RJ Eskow nails it... but i wanted to first.. hehe

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< style="font-family: georgia;">Let me get this straight: "Islamic fascism" is the greatest world threat since Nazism, Bin Laden is its Hitler ... and yet chasing him is not a priority. What's going on with the GOP's leadership? Do they want Al Qaeda to remain a threat to the US and its allies? Think about it: Al Qaeda's actions saved an already-failed Bush Presidency and gave the Republicans total political control in 2002, and in return we've given it great publicity and a new recruiting grounds in Iraq. With their heated rhetoric, our leaders elevated Bin Laden from a vile and desperate criminal to the de facto leader of world Islamic radicalism. It's just what he wanted - and they gave it to him.

Absolutely correct!!! Bushco must, at all costs, increase the level of fear and threat in order to maintain political power to insure the continuing transfer of wealth, remaining as assets of the nation and its citizens, from the many to the few. Massive corporate investment has put them in place solely to initiate this transfer. It cannot be accomplished without the diversion that only a threat of terror can create. Destruction of the environment of the country and planet are secondary to the guarantee that the super rich continue to amass wealth and control of the minions. Destruction of the remaining bastions of middle class, reducing their assets and any political power to those only of serfs and peasants, in order to increase the degree and level of population control, turning over the law and order system to the churches. Without terrorizing the citizens of the US, there is no chance that Bushco can continue to advance its cause, and secure the future protection of the 0.01% of the planet's population.

And this is about the future; it is about the way in which millions of US citizens and all of their american cousins will be forced to suffer in depravity and despair, living in extreme poverty with ever shrinking availability of resources. Without keeping them very afraid of one another, instilling a deep and abiding paranoia among the people, the churches and superrich would have no hold, no control. They are right about one thing: if this gets out there will be chaos and disorder. So we must legalize torture, we must legalize spying, we must abandon constitutional protections and rights and liberties. We must make the world so unsafe, make the US seem so horrendous, that we can live safely only under a regime that protects from the threats it creates. This is organized crime gangsterism 101; the ultimate protection racket.

please keep in mind

when you read the following story, that there has never been a minimum amount of this chemical small enough to not kill a dog. It is a chemical that is responsible for the deaths of farmworkers all over the world, for massive birth defects and other serious ailments around the planet, and instantly deadly if inhaled or swallowed. Got it? Now read this:

ENVIRONMENT -- BUSH ADMINISTRATION STOCKPILING BANNED PESTICIDE: Methyl bromide has been banned for almost two years under the U.N. Montreal Protocol, a pact designed to stop the thinning of the ozone layer. But according to newly available public documents, the United States has been stockpiling millions of pounds of the pesticide. Methyl bromide is "a highly toxic gas used to sterilize soil and kill pests, [and] is considered the most powerful ozone destroyer currently in large-scale use." Loss of ozone increases the risk of skin cancer, cataracts, slow blindness, and reduces ecosystem diversity. While the United States receives an annual exemption to use the chemical at farms whose crops are deemed "critical," under the treaty, nations are allowed to produce more only if "methyl bromide is not available in sufficient quantity and quality from existing stocks." The Los Angeles Times notes, "In 2004, nearly 29 million pounds were stockpiled by U.S. chemical companies, but the Bush administration received permission from the United Nations to produce an additional 17 million pounds that year, according to newly released EPA data. That amounts to twice as much as U.S. farmers needed last year." David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said "there's absolutely no justification for having a huge inventory" of methyl bromide when the Montreal Protocol says all nations "should have as little on hand as possible" -- a couple of months' worth.

So for what purpose would Bushco have for securing more than 46 million pounds of this stuff???

I only have one 9/11 question... for now

As this nation continues to be terrorized, losing citizens everyday to violence in Iraq and Afghanistan (deaths that of course wouldn't happen if we weren't there), suffering untold assaults on the rights and liberties of all the citizens here, and becoming increasingly more violent towards one another, i just need to know how the following makes any sense?

Four planes, ostensibly and supposedly taken over by minorly armed hijackers, were planned to have attacked four key facilities. One each for the WTC, and one for the Pentagon, and one for either the White House (where Cheney might have been) or the Capitol. The only plane that was "taken back" by stalwart and heroic US citizens was the one plane that was to target either of our most prized and sacred sites. Now we are being told that we are only to believe that the four planes were staffed with highly trained operatives who were organized to attack the US, and this operation had been in planning for a very long time. Fine, on its face i can accept that assumption for this question. So why is it that the weakest, most-inefficient, least- capable hijackers were on the single, most-important, most-obvious plane?

If the plan was to symbolically attack the US, and picking the WTC and Pentagon were certainly symbolic attacks (WTC housed major media, the largest bank consortium in the world, offices of the Federal government security apparatus, etc.; while the Pentagon was the symbolic HQ of the one military in the world that dwarfs all those of the rest of the world combined), then wouldn't the hijackers with the most sophistication, most experience, closest to Allah, choose to take control of the one plane that was targetted to hit the most symbolic site of all. Are we supposed to believe that it is mere coincidence that the only plane that didn't hit its target was the one that was intended to hit the most precious target???? Are we supposed to accept that the hijackers (who pulled this off) were otherwise so stupid and so inane that they could not have figured out a plan that would make sure that the one key target would be hit??? Are we supposed to accept our own clearly demonstrated incompetent government's assessment that the one plane that really mattered didn't get through because only those passengers had the courage to stop the attack? Just this one set of assumptions alone makes the entire event's official report suspect. It cannot go unanswered, because as of right now it makes absolutely no sense at all.

some would call this treason.. but others say it's just Bush

As of this weekend, here on the fifth year after the nefarious and infamous event of September 11, 2001, the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration has now officially killed more US citizens than were killed on this date five years ago. By the end of this month, more US citizens will have been killed in Iraq than were killed just in the WTC attack. This of course doesn't count the number of permanently disabling wounds to US citizens, which are astronomically higher than any that possibly could be attributed to 9/11. I, of course, am not assessing those that will suffer immeasureably from the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration's mishandling of the toxic and hazardous materials identification during the cleanup of DC and NYC. Yet, it is conceivable that of the more than one million US citizens who will have served merely in Iraq, most, if not all, will suffer from DU toxicity and poisoning.

So, here is the simple question. Who has inflicted the most terror and damage on the US population? I give you two choices: a) Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration or b) Al Qaeda. If you chose b) you are a puppet stooge of the MSM and will go forth blindly into your own massive insanity supporting the more treasonous and hideous regime in the history of the US. If you chose a) you better get your ass out and vote this year to rid ourselves of these bastards.

the battle lines are drawn..

Just taking today's news reports, we see that the battle for the spirit and soul of the US is now begun. In no particular order:

• the Senate Intel Committee releases more of its Phase 2 report showing no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq, yet all of the major Bushco players go on TV and say that while not reading the report they still hold the view that there was definitely a connection. They are lying to us because they can.

• the supposed re-edit of the ABC 9/11 film didn't happen, merely deflected pressure until it could be released in NZ and AU earlier today. Same problem scenes are still in it; thus demonstrating that they never had any intention other than to insure that furthering the propaganda initiatives of Bushco is first and foremost their role.

• the RNCC arm of the GOP officially acknowledges that they will spend all of the money on negative personal attacks to insure they continue their control of Congress at all costs. Lies and threats are to be the tools by which they will demonstrate their deserving of the honor of staying in power. Essentially they will lie and distort to achieve their goals, because they are unwilling to stand on their own record.

We are in deep deep trouble.

only been back a few days..

but oh my, what has been going on in this country? I can only assume that ABC/Disney is convinced that by promoting and broadcasting blatant propaganda, they can forestall a change in a Congress that has been decidedly supportive of them in terms of tax breaks, lax FCC regulation, and more freedom to control the population through marketing of consumer products. It is likely that a Democratically controlled Senate or Congress would reduce the capacity to generate greater profits, necessary in this era of falling dollar values and national bankruptcy. Thus, this effort to revise history from a conservative theocratic fascist perspective, is designed to insure future profit at the expense of the US constitutional government.

Jason Miller on US crimes against humanity

Here are but a few recent examples of the United States' own flagrant human rights abuses:

1. carrying out quite a number of its own executions in a manner recently discovered to inflict a great deal of suffering on the victim, including executing the mentally retarded and mentally ill. The US also executes a greater per capita number of its citizens than any other nation.

2. routinely torturing and suspending justice for those labelled "enemy combatants"

3. funding the Israeli Apartheid and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians

4. occupying a nation where it has killed over a million Iraqi civilians since the Gulf War invasion (through brutal economic sanctions {500K children alone in nine years} and military actions).

5. funding and providing the munitions for the Israeli devastation of Lebanon

6. supporting numerous ruthless and murderous regimes (as long as they are friendly to US corporations)

7. having cynically embraced Saddam Hussein as an ally (knowing of his crimes against humanity {Rumsfeld handing him a check after the Kurd gassing}) when it furthered US interests and invading Iraq preemptively to topple him when he ceased to be useful.

8. having kept the House of Saud in power for years despite its harsh practice of Sharia Law and repression of all dissent and opposition

9. maintaining the largest prison population in the world (and largest per capita prison population) through a legal system so unjust that 50% of those incarcerated are Black when Blacks comprise 14% of the general population.

10. engaging in numerous outright massacres of civilians (i.e. Haditha, Fallujah) {well this dates back to the early American colonial days now doesn't it??}

rummaging in the mind bin

When i get back in September, i need to post some thoughts on several topics.

I have a notion that those who propose that humans have a right to property, fail to acknowledge (intentionally) that in order to fully exercise such a right, one must deny others the access to that right, using capital assets and economic elitism to sustain control over the resources (security forces) at the expense of freely and openly allowing all to have free unfettered access to exercise that right. I see the concept of private property as a privilege like driving. If you can afford it, you can have it; but it is not a right by any means, and it must be regulated and controlled like use of motor vehicles. Private property advocates are essentially demanding that only their brand of capitalism exist and that all threats to their own views are dangerous and must be abandoned or destroyed. Keep that in mind next time someone suggests that they have a right to own a piece of the earth; look into their souls and you will see the greed and selfishness. As is said, more next month.

The MSM conservative media insist that the US population is stupid. Nothing new here, but the depths to which they put this to the test. The terror arrests help Bush stories seem to represent the notion that Bush needs help? So things really are that bad? The notion that Lamont's victory is representative of the Dems nominating losers to national office. Of course those losers were actually winners whose legal and forthright elections were stolen and subverted by a Supreme Court and electronic voting hacking.

The war on terror will go on forever?? Well it can't, because it presupposes that the US will eventually have to take on its own citizens, and when that happens there won't be a US to fight an openended war on terror, or anyone else for that matter. The ongoing efforts to establish the US as the Christian version of Israel, creating a theocratic state, empower with massive military protections, seeking to absorb much of the planet's resources for its own selfish and abusive use, will only serve to destroy the country from within. Not to mention the apparent failure of Israel's military planning and execution in its efforts to destroy its neighbors.

The man is completely insane...

It isn't shocking that more than 99% of the world's leaders think differently than George; no what is shocking is that he is being put out there by his puppet masters to prove it.

Bush Says Israel Defeated Hezbollah Guerillas <>
(CBS News) President Bush said Monday that Hezbollah guerillas suffered a defeat at the hands of Israel in their month-long Mideast war. "There's going to be a new power in the south of Lebanon," Mr. Bush said. Mr. Bush also said the war was part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror and "we can only imagine how much more dangerous this conflict would be if Iran had the nuclear weapon it seeks."
Mr. Bush said Iran and Syria were the primary sponsors of Hezbollah guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers, igniting the battle with Israel. More than 900 people were killed in the fighting, and there was massive destruction in southern Lebanon. Mr. Bush said the "responsibility for this suffering lies with Hezbollah."

And now contrast that with Israel's own vision of this 34 day war. Keep in mind the hidden subversive message above: that an oppositional political party is guilty for the slaughter of its own nation's citizens simply because it was the oppositional party. Get it??? Just ask Cheney, when he says Democrats are in league with Al Qaeda.

Israel's Verdict: We Lost the War
by Donald Macintyre
<> Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, was obliged to admit "shortcomings" in the 34-day-old conflict in Lebanon yesterday as he launched what may prove a protracted fight for his own political survival. Mr Olmert's admission in a stormy Knesset session came in the face of devastating poll figures showing a majority of the Israeli public believes none or only a very small part of the goals of the war had been achieved. The Prime Minister, who was repeatedly heckled by opposition MPs during his address, insisted the international commitments in Friday night's UN resolution would "change fundamentally" the balance of forces on the country's northern border. <>Promising that the government "will have to examine ourselves at all levels,"

Mr Olmert fought to pre-empt a probable campaign by the political right by declaring that Hizbollah had been dealt a "harsh blow". He added that the guerrilla group was no longer "a state within a state" or a "terrorist organisation that is allowed to act inside a state as an arm of the axis of evil", referring to Syria and Iran.
While refraining from a direct personal attack on Mr Olmert, Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right- wing Likud opposition, lost little time in declaring "there were many failures, failures in identifying the threat, failures in preparing to meet the threat, failures in the management of the war, failures in the management of the home front."

Now let's consider two other points. First, that Bush and Olmert suggest that this was really about Syria and Iran; that the US has strategic intent to pre-emptively attack Iran and was supporting the Israeli strike against Lebanon to instigate a Syrian/Iranian response. Assume that Bush/Cheney also refers to Iraq as a victory, and considering Israel's effort a victory, foreshadows decades of war in the Middle East, killing thousands of US citizens and hundreds of thousands of foreign citizens, these crazy mofos would call that a victory too. But that isn't the critical point. What underlies all of this is that Israel had been planning this attack for more than a year, with the direct support and approval of Bushco, and that this year long planning and preparation are viewed by Israel as a complete defeat.

Last month the San Francisco Chronicle reported that "Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hizbollah militants was unfolding according to a plan finalised more than a year ago". The report said that a senior Israeli army officer had been briefing diplomats, journalists and think-tanks for more than a year about the plan and it quoted Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at [Israel's] Bar-Ilan University, who said: "Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared." Last week the New Statesman magazine reported that Britain had also been informed in advance of the military preparations and that the Prime Minister had chosen not to try to stop them "because he did not want to".

This latest report is the first to tie the Israeli operation to a broader framework that includes a possible US strike against Iran.

Unidentified officials said a strike could "ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American pre-emptive attack". Shabtai Shavit, a national security adviser to the Knesset, said: "We do what we think is best for us, and if it happens to meet America's requirements, that's just part of a relationship between two friends. Hizbollah is armed to the teeth and trained in the most advanced technology of guerrilla warfare. It was just a matter of time."

An anonymous Middle East expert claimed that while the State Department supported the plan because it believed it would help the Lebanese government assert control over the south, the White House was focussed on stripping Hizbollah of its missiles.

Noli me vocare; non lo so

Sixty one years ago the US decided it was necessary to drop a second atomic bomb, this time on the city of Nagasaki. Four days earlier it had done the nasty to Hiroshima, and assumed (with no basis in fact) that it needed to use the second bomb to insure its victory. In truth, it dropped the second bomb because it was there to be dropped; they really had no alternative plan for what to do with it. We fight war to fight war, not to win them. War machines are self-perpetuating beasts, living solely to continue to do what they do, increasing the entropy into which they expand their ever on-going destructive nature. The US will never leave Iraq nor Afghanistan; we are already there, like the Nagasaki bomb.

It was reported that the US lost 26,000 AK-47's in Iraq, weapons that had been brought into the country ostensibly to arm the Iraqi "insecurity" forces. You don't lose 26,000 automatic assault rifles; you don't forget where they went or who picked them up. No, our military allowed them to be taken to prolong its own bathing and showering in massive wealth generating actions, designed to continue to fight a war that can never be allowed to end. The fear expressed by Bushco about the defeat of Lieberman is that the political voice of those opposed to continual war might gain sufficient notice by those raising their voices (Bushco fears that people will hear themselves and thus feel empowered) that this huge transfer of inordinate wealth maybe suddenly stopped.

Following the bombings in Japan, my father was charged with identifying and destroying the remaining Japanese ordinance and munitions. He discovered that well after the surrender, citizens were still involved in the production of these things, solely because that was all they knew to do to make their lives meaningful enough to continue to move forward. The US has achieved that same military mindset. We have activated the core elements of that systemic complex, producing weapons, that must be used, in order to produce more that must be used, and so forth, purely and simply because the very nature of the consciousness of the country is so configured. Eventually we must be stopped, be destroyed before we destroy the earth.

the politics of sanctioned murder

Many, if not most, US citizens believe in the right of private property. They will tell you that they have a such a right to own some piece of matter, and that with that right, they are free to use that matter in anyway they see fit (supposedly as long as they don't use it to interfere with the rights of others etc. and so forth and so on). What they completely fail to understand is that in order to have such a right in the first place, one also must hold the view that coercion, fear, intimidation, threat, and mortal violence must be part and parcel of the package. It is the ultimate travesty of property rights, that to protect them, one must advocate violence as well.
Sure, you can get all sorts of folks who will say that this isn't true, that there are "peaceful" ways to resolve such conflicts that may arise. By "peaceful" of course, they mean economic; and by economic they mean the fear, threat, intimidation, and violence that can be perpetrated through the use of capital to insist that their own authority be acknowledged and granted. Because, quite simply, even the most virulent libertarian will pay taxes to sponsor a blue uniformed gang of thugs to provide the violent coercive power to protect their property. This has been the human way for tens of thousands of years. Perpetuating the control of territory and resources through violence, or at the threat thereof. And out wonderful liberal arts education reinforces this underlying meme through the use of the same coercive abuses, training subsequent generations to adhere to this heinous philosophical position.
We seem incapable of even talking about cultures that have moved beyond the violence, simply through rejecting private property. It is interesting how closely violence and property are tied when viewed from perspective of those who live free from the encumberments of concern for material possessions. We as a nation refuse to allow our children to be taught about these cultures, and we refuse to allow our children to be free from the coercive threat of punishment and violence. Our school rules are modeled on the society's penal codes sections of which contain phrases like: crimes against property, crimes against oneself, etc.
Well consider this one little example. Your neighbor chooses to use store bought pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers on their property. According to those who advocate private property rights, this is all well and good. What they fail to acknowledge, and what they must also insure that they must never be held responsible or accountable for, is the toxicity and hazardous pollution they are dumping into the neighborhood. They are, through the protections and sanctions provided by the capital to which they are invested, free to threaten and kill their neighbors, to hundreds of species, and to destroy the planet for decades to come. This is war, it is murder, it is sanctioned violence at its core. And ultimately, there is no recourse whatsoever to stop them from doing so (the deepest pockets will always prevail and use their bluecoated gangs of thugs to protect themselves and their money). We can talk big about using violence to protect our property, but we will never accept violence to stop those that are killing our future. Such is the politics of capitalism and private property.

kill, consume, fornicate.. KEF...

Isn't that what it is all about?? Five thousand years of negotiating linguistic compromises to make the most efficient use of killing eating and fucking to survive and endure, and where has all that effort gotten the human species. We are still killing eating and fucking one another. It is all about the kill in the end. No matter how sophisticated and enlightened a utopian community becomes, they seem to always and invariably accept that some killing is justified. Once anyone does that, believes that he/she/they have the moral and ethical authorization to kill in the name of something, all else is reduced to might makes right. It just so happens that today the smallest among us can, with an appropriate tool (small handgun), kill the largest and biggest of us. That may be the only difference in 5000 years of "civilization" actually.

I give two ends of this spectrum. The best who ever killed-ate-fucked were the Mongol hordes, streaming across Asia and Europe slaughtering, eating, raping, pillaging, extracting, and utilizing every possible resource imagineable. No one stopped them, no one could, no amount of negotiations or massed armies could hold against their onslaught. They stopped because they had other business to take care of; interesting that. The only community who seems to have attained a certain grace through which they have chosen not to authorize the killing of other human beings (though they have one of the very best justifying excuses ever in the history of man), are the Tibetan Buddhists. It took them realizing it doesn't matter at all once they excuse themselves from the illusion of the game. Life is not about killing eating and fucking--it is about being, just being. If you eat food that is not killed, you change how you think about killing at its core. If you eat that which has been given you, you do not feel that you are free to take from others. If you accept that your own life is merely a chance vessel for a tiny portion of a larger and more eternal journey of the spirit then you don't need to fuck to prove that the illusion of the body isn't more than that. mmmmm

the abject denial of commerical media in US

In a few days the White House will welcome some American Idol contestants to visit the W. I am sure the handlers are well aware of the demographics and wish to attach their GOP hopes on the slimy bodies of preening celebrity wannabees. But this story underlies something that i have not seen talked about at all so far.

In not one single episode of any of the dozens of "reality" based programming as reality been presented. Are we to believe that not one person, among the hundreds, has mentioned the wars, global climate change, the costs of energy, etc.??? Not one???? For some reason (and speculation could take book volumes of text to discourse) the MSM has determined that all participants in their programming will never be shown discussing the reality of the world; they will only be shown worrying about their next consumer purchase, how they are viewed by the same/opposite sex, what time the next party begins, and so forth. This carefully scripted pseudo-reality portrays our US culture disdainful of any responsibility for the actions of our government, shows our "average" citizens consumed and engaged so much in their daily lives that they are incapable of comprehending international affairs. Is it even the least bit worrisome to the executives themselves that this portrayal is detrimental to the wellbeing of US citizens around the world, and fails completely in representing the views (as polled) of the vast super majority of US population??

We got problems, and yet, according to our media, not a single one of those problems involves the state and condition of living on the earth at this point.

A Kraft foods moment: libertarian perspective.

The other day, shopping in my local supermarket (and there is a word loaded with semioticity worthy of some academic research) i came upon a Kraft food representative working the cereal section. Another patron was overheard saying something about the hypocrisy of those who advocate in favor of the president's veto of the stem cell bill. I muttered something about the views of the founding fathers, as expressed in the constitution, to leave open all manner of imagineable and unimagineable future possibilities with regard to rights and civil liberties. The Kraft woman spokeup and said that the "founding fathers were libertarians." I was somewhat taken aback, in that one of the areas i research is the libertarian agenda, in which the core of their own philosophical thinkers do not accept this piece of gravitas, mostly on the grounds that it is fundamentally important to hold the classic liberalism of the enlightenment as the a priori foundation of later manifestations of libertarianism. But she also said something to the affect that the founding fathers were not only libertarians, but also good christians helping to form the "new israel." Yikes, she was espousing the contradictory view that the founding fathers were libertarians bent on creating a theocracy.

Yet even that didn't really get my goat rammed up. NO. What got me was what she was doing. Given her expressed passion for libertarianism, i was shocked at her own blatant hypocrisy for abusing the shelf space of a competitor. In essence she was declaring her own eminent domain of the grocery shelf for her products, reducing the size of both her major competitor and hiding the generic brands. This was not only a violation of what she professed to be her own principles, but it is a type of fraud given how product placement contracts are written and manifest in stores. I may be one of the few people, outside of grocery stores, to know how the system works. It is expensive and complicated and requires honesty and trustworthiness of the corporate representatives. Clearly the Kraft woman was not about to honor the domain of a competitor, and was busy claiming space, not hers, for herself; eminent domain!! Her actions belied her expressed views, and demonstrated that the rights of others are not worth acknowledging in the pursuit of capital asset acquisition. That got me to thinking about another form of piracy.

One of the more common misconceptions, philosophically, in assessing political networks and representational interconnectedness, is that anarchists are directly linked to libertarians. This simply is not true, and the best illustration is piracy and pirates. Well there is that and there is the bizarre support that US libertarians show for Israel to use massive military force against whole populations as part of their right as a nation. I link these two because if ever there was a nation created by an act of piracy and eminent domain, it is Israel (the US is of course the master role model). Pirates use the ultimate threat of imminent death to lay claim to any and all material possessions they feel they desire, then divide up those items equally through a consensual democratic process (pretty far from libertarian ideals). There is no property that belongs to either the pirates or their prey, just the process of redistribution of matter, encouraging its flow in a multitude of forms, at the point of destructive weapons. Each pirate was/is his/her own master, free to engage or disengage from the collective, but once so engaged is responsible to the collective to maximize the efforts to appropriate matter to be distributed.

Now, one of the justifications that is too oft provided for the existence of the nation state of Israel, is a biblical history that is not without some very controversial facts. There is much evidence that the torah was created in and around 1000 BCE as a means of justifying military action to support the consolidation of tribal groups under a rigid theocratic feudal system. It need be noted that even the Torah lays this out as the result of military conquests (supported by some god) of peoples living in the region they wished to occupy. In essense Israel's own historical claims to its land rest on acquisition through violence and piracy. Couple that with the eminent domain actions of the US and UK post WW2 in taking Palestinian land (land upon which most of the Semetic peoples have lived for 3500 years or so) and giving it to a group of chosen jews, and you discover that at the very root of the ongoing strife is the use of military might to sustain control over land taken from others. The expansionism of the Israelis, taking more and more of the former Palestianian lands as well as those belonging to other nations, all supported by the claim that they are protecting their nation, is further acts of eminent domain for the sole purpose of improving the material wealth of its citizens at the expense and suffering of others. It is nothing but piracy. Taking the homes and possessions of the Palestinians, removing people from their farms, expanding their territorial boundaries through military might, and so forth, is just the behavior of thugs and bullies, not of revered nation builders.

But many libertarians, for the most part, love and support Israel. It must be their neo-con, Straussian, Randian, objectivist interrelatednesses. It just baffles me how they can fight so hard against eminent domain and then turn around and reward it.

Kilakhota kteh^cin hetucha.

Reading the rationalizations given for irrational acts, particularly regarding providing justifications for Israel's actions, leads me to ponder some questions that seem to elude most of those who are doing this. First, if they weren't Jewish, would they try so hard to do it? Second, why do they insist on forgetting (excusing) the behavior of the zionists in forging the nation-state in the first place? Third, are they so enraptured in the throes of Jewish ecstasy that they simply disregard international law whenever it might conflict with their personal biases?

One of the more rational of these irrationalists, insists that Israel has the right as a nation to defend itself against anyone who attacks it, regardless of the causality of the attack. Perhaps the attacks are responses to Israeli attacks but that no longer matters to these people. Perhaps the attacks, killing civilians (women and children indiscriminately) are lashing out at sixty years of terrorism (now fully sanctioned state sponsored, but originally the cowardly acts of the zionists), but that doesn't count either. Perhaps the attacks (wow, they kidnapped one guy and shot nine), were in response to the expansionist agenda (from the original 17% of Palestine to an armed occupation of nearly 85%) all carried out at the point of vicious weapons killing tens of thousands and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, but somehow these people don't have any right to resist anything.

It is too easy to drape the flag of Israel having a right to defend itself because of some historical victimhood. It is also too easy to suggest that such a right allows Israel to attack other nations and populations because somehow (and clearly never specified, defined, proven, or verified) these nations are participating in efforts to destroy Israel. Unfortunately both of these views are wrong and need to be discredited. I would think that the best way to solve this problem, if violence is justified, would be to arm the Palestinians with the same weaponry as Israel (including nukes), give each 50% of the original land, and let them start the MAD chess match. Wouldn't that be fair, equitable, justifiable, reasonable? No?? Then why is any violence justified???

the Democratic bitches of CA...

I am extremely disappointed in the support demonstrated for HR 921 by the top tier of Democratic leadership, especially the big three females from CA: Boxer, Feinstein, Pelosi. The resolution offers wholesale support for Israel in its behavior, although that behavior violates any number of international agreements, conventions, US and international laws, and so forth. The idiocy of these bitches, the blatant pandering to the jewish money, and bilious hypocritic stands--all of these are what make the Democratic party the perenniel loser that it is. The supposed condemnation of the Islamic groups, for behaving in ways absolutely no different than Israel, indeed behaving in much less violent, much less illegal ways, reeks of the duplicity that the party leadership of both parties flaunts in the face of the world.

Federal law prohibits the use of US manufactured military weapons, sold to other governments, on general populations and public/private infrastructure. Hell, Federal law prohibits that use by our own government, although noone dares to question the tactics of shock and awe. And there is the crux of the issue. The Israeli bombing of: Lebanese citizens (a host of Christians even), roads, bridges, airports, power installations, hospitals, medical clinics, libraries, food production facilities, food and water storage facilities; these are illegal acts, war crimes and crimes against humanity. But for the US to condemn the acts, the US would have to admit its own criminal behavior in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since we can't admit that, and because Israel and the rest of the world know that we can't, we are forced to support Israel hideous and vile behavior. And so it goes.

another roadside attraction

has pulled me off the road and onto a siding. This won't last long, but i can report that out there in america there are still way too many people who don't seem to care that they, and their behavior choices, are creating suffering and damaging the earth. It really is that simple. The equations are too obvious to be ignored.

Take for example the way in which we discard and handle our waste/trash. I have spent considerable periods of time on archeaological digs of middens, some 1000 years old, still others 5000 years old. All that is left in those middens are bones, and shards of stone or pottery, and maybe rarely some pieces of fabric tied in bundles to be protected. None of the middens, even those less than 300 years old, produce toxic leechate or other heinous hazardous material. The technology simply didn't exist to toxify the water and earth, to damage and kill other species by human trash.

Today, that is all changed. A landfill, incinerator, processing unit, whatever, is a toxic circus nightmare, giving up after each rain a little of this or that poison or toxin into water or soil. These hazmats and toxic substances have inordinate half lives, some as long as forever in some cases. Recent studies on citizens who have spent their lives in the state of Washington show that these people have accumulated levels of some of these chemical wastes that are permanently hazardous to their health. They didn't knowingly put them in their bodies; it was just living and eating, drinking and breathing, the environment of WA that has created this problem. It is much worse for other species. To deny one's complicity in this, or worse, to justify behaving in this manner is criminal misconduct--it is attempted murder.

So why do so many keep doing it???

summer tour stop moment

hey, i have been on summer tour now for several weeks. please accept that i cannot post regularly from the road, as i am trying to live off line for the three months of tour stops. thank you for any interest you have had in this weblog.

32 years ago, i wrote this report of my 2nd vision quest

I awoke in darkness, but the darkness was no longer a void. It was filled with gifts of night. The moon and stars showed me their ways and the patterns that they reveal as they make their circles on the spirit path. I Iearned all of these things and was eager to learn more. When the sun made it's way across the sky, it illuminated all of the earth and warmed all things on the Earth. A large cloud formed about the sun as it reached its zenith. The cloud was truly magnificent to behold. A billowing cumulus, rising many thousands of feet, opening and closing its doors and windows, growing larger and constantly changing, multiplying, living. This cloud descended upon me, caressing me in a manner that only one who has experienced clouds could understand. The cloud lifted me above the earth; first very slowly, then faster and faster. I rocketed skyward travelling inside the cloud, uplifted so quickly that i lost consciousness for time and space. When i stopped my movement i was perched atop this cloud. I sat amidst a cushion of soft, brilliantly white down. Then the cloud spoke to me. It did not speak into my ear, it spoke from inside my heart and mind. It roared and whispered in the same breath. It raged and comforted like the constant changing cloud itself appears to do.
The voice or sound or whatever mechanism was utilized to invoke symbols in my being, told me the story of what had happened to this island of GAIAN crust, crushed between the great oceans, called by its conquering heros the United States. The symbols told of the Indian, who was in harmony with this land and with all the things that lived in this land. Visitors came to the Indians and made the Indians unconscious of their relationships with all things and the order and peace they once had. These visitors then took the land from the Indians and left the Indians to suffer for their unconsciousness. These visitors did not know the land nor did they know the proper relationship between men and all the things ofthis land. They ignored their ignorance of this and proceeded to fight against all things. They destroyed the relationships like they destroyed the Indian. They created for themselves a universe and an environment that did not relate at all to any natural reality. They have now gone so far as to control the powers of the Thunder Beings, the Wakinyan, and the white gift of purity. These visitors, who were welcomed as brothers by all things, now kill all things, because they have created new non-living, non-spirit things that walk the Black path. This new reality is backward and frozen, and it will evevtually lead to the end of both the Red and the Black Paths.
The symbols showed the end of the relationship between the animal beings and the plant beings. To end this relationship is to kill everything; it is done everyday by the visitors, not only on the land they claim to possess, but also in the spaces they want to control and dominate. All plants nad animals share a fundamental gift that must always be. The plants give to the animals what they need and the animals give to the plants what they need most. This giving aways brings new freshness to the Whole Earth. Without this giving the air would become stale and die. The visitors forget this. They take from the plants and they take from the animals, but they never give back life. They only give poison, and that is given not as a gift but as a result of discarding waste, the byproduct of their behaviors. These visitors have days that they are to give to one another. These days are special to them, but even then the gifts they give are perceived only as trading for what they receive in return. The Indian does not know this way, nor do all the living things. The red spirit path is a giving path. The Indian lives this giving path, sharing everything with everything, never owning or possessing anything. Above all, the Indian never possesses the land. The earth and all the living things are the greatest gift ever given, and in the spirit of this gift, the Indian gives it all back and shares it with all. The visitors do not understand this. To them the land, like the plants, is there to do with whatever they want. They own it, fight over it, rape it, kill it, pollute it, but they never know it, nor share with it,, nor find harmony with it or all of the relations living through it.
These visitors do not even understand the need to communicate with all nature, rocks, trees, birds, insects, animals, fish. If a visitor is seen communicting with any of these, outside the privacy of his own little environmental shell, the visitor is considered crazy. The more the visitor attempts to find harmony and oneness with all things, the crazier he is called. If the controllers of the visitors, those visitors that have the power to keep the new reality in order and to assure its continuation, deem a visitor crazy, they lock him away and use him for play. To all nature and the Indian, there is no craziness; there is only the harmony of all living beings. Behavior that my have been seen as eccentric by visitors is seen by the natives as merely another relationship of the whole circle. The natives understand that each being and spirit has a center, and that each must find that center. When it is found, order will be had, and harmony and peace will reign.
The visitors believe that harmony and peace can only be maintained as a by-product of conformity, competition and gamesmanship. It is rather amusing to know that the shamen, the holy men of the natives, undergo life experiences that the visitors would call very sick and very crazy. These men must pass through this phase because they have great power, and it is a a great ordeal to center oneself with so much power. But when they are centered and know the Truth, these men can perform healing and can make rain and are one with the great powers of the universe, the Wakinyan, the Thunder Beings, the healing plants, the calming waters, and Wakantanka, the Great Mystery. If visitors show signs of this experience, they are removed from the rest of the masses of citizens and are dealt with as misfits and wrong, sick, crazy, people.
As all of these symbols danced in my being my spirit beheld the urgency of the message. It is becoming too late to teach the visitors the ways of the land that they are visiting. They merely ignore these attempts anyway. They even play games at it. Muir believed in preservation of natural lands and environments, yet the followers of his teachings, the Sierra Club, confess faith only in conservation. To most Americans the notions of setting aside large bio-regions as laboratories for observing the raw processes of the natural world are unthinkable and obscene. Conservation is merely a delaying technique to give special interests first chance at special ripoffs. Ecology is a game to play, simply to understand what health foods and homeopathic techniques will apply to individuals, while still retaining the overwhelming economic benefits for the greedy ‘hippies.’
I cursed my own involvement in the visitors games and swore to fight against the destructive systems. The cloud and its voice bade me to calm down and showed me patience and serenity. I was carried to a creek and my anxiety was washed out of me. My temper, cooled by the chattering stream, flew away on the wings of a blowing leaf. The cloud then carried me above the stream and showed me some beautiful cottonwood trees. The cloud touched the trees and they lived through their seasons before my eyes. From deadness in winter to rebirth in spring, from adolescence and young adult in summer to middle and old age in fall, and back to death and rebirth.

no soldier died for my freedom, ever.

So here is this holiday which in most cases marks the beginning of the summer season tourism and vacationing, created for the most part by the very people for whom nearly every single US soldier has died: the capitalists. Yes, capitalism is the root causality of all US wars, all US conflicts over the last 217 years. No matter how much people have been led to believe that US soldiers died for freedom or rights or such, one need only look at the Declaration of Independence and the charges against the King to notice that it really was about money and property, first and foremost. You know, those nagging tariffs, tolls, duties, and taxes that pissed off some of the constituency (clearly not all). Indeed, it wasn't until late 1787 that the notion that perhaps rights and liberties were significant enough to warrant being amended into the first US Constitution (there really wasn't a US before that remember?), but mostly because the smaller northern states wouldn't agree to ratify the whole without it (those pesky slaves and their masters, mmm).

So who are we kidding when the preachy get out on their bully pulpits this weekend and claim that so many died for rights and freedom?? Mostly ourselves, and that is important here, because damn it, we need to have a strong secure capitalistic consumer society. Go through the litany of US military engagements and it reads more like the hand of markets acquiring and securing property and power, than it does about anything closely resembling freedom.

• How is it possible that soldiers who died in the 123 years of indian wars were dying for freedom and liberty?? It isn't; they were dying for control and access to land, resources, territorial boundaries, secure transportation routes to move resources, dominion over species. There was nothing about freedom, only genocide and derangement of the planet.
• War with Mexico (well wars actually) provided more land, new expanded borders, unfettered removal of residents of mestizo heritage who lived and controlled land generations before the English colonists established their beachheads. But hey, those US troops must have really died for my freedom, because somebody says so. Now the mestizos return across the border obviously threatening our freedom and liberties (actually aiding and abetting the very capitalists who want us to think that way) so we better call out the troops.
• How about the Spanish-American War or the Hawaiian annexation or the defeat of Russians in the Northwest? Yeah, that sure made me free. Enslaving for future generations whole populations of people and species to enrich the already rich really was the purpose.
  
• Hell the US barely got enough votes in Congress to fight WW1 or WW2. Why? Because some of the capitalists knew from whence their great wealth was coming, while others felt that they might do better if the nation (lied into conflicts--think the Pearl Harbor scam) expanded its own military-industrial complex at the expense of... wait for it... others freedom and liberty.
  
• Is it possible to even begin to deny that a war against communist countries was anything other than a war for capitalism?? No, of course you can't deny that, except the very capitalists demand that those who died in these power struggles for resources, territories, markets want us to hold close to the illusion rather than see it for what it really was.

Next time some pseudo patriotic zealot claims that US troops died for your freedom, ask him about any of this. Do it kindly. Do it with civil tongue. Do it with immense and expansive compassion. But please do it.