success in Libya; there will be no success in Libya because our stated purpose was defeated the moment the bombs began to drop. People who mouth success cannot even define this success without forgetting their recent history which said that we were only protecting not enforcing regime change. So to claim that Libya is a success because Gadaffy is on the run is to not only to condone murder but is also an intentional re-writing of history. So keep your candidates, your Kucinichs and your Pauls, your Palins and Obamas if you wish. It matters little. The death machine has seen them come and go, ephemeral little monsters all clad in blue suits, they’re a dime a dozen, but the death machine is deathless.

Achieving liberaldom

2011-08-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

The gangland slaughter of people who died for the crime of being black at the bloody hands of the Libyan rebels shows that the thugs over Libya way have learned the lessons of their masters well. Slaughtered like pigs, hands tied behind their backs, the victims of the rebels are a silent tribute to the greatness of the liberal west. One can easily picture Obama on one of his numerous and lengthy vacations kicking back in an easy chair listening to his aides. “Well, things aren’t going too well since the midterm, Obama.”

Obama grunts and stares out the window into the well manicured gardens outside.

“All presidents must start their very own war if they want to make a difference,” continued another aide. “You’ve got to show voters that you aren’t afraid to use military force, they’ll eat it up, another splendid little war of your very own, man. And you don’t even have to accomplish anything, just announce mission accomplished every six months. Who’s going to prove you wrong?”

Obama wasn’t really listening, he was thinking about his golf game earlier that day and how he ought to improve his swing. But Obama agreed with his aide about the new Clintonian liberals, many of who thought that proving their arm chair bravery in the heat of a beer fest by cheering for a war led by one of their own was a strong retort for years of abuse by republicans who were more manly. Obama was tired of the conversation and was far more interested in maybe a new iron so almost as an afterthought he sighed and said, “Okay Pete, why don’t we initiate a fake revolution in Libya, that should thrill my thralls, then we can charge in and save the day, should look great in the polls.” A few seconds and a yawn later, Libya forgotten, Obama went outside to practice his swing on a little green outside his office.

A few days later the bombs began to fall and the bodies to explode. A few months later the Libyan lands were strewn with the bodies of innocent victims. Perhaps Obama will come out and make a statement for surely Obama being black he can understand the plight of poor black migrant workers whose only crime was to wake up one fine summer morning in a hornet’s nest stirred up by the CIA, Obama’s private army. Maybe Obama will say that if only their black fathers had been more responsible and didn’t disappear so often that these dead blacks would be still alive today. Liberals will cheer glossing over just hearing dear Leader’s striking resemblance to any bigoted white you may happen to know.
The point is how much do we really know? We know the government lies continually, ceaselessly, a sweet murmuring sea of lies. Sure, maybe Gaddafy is a bad man, after all, he was a national leader but with his small nation and army he was hardly a threat to the U.S. no matter how crazy Gaddafy may be. In fact a rock solid case could be made that it is the U.S. that is the gravest threat to world peace along with our Johnny-come-lately and erstwhile allies who follow like dazed cows that have just been bonked on the head only to wake up at the penultimate moment as their car crashes through the guard rail, a steep and rocky chasm beneath.

Liberals won’t be much affected by thirty or so executed, murdered, slaughtered like a pig, poor and penniless migrant blacks. What could be lower on the white totem pole than that? All that matters is that their messianic president looks like a black man. One can only surmise that if Jesus returned to this mortal coil on the day of Obama’s election the second coming of Christ would have been eclipsed. For liberals Obama is a symbol of symbols, the king of kings, no, make that emperor of kings. Liberals cling to the idea that a movement that occurred fifty years ago still defines them though the resemblance has long passed away if it was ever real to begin with. One only has to look at the remarkable broad mindedness of liberals when it comes to blood curdling battle cries issuing from the throat of one of their own to wonder if liberals are sincere about anything. The Obama’s poll numbers may be limp but come election time liberals will rally behind their symbol, Obama – the blood soaked earth ignored and tsk-tsked.

Think about this: It is now being reported that the death toll of the Libyan war is 50,000. Recall the purpose stated that we were protecting civilians. Obama is now thoroughly bloodied as men, women, and children died under the jack boot of western interference directed and prolonged by one president Barack Obama. There is little doubt in my mind that the Libyan conflagration would have ended much more quickly if Obama had not stepped in, thus many, many, lives would have been saved. But then to believe that the purpose was to save civilian lives is to believe that Saddam Hussein had WMD. What this means is it matters none at all who killed who because ultimately it is Obama’s prolongation of the war that resulted in so much death and the murders haven’t stopped yet.

Now our neo-liberal come progressives can mount a mountain of dead Libyans and cry to the heavens that they are true patriots who worship at the feet of military might so that the few survivors of their love can achieve liberaldom and be just like liberals as well. Gosh. Well, the rebels have a good start with their racism and their enjoyment of murdering and looting, they’re almost as American as apple pie.

Electoral effluvient

2011-08-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

I have often pondered how things could have worked out differently. What if WWI had never occurred? What if Truman had never dropped the atomic bombs on an already beaten Japan in WWII? Surely the latter happened only as a sequel to the former. If these things had never occurred then the destructive Cold War wouldn’t have been. I still recall a childhood joke in reference to a then well known poster that improvised the end of a long list of practical actions in case of a nuclear attack by ending with “and kiss your ass goodbye.”

Speaking of goodbyes and little household gods tis time to bid Gaddafy adieu, or is it? The bloody rebels, mere cat’s paws in a greater game, again trumpet the imminent passing of Gaddafy into the re-written history books with which to bend young minds. I suppose Gaddafy has to go some time but we have heard this ditty often enough. Three days became three months which became more months punctuated with much shooting into African skies. I must admit that watching Gaddafy defy the western powers for as long as he did was almost enjoyable. Have the knights of the west slaked their thirst for blood? Hardly, there are many more tempting targets with which to keep the profits growing. Iran remains as always the Great Hitler of our time. They supply arms to armless soldiers I’m told. Just attach at the shoulder. Could it be that the fog has lifted and we see imperialism emblazoned on our banners?

Then there are the other bigger, betterer and more seriously serious wars in Afghanilstan and Irackh. It would seem the reason we shall stay there for eons is that we now have so many MacDonald’s franchises dotting the desert plains we obviously are way too invested to leave. Sounds about right.

I’m not terribly interested in the presidential election. I’m not attracted to political parties or politics for that matter. Looking at the most heinous crimes against humanity every one of them is a result of State Violence or Pharaoh Violence, or King Violence, or Emperor of Japan violence not to mention presidential violence. It’s like deciding who gets to be public enema number one. Who could care about that? Nobody in their right mind. People always think you have to be one thing or another, I know I used to but no longer. Why do you have to be one or the other or the other others? Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Librarian, who in their right mind cares? It’s a fantasy, a show, a movie, a novel, it isn’t real. WWII brought us more than the Cold War, it also brought us or perhaps more correctly caused the ossification of the U.S. into a military police state owned by corporate America.

What a cruel world we have wrought. How evil it is to take young people who deserve better and warp their minds with drivel and then send them off to die and kill for Goldman Sachs. It’s just completely bent. It’s fucking evil. What an utter waste of humanity. And how cruel it is to bomb peasants, sheep herders, and farmers in distant lands. This is what leaders do and we should care about which sadistic monster gets to push the button? Right.

Forgetting MLK

2011-08-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

Link

"It creates a sense of completeness that Dr. King's contributions now stand at the highest levels of American history," said Mark Morial, president of the National Urban League.

The new statue of Martin Luther King Jr. strikes me as being representative of many things. First, there is the re-writing of history where long forgotten is Martin Luther King’s outspoken criticism of American imperialism which today is sure to get the attention of the FBI. Invariably people only recall his “I Have a Dream” speech but his criticism of the American death machine which in those days was chewing up Vietnam seems to have been redacted from history.

Then there is the remarkable statement quoted above. One wonders what sense of completeness Morial is referring to. Is it the fact that racism, despite the coming of The Obama, is still going strong? Is it the fact that we are embroiled in so many wars both overt and covert that we can no longer keep track of them? These are the two things King opposed the most. King knew that there could be no social progress at home when we were involved in a murderous war in Vietnam. So what exactly gives us this sense of completeness?

The United States is truly a bizarro place. We cherry pick the past in order to cherry pick the present. If King were alive today I have little doubt that the FBI and the CIA would be investigating him and watching him closely for any subversive behavior. The only ‘completeness’ I see is the total control the government now wields through its national security agencies, the courts, and various law enforcement agencies. The statue is a symbol that all we have left is symbols.

The fraudulent government

2011-08-18T18:31:00.000-07:00

The U.S. military adventurism that is so dear to the hearts of our dogged leaders seems to be based on the idea that Americans can force other people to be the way we want them to be by bumbling about like a rather large oaf tripping over its shoe laces. George Bush exemplified this idea of brute force as a viable solution to problems that never existed with his Shock and Awe policy in the early days of the Iraq War. The only people who are now in shock and awe are the American public who are now being told they must pay the piper with their retirement funds and an end to liberty.

For years the American method of operation was to install local thugs as national leaders in various nations who we felt would be “friendly” towards American interests abroad. Iran is one example of this. The so-called Arab Spring is a direct result of American support of tyrants throughout the area. The Arab Spring also shows that though you can keep people pinned down in poverty and tyranny for a while eventually it is not sustainable. This is not to say that the Middle East will recover from American influence in the near future for the American Empire is still going strong even in its declining years.

The strangely bizarre war against Libya is an example of this policy as a miserable failure that it really is. The Libyan rebels are forever “seizing” something, or advancing toward somewhere in an endless dance of the absurd. The so-called international community was overly anxious, and in their enthusiasm they mistook (or did not mistake) a handful of murdering cutthroats (the Libyan rebels) to be part of the Arab Spring when in fact they were anything but. They are just a bunch of little Gaddafys looking to be a big Gaddafy and the recipient of American wealth that accompanies pro-American puppet governments. The European concerns over controlling the African economy in their favor through control of the African banks has shown NATO to be a weak reed. If the original idea behind NATO was to protect Europe from the big bad Russians it is certainly lucky for the Europeans that the Russians never attacked them.

The republican presidential hopefuls are likely an answer to Obama’s prayers for re-election. A kookier bunch of ding-bats and insane jack-asses is difficult to imagine. Despite Obama’s awful leadership he still looks more credible to many Americans than the republicans do. But the economy is still king and by economy I mean the job market not the stock market, and the job market has only gotten worse under Obama. If Obama falls it will be because of jobs not wars though the two are tied together by which I mean that when you are a pirate nation like the U.S. all domestic concerns become subservient to the needs of maintaining empire. Personally, I support no candidate because to do so is the same as supporting a mass murderer.

The nation-state may someday become a relic of the past. The nation state seems to have outlived its usefulness or I should say supposed usefulness and it may dawn on more and more people that the nation-state should go the way of feudal kingdoms. It is being shown that governments often act in ways that are detrimental to their respective nations and indeed are not the benefactors of our fevered dreams but predatory raptors that prey upon the public while pursuing the interest of a small handful of wealthy people. In fact, it would seem that governments are now no more than a chintzy façade for the corporate kingpins that are the true powers in the world. Indeed the American army might be renamed the army of Wall Street.

Many will not consider that nations as we know them could disappear and likely think I am crazy to suggest such a thing yet we have seen various forms of governments disappear – the so-called communist Russia died an ignoble death, rule by royalty has largely gone the way of the wind and I haven’t seen too many feudal castles being built lately. What is left are the ever popular tyrants like many of those disposed in the Arab Spring like Mubarak in Egypt. It should not be neglected to say that many of the worst tyrants were in place because of American backing. Then there are those edifices of human dignity, justice, more powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet – the ever loving phony democracy, a pack of thieves and murderers by any other name nor would they smell any better if you called them roses.

Already financial institutions have taken control of western governments rendering them a joke much less a working democracy. So in essence nations have already disappeared to be replaced with corporate rule. Obama is certainly the most powerful man alive today with our gigantic military to wield as the whim strikes him but he owes is allegiance to Wall Street, the largest backer of his last campaign. His policies reflect this in no uncertain terms.

Still, this is not really what I had in mind because it is merely a shifting of power from the political spectrum and the popular vote to that of the banksters. It is in fact the reason that national governments are not benefactors of general populations any more than wolves are benefactors of sheep. But government has pretty much always been a fraud from the earliest times. Governments of modern nations have never existed to benefit anyone but a few people anyway and have now reached such heights of blatancy through the tool of war and mayhem that the ruling elite are now emboldened more than ever. Thus we see the destruction of valuable safety nets, sacrifices to the holy wars.

For now our corporate masters wish to leave us with the illusion of democracy. It is when they no longer bother to maintain this façade is when we really need to worry. That day seems to be fast approaching.

Nobody should run for president

2011-08-14T19:02:00.000-07:00

We go through life never understanding the nature of the universe that gave us birth and then we die. To be sure people can come up with their idea of what it’s all about but what if it isn’t about anything? That’s what I think, it isn’t about anything in particular so we decide what we are going to believe and likely as not it is something that makes us feel more comfy in a big unknown reality bubble that we call the universe. Or maybe more likely we pick something that makes us feel more important in an aloof and precarious existence, like blogging for instance.

I think I dislike it when people discuss death as natural, a natural part of life. It isn’t part of life after all, it’s death and death isn’t life. I suppose people have to deal with their mortality as circumstances allow. This is why the terror wars are so disgusting. It’s that horrid needless death often carried out on a mere whim, because it can be done and for no other real reason. Life is precarious enough without adding war to the mix. Disease, accident, or if nothing else old age are all plentiful enough without adding to it.

People often discuss the U.S. government as if it is a democracy which is made up of two different parties. These people are entirely wrong. There are really three parties. One party is the Pentagon and the other is Wall Street. Everyone else belongs to the loser party. Call it what you will but you lose. They win.

Here is my prediction. If Obama wins a second term it will be worse than his first term. If someone else wins they will be as bad or worse than Obama. Cheers. They win. You lose. Either way. It’s all rigged you know. Ask yourself this – when is the last time you got to pick the candidate you wished to see run for office? Somebody picks them but isn’t you or me.

Besides, the office of the president of the United States is one of the most evil positions one could hope to achieve. Presidents are almost always responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths – millions for the more avid warmongers— by the time their term(s) is (are) up. As far as I’m concerned nobody should run for president. Liberals are ecstatic over their black president, women would be thrilled with a woman president but in my opinion the only moral thing any candidate can do is not run for office.

Inequality is the nature of the universe

2011-08-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Basically the universe works because things are unequal. This inequality expands the universe and makes the stars. If everything was an equal temperature there would be no universe recognizable to us. According to science that is how the universe will end up in its old age, just one giant soup bowl of luke-warm tomato soup of disparate sub-atomic particles where nothing happens because everything is the same ambient temperature. So in other words it is inequality that makes things happen in our universe whether we like it or not.

Inequality is what causes the riots in Tottenham, England. America is a racist nation because the Europeans that invaded this land were racists. We brought our racism with us and have kept it safe and sound all these long years so should we be surprised that there are now riots in poor black neighborhoods back in merry old England?

As the high unemployment rates affect middle class whites it can only be far worse for blacks who live in western nations like the U.S. and England where racism is ingrained in the culture.

This is one of the most insidious aspects of people like Obama. Obama adds to the illusion that somehow America has become less racist than it was in the past.

Nordic nucturne

2011-08-10T02:47:00.000-07:00

This Nordic prick that shot all those people -- he really blew it. If he wanted to murder some people and be popular and admired for it rather than being reviled as he is now all he had to do was run for president. Problem solved!

Crazy is as

2011-08-10T02:12:00.000-07:00

I get a kick out of the presidential election for once with this regarding the above Newsweek picture of you know who…

Link

The controversy forced Ms Brown to issue a statement defending the magazine's choice of photograph. "Michele Bachmann's intensity is galvanising voters in Iowa right now and Newsweek's cover captures that," she wrote on her Twitter account.

Look at the picture and see if you agree. This election might be more fun than the last. Of course Shelly is insane. Anyone who wants to murder innocent people and get paid for it like Obama is clearly insane. They’re all insane.

Counter culture gone

2011-08-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

Having grown up in the fifties and sixties I would have to say that this is the most grotesque of times. The United States culture as it is today could not be more bizarre though perhaps I should not tempt fate by saying such things. Today, the American ideal is some sort of muscle bound pinhead which while looking great in movies and comic books won’t get you very far. This is a result of the fevered reinvention of the love of all things military, a reaction to my childhood days really, which was likely inevitable. If the sixties was a time of enlightenment today we surely live in the time of a military state with six wars or occupations and more just over the horizon. This is not to say that the U.S. wasn’t afflicted by the same ills as we are today it’s just that today nobody questions authority while displaying a bleakly naïve trust in government for the most part. Today, there really is no counter culture, only corporate logos.

Sometimes when I read what people thought the sixties were like I have to laugh, everyone was a hippy! Not really, there were likely very few actual hippies though there were lots of people who let their hair grow longer but hair does not make one a hippy. I suppose counter cultures are doomed to failure as much a result of their small size as generational amnesia. On the other hand a small group of people can be influential on society and there is little doubt that the counter culture of the sixties had an impact though much of it is lost today as we sink into a corporate culture of commercialized dolts, made stupid purposefully through constant indoctrination, future cannon fodder for future wars.

I see president Obama as the death of an era. America was ascendant during the first half of my life, and though there were economic problems I can recall nothing like what I see today. President Obama has cast himself as a progressive democratic president yet he has set himself the task of destroying Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid at the worst possible time, a time of depression era unemployment rates and a large generation of oldies. President Obama has used his time as president to promote wars begun by his predecessor, Bush, and added a few of his own rather than doing what was needed for the economic welfare of Americans. Obama is an asshole. Liberals love him.

People no longer wish to engage in critical thinking referring to it as cynical. This is amazing logic which infers that adding two and two to get four is cynical. To be blunt when I see the same people who were against the Vietnam War ignore or outright support our present wars I am truly astounded and I can see that I was obviously naïve to believe that being against imperialism was a heartfelt and lasting value. Looking at what passes for writing in the main stream news I can only assume that most people read it as if it were the bible because if they really read it with a critical eye everyone would cancel their newspaper subscription or at least libraries across the land would place their newspapers in the fiction stacks of their respective libraries where they truly belong.

When I look at a picture of Obama I see a reflection of American culture and indoctrination. Arrogant, careless, and ever hungry for adding to his executive power, Obama is the quintessential American and what a sight it is. Seeing the direction of American culture and its inevitable revolting future almost makes me glad I won’t live forever.

Before, during, and after World War II America was an industrial giant. Things were far from perfect but at least more people were able to live with a modicum of dignity long gone in today’s airport group gropes. Today America has been reduced to third world status with much of the good paying jobs exported years ago. Many of today’s elderly will rather than ending their years in some measure of comfort will now be living lives fraught with uncertainty and imminent financial dissolution, largely due to the housing bubble but most certainly exasperated by the high rates of unemployment but mostly due to president Obama’s attack on our paltry safety nets. Crime rates are sure to climb as today’s youth population is unable to find work. If they do bring the troops home crime rates will rise even higher and they will be crimes of violence.

In the end it is the wars that have drained our coffers and left us destitute as the rich ride off into the sunset singing drunkenly. Much of the multitudes of wars we have engaged in have been driven by our competition for world dominance with Russia and China. Afghanistan is near the site where the Russians and Chinese held joint military operations which greatly worried our dour leaders with the grand prix of oil at the supposed end of a victorious strife with our two distant rivals. It would have been far easier to have not engaged in war and not allowing manufacturing to leave which would have left us in a superior position likely into the next century, simply put we could have used our position of power (in wealth, not troops) to ensure a steady supply of oil for the unforeseeable future. Sadly and stupidly our government has squandered that position of power chasing shadows across the Middle East leaving the American public to swing in the wind.

Meet the President of Wall Street: An explanation of everything

2011-07-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

There are so many farces perpetrated by the government, amplified by the news media, and at different levels that reality has become the most plastic and malleable of items.

I suspect much of the confusion over just what Obama is up to regarding the so-called debt-ceiling is due to the fact that Obama is the President of Wall Street not the United States. This explains everything really.

Stalwart liberals everywhere brag about Barry “the Kid” Obama and how he shot old “Deadeye” bin Laden of the Ordo of the Black Hat dead in the eye. The thing of it is that Obama’s gangland style slaying of bin Laden provided us with one of the most brazen acts of hypocrisy by any president. There were no doubt many, many, things that Obama was anxious for bin Laden not to say so in order to claim bin Laden’s grotesquely mutilated head as a trophy for the upcoming elections bin Laden had to be silenced not captured which of course he was as he is now sleeping with the fishies. But the bottom line is that liberals are bragging about Obama being a murderer. This says a lot regarding liberals, and Obama “the Kid.”

Leon Panetta has to be one of the truly stupidest of public figures on display for your digestive track and its general health and well being. Farces to the wind, recall Iraq? Recall Afghanistan? We’re still there. The proof is in the pudding folks. We are never leaving any of these places. Jist ask Unca Leon but ask him to pull his head out of his ass and feet out of his mouth first. Politely of course, Leo is a respected individual, he has legitimacy which excuses his not having a fully functional brain apparently. Still, I find that his mutterings have a certain inexplicable charm to them. Perhaps it is his homespun “I’m just an Italian, what do you want,” demeanor that is so winning to others though I could swear I’ve seen his face on Cracker Jack boxes before. At any rate old Leo certainly has a secret decoding ring.

Secret Squirrel, Morocco Mole.

Guacamole.

These could all be secret codes known only to Unca Leo and a few of his peers.

I suppose governments have a few secrets but I couldn’t possibly tell you what they might be.

The Monster Makers

2011-07-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Monster is an interesting concept. What does monster really mean? In the world of jazz musicians a monster is an exceptionally good musician. In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein the monster was a killer, a murderer, insane with rage and loneliness. And that brings up another interesting aspect of monsters, if you watch the Boris Karloff version of Frankenstein those same stiff and mechanical movements that are meant to be scary become slapstick comedy in the hands of silent film comedians, which bases its humor on the mechanical side of the human body. This is why the Keystone Kops film is sped up, it emphasizes the funny side of the human form. Or watch the three stooges or laurel and Hardy, masters of slapstick. So what is monstrous in one circumstance is funny in other circumstances.

When I was a kid I loved monster movies and was thrilled by Lon Chaney’s tragic rendition of the wolf man. The time lapse camera work showing the hulking Cheney turn into the wolf man was always a thrill even if I knew how they did it. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was based on a short story by Ray Bradbury complete with the prehistoric beast attacking a Lighthouse, a great favorite, and a much better version of a dinosaurian monster than Godzilla which was your typical man in a monkey suit monster with Raymond Burr appearing oddly amongst the Japanese, a strange addition to the movie. I thrilled when the wolf man and Frankenstein duked it out to the bitter end, both ending up frozen in a block of ice, a fit ending for another obvious sequel. Everyone knows monsters are often thawed from ice, usually the result of an atomic bomb test in the Arctic.

Monsters are often tragic figures as well as scary. Think of King Kong’s soaring exit from this world or the Creature from the Black Lagoon which was shot to death protecting its little corner of the world. But in real life real monsters lack a tragic side, as well as lacking any morality, not moral, not immoral, just no sense of morality at all, a lack of humanity or an excess depending on your personal views of human nature. And oddly enough today’s monster’s lack a sense of tragedy, in the movie Alien there wasn’t anything tragic about the creature, it was basically a big bug waiting for an even bigger can of Raid. There was not any attempt made for any empathy for the monster, you just wanted it dead while with monsters of my youth one always had moments of empathy for the monster and its tragic circumstance, an outcast in a world overrun by humans.

Now it’s the U.S. that is the ravening monster with Barack Obama as its head, the Pentagon its right fist, and Wall Street the left fist, and together they make the monster. It strides on huge Godzilla legs smashing everything in its path. Its drones are like modern day dragons flying through the air spitting fire and death upon sleeping sheep herders and farmers. And like today’s movie monsters there is no humanity in the U.S. monster. Americans are at peace with their monster as it rips human bodies into shreds while stuffing their remains into its bloody maw. Sometimes I think Americans are okay with all the death done in their name because deep down they believe that it maintains what little is left of their lifestyle which is a monstrous act indeed to dismiss so much death so easily. But then I have this little theory as to why so many are so fascinated by movie monsters which is that the real monster in this world of ours is that thing staring at you every time we look in a mirror. Maybe we know who the real monsters are.

Cecil B. Demille does Libya

2011-07-19T23:26:00.000-07:00

The whatever-it-is in Libya seems like a Hollywood movie more than anything else. Most of the violence is perpetrated by NATO, America’s proxy warrior menagerie. The rebels spend more time driving their vehicles than anything else. This time Gaddafy’s troops cleverly disguised with rebel flags (The rebels have time to make flags?) chased the rebels out of Brega.

My whole impression of this farce of a revolution is that the rebels are working for the CIA. It has all the earmarks of a CIA operation because it is failing miserably. The rebels cannot take on Gaddafy’s experienced troops. Indeed, Gaddafy seems to be outsmarting everyone including President Obama who is looking distinctly like a jack-ass for embroiling the U.S. in another stupid war in Libya of all places. Americans wouldn’t even recall the name if the news media didn’t repeat it one thousand times a day.

Despite the amateurish rebels and inability of NATO to effect any kind of change there is nothing funny about the Libyan War. As is usual in war civilians will be getting the worst end of the fighting as they die in droves. It seems likely to me that the violence would have ended months ago if Obama hadn’t entered NATO into the Libyan rebellion if it actually is a rebellion, which I don’t believe that it actually is. There are by far way too few rebels to begin with, only around one thousand of them. Are they representative of the entire nation of Libya? I think not. Just how do you get a rebellion with a paltry one thousand rebels? It’s absurd, who are these people?

Almost all national leaders of the west are murderers and thieves many times over. Compared to them Gaddafy is small potatoes. Gaddafy is no saint but it’s clear that he has done more for the well being of Libyans than Obama has for his minions. For as I write this Obama is selling his base out behind closed doors to the Republicans as they plot to bamboozle Americans out of what little money remains to them. No jobs, no savings, no future, Obama’s contribution to American society. Social Security and Medicare shall die a death of a thousand cuts. They’ll start out small likely, a cut here and cut there, until finally over the coming years these valuable programs will be hollowed out until there is nothing left, but Gaddafy is the villain.

Recently I read that there is some thought to reviving the draft. It will never ever happen. Reviving the draft is counter to the new style of war and it would result in much protest, perhaps an American Spring? And recall that these are all painless wars, that was the promise, painless. There would be no need for Americans to sacrifice, just go out and shop, shop, shop till you drop for it’s the patriotic thing to do. Our leaders surely realize that the quickest way to make their wars unpopular would be to reinstate the draft, shades of the Vietnam protests.

Obama recently told Gaddafy he must step down. Obama is quite the comedian. Why should Gaddfy step down when he is winning plus gaining popular support as NATO continues to blanket bomb Tripoli and blowing Libyan civilians to smithereens. NATO and Libya are turning Gaddafy into a Libyan national hero. I’d be willing to bet Obama wouldn’t do nearly as well as Gaddafy if he were in his shoes.

The Israel government resembles a money laundering operation more than anything else. First congress eagerly sends three billion dollars to Israel. Israel then uses some of that money to invest in American politician’s campaign funds. It’s a money laundering scheme, just like gangsters. We’re all gangsters now.

It’s astonishing when a news article states that the U.S. will only recognize Palestine as a state through peace negotiations because the right wing Israel government isn’t about to let peace prevail. They want the Palestinians gone, evicted, evaporated, they don’t want peace because the last thing the Israel government wants is a viable Palestinian state along side of Israel. The whites must rule the darkies after all, and that’s the crux of the whole issue, Israel right wing government racism against brown people. I should add that obviously not all citizens of Israel agree with what their right wing ding government does regarding Palestine any more than everyone here in the U.S. agrees with our government’s actions or inactions.

As proof that the only thing that matters is the chaos and the violence all we need do is look at our wars today. Afghanistan, we are losing badly, it’s really slipping away now as the Taliban asserts itself through dramatic assassinations such as Karzai’s brother. Iraq, we won all the battles but lost that war as well. Iran is now positioned better with the present government in Iraq than the U.S. is. Libya, the feather in Obama’s crown is turning out to not being the crown jewel so much anymore. It only took Obama three months to lose the Libyan War. None of this has dampened our unsinkable war optimists in the White House or congress one bit, their perpetual love of war waxes brightly. If all that matters is the chaos and the violence then there is no real reason to win because in the end winning means the end of the war and that shall never be countenanced. So in this modern day losing is winning.

Obama is one of the scariest guys I’ve seen. He is truly scary to me. For one thing I think he is one hundred percent certifiably insane. He is doing horrendous things, blowing men, women, and children into little bits of flesh strewn about a Salvador Dali landscape yet he takes the high road, sees himself as honorable and principled because only he knows the right way to whatever. Certifiable.

Hillary Clinton Queen of legitimacy and darkness giveth and taketh away

2011-07-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton once again plays the legitimacy game, this time with Gaddafy and those mysterious Libyan Rebels, such as they are. Right on cue the NYT is more than happy to play along with their typically awful reporting.

Link

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at an international gathering held to discuss the Libyan conflict that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government no longer had any legitimacy, and that the United States would join more than 30 countries in extending diplomatic recognition to the main opposition group, known as the Transitional National Council.

And legitimacy also can be given, Hillary …once again…

“We will help the T.N.C. sustain its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national unity of Libya,” Mrs. Clinton said,“and we will look to it to remain steadfast in its commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

How quaint, not only are the rebels legit and rate a nifty set of initials, T.N.C., but they are also committed to of all things human rights and fundamental freedoms which include murder and looting and beatings. Whoops, well who said Hillary had any integrity?

Link

Across eastern Libya, rebel fighters and their supporters are detaining, intimidating and frequently beating African immigrants and black Libyans, accusing them of fighting as mercenaries on behalf of Kadafi, witnesses and human rights workers say.

In a few instances, rebels have executed suspected mercenaries captured in battle, according to Human Rights Watch and local Libyans.

The rebel-led provisional government in Benghazi denies mistreating suspected mercenaries, though it acknowledges that it is detaining some for questioning. It says it has given human rights representatives access to detainees.

But rebel fighters and bands of gunmen who looted government weapons depots are reportedly instigating their own detentions and beatings.

Kadafi has long used mercenaries, many of them from sub-Saharan Africa, to help enforce his rule.

As the country has descended into violence in recent weeks, witnesses in the capital,Tripoli, and other cities have reported mercenaries suppressing protests and indiscriminately shooting at civilians.

But Libya also is home to thousands of immigrant laborers as well as black Libyans. In their zeal, human rights officials and witnesses say, rebel fighters in some cases have arbitrarily killed some mercenaries and in others cases failed to distinguish between them and non-combatants.

Link

ADDIS ABABA — While much of the world’s attention is focusing on crude oil prices and the Libyan pipelines in the east of the country– human right groups say rebels are committing crimes against humanity.

In east Libya, African hunt began as towns and cities began fall under the control of Libyan rebels, mobs and gangs. They started to detain, insult, rape and even executing black immigrants, students and refugees.

In the past two weeks, more than 100 Africans from various Sub-Sahara states are believed to have been killed by Libyan rebels and their supporters.

According to Somali refugees in Libya, at least five Somalis from Somaliland and Somalia were executed in Tripoli and Benghazi by anti-Gaddafi mobs. Dozens of refugees and immigrants workers from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Nigeria, Chad, Mali and Niger have been killed, some of them were led into the desert and stabbed to death. Black Libyan men receiving medical care in hospitals in Benghazi were reportedly abducted by armed rebels. They are part of more than 200 African immigrants held in secret locations by the rebels.

In many disputes involving Libyan residents and black Africans, the Libyans are turning in the Africans as mercenaries.

Thousands more Africans caught up in this mercenary hysteria are terrified. Some barricaded themselves in their homes, while others hid in the desert. Insulted, threatened, beaten, chased and robbed. Their only crime was being black and therefore treated as “mercenaries” of Gaddafi.

As Hillary says, we can only but admire the rebel’s steadfast commitment to human rights. And so we can easily see that legitimacy is a complete fraud. Powerful heads of state like Hillary both giveth and taketh away that elusive legitimacy depending on which way the wind is blowing that particular day.

Israel and the United States will also do their utmost to prevent the poor Palestinians from achieving legitimacy from the UN this September. Amazingly most Americans probably still see Israel as the poor widdle countwee surrounded by big dark and mean Arabs who hate them for their freedom but then that is the beauty of the legitimacy game. Israel has been committing genocide at a moderate but steady pace for decades but in the eyes of the world Israel is legitimate and the Palestinians have been left to swing in the wind.

Fifteen to one

2011-07-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

For the liberals who support Obama there must be a switch that turns off any kind of empathy for the underdog. Who are the underdogs? The victims of our Terror Wars, that’s who. The reporting on Libya was a blizzard of hype, suddenly war is humanitarian and for the general good of mankind or whoever is the recipient of our devoted love taps. Amazingly the news media presented us with a casualty free war where once again we heard of precision bombing with a new twist of protecting civilians which of course was untrue. The same thing has been true in Afghanistan and Pakistan where Obama escalated the use of armed drones to attack the Taliban by removing its various leaders or so we were told though one can hear alternate realities on that count.

The news media is truly weird in that occasionally it reports on events without the usual pro-government pro-war slant, that is to say without too much propaganda and hype as in this article in the Guardian which presents us with what the drone war actually is, not the humanitarian daydreams of pro-war liberals who gather behind their Napoleonic leader, Barry Obama.

Link

For Noor Behram, you actually have to go to the aftermath of a drone strike to try to figure out whether those killed were really extremists or ordinary folk living in Waziristan. And he's in no doubt.

"For every 10 to 15 people killed, maybe they get one militant," said Behram. "I don't go to count how many Taliban are killed. I go to count how many children, women, innocent people, are killed."

The drone strikes are a secret programme run by the CIA to assassinate al-Qaida and Taliban extremists who are using remote, wild Waziristan as a refuge. The CIA doesn't comment on drones at all, but privately claims that civilian casualties are rare.

Liberals often to me seem hard hearted and haughty when it comes to Obama’s wars. Often they bring up George Bush and how bad the republicans are when confronted with news of civilian deaths as if that somehow makes up for Obama’s sadistic pastime of war. Or they retort with concerns over appointments to the Supreme Court yet what we are talking about here is the death of other human beings who have done nothing against the United States. Appointments to the Supreme Court hardly stack up against depriving people of their lives which ought to have a higher priority than political appointments in an already corrupt system. And if there is such an overwhelming concern over truth and justice in our court system where is the concern over justice for the murder of so many civilians? Nowhere to be found, that’s where, at least among Obama’s devoted throng of avenging angels, The following graphic descriptions are hardly angelic…

The Guardian was unable to independently verify the photographs. Behram's account of taking the pictures appeared detailed and consistent however. Other anecdotal evidence from Waziristan is conflicting: some insist the drones are accurate, while others strongly disagree.

According to Behram, the strikes not only kill the innocent but injure untold numbers and radicalise the population. "There are just pieces of flesh lying around after a strike. You can't find bodies. So the locals pick up the flesh and curse America. They say that America is killing us inside our own country, inside our own homes, and only because we are Muslims.

"The youth in the area surrounding a strike gets crazed. Hatred builds up inside those who have seen a drone attack. The Americans think it is working, but the damage they're doing is far greater."

Even when the drones hit the right compound, the force of the blast is such that neighbours houses, often made of baked mud, are also demolished, crushing those inside, said Behram. One of the photographs shows a large tangle of debris that he said were the remains of five houses that were blitzed together.

The photographs make for difficult viewing and leave no doubt about the destructive power of the "Hellfire" missiles unleashed: a boy with the top of his head shorn off, young children pummelled with shrapnel, a severed human hand, flattened houses, the parents of children killed in a strike. The chassis is all that remains of a car in one photo, another shows the funeral of a seven-year-old child. There are pictures, too, of the rubber flip-flops worn by children and adults alike, because of their cheapness, which often survive: signs that life once existed there. A 10-year-old boy's body, prepared for burial, shows lipstick on him and flowers in his hair – a mother's last loving touch.

It is often said that truth is the first casualty of war and while truth is hard to come by regarding reports of atrocities I keep in mind that it is the news media that has consistently bombarded us with obvious propaganda, indeed the news media helped greatly to start the Terror Wars with pro-war columns of dubious nature. And what purpose would the Afghans have in lying about the destruction caused by drones? An attempt to avoid a horrible death at the hands of unfeeling bombardiers? How awful of them. For me at least common sense would say that the preponderance of truth must necessarily be on the side of the Afghan civilians. Still, you will have to be your own conscience in this matter. Hopefully some liberals still have one.

Balloon payment

2011-07-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

There are some good theories as to what went wrong for the U.S. now saddled with a tyrannical leader who claims the ultimate right of life and death over his minions, one Barry Obama. There are many bad actors that led us to this awful point in time not the least of which has been the news media with their shallow and largely ignorant world views based on American centric self-love and delusion resulting in what can only be described as either hopelessly incompetent or purposefully stupid reporting.

The only time I watch television is when I visit my mother and the other night I was listening to the News Hour which touts itself as one of the most respectable and serious of news outlets. My own take on it is that they bring on people who are either bad actors themselves or are willing or unwitting dupes for the criminals who own us and run our lives. Or I should say ruin our lives. These people quite simply lie through their whitened and polished teeth and a big toothy smile.

There is one fellow the News Hour brings on, I cannot recall his name but he is a presidential historian. He is very enthusiastic about American presidents and has written books about them. It seems so absurd to me to worship this gallery of murderers and thieves as if they were anything but murderers and thieves hiding behind the legitimacy of the state. This is why I don’t particularly care who is president. The differences between them are merely style tailored to their particular base and they have all contributed to where we are now at this point in time where the state is taking full control of our lives using technology to invade our privacy and wars to rob us of our money while murdering sheep herders on the other side of the world in an endless parade of wars. Indeed there are so many wars that we merely wave to them as they go by followed by the next and the next one after that.

It is not difficult to see the police state coalesce around us and no doubt in the near future all babies born in the U.S. will be fingerprinted, their eyes scanned, and their DNA recorded and kept by the emerging police state or perhaps they merely insert a chip into their bodies. Though Americans are by now tired of the wars perhaps slowly becoming aware that the balloon payment for the freebie wars is their own safety and livelihood. Too late! Obama has already declared that he can have any American assassinated on his word alone which heralded the true beginnings of a complete police state. The buildings and trees still look the same, the sun and clouds are still in the sky but just what would you expect a police state to look like? Troopers in jack boots high stepping around the city square with swastikas tattooed on their heads? If you need a personification of the overbearing intrusive and violent police state just look at a portrait of Obama.

Following the money has always been excellent advice and it is hard to miss where the money is going these days. Billions of dollars for the Pentagon and austerity for the masses. Then there is the influence of Israel and their conspirators in the U.S., AIPAC the American Israeli lobby. Israel is like a horrid little brat that everyone must grovel before, for if they don’t, Uncle Sam is there always standing behind the obnoxious little snot nosed brat brandishing a rather large club for anyone who doesn’t kiss Israeli ass. All this made possible by the flow of American dollars to Israel. Follow the money. In France the French police stopped protestors from flying to Israel. In Greece Israel had the Greek navy or coast guard stop an American vessel from sailing to Gaza. Israel murdered many citizens of Turkey in the last flotilla and have literally gotten away with murder and what could Turkey do about it? Very little it would seem. The whole world must put up with the vicious little brat because Big Daddy Warbucks is there to defend Israel to the last American dollar.

With the Palestinians making known their own desire for legitimacy and recognition from the UN Israeli influence once again wins through with many nations now cutting off funds that are desperately needed by the Palestinians. The U.S. and Israel are determined to punish the Palestinians for having the audacity of being in the way of Israeli progress, that process by which they intend to eject or murder every Palestinian until they are gone or no longer exist. It’s a wicked world and there is nothing humanitarian about U.S. humanitarianism which always results with piles of corpses decorating a moon pocked landscape.

All of this is made possible by our own acquiescence to criminals like president Obama and his predecessors. We give them the legitimacy that they need to operate without worry of paying a price for their crimes. They have done an excellent job of dividing the nation on non-issues of little consequence allowing them a clear path in their quest for power. They have done an excellent job of lying to the nation creating suspense and fear among the populace leaving them vulnerable to rapacious and intrusive attacks on their well-being. The first step to changing this would be to withdraw your support to these legitimate criminals because our support of them gives them legitimacy and that needs to stop right now.

Trust in Obama

2011-07-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

What is amazing is to me is the complete trust people have for politicians of their choice and their complete trust in the main stream news media. When I was in the sixth grade our teacher taught us that you need to read the news with a certain amount of skepticism. This is very good advice. And when did this complete trust in public figures like Barack Obama evolve? It seems quite suicidal to me. People aren’t stupid so the only thing that makes any sense is people believe exactly what they want to believe and no amount of facts will alter their view.

Perhaps this is the danger of having a president with charisma though I have had to take other people’s word for it since I have never been aware of any charisma owned by Obama. His speeches are oafish, boring and predictable, and could have been made by any white president in recent history. His speeches have always reflected a belief in American imperialism and exceptionalism. His speeches have been remarkable in that they are completely unremarkable.

Today Obama and his friends in congress are putting on a dog and pony show where we are told that the deficit ceiling is a crisis. The news media has reported this without scrutiny or even question. They have either swallowed the lie whole or are too stupid to investigate outrageous claims by our federal government.

Dean Baker explains why the deficit ceiling is not a crisis…

Link

One needs only to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television to get examples of thoroughly awful reporting. When we hear pledges to reduce the projected deficits over the next 12 years by $2 trillion or $4 trillion, how many people have any clue how large these reductions are relative to projected spending or projected GDP over this period? (The $4 trillion figure is 8.7 percent of projected spending and 3.7 percent of GDP.)

How about that $14.3 trillion figure? That's a really big number, really scary. So is just about every number connected with the United States budget. We are a huge country with a huge economy. Competent reporters would focus on this being about 90 percent of U.S. GDP.

Is that big? Well the debt-to-GDP ratio was over 110 percent after World War II. The United Kingdom had debt-to-GDP ratios of more than 100 percent for much of the 19th century as it was establishing itself as the world's pre-eminent industrial power.

Japan has a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 220 percent of GDP and can still borrow in financial markets long-term at interest rates of less than 1.5 percent. So, what's the problem? The politicians who want to cut Social Security and Medicare obviously want the public to believe that there is a huge problem and due to the incompetence of the media, they have managed to instill fear throughout the nation about this massive non-problem.

Republicans have been after social security for years, ever since it was created and even though it is paid for by the participants the word “entitlement” has been hammered into American skulls ad nauseum. How social security could be construed as an entitlement when it is paid for by the beneficiaries is beyond comprehension. Yet one hears nothing but “entitlement” when describing social security. And only a fool would consider health care an entitlement, health care access should be a basic right, not the purview of the very wealthy alone.

I don’t care much for government or nation states but we are stuck with them apparently for the foreseeable future. So since we are stuck with these monstrosities is seems we could have one that works much better than the one we have. It wouldn’t take much to improve over the murderers and thieves that populate those hallowed halls of the federal government. For instance how about some job stimulus instead of stealing the food out of our mouths? But there is no job stimulus in the works, Obama isn’t even thinking about it. Obama is too busy trying to scare the bejeezuz out of his supporters and he’s doing a damn fine job of it. It really is too bad Obama couldn’t use his talent to do some good rather than make our situation exponentially worse by removing the paltry and in inadequate safety nets that remain to us when so many cannot find work. But then Obama is a cynical bastard whose sadistical side has been revealed more than once with his assassination programs and ever growing number of concurrent wars which are six strong and going on seven, a world’s record for the Peace Laureate Prez. Then there is his sadistical torture of Manning the alleged whistle blower for Wikileaks, forcing Manning to stand naked for hours etc. And how about that funny joke about not seeing them coming, a reference to his beloved cruise missiles and drones. Obama thinks blowing people up is funny which is very revealing of the person behind the smile.

Why UFOs are like Boston Red Sox games

2011-07-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

I don’t know why people bother to believe that global warming is man made because nobody is doing a thing about it anyway. The hunt for oil is on full bore with oil companies still drilling in the oceans of the earth while polluting the seas in the most horrid manner. The wars for oil are still raging and while there are solar panels and electric cars they are hardly replacing the common gas guzzler as Americans drive their elephantine shitmobiles down the road trying to outdo one another in the intimidation game. Americans have always been big on intimidation. Despite gas prices driven by Wall Street speculators I see an awful lot of oversized RVs and trucks, very, very popular. Global warming is a symbol for idiots to feel self important about something that nobody really cares about so let’s argue about it some moe.

Obama has raised millions! A world’s record! Obama is rolling in contributions and it all came from the widdle people. There, that just goes to show what a grass roots fellah Obamer really is. Of course they said that the last time and it turned out Wall Street was his largest contributor, which is sort of why his entire presidency seems to have done Wall Street nothing but good and the rest of us get to suck eggs but this time it will be different, I promise.

Obama is using the scatter gun method of warfare by waging war in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan along with a covert war in Iran and likely many other places. The theory seems to be if he cannot impress us with what he can do he can utterly confuse our senses by swamping us with so many wars we can’t see straight causing us to vote for him even if we didn’t intend to.

A lot of people are predicting so since nobody reads this anyway I will go out on a limb and say Obama is going to lose because of his announcement that he wants to cut social security and the high rate of unemployment. Just so you know I should tell you my opinion is probably worthless, I promise.

I’m a big fan of modern medicine. I think it’s fantastic what they can do. It’s just too bad it’s only for the elite. Maybe someday the rest of the rat race can get the same quality of treatment but I doubt it.

The space race while sold to the public as scientific in nature is really about the military. There aren’t any UFOs but I do believe in the Easter Bunny, I found tracks. UFOs are just like Boston Red Sox games; it gives people something fun to think about for a while and takes your mind off of our new crappy level of existence.

Why do people pay for cable TV when most of it is commercials? You are paying the cable companies bloated and ridiculous rates so that they can pipe commercials into your home. It used to be that the commercials paid for the TV programs but now with the advent of cable everything has changed except the quality of TV which has gotten exponentially worse. American culture as portrayed on TV is truly, truly, disgusting. And this is what shapes our society, TV. Fuuuuuuck we’re fuuuuuucked.

The Big Bargain or let them eat cake

2011-07-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

“Social Security has never contributed a dime to the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt…not one penny to our federal budget deficit this year or any year in our nation’s history.”

— Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.). July 8, 2011

The big news today is of course president Obama’s threat to not send out
social security checks unless a deal is reached regarding the deficit ceiling. Then there is the promise to cut social security benefits if the republicans will cut taxes for the rich.

Link

The president has been urging Republicans to agree to a “grand bargain” that would save $4 trillion over the next decade by combining big concessions on either side: Republicans would agree to higher taxes on the wealthy, while Democrats would agree to cuts in Social Security benefits. Congressional Democrats reacted warily to the proposal, while House Speaker John Boehner rejected it outright under pressure from Republicans.

Just by coincidence the cost of the Terror Wars is now at four trillion dollars according to a study by Brown University. It’s not too difficult to do the math here. President Barry and your other owners have no problem spending four trillion dollars on their pet wars because just like in those balloon payments that created the housing bubble that burst we now get to the balloon payment for our beloved and manly Terror Wars by starving the elderly, the poor, the very young, in other words those least able to defend themselves, Obama says “let them eat cake.”

Since social security is a trust fund - that is to say a separate entity that is self sufficient for the next twenty five years - people ought to ask, where is the money? Where is the money that was paid into social security taken from paychecks of workers? Obviously Obama is leaving out a key factor in this ‘can’t pay benefits’ scenario. Here is what Obama isn’t telling you. The U.S. government stole the money out of social security and they don’t want to pay it back.

Link

Until recently, more payments were collected than were needed for benefits. So Social Security loaned the money to the U.S. government, which used it for other things. In exchange, Social Security received interest-bearing Treasury securities. The value of those bonds is now about $2.6 trillion.

So the government absconded with the hard cash in social security and replaced it with what are essentially IOUs or if you wish to call them bonds the meaning remains the same. But by all means, when someone tells you social security is in trouble just remind them of the 2.6 trillion that social security generated that was stolen by the government to pay for the utterly useless Terror Wars. And this is why Obama conflates social security with the deficit, which is because the money that belonged to the “trust” fund was stolen and now they cannot pay it back after spending it on garbage like the Fatherland security (you vill sign zee papers) and our Terror Wars from which only the wealthy benefit. So of course the answer is to borrow more money from China and this can only be done by raising the deficit ceiling. Hence Obama tells us the government cannot afford to pay social security benefits without raising the deficit ceiling.

With six concurrent wars and the destruction of your safety nets (not entitlements, only the rich are entitled) Obama is the worst president we have ever had. He is either the stupidest president or the most dishonest but whatever he is he has certainly been by far, hands down, no competition, the worst president we have ever had. His replacement will be even worse. What Obama is telling you besides the eating of cake is that the wars are more important than your well being simply because Obama wishes to be re-elected.

Such a bargain.

Rachel Corrie

2011-07-11T21:50:00.000-07:00

Rachel Corrie is in the news once more. Rachel Corrie was the young American woman that the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) said had been accidently crushed by a bulldozer as she attempted to protect a Palestinian house from being razed by the IDF. The IDF claims it was Rachel’s own fault and that she was aiding Palestinian terrorists who were a threat to Israel’s safety.

Link

The final witness in the case, Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz, told the court in Haifa that Rafah was a war zone in 2003 and "reasonable people would not be there unless they had aims of attacking our forces". Members of the International Solidarity Movement, such as Rachel Corrie, were aiding "Palestinian terrorists", he said.

Though the above statement is about as sad as they come what is even sadder is that all too many Israeli see it just like Colonel Pinhas Zuaretz. Claiming that Rachel Corrie was a threat to Israel with its modern armies and nuclear warheads is as asinine as Leon Panetta’s claim that the fearsome nation of Yemen is somehow a threat to the United States. Perhaps the Yemens will zoom over on life rafts and explode their underwear and shoes on our oily shores. The fact is governments are crazy as a loon and when they are it rubs off on the populace.

Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist explains…

Link

There is a mental disorder called “paranoia vera.” Patients adopt a crazy assumption — e.g., “everybody hates me” — and then build an elaborate structure around it. Every bit of information that seems to support it is eagerly absorbed; every item that contradicts it is suppressed. Everything is interpreted so as to reinforce the initial assumption. The pattern is strictly logical — indeed, the more complete and the more logical the structure, the more serious is the disease.

Among the accompanying symptoms are belligerent behavior, recurrent suspicions, disconnection from the real world, conspiracy theories, and narcissism.

It seems that whole nations can fall victim to this illness. Ours certainly appears to have.

This is interesting because an Anthropology teacher said something quite similar, that entire nations can be crazy. Most Americans of course would automatically think of crazy Arabs who hate us for our freedom though the first thing that comes to my mind are most of the western nations including America and Israel. Just consider Leon Panetta’s recent claim that Yemen is a grave threat to Americans. Nothing could be more absurd yet Panetta likely believes it himself. Panetta displays all the symptoms. He has been belligerent towards Iran with recurrent suspicions about them sending arms to Iraq insurgents despite the fact that Iran is on better terms with the corrupt American installed government of Iraq than America giving them no good reason to arm insurgents. The narcissism is almost an American pastime where Panetta and many Americans believe that the U.S. is the center of attention for every person on the planet. This, despite the fact that many Afghans never heard of the 9/11 attack.

That Americans are disconnected from the real world is self evident with their preoccupation with organized sports and not much else. Just look at how seriously so many westerners take their organized sports. It’s just a tad unbalanced I would say. There isn’t anything wrong with enjoying sports I suppose, other than it echoes our constant wars and helps prepare young minds for the military, but to recall every detail of every player and game for the last ten years while ignoring everything else is just strange. But maybe that’s just me. Still, so many now just ignore the grinding war machine with an almost adamantine obtuseness, so much so that it really makes you wonder about people’s sanity.

But we shouldn’t merely blame Israel for the death of Rachel Corrie because the United States government is just as guilty of her death. The unqualified support of Israel both monetary and politically by the U.S. helped very much to create the situation where a lovely young woman of great integrity and courage was needlessly murdered.

Obama’s neowars

2011-07-10T21:31:00.000-07:00

While Obama’s claim that the war in Libya is not a war may be absurd what isn’t absurd is what looks like a new style of war. When you consider that the world is run by corporations rather than nations this isn’t really too surprising. Private armies aren’t new and the use of mercenaries isn't new but what is new is the scale of their use in modern wars.

Obama’s claim may not be as ridiculous as it sounds. Consider how in the Libyan War, one of the main themes we constantly hear is that there are no American troops on the ground. While this is most certainly a lie there are very likely very few American troops on the ground. NATO itself is most certainly an American sock puppet so nobody seriously doubts that whatever NATO is doing in Libya the orders come from the Whitehouse. But even NATO is outdated especially when you consider that their whole reason for existing in the first place was eliminated with the collapse of old Soviet Russia.

For America this has been the age of outsourcing just about everything including jobs. This of course came about due to the wishes of manufacturing corporations who sought higher profit through the use of near slave labor, a true American tradition since this nation was founded on the backs of slave labor. So why not outsource war as well? The benefits could be great. Even American wars become unpopular when too many American troops are killed. Nobody really cares if mercenaries get greased in our terror war since they are basically dirt bags anyway as most would attest. Politicians know that soldiers are sacred in American culture but nobody cares about mercenaries except the mercenaries themselves.

When president Obama talks about bringing the troops home from Iraq there is no mention of contractors and mercenaries yet the use of mercenaries has been increased greatly. So in effect Obama could move the troops out of Iraq to where ever yet still leave an army of mercenaries installed permanently in Iraq. And what difference does it make if they are mercenaries or American troops? The only difference is that Obama can claim he removed troops from Iraq and the mission is accomplished even while the Iraq civil war continues and the violence remains unabated. Iraq will have become an outsourced war. In effect Obama could claim the war was over simply because there are no American troops in Iraq. Yet the war would not be over nor would the costs in money and in lost liberties and jobs back here in the states.

Newsweek reports on the increase usage of private contractors…

Link

As the U.S. military continues to draw down its forces in Iraq later this month and complete a full exit by the end of next year, analysts say the withdrawal will be a boon for the private security industry, whose employees will likely undertake more quasi-military functions such as defusing explosives and providing armed response teams. “They [private security contractors] are going to have to do everything that we expect soldiers to do without going out on patrols to engage the enemy,” says one former industry insider. “There are some pretty smart number crunchers in all the major contractors who are figuring out how much of this increasing pie we’re going to be able to get.”

What exactly that pie will consist of remains to be seen. During the first four years of the war—the most recent available estimate—the U.S. spent as much as $10 billion on private security contractors, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Yet this occurred at a time when the military employed far fewer than the roughly 11,000 private security contractors that it employs today. Just how many will remain in Iraq when the U.S. leaves will depend on the conditions on the ground. Yet analysts say the number of mercenaries will likely remain stable and could even increase slightly. And, as these contractors expand into new roles, “the price of them goes up,” says Stephanie Sanok, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Under president Obama the use of mercenaries in Afghanistan has increased dramatically. Looking at the below chart we see that the increase coincided with the beginning of Obama’s presidency where the number of contractors went from around 1,000 to about 18,000 contractors.

Link

Then we have Obama’s dramatic increase in the usage of drones for assassinating just about anybody or anything.

Link

CIA drone attacks in Pakistan killed at least 581 militants last year, according to independent estimates. The number of those militants noteworthy enough to appear on a U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists: two.

Despite a major escalation in the number of unmanned Predator strikes being carried out under the Obama administration, data from government and independent sources indicate that the number of high-ranking militants being killed as a result has either slipped or barely increased.

Even more generous counts - which indicate that the CIA killed as many as 13 "high-value targets" - suggest that the drone program is hitting senior operatives only a fraction of the time.

After a year in which the CIA carried out a record 118 drone strikes, costing more than $1 million apiece, the results have raised questions about the purpose and parameters of the campaign.

So according to the WaPo article we are now using far more drones and using them to kill ordinary grunts rather than high level leaders not to mention the terrible price paid by so many civilians as they die by the hundreds from drone attacks. It would seem that this is the new face of war. War without American troops doing the fighting so that presidents can wage war without risking displeasure from the masses since the use of mercenaries and drones allows them to claim that there really isn’t a war.

In the end Obama’s claim that Libya is not a war isn’t that far-fetched in his own mind where he seems to be envisioning a new kind of war that short circuits public and congressional approval by simply not using American troops.

New York Times promotes war, again

2011-07-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

The New York Times, despite our ten year defeat in Afghanistan, and the failure of general Petraeus to win the hearts and minds of Afghans everywhere, now tells us that night raids are breaking the back of the Taliban. Yes, certainly, success is just around the corner, just like it was in Iraq and still is – another Petraeus mélange of bullshit, murder, and mayhem resulting in the fantastically wonderful condition of Iraq today. Iraq no longer exists.

I found this razor sharp insight to be of interest…

Link

The method of the raids, especially the forced entry of houses and invasion of women’s quarters, let alone killing of women, is deeply offensive culturally to Afghans.

Yes! Certainly! Who could have guessed!? In a totally unique cultural aspect of Afghan society the Afghans are actually upset that we send our thugs to kick down their doors and murder women. Astonishingly, they are deeply offended culturally by these actions. It’s probably due to their inscrutable Asian nature that this is so for here in America we certainly do not mind such minor things.

The basis for the NYT incredible assertion that we are somehow “winning” in Afghanistan seems to be based on the following…

There is no doubt that the raids have been devastating to the Taliban insurgency. Afghan officials and community elders in almost every frontline province say that known Taliban commanders and even whole groups of fighters have been killed or captured, and that the raids have forced the Taliban to operate in smaller cells and have shrunk their capacity.

Military officials say the campaign has disrupted whole insurgent networks in rural districts and along infiltration routes, thereby reducing large-scale attacks in the cities.

Afghan officials? Community elders? Military officials? Why is the Times so obscure regarding the sources of their analysis? There seem to be a lot of unnamed sources here.

However the Times does manage to name one of their sources who is very concise in his opinions…

“Those night raids have broken the back of the Taliban,” said Abdul Satar Mirzokhel, deputy governor of Helmand Province for three years until this spring. “Most of their targets were very precise, aimed at the right people in the right places. If there were mistakes, they were very few.”

No doubt we can count on Abdul for the veracity of his statement even though his position of deputy governor likely depends on the American forces presence in Afghanistan. Mr. Deputy Governor. And just how would Abdul know this? Has he gone out personally and verified that night raids are accurate and making “few mistakes”? Is he qualified to even give such an opinion? And if the only source that the NYT manages to name is this questionable how questionable are the unnamed sources?

This kind of analysis is pure crap. Where are the solid facts and numbers? Nowhere to be found, that’s where. This is nothing but propaganda and wild conjecture and flies in the face of what everyone knows, which is the Afghans whipped our ass and shall continue to do so as long as we stay there. To be sure we can kick their doors down and go on night time murder sprees, and we can gun them down from helicopters and cut their fingers off for souvenirs but that isn’t the same as defeating the Afghans.

In another NYT article Leon Panetta beats the war drums in a similar manner stating that we are just about to defeat al Qaida…

Link

KABUL, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, said that the United States was “within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda” and that the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing 10 to 20 crucial leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Obama had bin Laden assassinated, a cold blooded murder, but now we can see it is totally justified because we have all this marvelous new information from the raid. Right. From what I understand al Qaida has already been pretty much decimated and is now scattered and ineffectual, if indeed they ever were effectual. There isn’t much doubt in my mind that the murder of sad sack bin laden was politically motivated as a way to increase Obama’s popularity in the upcoming election as is no doubt the purpose of this article, besides promoting more war that is.

Next, Panetta regales us with this dire warning regarding the looming threat originating from the mighty nation of Yemen, the next Nazi Germany.

Despite the perils in Pakistan, Mr. Panetta said there were greater dangers to the United States in Yemen. “There’s no question when you look at what constitutes the biggest threat in terms of attacks on the United States right now, more of that comes from Yemen and people like Awlaki,” he said. He added that in Yemen, “There are a number of operations that are being conducted not only by the Defense Department but by my former agency to try to focus on going after those targets. I would say that’s one of our top priorities right now.”

I assume Panetta is discussing the terrifying assaults from the undie bomber, or the shoe bomber, or the Times Square firecracker bomber. It certainly is terrifying. I’m certain we are a grateful nation to have the likes of Leon Panetta protecting us from the menace of mighty Yemen. Panetta and Obama, protecting Americans from Yemen, it just doesn’t get any better, does it?

Condoning evil

2011-07-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

Why do we even say that worn out old shoe, “the lesser of two evils” in regard to American presidential elections? Is it because that somewhere in the back of our minds, even among the most optimistic of us, we know that the U.S. government is beyond any kind of redemption? I think that just needs to be said at any rate, that the U.S. government is beyond redemption.

For me, our government, or any government, is an evil construct since it seems that the main purpose of governments is to inflict violence upon others or their own citizens either through police brutality, imprisonment, and even death at the hands of the state. Here in the U.S. if you are white you are a member of the ruling class because one of the things our government has done is to pass legislature and implement law enforcement that punishes non-whites while benefiting whites which is another purpose of governments which is to allow one group to lord it over other groups.

In the past, the Democratic Party has presented voters with an apparent choice of voting for a war monger who though a war monger will toss the masses a few crumbs from the rich man’s table. A few examples would be Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. I stress the word past because today with the colonial wars bankrupting the federal government spurred on by domestic politics, neocons, oil addiction, and personal gain, we find that one of the greatest dangers to those programs are none other than a democratic president, Obama. And it is these wars and their cost that gives people like Obama ammunition and a fraudulent reason to attack Social Security.

Is this then our only real choice? To vote for a democratic candidate who though loves to wage wars that are detrimental to the population at large might throw us a bread crumb? From my perspective I don’t see Obama throwing anything by symbolic bread crumbs and we know his promises aren’t worth a plug nickel. And is it moral to vote for a person who we know shall engage in murder on a grand scale just because he or she might do something for us? That hardly seems likely. To vote for a person seeking violence for whatever reason is not moral, not even for that proverbial bread crumb from the rich man’s table, or at least so it seems to me.

There is another choice, and that is to withdraw your support of state violence by simply not voting. People may drone on about your sacred duty to vote (sacred duty?) for these scumbags that run for office but you cannot vote for them without giving their violence credence and legitimacy, the last thing that should be done. So to not vote, rather than betraying some patriotic claptrap is actually the only honorable and right thing to do, it is the only moral thing you can do.

For example look at what president Obama has done. He began his election campaign by murdering bin Laden the great bogeyman that supposedly haunted American’s darkest dreams. Then for good measure he got a few more bad guys. Then, he began a war in Libya which no doubt he thought would boost his ratings which it did in the first two or three days. But as in an ugly morning sunrise the glaring light of another endless war manifesting in the American consciousness we see that the Libyan war isn’t as popular as Obama had hoped.

Now just how in this wide wonderful world can you vote for a person as hideously deformed as Obama is? Sadistic, cold, calculating, these are all words that describe Obama. Obama is a user; he uses people’s lives to pursue his careening career as a powerful leader. Obama is an evil person seeking an evil office that is part of an evil government that inflicts pain and death both abroad and upon its own citizens. Do you really want to condone this by voting for it? If you can’t vote for either candidate with a clean conscience then don’t vote.

Halcyon Days

Why Afghans cannot tie their own shoelaces

Democracy in action

“World” recalls holocaust but what about Gaza?

America pisses on people of Iraq

Obama's state of the union speech

Moe’s Art

To more interesting times

Not so much

Catching up

For a hamburger today I would gladly pay you Tuesday, or: How to tilt at phantoms in one easy lesson

To who-to who

A fine representation

Living the lie

Piles of piles

America’s rosy cheeked cherubs

Oh Cuomo on

Weaver of Dreams

American robots

Eskimos and Sasquatch to invade Iraq says New York Times, and Kenneth Pollack as well, and he’s an expert

Stupid Americans have high school mentality and admire mass murderers

Screwed

Ye Gods

Iraq: A withdrawal or a change of tactics?

Charlie Parker never went to college

Oleo

The duality prez

Whazzat?

Wag your beards

Ko-motion in Pakistan

A brief interruption

Mobs through the looking glass

It’s thanksgiving and you’re the turkey

The man who stole music

Thoughts on Jazz

Flight of the wild passenger pigeon lost in time

Why I dislike the boob tube

A semi-human view

Freedom rings along the great white way

Down with the intellectuals or sometimes it takes a two by four upside yo head

Happy day

The Joke

The Finite

The violence factor

Timing can be interesting

The Hitler syndrome and Iran

The difference between

Libya, land of opportunity

The Darkling Land

Oakland, out of the past

Letting loose the dogs of war

Again and again

This Time

LIBERA NOS A MALO

More reading…

Paranoid in America

From the absurd to the sublime

Just Friends, Old Friends

Reading...

Thanks to Davidly

Song of the cosmos

Awlaki, Dogan, and the politics of murder

Oh, Due who

Give me money and I’ll be your friend

I’m an expert, just ask me and I’ll tell you so

Bully boy

Chord Transitions

More mendacity from Obama

Playing Jazz outside the key

Obama is for Obama

Chord tones are where it’s at

Get your goat

America, the land of big blubbering babies

Libya-erated

Thrill kill

It’s entirely credible

Christ on the lam

The empire stumbles on

No such thing as a good candidate

Achieving liberaldom