how much greed is too much greed

live from Las Vegas, it's Monday afternoon:

Already we know that Exxon is generating profits at a rate of more than $1200 per second. That is alarming enough in itself, but it tends to get the public to overlook that Exxon is just one of four major oil/energy companies that are regressively redistributing large quantities of cash from the millions of not so well off citizens to the offshore/ out of taxable range coffers of secret accounts around the planet. We also know that most of the Halliburton and friends lobby are busy paying off those who have blessed them with billions of dollars of taxpayer funds to rebuild various parts of the US stung by natural inclement weather crises. What more don't we know.

Well this tidbit came out today. Tomorrow Bush will give a speech on the bird flew, no, wait the avian flu; yeah that's it. He will of course tell the people that the rest of the world is keeping the US from hoarding tamiflu jabs and that we are in another imminent crisis requiring the use of the military to protect our nation from chaos. What he won't be telling the people is that his own Secretary of Defense is sitting on millions upon millions of dollars of stock in the US patent holder of tamilflu and that his connection has pushed the mass of our nation's stockpile into the hands of the military at greater than retail prices. Nope you won't hear that in the speech. You also won't hear how the new nominee to SCOTUS doesn't think that owning hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock assets in a company matters when deciding cases involving the corporate behaviors since that company is worth millions. Nor will you hear Bush discuss the complete breakdown in the accounting, auditing, and use of US taxpayer funds that were to be used to rebuild Iraq.

This is all business as usual, and there are many who support it for wonderful ideological reasons. Some of course are corporate fascists like those connected to government; some are libertarian advocates running around the country spouting their propaganda to Federalist Society events at colleges, hoping to raise the banner for ending government oversight on all manner of economic decision making--but of course maintaining and strengthening the military to protect these neo-feudal lords of capital. One such freak is Timothy Sandefur. Here is a sampling of his line of thinking:

"Californians are so extremely wealthy that they are willing and able to pay to live in hyperregulated environments like San Francisco and Santa Monica—where prices on everything from homes to consumer goods are needlessly driven up to serve the agendas of the demagogues whom it delighteth the economically illiterate to honor. But what could we have, and what could we be, if it weren’t for the stifling interference of the government?""

"Progressivism as an innovation intended to curtail racial violence. Among other Progressive ideas were forced sterilization and other eugenics programs, peacetime military conscription, the prohibition of alcohol, and forced government schooling, complete with a Pledge of Allegiance written by a socialist. Progressivism (which I take to be in many ways the ancestor of today’s liberalism, and certainly a word of which contemporary liberals seem fond) represented a massive attempt to make men good by force. It was profoundly evil, and profoundly anti-conservative.

"More recently, those regarded as “liberals” have promoted a program of “multiculturalism” and cultural and moral relativism which teaches America’s youth that America and its founding principles are essentially evil, and that capitalism and individualism are the causes of environmental destruction, social oppression, and other social ills. I, for one, regard this as deeply wrong. Movements to purge American school textbooks of fundamental elements of American history, and to label important and great historical figures as evil, and to make martyrs out of people with questionable causes, have all been defended by “liberals.” Those described as “liberals” have included such propagandists as Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore—apologists for Islamic terrorism and foreign regimes of enslavement and misery, and defenders of people like Saddam Hussein."

"But down to brass tacks, as Will Baude points out, “conservatives” is usually the term applied to people who opposed the relentless expansion of communism in the twentieth century—communism being the single most evil thing ever created by man.... That is to say, Leiter continues to this day to defend a political ideology that enslaved and continues to enslave more than a fifth of the world’s population; depriving them of the most basic human rights, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, private property, economic liberty, and many others. Leiter would regard those who resisted communism as evil, which is to say, he is among those whom Robert Conquest called “fucking fools.”

"Will Wilkinson points out the example of Social Security, a horrendous fraud on the American public, which today redistributes wealth from poor black men to rich white women at an astonishing rate. “Conservatives,” under the generally accepted definition generally think Social Security was a bad idea and needs to be overhauled or eliminated."

“Conservatives” generally opposed (at one time) the massive expansion of the regulatory welfare state, particularly the “Great Society” programs of Lyndon Baines Johnson: an expansion which has created a semi-permanent underclass, wreaked havoc on families, nurtured dependency, throttled self-reliance, and indebted the nation to an astonishing degree. Conservatives were behind the welfare reform programs of Governor Ronald Reagan and President Bill Clinton, programs which worked very well. "

"Well, that’s right. We have to examine the fundamental principles of our society and then face the fact that we live in the midst of a massive regulatory welfare state that is directly contrary to those principles. It’s a daunting thing, obviously, to have to admit that the government is regularly engaged in massive perversions of the Constitution. But there is really no sane alternative. In this regard I strongly recommend Gary Lawson’s great article, The Rise And Rise of The Administrative State, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 1231 (1994). And it’s always worth bearing in mind that nothing is impossible. There was a time—a long time—when abolitionists were regarded as the lunatic fringe; the idea that slavery might be abolished and blacks and whites freed to live together was regarded as truly beyond the intellectual pale. But it happened, and we were transformed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. There is absolutely no reason why America cannot take stock of itself and its principles, and rededicate itself to those principles by swearing off the unconstitutional things it does today."

and if his own temerity is not fully revealed in its magnificent self-aggrandisement try his bit on jass:
"... It’s been so over-intellectualized that much of the fun is taken out of it for most people. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t ask questions about art or seek a deeper understanding of music, including jazz. The problem isn’t ideas, the problem is intellectuals. They’ve screwed up a lot in this world, and jazz along with it.....I was deeply unimpressed by the Shorter album everyone was raving about recently, Alegria. It had some nice moments, but they were often crippled by bizarre, unpleasant moments that were just musically meaningless to me—"

Over the next couple of days i will critique each of the quoted points, but suffice it for now i make this one observation: "Those who profess to be objectivist libertarians are arguing for the establishment of corporate feudal fiefdoms protected by raising taxes to provide security forces for property holding capitalists, subjegating all others with the overwhelming burden of "eating their own children to survive."

celebrating the Acid Tests!!! too much kool

http://www.at40vegas.com/halloween2005.html

For all hallows eve this year, a group of like-minded and beautiful people (as jimi sang: not necessarily stoned but beautiful, are you experienced?), will come together to celebrate and share the 40th anniversary of the acid tests. Among this troupe of elder merry and younger enthused pranksters will be the remaining luminairies of the period most well deserving of the title: the psychedelic sixties; these are the only people who can lay any claim to the expression " too much kool aid" as well. Too much kool aid has come to mean nothing especially when used by regressive servative trolls attempting in the most ignorant of vile ways to cast a dysphemic note upon those to their not so distanct left. What stands out for these kind, peace and love focussed sixties heroes is that the use of too much kool aid, the taking of 250 to 500 mcgs, or more, of LSD on a regular basis, is that they are as a group some of the most productive creative and powerfully inspiring people on the planet. They have stepped forward into the future as warriors returning from some of the most extraordinary of adventures to lead the human species into an era of caring about constructs other than matter. There is no possible way to overstate the impact of taking so much LSD on one's psyche and conscious creative mind. Regardless of the spewed venom of jealous gen x'ers the use of LSD in the 60's is still providing innovations and creative reconfigurations in so many aspects of human living. Organic farming and environmental action has been directly sparked, as have the movements of sustainable building, bioneering, cognitive liberties, multi-media interactive experiential relations, transhuman consciousness, and so many many more. the list is huge. So the next time you hear someone "idiot" say someone else has used too much kool aid, suggest that they maybe should learn a great deal more about their elders. In the meantime, come to Las Vegas--it is gonna be a whole lotta fun.

i am not the only one... who sees the future

Allen Snyder: 'America heading toward feudal fascism'
Posted on Thursday, October 27 @ 10:08:12 EDT (2482 reads)

Signs of America's devolution into a feudal/fascist/military state are everywhere; including the rather inconspicuous occurrence of these themes together in at least three articles I've read at www.SmirkingChimp.com in the past few weeks. A clear pattern began emerging during the Reagan/Bush I years, continued almost unabated under Clinton (although it was disguised a little better), but has now, under BushCo, become brazen and accepted public policy; so in-your-face, you can't help but see it -- providing you're looking. Here are some of the more obvious indicators.

Practically all definitions of 'fascism' (including Mussolini's -- who oughta know) talk in terms of the blending of corporate money and interests with political power and those who wield it. If this is all it takes, we've been heading towards fascism ever since the Supreme Court decided that corporations were persons and their monetary donations to political parties, candidates, or their surrogates constitutes free speech, protected under the 1st Amendment (can anyone point to a SCOTUS decision that has wreaked more havoc?).

hypocrisy is reality... táku?? well there is evidence

In the last few days--well a lot longer than that, but for this particular thread the last few days--MSM have been using their entertainment programming to discuss the ever more brazen efforts by the media to document the behavior of celebrities. Call them what you will, the paparazzi are an essential and necessary part of MSM, a cog in the engine of economic commerce. So fundamentally important are they that even E cable tv runs a show with the motto: "we watch celebrities and celebrities watch us." Think about that for a moment. Then think about the upcoming special that E tv will present on the horrible paparazzi. Is this not the height of hypocrisy.

Every single story on Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, the Insider, E, Best Week Ever, the Soup, and too many magazines and online sites to even being trying to mention, requires the use of the images and material collected by paparazzi. When a story comes out about them following too close, or causing an accident, or running into some violent act, the story is accompanied by... wait for it...... images from the.. paparazzi. There would be no entertainment media at all without them. The idea that MSM can manufacture stories about how evil "they" are while simply ignoring MSM's role in actually hiring and using "them" is no different than the ideas spun from the machinations of the GOP message machine. We all know Bushco is lying, and we just shrug our shoulders and along with the MSM pretend he tells the truth. No wonder the citizens of the US can't function in any intelligent meaningful way to provide for their own best interests. There is no formative reality upon which culture continuity can be based in this country. We have pundits and news anchors publicly discussing intelligent design as if it made any sense to them, when in fact it can't, since it doesn't even make sense to those who created and supported it in the first place (see Dover trial transcripts). We have an MSM that chooses for whatever fanciful reason to ignore the 2000 dead troops killed in Iraq defending something that according to the pResident today, isn't about the war on terrorism???? WTF?????

We deserve the nightmare we are experiencing. We deserve the chaos that is ensuing. We deserve to believe that God controls everything including the slaughter of millions for no other reason than his own whimsical joy.

See No Evil--What me Worry???

Yesterday i wrote about the impending rapid expansion of imperial force as Bushco explodes in chaotic madness. Well here is a story today about corporations seeking to align themselves quickly with the new empire, before they are shut out of the opportunities.
For Americans doing business in China, it is a short step between fear and collaboration, as I recently found during a two-week visit to Shanghai and Beijing, the two leading destinations in China for American “expats.”

What is unusual about these people is not that they are afraid; many people in China are. What is unusual about these people is that they are Americans doing business in China—some even doing business successfully. What they fear, of course, is the same thing that China’s people fear: the arbitrary power of government.

They all agreed that working for an American company had benefits over employment with a Chinese company. There was more openness at work, more emphasis on performance and more room to take chances. But one thing was the same: If they were caught criticizing the government, or even breaking the petty rules that govern their social lives—such as the ban on meeting in formal associations that might touch on political and social issues—the American company would not intervene to help them.

Now, Microsoft is one of the richest companies in the world and its founder Bill Gates has spent billions of dollars on a foundation to reduce global inequalities in health and education. And yet his own company is so intimidated by China’s government that terms basic to free expression are banned from its search engine.

American collaboration gets even uglier than that, however. In September Internet company Yahoo admitted that its employees in China assisted the government in making a case against a dissident journalist named Shi Tao, jailed since April, apparently for revealing information about a crackdown by the Communist Party.

In response to a question about the journalist’s fate at a Beijing Internet conference in September, Jerry Yang, an American co-founder of Yahoo, confirmed that his company had helped the Chinese government arrest and prosecute Shi Tao. Yang didn’t give specifics, but Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based advocacy group, has said that Yahoo officials in China helped the government track Shi Tao down using the IP address from which he read his Yahoo e-mail account.

The largest, most well financed corporations in the world are kowtowing to their new imperial masters in China. Why? Because their former imperial leadership is in disarray and chaos, and they risk being found complicit in the ransacking of the US economy and destruction of the country. Better to align with another authoritarian regime, one without much social freedoms but lots of capitalistic promise. Afterall, they can still off source their assets and money; well at least for a while. I found it completely ludicrous that Bush suggested the other day that he was following in Reagan's footsteps: Reagan defeated communism and Bush will defeat islam. Well clearly Reagan never defeated communism, in fact he helped strengthen it beyond measure by allowing it to break off those aspects that were draining its capacity to function and empowering what remained to get stronger and more potent. Russia is still one of the mightiest military and nuclear powers in the world, now free from controlling territory to control resources, mostly its own. China is becoming the world's largest economic engine completely controlled by the Communist Party apparatus that forces "amerikan" corporations to obey. China, like Russia, is moving into space with the support and help of these corporate forces. China, India, and Russia will outcompete the US for precious energy and mineral resources, and suck the life out of the US. It is so apparent to US corporate and wealthy interests that they are already bowing to their new masters.

GET IT YET!!! WE are at WAR!!!

Spero nos familiares mansuros

There are desperate times that require desperate measures, and there are desperate times that require due diligence in paying active involved attention. Then there are times that require both: immediately and substantively. These are now these times!!

Let us assume that there is a whirling pool of a large chaotic vacuum circling around the through the national leadership of the US. An empire built for 35 years to attain world dominance and national superiority through the complete takeover of the US government is crumbling. Created as it was through the well financed efforts of a small cadre of type A personality manipulators and con men, this empire required the cooperation of competing constituencies arranged through money and promises of fiefdoms, pledged by loyal unerring support for policies and practices that in some cases were detrimental to the coalition members.

Corporations were solicited to pay for this effort in exchange for the removal of laws, rules and regulations that restricted their unfettered abuse of the public weal. They received amazing service and are now free to destroy the planet, garner profits of unimagineable size free from taxation, and swindle and cheat the people without consequence.

The wealthiest 0.1% were given every possible opportunity to increase their wealth, as long as they contributed their political and campaign support to the effort, and have been blessed with the lowest taxation on record, the freedom to move about the planet, thus increasing the value of their currency assets through exchanging US $$ for other moneys, and remain immunized against any and all prosecution for their theft of corporate earnings.

The military was bought with taxpayer money doled out in massive heaps for the machines and technology of waging endless unlimited war and with substantive changes in policies that freed the leadership from political oversight of any kind or source in the world. New strategic plans were adopted to allow unlimited use of all military power(including nuclear attacks) against any perceived enemy who might be thought to desire to attack the US in the future.

Political capital was bought through using the slush funds generated by the conmen from various corporate and wealthy interests to purchase elections, control the vote counts, and solicit the interests and attention of a single block large constituency of conservative fundamentalist christians. They were promised to be given a nation built on their beliefs, free from intellectual challenge and non-christian ideologies and supported through the creation of laws and remaking the judiciary to criminalize all non-christian behavior.

I am sure i have left out other significant pieces of this empire building, but those above should suffice to inform you of just how out of control and dangerous the exploding chaos of Bushco will become. Collapse of the leadership will empower those that received these blessings in exchange for their loyalty to turn, not on themselves or fellow brethren, but on all of the rest of the people and the world. The military will see they have no limitations to act in their own best interests thus increasing and escalating war particularly in Asia through the use of nuclear weapons and space. The corporations will continue to off shore/out source their profits and move assets to other countries awaiting the massive depression in consumer capacity, engendered by bankruptcy laws so draconian that they put the well being of Enron ahead of child support. The wealthiest will continue to hire the best and brightest and most well armed security forces in order to protect their interests and consumate desires, using the new laws of florida to shoot and kill those that protest and threaten to expose them for what they are. The christian fascists will feel that they have been sacrificed along with the mass of the population and rise up with arms to take over their local and regional governments mounting a crusade against those perceived as sinners and already going to hell in the first place.

I wish i were wrong about this but i am not. WE are at WAR. Here in the US!. And if we don't take it seriously now, we will all lose.

a week, so harsh and so beautiful it is arrrgg

I haven't been able to write all week, because i can't come to terms with the madness of this nation's leaders in their quest at self preservation, increasing their (and their trusted friends) wealth, destroying the planet, freeing the public shackles on privatization of all public space, and their capacity for pure unadulterated and constituent supported corruption. It really is all too much for me to take. I can almost understand the insanity of the mother in SanFran who through her kids off the docks to save them from having to live in this world. This morning i downloaded my weekly email from Senator Barbara Boxer; it began:

This has been a real week of highs and lows for me

.
I totally relate to how she feels. The absurdity with which the Administration and her fellow Senators present their agendas and utilize their power is beyond human understanding. But just so we are clear on this point, i provide my top ten list of events over the last seven days that i find the most distressing and in many ways the most damaging for our future.

10: Science magazine reports that the Amazon rainforest is being destroyed at twice the pace that was previously found to be unacceptable. At this rate, one of the major chunks of the planet that controls the dispersal of carbon will no longer exist during a time of massive global warming. OOPS!

9: The oceans are warming faster than previously thought and the polar ice masses are shrinking faster and not recovering. The most powerful hurricane ever spawned spun around in the Caribbean for a bit then heads off towards various populations, while massive cyclone flooding thrashes the northeast. But of course this is just part of what is only a blip in the planet's cycle and doesn't mean what we think it means.

8: The US government chooses to drill in the Arctic, the Gulf Coast, the Pacific Coast, the hinterlands, and build enormous refineries all over the country. One of the world's true scientific experts in planetary energy process, from Cal Tech, delivers a lecture at USC in which he shows that if we merely kept the same current pace of fossil fuel use until 2050 ( and not increase it as we seem to be doing) it would take 1000 years to return the greenhouse gas concentrations back to pre-2000 levels. But hey, that isn't now now is it??

7: Congress decides to alleviate financial burdens for corporations and thus frees them from being sued for all manner of issues. Obesity and getting killed by firearms are now private matters of personal responsibility, interestingly enough coinciding with the new law in Florida that allows shooting first, no questions later; and the decision by major fastfood marketeers to put video games in their franchises.

6: The Secretary of State suggests that rather than withdrawing from Iraq (where we have actually increased the number of troops on the ground) we need to think about invading Syria and Iran, take over the whole of the Mid East, and, while we are at it, take back all of our support for a Palestinian state.

5: Congress launches its own pre-emptive strike on the environment by lifting the regulations on the toxicity of the Gulf Coast, driling in Alaska, opening more public and wilderness lands to mineral and fossil fuel exploration and financing all this with tax payer money--but not of course from the richest people--as subsidies for the energy corporations who are at this time acquiring all time record profits.

4: The corruption at every level of leadership in the US government is so rampant and so blatant that the GOP talking points for the week, in support of not threatening legal action against the most corrupt, are filled with tales of how it is just simply business as usual. And why not present it that way, because they are so afraid of losing their control of the economy, and revealing that they have off-shored and outsourced the mass of liquid assets they have been greedily acquiring from tax cuts, price gouging, no-bid contracts for their friends, and just plain outright theft in Iraq.

3: The nominee for the SCOTUS submits responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee questions that are so grossly inappropriate, inane, wrong, and incomplete that even the GOP Senators are flabbergasted by her idiocy. It becomes clear she doesn't know much about constitutional law, doesn't care about the process, is completely beholden to her boss, and is the superior stealth appointment for corporate bidding and social conservative attacks on the remaining social institutions left to all of us.

2: The pResident seems to be incapable of functioning at all in public anymore. He has relegated his duties to various TV producers within his bubble, to facilitate photo-ops and other staged events in hopes that he can successfully hide from the nightmare that five years of his administration has wrought on this country. Caught staging a mini-press conference, the WH simply ignored any acknowledgement of the event and quickly sought to distance itself from any connection with the people involved. Likewise it is doing its best to overlook the behavior of the highest officials within it, hoping to avoid letting the public know that should Cheney and all the hierarchy have to leave, that Bush is completely and utterly incapable of handling the country.

1: The MSM is saturated with horror, thriller, violent, supernatural, alien, mutation invasions of all sorts as we approach halloween. This can only mean that reality is so much scarier and more dangerous; the need to fictionalize so much at this point reveals the inherent weakness of thought and substance that once stood for rational public thinking. ID is on trial and the fundies are screaming about this or that piece of faithbased reality, and the nation's economy goes into the sewer system.. and the people get schlock visions as fodder in hopes they ignore what is really happening to them. should anyone of a dozen natural disasters strike soon, the need for the police state will be made manifest through the complete inability of the government to function to save lives and help people.

wily coyote meets the road runner??

what's with those Old Milwaukee light beer commercials?? Cans falling out of the sky crushing human males who represent all of the positive qualities of a holistic being, in touch with their emotional cores and being cognizant and present in the world. So the can of manhood crushes him like a large bomb falling from the man planes flying through the sky. Did the ad agents ponder this symbolic statement aligning the brand with the zealous fundamentalists christian promise keepers?? A beer for real men who hate all things female. The beer that the road runner would use to kill coyote: Tom and Jerry and Itchy and Scratchy--Bambi meets Godzilla. This is really horrible and should be embarrassing to the networks and cable providers if not to the beer company. Of course no one is embarrassed, no one is even pausing to consider the underlying message being sent out to kids.

now hear this now hear this: mind your manners or else

The following passages are taken from an AP story on public rudeness. The author clearly has some overt bias here, and seems to leap to some strange generalities as a way of expressing "her" displeasure with others around her. There are no less than eight references in the piece about public cell phone use, obviously one of her pet peeves, and the remainder is the usual senior citizen WASP blather about child rearing gone astray: back in my day we made kids behave better. Suffice it that i am only choosing some quotes that stand out for their sheer cuckoo qualities.

A slippage in manners is obvious to many Americans. Nearly 70% questioned in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll said people are ruder than they were 20 or 30 years ago.
The use of the term "slippage" is interesting. It relies on an anecdotal generalization that in some mythical past people were less rude, based of course on anecdotal evidence from people old enough to have established some sort of perception regarding this. Likewise it presupposes that "manners" are a civic and social responsibility rather than the hallmark of the bastion of elitist and classist social hierarchical structures enforcing some civil code on the peons and minions who do their bidding. Can't you picture the hoy palloy in Manhattan suggesting over an afternoon tea that their own maids and servants have lost their sense of place and manners?

Peggy Newfield, founder and president of Personal Best, said the generation that came of age in the times-a-changin' 1960s and 1970s are now parents who do not stress the importance of manners, such as opening a door for a female.
What?? Opening a door for a female?? Isn't that the most quaint form of conservative social retro-reengineering? So who is this chica who is suggesting that we re-objectify women back into the weak synchophantic swooning submissive class of citizens for whom manners served as a constant public marker of their second class status. This little tidbit is from her website:The American School of Protocol™, a subsidiary of Personal Best Inc.®, offers a distinctive training opportunity for professionals who would like to teach etiquette to children. What?? Protocol is another wonderful word for upper class associations and hidden in this sentence is that very subtle marker "professionals" code here for people who earn more than a $150K a year. And you thought i was kidding about the hidden agenda of this piece. The other lovely aspect of this story and good old Peggy is that she is indeed a senior Southern Belle from Atlanta and confidant of Zell Miller. If that doesn't speak volumes regarding the overt patrician classism inherent in demanding people behave as she tells them? And of course you can send her a couple of hundred dollars to receive DVD's of her manners and dining classes.

So it was no surprise to Newfield that those children wouldn't understand how impolite it was to wear flip-flops to a White House meeting with the president - as some members of the Northwestern women's lacrosse team did in the summer.
What?? "Impolite" to and of whom i need to ask. Assuming that there is some sort of change in the status of the First Amendment for White House visits, and similarly assuming that the First Amendment no longer applies in social relations between the wealthy and the not wealthy, one would need to suppose that these championship winning athletes (who btw were part of a huge tour of women's NCAA championship teams many of whom also wore flip-flops and TEVA sandals) were truly ignorant of their servile submissive duties to the upper crust classes. But really what underlies this specific attack, by a southern WASP bitch is epigramtic of the culture war in which we are engaged. Knowingly singling out Northwestern for its liberalism and northern yankeeism, the symbolic attack is really focused on baby boomers and their offspring, raised in defiance of the patriarchy's authoritarian dominance that renders all in its path non-human resources to be used and discarded.

<>A whopping 93% in the AP-Ipsos poll faulted parents for failing to teach their children well. "Parents are very much to blame," said Newfield, whose Atlanta-based company started teaching etiquette to young people and now focuses on corporate employees. "And the media."
What?? She had to add that now didn't she, dyssing that democratic equalizer that spreads those enlightenment based liberalistic notions of equality, freedom, and civil and human rights. If it isn't the hippy commie parents then it is the liberal media that engages the masses into defiance of their betters. The "whopping 93%" represents, one would assume, a large population of people who are active viewers of MSM and thus have gotten the "liberal?" message that parents don't teach their children well? The idiocy of the simultaneous claims is stark. Here is a MSM, choosing to use that dim ol' bat Peggy to pronounce that parents and media are to blame for the apparent rudeness of the servile and impoverished classes. And this MSM is doing so because it is part of the problem?? or is it doing so because it is working to get it both ways: running programming that generates revenue from representing the disdain the people have for the breakdown of the patriarchy's stranglehold on our nation's well being--the collapse of economies, endless war, failed schools, destroyed infrastructure and social institutions, etc. while making sure that the people blame one another for their weakness of character and failure to see that their betters have the right to treat them this way.

it can and will get worse...

In September, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in a comment perhaps not intended for publication, told Thierry Breton, French Finance Minister, that the US budget is out of control with the country being plunged ever more deeply into debt. The Economist reported Breton's disappointment "... that the management of debt is not a political priority today." Breton was wrong. Accumulation of massive debt is the number one priority of the Bush Administration - a deliberate, managed move toward its goal of an "ownership society" in which all aspects are privatized.

Since the introduction of the massive Republican tax cuts, many observers understood immediately that they were to plunge government into debt, thereby undercutting its ability to fund social programs such as Medicare and Social Security, and to administer public domain that has long belonged to all citizens in common. In May of 2003, Princeton economist Paul Krugman wrote that "gimmicks used to make an $800-billion-plus tax cut carry a price tag of only $320 billion are a joke ... The people now running America aren't conservatives: they're radicals who want to do away with the social and economic system we have, and the fiscal crisis they are concocting may give them the excuse they need."

This is all about privatizing the systems and infrastructure of the US. It is all about the funding of elitist cabals insuring they take complete and total power over all aspects of life in the US, and there by choose who lives, who dies, who are assigned to the poor camps, and who are chosen to live out there days in bio-domes watching the collapse of the earth's ecosystems. Today the SCOTUS admits it will accept arguments in a case through which they will allow private wealthy land holders to destroy wetlands and other environments in their pursuit of wealthy and profit. Last week, word came out that FEMA was told to back off of aiding and helping citizens in the Gulf Coast region following Katrina in hopes that the military and private security contractors could aid in the removal of poor and black citizens, clearing the way for wealthier whiter redevelopment. These stories are piling up against one another like the storm surges of Rita piled up on Katrina.

Is there any one willing to stop this machine? Do people actually care enough to stand up to it?? Will the collapse of the economy, leading to depressions and forced compulsory removal of people from their homes and lands which became the property of the financial institutions, encourage the population to rise up against their moneyed masters, or simply roll over and whimper??

the human name doesn't mean she/it to a tree

PERSONAL notes released this week between George W. Bush and his choice for the US Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, have angered conservatives who accuse the President of cronyism. The notes reveal the deep friendship between the two and praise verging on the fawning from Ms Miers, who has never been far from Mr Bush's side since becoming his personal lawyer in the mid-90s. The Texas state library has released more than 2000 documents detailing correspondence between Ms Miers and Mr Bush when he was governor of Texas.

Well now, ain't that sweet. Adoring loving praise for the person closest to you in the world leads to being called out for your successes achieved through the adoring loving praise. How could such a horrible thing happen? How dare we as a society and culture allow meritorious credit to be given to those who demonstrate these syncophantic interpersonal skill achievements? Where is the shame?

And where is the shame for those conservative critics who accuse their hero of cronyism? It is only cronyism because the specific people they had chosen from a pool of committed fawners, were not the cronies that were chosen. We accuse you of cronyism because you didn't pick our crony?? Is the irony of this so completely lost on the MSM that they gloss right over it?? I think not. I do think that the citizens of the US for the most part no longer have the capacity to distinguish irony from reality--again a huge shout out thanks to Seinfeld for that one. And that Miers is nothing so much more than a crony is endemic to the realities that this nation has found for itself. Do we not train our children to exhibit the best forms of cronyism when picking teams for games/sports? Do we not fawningly approve the celebrity status of the media who fawn over other celebrities picking and choosing their favorites from lists provided by their own crony publicists? How can we possibly be surprised and upset by this appointment; it exhibits the very best hallmarks of all that is celebrated and honored in the MSM and US culture. We need to feel our own shame in this as well.

opáwinghe wanji or wóyawa thánka??

Whatever is the correct response: A or B???

A: Bushco is a coherent, funded in perpetuity, coalition organization dedicated to the complete control of the Earth and all planetary resources, and has been for fifty plus years. Well aware of the scientific implications of environmental collapse, global climate changes, dangerously increasing storms and quakes--this group has taken it upon themselves to determine who lives and dies, who acquires and maintains the necessary power and control over the economic and material resources of the planet, and most importantly who delivers the messages. Efforts have been undertaken to increase the threats of diseases while removing access by the masses to the effective treatments for same. Intentional delivery of diseases into the public have been initiated across the planet, refusal to deliver adequate relief in times of crises as well as ensuring the removal of most economic funds by corrupt aligned regimes, are all part and parcel of the master plan to save the Earth for the few who can shelter themselves through great wealth in various bio-domes and indoor eco-systems. Bushco has negotiated agreements with like minded leadership around the planet, and facilitated the spreading of these policies in every continent. It has rehearsed and tested troops and weapons systems that it intends to use on US citizens to increase the number who die and the enslavement of minions to do their bidding in special camps and restricted zones.

B: Bushco is a bunch of incompetent boobs who inherited a plan from their forefathers but have neither the intelligence nor capability to implement and carry it out. While their vision is vast and all encompassing, their understanding of implementation required the buying out of various elements to the most corrupt and mediocre of minds and agencies, none of which are capable of sustaining the plan, the security and protection of the wealthy, nor the population as a whole. It can neither kill off all those it intends nor keep alive and well those chosen to be protected. It is squandering the greatest wealth and insuring that those it wishes to not be in power in foreign lands, are instead gaining power and control over the resources it so desperately desires. It has relied on cronyism to protect itself from revolution only to discover that the revolution is coming from within. Intent on support from the stupid and ignorant it has run aground on the rocks of christian theo-fascism expressed as ID idiocy and literal readings of the Books of Revelations and the Left Behind series.

well i simply can't choose the correct response. hopefully it is not a combination of the two because, well that would not only make sense, but imply that we are in grave grave danger

pondering the Federal enforcement of the CSA

Section 885(d) of the federal Controlled Substances Act entitles undercover police officers to obtain, handle, and sell illicit drugs. It states that "no civil or criminal liability shall be imposed" on any "authorized officer... who shall be lawfully engaged in the enforcement of any law or municipal ordinance relating to controlled substances." Section 885(d) applies to officers employed by cities, counties, and states, as well as to federal agents.

The other day the state of Oregon was arguing its case to the SCOTUS for its law, ratified by public referendum, that allows physicians to provide terminally ill patients the means and opportunity to transcend this event horizon. The Federal government argued that this law violated the intent of the CSA in that these "controlled" substances--used under the specific auspices of physicians who are in fact the actual authorized agents of control under the CSA--were not intended to be used in this way. While Oregon's lawyers suggested that these substances are used by the Federal and most state governments for just this purpose when used to execute death sentences, they didn't look into the abuse of the CSA under Section 885(d). Isn't is just the pinnacle of the pyramid of hypocrisy that Bushco would support the random, non-physician controlled, use of controlled substances by a servile class of high school graduates in the pursuit of establishing the police state while suggesting that doctors shouldn't use their training and authority to reduce and alleviate the suffering of terminal patients and their families.

There can be no other determination than that Bushco's sole intent is to increase suffering and coercion, to a level sufficient to warrant not just rebuke but outright defiance, in order to initiate its PNAC developed plans for a total military police state. They wish to be the sole arbitrators of who lives and dies, the sole practitioners of control over controlled substances, removing that authority from the medical community. They want their troops to decide who is shot and dies rather than burdening the justice system with anything more than being nodding yes persons and synchophants of their awesome executive power. The citizens of this nation, slowly, ever so slowly, are awakening to the realization that they are becoming the little eichmanns through their self-induced apathetic dreamstates of the last six years. In order to put them back to sleep, and/or to force them into compliance and conformity, Bushco is willing to take the troops to the streets, to remove health care from the purview of its practitioners, to initiate policies that reinforce higher education only for the scions of the wealthy and white while putting the poor and people of color into camps. It will be interesting to see how the people handle this.

Luta y eto... crypts and bloods...

How have we allowed the national debate to be turned into the battle between the crypts and the bloods?? We have red states vs blue states, red vs blue parties, red vs blue candidates. All we need is to add the bandanas and a few hand signals and we have fully reduced this nation to its primal gang war status. This sort of gang differentiation reduces discourse and discussion to the instant 'us vs them' banality, encouraging only the most tasteless vile and vitriol of bar fight mentality among even those who portend to be the non- ignorant.

Are we really just the crypts and bloods?? Are we just a collection of gangs that torment and harrass one another? Are we nothing more than a bunch of violent hoodlums exporting, almost solely, war and belligerance as the token tagging claims to resources as territory?? This must be creating hysterical laughter among the actual members of the red and blue flagged gangs.

While i am at it, Bravo channel had a week of idiot shows based on why it was good to be something that was not good. In essence why it was red to be blue in a sense. And among those strange assignations of symbolic foolishness, was the notion that the second best possible reason to declare one a "red staters"(bloods) was one's love for all things consumer jesus; and the number one reason was "that Elvis was more important than god." Now here is a network, under the onus of NBC/Universal logo which is a subsidiary of GE, saying that Elvis was more important than god in 2005! I wonder if there will be protest? Well, let's see that show was broadcast two or three days ago, and i still haven't read a thing about that comment. Being as old as i am, i was a teen when John Lennon made a similar claim about the Beatles. That remark led to massive international protest, the burning of Beatles records, the banning of songs in the US, the scourge of rock in general as a menace to all that was sanctified by Goldwater conservaties--the progenitors of Bushco. Now it is 40 years later and one of the largest corporations in the world can broadcast a claim that Elvis is more important than God without one whimper of angst or cathartic disbelief. We truly have achieved a brutal insanity in our national affairs.

will wonders never cease and other amens

Part and parcel of the various campaigns being waged to force the US to become a theocratic imposed republic (along the lines of the Roman Empire i would think, if the Christo-fascist vision holds sway) is the tacit support that libertarians afford the conservatives in ridding this nation of those pesky support programs for the desperately poor, the altered abled, and the masses of folks who live in danger of becoming part of the desperately poor. In order for the theocrats to sustain their expansion into all forms of governance, the end of public taxpayer support for aid is singularly important in that it requires those that then need aid to get it solely from faith based charities. Once that is firmly in place, along with parochial voucher education, and other institutionalization of the christo-fascist wing infrastructure, those who choose to not "believe" can more easily be marginalized and removed from the public weal, from the civic society. Thus, when libertarian types argue emphatically for a reduction in such services and programs, they are advocating directly for this shift in the country. They will not be able to have it both ways.

The greatest threat to libertarianism is anarchist, in that the supposed angst about socialism only applies to people with lesser wealth not more. Support exists for the corporate subsidies and tax breaks that further erode the social framework of communities, as well as direct advocation for increasing the presence and size of the police state. Hence anarchists are the last great holders of constitutional liberties among the political spectrum. Eventually chaos will force the issue to the fore, and those who have learned and trained to be independent agents free from the morality of corporate capitalist consumerism as well as any religio-credo constructs will be able to function in a conscious state celebrating their cognitive liberty. That scares the hell out of libertarians as much as all of their conservative brethren. Anarchy is the essence of a fully interconnected social organism of species entwined within an ecosystem of greater and greater complexity. Each operating as an independent agent, whilst fully aware that every action is intricately related to all of existence in each and every moment. The proscribed conscious awareness will only lead to greater autonomy within the forms of total interconnectedness. I breathe in knowing that my air, taken freely and independently with this planet is shared will all life in every sense of the material, the atomic, the sub-atomic, the quantum, the superstring, and the non-material cosmos. How can it be anything other than that. And if each breath is such, then each sip of water and tasting of food, and dream and shit and piss and smile and voice and beat are linked as such as well. I don't need any form of government at all to protect me from BEING.

can you say fascist police state little children??

Today's headlines contain this story??
<>

President Bush said yesterday that he would consider using the military to "effect a quarantine" in the event of an outbreak of pandemic influenza in the United States. Responding to a question during a news conference, Bush also suggested that putting National Guard troops under federal, rather than state, control might be one part of a response to the "catastrophe" of an avian influenza outbreak. The president raised the same idea after Hurricane Katrina, suggesting that he is considering a greater role for the military in natural disasters.

Let's look into our little crystal ball together as we examine today's lead stories, shall we? Bush wants Miers on the court asap, to frame a minimum of a 5/4 majority under the leadership of Roberts to sustain any sort of virtual challenge to his authority as he prepares to unleash the final phases of the theocratic fascist state on the US. Following the construction of the new Iraq, whose security forces are populated by Shia militias performing a thorough removal of all Sunni opposition (killing all Sunni males between the ages of 4 and 60), the Bush administration will use the disruption of energy infrastructure and the continuing endless war on terror as a means to push for abandonment of all environmental regulations. This coupled with a new draft will frame a new resistance among the people which when the various "natural' calamaties come to fore such as the intentional release of the bird and swine flus of asian pedigree, will require the US to militarize and suspend all constitutional rights. The full military police state should be in control under Bushco no later than the Fall of 2006 in time to suspend the general election and maintain the current GOP control of all aspects of the US government. Since the Dem leadership will seek its own protection and survival it will fully support these efforts to privatize every aspect of infrastructure in the country whilst nationalizing every political constituency(counties, cities, regions, states). Then putting "governors" in charge handpicked from the religious zealots, death squads will initiate removal of citizens who are suspected of violating the curfew and quarantine laws eventually leading to larger and larger death camps out in the deserts and great basins depopulated of all other lifeforms.

our national culture sucks bigtime

How do you judge the aesthetics of a nation?? The appropriate philosophical response to that would entail delineation of the various connotations of art, common goodness, common weal, standards of beauty and so forth. But such a response would certainly be remiss if it failed to account for the TV watching habits and choices made by the populace as a whole. This especially important when evaluating the concurrent behaviors of same groups, incorporating their beliefs as surveyed in "reliable" polling, and analyzing their choices of foods and beverages.

In the last couple of weeks there have been some survey polls released that demonstrate just how skewed towards the weird the US population has become. In response to these polls, which clearly were forshadowed by intense focus group inquiries by the MSM, our national broadcast TV programming has moved in the direction to meet and sell more products to these folks. Likewise the release of new health data shows that the bulks of those commercials are more than successful, in that an ever growing(pun intended here) number of our nation's children and their parental units are eating more deep fried fast foods. Yes as we as a nation demonstrate that we believe in space aliens(80%) and in a god's intervention in creating storms to punish this country (48%) and so forth, the people seem to accept that it will not matter what they eat, that they will be protected and cared for through divine intervention rather than human based practical medical reality.

Last week the most popular TV programs included in the top ten two shows that deal with being deserted in a tropical paradise--Lost & Survivor, albeit the one with the higher rating includes the supernatural element. Half the top ten were procedural cop dramasCSI, CSI Miami (more about this lower), WAT(missing person FBI), Cold Case, and Law & Order followed in the top twenty by the other two L & O's and the other CSI and NCIS---technologically hunting down people seems to be very popular esp while a war is going on supposedly to hunt down our enemies. Maybe people need the TV versions because the hunts actually end successfully? Also in the top twenty shows are not one, not two, but yes three medical dramas, one house makeover, the monday NFL game, a psychic medium cop drama(add that to the cop list, too). a bunch of too rich and spoiled women bitches, and one lonely presidential trauma. The numbers of viewers were staggering; on average 50 million people per hour were watching the 6 broadcast channels, and another 80 million or so were watching cable each hour, most of which is either syndicated repeats of the same above shows, sports, all over improvement, comedy, and movies. At least one third of this country actively engaged in the very same sedentary activity at the same time across the country.

What does this say??well what does it mean?? On the positive side, people are intrigued by the puzzles presented in the cop shows, the dilemmas of the lost survivors, and the whims of beautiful bitches. Also on the plus side is the apparent failure of the programmers pursuit of bringing more supernatural angst dramas to the viewers--five new shows this season reveal that people just aren't buying that crap. However, these numbers also mean that the people don't care at all about intelligent literary thought, nor about rational understanding, or believability. The people seem to need to get a daily multi-hour fix of make believe reality, possibly because what they experience in the "real" world is becoming so hideous and insane all on its own.

CSI -Miami certainly describes what i mention above. The main character, horrendously acted in an almost MAD TV parody of himself, seems to rather have been cast as Superman or Batman. He cannot speak in more than five words all with very short syllables(yes the people seem to like that in their president as well), cannot delegate responsibility to anyone else, controls every facet of the procedures(do the viewers even begin to question situations when he is first to break in the door to clear a room, then is followed by fifteen SWAT officers?? or when he disarms bombs without calling bomb squads? ad nauseum), violates nearly every suspects civil rights and liberties, and still manages to not scare children with the most insipid of ruthlessly emoted compassion. The show is clearly watched for its T & A and the supporting cast of rich good looking people all of which further convinces me of the stupidity of our people and the reduction of aesthetics to sexual iconography and fetishization of the "high" life.

Although "quotidian" never really made it as a word on TV shows when it was found in the daily columns, blogs, and commentary of the literati, this year's new favorite term too often used in too many contexts--- schadenfreude--has now been heard on no less than seven broadcast network prime time productions.

a nuda duh factor...

or how the media likes to spin any uptic sort of business news into a positive...the story reads:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing activity was surprisingly robust in September as new orders jumped in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while August construction spending rose at a record rate, data released on Monday showed.

The Institute for Supply Management said its monthly indexes of manufacturing activity for September was 59.4, well above average expectations of a drop to 52.0 and the 53.6 level seen in August. However, ISM cautioned that the jump was primarily driven by demand following the hurricane, which devastated the Gulf of Mexico coast at the end of August, and that the impact likely would be temporary. "The flurry of activity and the strength of new orders -- I don't think that is a business cycle issue, that is an event-cycle issue driven by the storm," said Norbert Ore, chair of the ISM business survey committee.

"Surprising" then "expected", but of course this is an accurate representation of reality. But let's see if this holds up across most of the reporting of this number that Bushco will finesse for points as more and more of their own personal nightmares collapse. Isn't it obvious that one of the factors in making manufacturing look really strong in this drive of spending $200 billion of the tax payers money to rebuild large sections of the Gulf coast region, that in fact for more than a decade, the US manufacturing base has been obliterated by offshoring and outsourcing most of the processes to the cheapest labor markets. Combining dramatically increased gas prices with the actual need to rebuild infrastructure requires US based manfacturing. This isn't something too difficult to comprehend; our trade imbalance is so disastrously extreme that were we to actually continue to try to outsource the production we would truly destroy our economy.

Non lo so. Non curo!!!

Mariska Hargitay portrays the most vile written character on TV. It cannot be possible that this role is not specifically tailored and customized to her personality and present being. Thus she is one of the most vile of people.

The character represents everything that is reprehensible of our corporate fascist culture: soulless, the oh so faux compassionate expressions, demeaning dysphemistic denoument, overt and direct bitchiness formulate to project that all victims are to blame for all of their circumstances especially those who are damningly unwilling to rise up and become part of the MS culture zombie parades. If ever there was a personal symbolic referent for all that Barbara Erhenreich finds vile and despicable in her new book BAIT AND SWITCH it is this combined character and actress in this role. Is it any wonder that she is rewarded with Emmy nominations by the very same establishment by which she is used to express their version of the Ned Beatty NETWORK message!!

What makes this more meaningful to me is that i have know that family for more forty years. When her brother Zoltan was nearly eaten by lions at a stupid abusive little hollywood style wild animal park in what is now Agoura/Simi Valley, the family attended the same church with mine, and all were asked to share our prayers and thoughts for them. A few years later i ended up teaching Zoltan while i was at UCLA, and knew both the father and mother from conferences and discussions. The father was part of the Venice bodybuilding community(muscle beach), an area in which i lifeguarded for a while. So Mariska's life is well known to me. As the youngest child, in a family that got much too much attention than it truly deserved, she has become the spoiled little princess and lives up to her role of the preeminent bitch of righteous conservative zealotry. It is simply disgusting.