Sunday, December 19, 2010

SueEgypt by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

SueEgypt by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

In honor of Don Van Vliet, "Captain Beefheart", my musical hero, who died today at the age of 69.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

"Isolationism"

"Isolationism" is a misnomer.  It should be correctly spoken of as "Non-interventionism".

As I've said before, "isolationism" as it is used in what passes for intelligent political discourse in this country, is a perjorative, propagandistic term that is almost universally misused.  Those of us who believe that a global empire based on hegemonic, naked aggression is bad for this country are in no way suggesting that we cut all ties with nations.  Of course we need to continue diplomatic and trade relations with other countries, but interventionism into their internal affairs and their disputes with other countries not only is morally wrong, but it is against our national interests.  One, it puts our citizens in danger of terrorist attacks from those who quite understandably and predictably will react against being bullied; two, it needlessly causes death and injury to our troops who have no business being deployed in wars of aggression; and three, because it is bankrupting our country economically.

As Major General Smedley Butler clearly shows in his famous essay, "War is a Racket" (which I suggest you read, it is available for free online) interventionism only benefits small, parasitic, welfare-gobbling elites at the expense of the American people and the peoples of other nations who these policies victimize.  Our Founding Fathers recognized this.  Pity that rank-and-file members of the Tea Party are inconsistent in their professed admiration for these gentlemen.

Foreclosure


There is a special place in hell
For those who live in mansions
And drink 12-year old scotch
Who casually mention their Porsches and their yachts
While the widows and orphans
Who they cheat to get rich
Sleep in piss and vomit stained gutters
Get raped in the street
Starve

There is a special place in hell
For the country club scammers
The robots who sign
The shills who backdate, and recreate, who lie and steal and falsify
And the judges who enable them
With a wink of an eye

If Christ were in the courtroom
On the rocket docket
They would be tossed outside so fast
their heads would spin
Millstones breaking judges' limbs
Files and notes and pieces of femurs
Jutting from Brooks Brothers suits
At strange angles

May all these nice churchgoing souls
Who rubber-stamp mammon
shriek and writhe and burn in hell
With the rest of the scum like themselves
To keep them company.

May their mansions give way to prison cells
May they burn in the lowest realms of hell
May their skin be scorched till it rots from the bone
May the judges who legitimize this farce suffer a fate
That makes Auschwitz look like a Sunday school picnic.


Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Proper Response to Wikileaks by Karen Kwiatkowski

The Proper Response to WikiLeaks

by Karen Kwiatkowski
Recently by Karen Kwiatkowski: Why Is Jonah Goldberg Still Here?
 
   
President Obama is wrong, and Secretary Clinton is wrong. Those remoras of state at CNN, FOXNews, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR and many Congressmen are all wet in their frantic response to Cablegate, and Wikileaks in general.
I’ll admit the U.S. government should have been a bit angry about the Wikileaks release over the summer of the 2007 gunship video and narration of a bloody massacre of unarmed Iraqis and reporters. There was nothing redeeming there, no points of light or lessons to be learned. That release fundamentally explained to Americans and others who supported the Iraq invasion and occupation exactly what democracy at the point of a gun looks like. Perhaps the US government wasn’t as upset as it might have been because no one affected by this crime was surprised. Similar massacres, according to soldiers involved in Iraq, were routine and conducted as ordered. The Iraqis, of course, knew this from the beginning.
The Wikileaked Afghanistan reports didn’t indicate much more than the antiwar and the pro-war crowds already knew, and as a result, again, there were no changes in the bleachers of American foreign policy. It’s likely that the Rolling Stone interview with General McCrystal around the same time was more embarrassing to Washington. One wonders why McChrystal has not yet been declared a domestic terrorist. He shared secrets and embarrassed the administration. A case could be made that his pussyfooting around the Afghans (a Special Forces nuance that our good Prussian Petraeus was quick to eliminate) was intentionally designed to help "lose the war" in Afghanistan. Well, give it time.
But Cablegate is different, and the reaction of the ruling class so far ranges from simply demanding Assange’s head on a platter to demanding the Internet be declared a terrorist entity, and destroyed.
Government propagandists proclaim that people will die from this latest release. Unless they mean die laughing, this is quite an overstatement. Government goons, soldiers and bureaucrats in foreign countries will not face a greater threat to their lives, most especially from these cables. What they will face is snickers, chuckles, and outright laughter.
And truly, this is as it should be. When one declares that his robes are the most beautiful, made of the finest silk, so glorious that they compete with the sun – sometimes a little blond-haired boy with a most serious look about him declares that it seems to him that the Emperor has no clothes! And we see, slowly at first, then an unstoppable surge of laughter and finger-pointing by the common people who, for all their ignorance and all their flaws, know enough to put on clothes before going out in public.
The US government shrieks, tone-deaf, of global democracy – but disparages the populist language of Italian officials and declares the elected and popular prime minister there to be unqualified. Yet, this same democracy-loving government enjoys very much its dealings with the evilest of dictators. This hypocrisy has long been a staple of both libertarian and Marxist critiques of US foreign policy, for well over a century. Now it’s out in the open – and it’s kind of funny.
Hillary Clinton approves a State Department-wide command to surreptitiously collect DNA and credit card numbers on UN representatives and other diplomats. This particular case is breathtakingly Nuremburgian. The order Hilary was transmitting was already government policy – the great Diplomat Herself was just following orders. And certainly, any of us common folk who watch enough CSI to be dangerous know that collection of DNA samples with chain of custody procedures that will stand up in court is not something we would automatically trust to a bunch of pinstripers at State. Beyond that, the rest of us who watch COPS know that taking people’s credit card numbers without their knowledge and permission is a crime.
Now that we know what they are trying to do, the proper reaction is to giggle and glance at each other while we check our pockets, handbags, backpacks and satchels for our wallets and watches whenever we find ourselves near a government representative. Of course, air travelers in this country have been doing just that for some time. But the sweet lesson here is that a government goon is a government goon, just following orders, no matter where they buy their suits. Our ability to quickly recognize that government goon is increasingly unifying average Americans, and strengthening us. As our government goonar continues to develop, the game becomes more fun, and funnier. Cablegate improves everyone’s goonar!
There is talk that the data released this week actually helps Israel’s case for a good old-fashioned pre-emptive attack on Iran. Why? Because Saudi Arabia supports it! Well, skyrocketing oil prices certainly would come in handy to the still dollar dependent House of Saud about now, but I digress. Now, if I were the little old US of A thinking about starting one more war with a country I didn’t like, especially given I was dead broke and already a military laughingstock based on past and present performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, listening to what the corrupt, US-dependent ruling class of Saudi Arabia had to say about it would be right up there on my go-to-war-decision-meter. Give the obvious and otherworldly stupidity of our politicians, generals, and diplomats, perhaps the Saudis do tell us what to do, and maybe Wikileaks hearts neocons. A better sense of where the US diplomatic head is at can be gained by reading reports of meetings in Tel Aviv, where the great US stumbles over itself to be inoffensive, seeking simultaneously to be both submissive and warlike when speaking to Israelis. Pathetic little weasels, the lot of them. But their pathetic weaselness cannot be blamed on Julian Assange, no matter how many neocons and other cons declare the problem to be facts in the open, rather than simply the facts.
On a more serious note, beyond the debate on whether to assassinate Assange, blow up the Internet, conduct an unwarranted attack on an NPT signatory that is following the rules, or to continue to ally ourselves with the crazies in Pakistan and Israel, it is important to recognize that fascism of one kind or another is currently embraced by a majority in Congress, and by a large minority across the country. An alert and informed citizenry, valued by presidents from Washington to Eisenhower, is now deemed by D.C. to be a nascent domestic terrorism threat. As the American wholesale subsidy of banks, bullets and butter metastasizes, devouring freedom and wrecking the system, the desperation of the ruling class and those in its employ is palpable. Americans ought to gratefully smile as we review these latest Wikileaks, and we should savor the hilarity. Seeing our government as theatrical stooge, as incompetent popinjay, as naked and embarrassed Emperor, sets the stage well for what comes next.



December 1, 2010
LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, blogs occasionally at Liberty and Power and The Beacon. To receive automatic announcements of new articles, click here or join her Facebook page.
Copyright © 2010 Karen Kwiatkowski
 

Words of Wisdom from Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski

There is talk that the data released this week actually helps Israel’s case for a good old-fashioned pre-emptive attack on Iran. Why? Because Saudi Arabia supports it! Well, skyrocketing oil prices certainly would come in handy to the still dollar dependent House of Saud about now, but I digress. Now, if I were the little old US of A thinking about starting one more war with a country I didn’t like, especially given I was dead broke and already a military laughingstock based on past and present performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, listening to what the corrupt, US-dependent ruling class of Saudi Arabia had to say about it would be right up there on my go-to-war-decision-meter. Give the obvious and otherworldly stupidity of our politicians, generals, and diplomats, perhaps the Saudis do tell us what to do, and maybe Wikileaks hearts neocons. A better sense of where the US diplomatic head is at can be gained by reading reports of meetings in Tel Aviv, where the great US stumbles over itself to be inoffensive, seeking simultaneously to be both submissive and warlike when speaking to Israelis. Pathetic little weasels, the lot of them. But their pathetic weaselness cannot be blamed on Julian Assange, no matter how many neocons and other cons declare the problem to be facts in the open, rather than simply the facts. 

On a more serious note, beyond the debate on whether to assassinate Assange, blow up the Internet, conduct an unwarranted attack on an NPT signatory that is following the rules, or to continue to ally ourselves with the crazies in Pakistan and Israel, it is important to recognize that fascism of one kind or another is currently embraced by a majority in Congress, and by a large minority across the country. An alert and informed citizenry, valued by presidents from Washington to Eisenhower, is now deemed by D.C. to be a nascent domestic terrorism threat. As the American wholesale subsidy of banks, bullets and butter metastasizes, devouring freedom and wrecking the system, the desperation of the ruling class and those in its employ is palpable. Americans ought to gratefully smile as we review these latest Wikileaks, and we should savor the hilarity. Seeing our government as theatrical stooge, as incompetent popinjay, as naked and embarrassed Emperor, sets the stage well for what comes next.

An Article I Had to Write

I’m used to pervasive disinformation in the US media, but in this past week, new heights of lies, deceptions, and outrageous propaganda have literally taken my breath away.  At least in the Soviet Union, the vast majority of people knew that their news was fake.  Not so in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Ignorant.

First, Korea.  Not one of our esteemed bastions of the Fourth Estate reported the truth that South Korea was the aggressor in last week’s incident.  While conducting war games near a contested island that could only be designed to provoke the North,  South Korean troops fired first and the North retaliated.
Second, the ridiculous FBI-fabricated bomb plot in Oregon.  Like all of the recent “terrorist plots” foiled by our brave protectors, this one also involved a mentally challenged individual relentlessly egged on and assisted by FBI agents until they got what they wanted – another phony incident they can use to scare our dumbed-down populace into relinquishing more of our rights and allowing the Gestapo of Perverts to grope us at the airport.

Which brings us to Wikileaks.  Our leaders are foaming at the mouth to condemn this heroic, patriotic organization which seems to be the lone voice of truth in a world of lies.  They will stop at nothing to smear Julian Assange and Bradley Manning with bogus charges which are in themselves criminal.  They have launched cyber attacks against the Wikileaks website.  Thank God that Wikileaks is light years ahead of the Feds’ bumbling efforts and is back up and running.

Political flacks, including Obama, Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee, and the odious Rep. Peter King have rushed to condemn these heroic individuals for bringing their ugly crimes into the light of day.  King has called Wikileaks a “terrorist organization.”  Never mind that he himself is a supporter of real terrorists – he has openly given his support of Mujahideen-e-Khalq and the “Real” IRA – bona fide terrorist organizations that kill innocent people, not expose crimes in high places.  No hypocrisy there. 

Huckabee has called for Manning’s immediate execution.  He has no problem with breaking laws to help his sociopathic, animal-torturing-and-murdering son evade justice, but a true patriot like Manning – can’t have that now, can we?  He must be murdered, of course!  It’s the only civilized and sensible thing to do! Law, morality, common sense, due process – what’s that?

It is King, Huckabee, Obama, Clinton and all their ilk – almost the entire political and corporate class – who should be  shot for treason – for their utter contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, and basic human decency.

Our nation has become an utter moral cesspool run by criminals, murderers, thieves and hypocrites.  Politicians, bankers and corporations murder and rob people blind.  Judges enable them.  Those who expose their crimes are called traitors and terrorists.  The real traitors and terrorists sit in judgment of our patriots and of the few righteous among us. 
 
The silence in the face of these outrages is deafening. The majority of Americans couldn’t care less.  They wallow in the slumber of  bread and circuses - their American Idol, their football, their Dancing With the Stars – while our once-great nation becomes a little more like Nazi Germany with each passing day.

Can you say “Fall of Rome”?    

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Why I No Longer Identify as a "Progressive"

Reading Gabriel Kolko's vastly underrated, groundbreaking book "The Triumph of Conservatism" is one reason I no longer identify as a progressive or a leftist. Kolko shows without a doubt how the so-called Progressive movement of the e...arly 20th century was hijacked and co-opted by big business from the very start. Big business wanted the FDA and other regulatory agencies in place so they could use them to drive out smaller competitors. They also knew that they could control the regulators so that they could violate the regulations with impunity while using them to bludgeon their competition. This is the huge blind spot of liberals/progressives. Government is not the answer, because government will always be nothing more than a tool and plaything of the elites.
 
The "good guys" of this era were the Populists.  The Progressives were  in favor of the emerging corporate state. The Populists were prescient in recognizing the evils of corporatism and fought against it tooth and nail.  It's a shame that they weren't successful.

Words of a Great American

"The reaction to Oath Keepers by the media is a sad testament of the lack of understanding of the simple legal obligation to refuse unlawful orders, and a testament to how ignorant Americans are of recent human history. It is also a sad reflection of the cynical cycle of American politics where each of the two major parties, when out of power, suddenly rediscovers the Constitution, but when back in power, they forget all about it and label anyone who simply quotes the Founding Fathers as "terrorists" or "traitors." Both sides do it. When the left was out of power during the Bush years, they loved my writings criticizing Bush, and Republicans branded me as a traitor because I dared to question what their man was doing. But now that the left controls the White House, with their guy doing precisely the same kinds of things Bush did, it is leftists who now call me a traitor and a dangerous subversive, while Republicans are more open to hearing my message. I haven't changed. My message hasn't changed. What has changed is their perspective. The left, during Obama's Administration, are acting with as much blind hubris and willful justification of the most outlandish claims of executive power as the neocons did during the Bush years".

Stewart Rhodes, founder, Oath Keepers

Monday, November 29, 2010

Judge Needs to be Less Cool and Calm

This is in response to Kris Hundley’s article “Judge Cool and Calm as Default Cases Arrive” (reprinted from the St. Pete Times in Sunday’s Sun).  Maybe the good judge should be a little less cool and calm and a little more outraged at the rampant criminal fraud that currently plagues the foreclosure process.  The article states how the judge’s decision is “easy” in four cases, due to the mere fact that no homeowner has challenged the lender’s foreclosure claim, and how he had granted eight such summary judgments that morning.

As a foreclosure defense attorney, I know that in today’s foreclosure crisis, faulty paperwork, often amounting to outright criminal fraud, is the rule rather than the exception.  According to reporter Matt Taibbi in his recent Rolling Stone article (briefly referenced in the Times piece), almost no bank in the vast majority of pending foreclosures has a reliable record of who owns the loan.  In many cases, they have intentionally shredded the actual mortgage notes and employ “robosigners” - typically low level employees who forego legal requirements of making a dilgent search for the notes - who fraudulently have signed off on hundreds, even thousands, of false “lost note” affidavits.

But ninety percent of homeowners do not realize that they may have a valid defense in their foreclosure cases, and judges like the one in the article dutifully sanction fraud by rubber-stamping judgments likely obtained by criminal means.  This may be due to a belief that if banks were held accountable for their reckless and criminal behavior, the economy would collapse completely.  But the economy will never recover as long as banksters and corporate criminals are coddled, bailed out and spared the long prison sentences they so richly deserve.  As it stands now, they are provided with a powerful incentive to engage in even more egregious crime, and to view the resulting slap on the wrist as no more than a cost of doing business.  Under our sick system, dysfunctional in almost every respect, for the rich, crime pays.

Given the current milieu of pervasive fraud, a judge’s duty in uncontested cases is to proactively investigate each file to ferret out the probable fraud contained inside, and to forward evidence of wrongdoing to the state attorney.  Anything else is a grave abdication of judicial responsibility.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Tough Guy

Tough Guy
By James Cerveny

Thoughts welled up in his mind like hot lava.  The geology of his face entered the volcanic era.  He tendered thoughts of killing a lot of people simultaneously, beginning with himself.  “And there’ll be more after that,” he sneered with his Best Western bravado.

    He had colored all the swirling shadows encapsulating the multifarious cadavers of varying degrees mauve, and, laughing good-naturedly, mentally condemned to death all who begged to differ.  He considered himself to be a tough guy.

    Remember all those movies, where a tough guy (always really stupid and morally bereft) loses out to the smart, funny, much wimpier guy?

    Are those movies un-American?  I don’t see that sort of thing happening here at all, he thought, as he performed katas with the noomchuks and thanked God that he had long ago transcended any  last vestige of wimpishness, thank God!

    The next day, he was at Ralph’s Burgers ordering a double cheeseburger with fries, onion rings and a small chocolate shake.  “So what if I get a heart attack,” he thought aloud.  “Who’d give a shit?”

    He paid $3.29 for his meal.  The author of this piece was subsequently sued for false advertising.

    Subsistence farming was the last thing on his mind, when the door exploded with a dull thud that deafened the jaws of a generation.  “Holy Prometheus,” he said with what was left of his mind rusting in the wind, warranty expired, aggressively lackadaisical, wanting not.

    But he could not sustain these thoughts for long, for he was a tough guy.

Letter to the Editor - Gainesville Sun

Dear Editor,

I have to complain about the recent spate of signs in Gainesville advocating lawless behavior.  I was just in Publix yesterday and a sign at the checkout counter said “Swipe card.”  I told the cashier that I’ve never stolen anything in my life and I’m not about to start now, thank you!

Then I was crossing the street and a sign at the crosswalk said “Yield to Peds.”  Correct me if I’m wrong, but shouldn’t we be teaching our children to resist pedophiles?

In the words of Barney Fife, we have to nip this in the bud.  Next thing you know, our government will be waging illegal wars, torturing people, kidnapping them and taking them to secret prisons in third world countries, and spying on our people without warrants!  I know this seems farfetched, but those who say it couldn’t happen here do so at their peril.

James Cerveny
Gainesville

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Letter to a Friend

I think you know how much admiration I have for you.  You are one of the few people I know who shares my spiritual outlook so closely.  And I believe you to be a person who values honesty and integrity.   But frankly, I see a disconnect between those values and some of your politics.  I think it’s because you have not had access to the same information as I have.  Not surprising, given the degeneration of the MSM into a propaganda agent hostile to liberty and truth.  This is why I keep e-mailing you with information that I find truthful and relevant.  And I say this not out of a feeling of superiority.  I take the principle of open-mindedness very seriously and I admit the possibility that I may be wrong on many things.  I try to engage you in dialogue when I would not waste my time doing the same with many other people because your honesty and intellect make me think such an endeavor to be worthwhile – part of my calling, or the next right thing, if you will.

I make this preamble because I greatly offended a friend recently, and he went off on me after I made what I thought to be a perfectly innocent comment.  I found out later he has some anger issues, so maybe it wasn’t entirely my fault.  Nevertheless, I made prompt and humble amends.  I did not mention what I perceived to be his part in the misunderstanding,  even though I still think he overreacted.  Now we are the best of friends.

That being said, I will address the following points with an intensity based on a passion I will neither moderate or apologize for:

Many of the statements made in your response exemplify everything that appalls me about my perception of the Tea Party movement.  I am astounded at how you can be unaware of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, pro-war, or racist propaganda in the tea party movement (because of time factors, I will only address Muslim and war issues) when shrill demagogues like Gingrich, Beck, Peitkoff,  the rabidly insane Pamela Geller, and Palin are foaming at the mouth about a proposed cultural center, in the midst of strip clubs, gambling dens, and, yes, mosques,  four blocks from the site of an act of predictable blowback from US policies.  When these shameless degenerates dishonestly demonize a peaceful and heroic Islamic leader who is an outspoken opponent of terrorist violence (a Sufi, no less, the most beautiful, peace-loving, mystical form of Islam) for their own political ends.  When they show utter contempt for property rights and the Constitution, which they claim to revere.  When mobs across the country, drunk with hatred fomented by these despicable creatures, complete with dogs (which they bring in the mistaken and ignorant belief that Muslims somehow dislike them) try to intimidate Muslims to stop the construction of any and all mosques, in scenes disturbingly reminiscent of Kristallnicht.

Interpreting the construction of a mosque in the vicinity of “Ground Zero” as some sort of an affront is as illogical as objecting to the construction of a church in the vicinity of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City because Tim McVeigh belonged to some crackpot, nominally Christian sect.  I’m not holding my breath waiting for such ideological consistency to manifest.

Your “Good German” analogy is interesting, considering it is much more applicable to Americans  vis-à-vis Muslims rather than Muslims vis-à-vis Americans.  Where are the righteous Americans rising up and denouncing those who persecute peaceful Muslims in this fashion?  Very few share my reasoned and compassionate viewpoint.  Instead, 70% support the glaringly hypocritical, fascist rhetoric of the demagogues!  I guess this is not surprising, given the Orwellian bent of the MSM to demonize Muslims, in the service of the agenda of its Zionist/neocon masters.

Every major Islamic organization in the country has repeatedly denounced the actions of the tiny fringe of terrorists in the worldwide Muslim community, but no matter how loud or frequent their denunciations, they will not be published in the MSM nor will it ever be good enough for the demagogues and the many whom they so easily brainwash.

And why is it only Muslims who are collectively held responsible  for the actions of the extremists in their midst?  Why is not the entire nation of Israel held responsible for its government’s constant glorification of its own terrorists and extremists, instances of which I have repeatedly pointed out?  Why aren’t the American people collectively held responsible for failing to prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams, Powell, and Rice for their many terrorist crimes, including knowingly lying a nation into attacking and invading countries that never attacked or threatened it?  If this “logic” were applied honestly and unhypocritically,  then the 9-11 attacks were a justified response to decades of US atrocities against the Muslim world, and Iran and/or Lebanon would be perfectly justified in bombing Israel.

Of course every decent person would “frown on” cutting a woman’s head off, etc.  Yet this point is disingenuous, since US policies are directly or indirectly to blame for putting such extremists in a position of power in the first place.  In the past fifty years, the US has overthrown or undermined secular democracies in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and a score of other countries, and either has directly put Islamic extremists in power, or tyrants like the Shah who were understandably overthrown which ultimately led to extremists coming to power.  The promotion of Islamic extremism by the US, Britain and Israel was undertaken out of a shortsighted perception that such actions would serve their interests, once again demonstrating the inevitably counterproductive nature of interventionism.

The idea that wars of aggression “prevent terrorism” or “protect our freedoms” would be laughable, if it were not for the heartbreaking fact that most Americans unquestioningly swallow this insane  logic and thus become accomplices to mass murder, torture, kidnapping, theft and oppression.  By the government’s own statistics, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have served to foment terrorism rather than reduce it.  The juvenile and ridiculous “logic” of “fight them over there so we don’t fight them over here” assumes that the number of terrorists is finite, and ignores the enormous recruiting potential of inevitable and massive “collateral damage” (a nice-sounding euphemism for the senseless murder of innocents).  If your entire family were wiped out by a US bomb, drone or patrol, there is a good chance that you might promptly show up to volunteer at an Al-Qaeda training camp, unless you show remarkable forgiveness and restraint (and it amazes me how many Muslims do just that under these horrible circumstances).

I suggest you read my article “Did Wikileaks Endanger Lives?” which can easily be found by googling my name, as I’m proud to say it has been published in freedom-loving blogs across the country.  In it I quote a House subcommittee report  as well as Hillary Clinton herself, both who admit that money being funneled into the alleged “war effort” in Afghanistan goes directly into the pockets of the Taliban in “protection money” for the safe passage of “contractors” to the tune of $400 million a year!  Anyone who thinks that this war is accomplishing anything but destroying our freedoms and making our nation less safe is seriously deluded.  This is why Wikileaks and Bradley Manning (if he is indeed responsible for the heroic acts of which he is accused) are true heroes to ordinary Americans and enemies of the degenerate elites who don’t give a rat’s ass about the interests of the people.  Though I fear that their heroism amounts to nothing more than casting pearls before swine.

I’m sure that the policymakers who foment these wars, which serve no purpose but the obscene  enrichment of the elites who pull their puppet strings, laugh at the gullibility of the American people.  If you think I’m exaggerating, read “War is a Racket”, a marvelous essay by Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, which is available online at no cost if you google him.  The terrible truths which he so heroically exposes are just as prevalent today as they were when it was written in 1937.

I call the MSM “pro-war” because its bias is obvious.  During the buildup to Bush’s monstrous war crimes, Americans who relied on our various Pravda surrogates only got one side of the story, except for occasional hit pieces on Scott Ritter, Hans Blix, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski and others who had the temerity to counter lies with truth.  Those of us who got our news from reliable internet sources, the only real journalists in this country, knew the truth long before the rest of the American people found out when the war propaganda shills were unable to cover up for their masters any longer.  Still the American people failed to rise up in outrage and demand the heads of those who committed such horrific crimes.  In the face of such rampant and widespread moral degeneracy, I sometimes think we deserve to be attacked and invaded.  In any event, our empire certainly deserves to fall, as all empires do.

If the Tea Party is really concerned with fiscal responsibility, I don’t see how it can rationally ignore rampant military spending (51% of the discretionary budget, more for the US than the rest of the world combined) and the staggering, crippling cost of  empire (maintaining 800 military bases around the world, often in countries fully capable of defending themselves).

If the Tea Party is concerned with constitutional limited government and the rule of law, why is it not screaming from the rooftops for the repeal of the Military Commissions Act, the Orwellian-named “Patriot Act”, the restoration of posse comitatus, and the repeal of the multitude of other laws on the books which make a mockery of our Constitution as well as the most rudimentary notion of the rule of law?  And please don’t answer that rights must be balanced against national security.  In a free society, God-given, inalienable rights can never be “balanced” against anything.  When this process was completed after 9-11, the terrorists had already won.

Explain to me why the government cannot be trusted to administer health care, yet is given carte blanche to determine who should be subject to extrajudicial assassination, locked up indefinitely without charges or habeas corpus, or kidnapped and taken to a foreign country to be tortured, or have one’s phone tapped without a warrant, in the name of some vague, selectively applied fig leaf called “national security”?  Explain to me what safeguards are in place to prevent some president or other policymaker for invoking these laws to mask naked retribution against their political enemies?  Name one instance in history in which a government was given such sweeping powers that did not abuse such powers in a horrible fashion.  Give me a scenario in which any of our Founding Fathers would react to such laws, and a society that tolerates them, in any other fashion but to recoil in disgust and conclude that their noble experiment in liberty was an utter failure.

Finally, I don’t understand your use of the word “fascism.”  Mussolini, who coined the term, stated that fascism could be more appropriately termed “corporatism” – meaning some kind of unholy alliance of government and big business.  A typical dictionary definition of the term, as I’m sure you know, is something like this: a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

I’d say a country that tolerates the demonization of Muslims, blacks and Mexicans, laws that eliminate all basic constitutional rights, and repeatedly invades other countries on dishonest pretexts pretty much fits the bill.

In the years to come, I fully expect to be “renditioned” to a concentration camp and brutally tortured, and I welcome the experience, because my faith and my integrity will not allow me to idly stand by while my Muslim brothers and sisters are being incrementally placed in the same position as that of the Jews in Germany of the mid nineteen-thirties.  If that makes me a “terrorist sympathizer”, then I accept the epithet with pride and graciousness.   A serious commitment to God, truth and human decency permits no other response. 

Monday, September 6, 2010

Response to an Internet Scam

We’ve all received them.  An e-mail from a foreign potentate/English Lord/eccentric philanthropist offering to bestow vast sums of money upon us if we will only provide them with basic information such as our bank account number, our date of birth, password, shoe size, dimensions of our genitalia, and the like..

These used to annoy me.  Now I have fun with it.  When I get one of these e-mails, I respond with something like this:

Dear Prince Nkomo,

Thank you for your kind offer.  I look forward to receiving the $50,000,000. When can I expect it? I intend to spend  the entire amount on Kit Kat bars and diamond-studded condoms.

Recently I received an e-mail from one Sunny Che Hung Wong, who claimed that he/she represented a Hong Kong electronics firm who wanted to hire me to collect sums due from their North American holdings.  The e-mail read as follows:

After a careful review, we decided to contact you to represent our company in North America . Walex Electronic Ltd. with its head office in Hong Kong ,We got your contact detail from our online search for attorney.

The management of Walex Electronic Ltd. requires your legal representation for our North American delinquent Customers. We are of the opinion that a reputable attorney is required to represent us in North America in order for us to recover monies due to our organization by overseas customers, and as well follow up with these accounts. In order to achieve these objectives a good and reputable law firm like yours will be required to handle this service.

Attorney, you can advise us what is required to draw a proper letter of engagement that will be review by our board. We are most inclined to commence talks with you as soon as possible. We shall bring you into a detailed picture of what your responsibility is, when we receive your response.

Note the personal touch. I responded as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam:

Thank you for your recent correspondence.  I am flattered that you have chosen me from among the many fine attorneys that this great country has to offer.  I can assure you that you have indeed made a wise choice.

First, my background.  I received my undergraduate degree at Ronald McDonald University, where I majored in koala bear husbandry with a minor in Yahtzee theory.  I obtained my J.D. at Pinsk Academy for the Underprivileged, where I graduated magnum p.i.  I went on to receive my LLM. at Big Ed's Chitlin Emporium and One-Stop Tanning Salon.

I have this really groovy briefcase that is plastered with Teletubby stickers.  In fact, I often appear in court dressed in a Teletubby costume - usually Tinky Winky, although sometimes I dress as Po.  Who's your favorite Teletubby?

The looks on the faces of my colleagues and clients is priceless.  They gape open-mouthed and are often struck speechless.  Obviously, they are awed by my brilliant legal acumen.

Yes, I sure know how to loosen things up in a courtroom.  Just the other day I was in court and the other attorney kept droning on about inadmissible evidence or some shit.  So I gave him a wedgie.  The judge turned purple and kept pointing his finger at me and yammering endlessly about contempt of court or something.  Is that good?

Anyway, I’m so glad that you have recognized my astute talents for handling all kinds of legal crap.  I am confident that our further correspondence will lead to a mutually beneficial and long-lasting relationship.  My fee schedule and contact number are listed below.

I look forward to working with you.
Fees:

Initial consultation               1 Kit Kat bar
Court appearance                    5 magic beans
Favorable result                      Thirty pieces of silver

Sincerely,

Lee Harvey Oswald, Esquire
Of Counsel
Sirhan, Sirhan, Sirhan, Sirhan, Kennedy and Sirhan, P.A.
1-900-MAN-LOVE

I thought this would be the end of it.  But nooooooooo.  A few weeks later Mr./Ms. Hung Wong graced me with the identical e-mail

Oh well.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

My Manifesto

I’ve pretty much given up on electoral politics as a way to effect meaningful change.  The way I see it, both parties are hopelessly corrupt, wholly-owned subsidiaries of powerful elites, and there’s not much difference between Democrats and Republicans on any issues of importance.  Both parties are dedicated to big government, predatory regulations, endless war and empire, corporate welfare, insane levels of military spending, and the redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle classes upward to the wealthiest and most powerful elites – the banksters, Wall Street parasites, and multinational corporations who have long ago divested themselves of any loyalty to America.

I myself am a registered Republican, only so that I could vote for Ron Paul in the 2008 primary.  He is one of a very few politicians I respect, along with his son Rand, Pat Buchanan, and on the Democratic side, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Al Franken, Mike Gravel and Barbara Lee.  I see these people as men and women of integrity and even though I disagree with all of them on some issues, I believe they are true patriots who are working for the best interests of this country.  The rest of them, as far as I am concerned, could be dumped in a huge pit and covered with raw sewage topped off with molten lead, and the country would be better off.

I refuse to use the terms “conservative” or “liberal.”  I think that these terms have been so abused and debased in what passes for our national political discourse as to render them meaningless.  If I had to label myself, the most accurate term I would use would be “libertarian”, although with a small “l” (the Libertarian Party is just as compromised and ideologically polluted as the Republicans and Democrats).

But even the word “libertarian” is to a certain degree inaccurate to describe my views.  I approach politics from a Christian perspective, which I interpret as standing up for the poor, the oppressed and disenfranchised and being true to the principles of rigorous honesty and integrity  in all of this nation’s affairs.

I have the utmost respect for traditional conservatives.  I have no respect whatsoever for so-called “neoconservatives”, who are not conservative at all, but whose ideology is derived from a long line of “former” Communists (Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Lucianne Goldberg) who, in my opinion, never really renounced the Communist ideology, just made a different assessment as to where power lies.  These people still adhere to Leninist principles of deception, the end justifies the means, breaking eggs to make omelets, and, above all else, loyalty to the Party, whether it be the Communist Party, the Republican Party, or whatever other vehicle they might find useful at the moment to advance the only principle they truly value – the acquisition of absolute power.  These people have lied us into war, destroyed our civil liberties, and have basically defecated on everything that was good and pure about this country.  The immorality and lawlessness they unleashed under Bush has become the new normality under Obama.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, indeed.

I respect those who wear the uniform – if they earn my respect.  I have deep admiration for military heroes such as General Smedley Butler, the most decorated general in U.S. history, who singlehandedly foiled a fascist plot to overthrow the government during the Roosevelt (Franklin) administration, whose essay “War is a Racket” exposed the fraud of wars of conquest waged around the turn of the century, when vicious and dishonest leaders like Roosevelt (Theodore) began the destruction of our (formerly) great republic which history has shown time and again is a necessary consequence of becoming an empire.  I respect others like Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Ret.) who refused to go along with the neocons’ shameless deception in the buildup to the monstrous war crime known as the invasion of Iraq.  Also General  William Odom, Lt. Ehren Watada, Sgt.  Adam Kokesh, Kevin Benderman, Ethan McCord, Josh Steiber, Bradley Manning, and all others who had the courage to speak out and/or take action against the crimes of our government in waging these indefensible wars of aggression.

I have no respect whatsoever for  kiss-ups like Petraeus,  McChrystal, or James “killing people is fun” Mattis.  In my opinion, these men have disgraced our nation and recklessly endangered our troops as well as our civilian population by their utter contempt for international law and our Constitution.  Their only loyalty is to their own career advancement and they don’t give a rat’s ass about what is good for our country or the rest of the world.  They are vile sociopaths who should be thrown into the same pit with the politicians I referenced earlier.

I think that U.S. support for the terrorist state of Israel will go down in history as one of the worst crimes of our government as well as incomprehensibly self-destructive behavior that has harmed our nation like nothing else.  Israel is a nation that was born in terrorism, that glorifies its own terrorists, and brutalizes anyone who gets in the way of its expansionist agenda, fueled by endless orgies of murder, theft and vandalism.  Israel is a nation that has never missed an opportunity to stab the United States in the back.  It has attacked our ship (U.S.S. Liberty), initiated false-flag terrorist attacks against United States citizens (the Lavon affair), and repeatedly has been caught red-handed stealing our most sensitive military secrets and selling them to our enemies.  In my opinion, supporting Israel is an act of treason and a moral disgrace.

I think that with all the huge problems facing our nation, worrying about a few Mexicans sneaking across the border to pick fruit or bus tables is like swatting at mosquitoes while the Titanic is sinking.  The real threat to our economy does not come from illegal immigrants, it comes from allowing self-interested elites with no loyalty to the American people to export our jobs in massive numbers to third-world countries.  I see the demonization of illegal immigrants as a (thus far successful) attempt to distract Americans from very real threats to our well-being and to use the age-old tactic of divide and conquer.  More importantly to me, I see it as immoral and anti-Christian oppression of the powerless, the very people Christ exhorted us to honor and treat with compassion.  “As ye do unto the least of thy brethren, ye do unto me.”  Ditto for the current fashion of demonizing Muslims.  May stinking scum like Newt Gingrich, Leonard Peitkoff, Pamela Geller, Glenn Beck and the useless bimbo from Alaska, who foment hatred to advance their own worthless careers, be fitted with millstones around their necks and cast into the sea.

This is the truth as I see it.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Welcome to Oinky Pig!

This is my first post on my first internet blog.  Many thanks to Su for helping me set up this site.  Who am I kidding?  Many thanks to Su for setting up this site while I watched, awed and dumbfounded, drooling with neanderthalic incomprehension, as she exhibited her considerable prowess in this area.  My computer literacy skills are roughly comparable to Fred Flintstone's.  If you want to see a really professional website, go to her blog at....uh.....I can't remember the name of her site and I'm afraid to navigate away from this page until this pig's proverbial first oink is complete.  Besides, she may not want me to reveal the name of her website to the anticipated throngs of unwashed masses who will follow me to the ends of the earth as their new Internet God. 

So, does anybody feel like going out on the street and selling flowers, and donating the proceeds to yours truly?  I have some delicious gruel cooking on the stove.  If that does not entice you, why don't you let me give you a free personality test?  Bells and drums at the airport?  How about a nice glass of Kool-Aid?  No, really.

I hate italics, he thought.

Speaking as a comic in all seriousness, Oinky Pig is a blog dedicated to universal values of love and compassion, world peace, Dixie cup dispensers, political fulminations, truth, justice and the American Way, a stitch in time saves nine, masking tape, and shameless self-promotion.  It will combine humor, seriousness, truth, lies, propaganda, sex, lies and videotape, a healthy disregard for authority, redundancy, and redundancy.  It will feature writings of various pseudonymic luminaries such as Vladimir Johnson, Ghorbanifar Thomas, and Glenn Beck.  It will contain literary and cinematic reviews by the venerable Delbert Peasprattle, whose immortal review of Godfather II began and ended with the timeless words:

"The rapid sequence in which the still pictures were juxtaposed....gave the impression that they were....actually moving...."

In conclusion, gentle readers, welcome, and happy oinking!