† Fin De Temps Post †

Chao Hosni!!!

2011-02-11T11:14:00.002-05:00

Now bring on the indictments against Mubarak and the torturer Omar Suleiman, who was the coordinator of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition program. Git 'em....

A note to the infidels:

2010-12-09T10:06:00.003-05:00

Here's a response I wrote to this hate site (Read the comments, they're frightening): http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194998.php

With such scant information about this woman, since she is a "ghost prisoner," (read here: http://pubrecord.org/world/8605/wikileaks-reveals-reasons-dismiss/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wikileaks-reveals-reasons-dismiss), why are we all so ready to kill? And, are we so insecure about your own intelligence to want to put someone to death because they have a doctorate…? Jesus! Where’s our Jesus-like compassion? Left it at home next to the Xbox and the first person shoot games, eh? This isn't just insane; it means we don't have a clue on how to be human. But we expect others to treat us like one? As such, we have become a nation of murderers? Damned right! Tortures too. We and this at-each-others-throats nation who glorifies savagery in order to cover our own unacknowledged powerlessness to the corporations who own our wretched souls. How’s it feel to be in virtual, cerebral solitary confinement? So does buying shit really make us free? Ah, no… Does it give us cause to forgive ourselves for being ruthless? Why are we so ready to turn the "image" of our misbegotten hatred into red mist? Because it’s manly…? Please… The terms of this frame were trickle-fed to us like slow poison. And who made us that way? Mom? Dad? Nope…. The church, high school, teevee, plentitude and the upper 1% of rich folk who created the worldview for this lapse into willful ignorance. They made it easy. And we just went along, not wanting to be singled-out, and we weren’t ever given the information we needed to establish real principles by which to live, anyway. We didn't have a chance to learn to think for ourselves before the corporations downloaded our personality into our sugar addled brains. And of course, being vicious, killing without principle will stop "the terrorists." Yeah right. That’ll work…. We won’t die by the sword, we’re Americans. And that makes us the good guys for no damned reason, just because. Step off the humvee and the bullets just bounce right off us like pea gravel. It’s the “others” that die… Funny how they kinda look like our moms and dads and brothers and sisters… Funny. And WE made Dr. Aafia Siddiqui crazy. WE tortured her. WE took her from her children, and kept her in chains, in the dark for over two years… A 110 pound woman with a PhD. Dangerous! Her crime? Being brown and intelligent… (Uppity female Hadji) We all should be ashamed, but the corps(e) took that from us too… Feel nothing, pull the trigger, wipe the blood off your goggles… Good robot.

Should probably move to Stockholm.

2010-08-17T10:18:00.002-04:00

Below is a little ditty I wrote as a comment on this story: 9/11 interrogation tapes found under desk

It's impossible to conceive what it must be like being held against your will (the loss of the "right" to perform bodily movements as you would, as the owner of the organism that houses your soul, is terrifying)... Then, to be "interrogated" until you're mad, and kept in a drug addled state to cover the tracks of your abusers.... Breath-taking, I think senatorial parlance was a few years back when this stuff first started stinking. And it seems we've grown accustomed to the smell, as the humiliation passed to outrage, to impotence, to despair, to a fly-trapped-in-a-jar fantasy, for both the victims, and for us... For it is unfathomable to understand what we have truly done to these people. Surely Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil" was prescient. And we Americans are now the "good Germans," unimpressed, numbed, Über-nationalistic, and self-consumed to the point of gullibility. Afraid to step out of line for the specter of abuse keeps us trembling either with guilty pleasure or horror. For we have no idea of the very real suffering that WE allow, that is OUR collective responsibility, that WE aid the continuation of by our inaction. So who is torturing whom? Is this a case of Psy-Ops, where the mere imposition of violence ensures passivity, and compliance on our part as well? And does blogging about it prove my level of alienation and lack of will? I suppose it does. But there's plenty of pathos to go around.... For I'm beginning to suspect that there ever was a time when this sort of corruption would have gotten us away from our computers, tvs, radios, corporate-run news, and prompted us to do whatever was necessary to ensure that Binalshibh's common, universal, human rights were protected. Hell, we can't even gauge their value anymore in this Reagan-induced, good vs. evil world that we take up room in. Truly we are Koestler's & Van Gogh's "ghosts in the machine." We have been trained for the past thirty years to believe that we are powerless, so, since we can do nothing, we might as well enjoy ourselves to death... For god knows, they'd never do anything like that to us. Would they? As such, the logic fails that Binalshibh's rights are really OUR rights. And when we discount one human's dignity, all then are in peril... Yet I believe we shan't wake up... Should probably move to Stockholm.

There's amnesty for the turkey, what about us?

2009-11-30T11:14:00.012-05:00

I wrote the following comment on The Raw Story article by John Byrne concerning the turkey day poll that "Forty percent of Democrats say they ‘probably won’t vote’ next year"

Come on all you disenchanted Dems. It's time to vote outside of the two-party system. Why don't we have a labor party? Ever wonder about that? Or a real progressive party, for that matter--one with teeth? And remember, all you Thom Hartmann listeners, the Paul Weyrich quote Thom's always playing about the "goo-goo syndrome?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GBAsFwPglw

Psst...They win when we don't vote. ("Tehy" being the insane, neo-fascist, religious-right haters who framed to debate for the last three decades thanks to folks like Paul).... So what's the point of voting? I don't know... It's such a bother, that is if you're a self-centered, lazy slob who only cares about what's going on your end of the Matrix. Because you obediently believe everything you're told, right?

So how do they keep us from the polls, and from political action in our communities? Well...fake intimidation, disinformation and PROPAGANDA via your evening news. You know the drill... You've felt the shocks, eh my monkey? They lie to you to keep power. They lie to you to gain power. Big surprise, huh? No? But kinda disappointing? You bet...

Tired of being a victim yet? Did No-Go-bama let you down? That's a shocker, huh?... And, are you tired of feeling ashamed for having the higher cortical functions that the Flying Spaghetti Monster bestowed on most animate creatures, which caused you to give a damn about your fellow being(s), and not solely be driven by the sociopathic urge to accumulate wealth on the backs of as many suckers as you can convince that they're suckers (either through racism, shoddy schools, or just plain elegant sadism)--all in accordance with the Protestant Work Ethic that says the cover change for heaven is gold?

Is the turkey rumbling in your stomach? Is Tryophan a gateway drug for the stupidity or what? Are we imperceptibly being hoodwinked by Alaskan poultry farmers, and friend of Sarah Palin, one gobble-gobble at a time? Ah...yes!

So is your Cobra insurance or unemployment about to run out? Are your parents ill? How about your child? Or your neighbor's child (that is if you give a damn)? Well, I wonder what will it take before we fight back? In earnest? Like our lives depended on it? Like we were people of substance and dignity, not some flat-lined, consumer, jellyfish (not that there's anything wrong with jellyfish, except that Global Warming has pretty much taken care of them too).

When do we risk some skin against the false sense of security the media clouds our mind with, and do something, genuine, brave, heroic, necessary? When do we stop saying, "thank you sir may I have another," or like the Jews in the ghettos in the late thirties who said, "We're good German citizens too, they won't hurts us...."

So when do we begin to take our country back from the Corporatists who are laughing all the way to the banks that our children are paying for? And when do we speak for ourselves again? Our jobs, our hometowns, our collective belief that we are a just and ferociously diligent nation when it comes to freedom (as in a person's soul, and not in the crass made-in-china flag/bumpsticker variety)? Hello? I'm waiting....And the last ten years have been pretty rough.... Na-mean? Hurry the "f" up! Strike! Thank you.

October 29, 2009...

2009-10-29T23:09:00.004-04:00

There wasn't anything in the news about it. And there was no stutter to the breakneck pace of the soulless machine which drives us to our graves, for the promise of recompense as our selflessness and sacrifice becomes the grease for gears of the ever progressing, manically incessant free market... The one that pays pennies on the dollar for our labor, the lie that saps our dreams, and crushes our ingenuity and hopes... The meaningless task that inadvertently defines our lives. As we, like Eloi, are trained via "industrial morality" not to question those who provide us with gainful employment. Quite nice of them, really... And they pretend to care, so to convince us to vote against our own best interests again and again.

So today, again, everyone in America dutifully got into the gridlock, got on the bus or train, slurped their coffee, tied their ties or buttoned their blouses, and went about their day none the wiser, ready to offer to Mammon what he's convinced them belongs to him--the very essence of the miraculous fact that they exist; all reduced to a "human resource." Nice...

I heard about this call to action, a general strike that was to occur today, on the Mike Malloy show earlier in the week. And even as he took the day off and ran a "best of" tape in his time slot, the feeling I got from him was none too optimistic about the efficacy of such an event. But like me, he went along with it and observed it anyway...

I have nothing profound or particularly intelligent to say about such a quaint, and seemingly ineffectual gesture on the part of a handful of concerned, and most likely, deeply committed people. Folks who are not estranged from a sense of civic duty--especially as it concerns our inherited rights. A grandly sad bit of defiance, like the old Quaker ladies who inevitably show up at every anti-war protests I've ever been to--rain or shine--holding their signs, and walking with measured paces, to quietly proclaim their desire for peace.

Ah to be free... What in the hell does that mean anymore? With global inequality as it concerns access to goods and services (I'm thinking about things like clean drinking water), and the fact that the global population is edging toward 7 billion (and as I read in an article published in Sierra Club magazine years ago that a population of 10 billion is not sustainable), the price of a gallon of gas has more credibility than the fact that a child starves to death every five seconds. Do we live in la-la land, or what?

So back to the kvetching about the fact that we have jobs--albeit crappy, soul-dead, meaningless ones--our complaints don't hold up to such a tidal wave of human anguish. Or do they?

Think about what evil is done when people do nothing? What misery is forged from those who indulge in apathy and despair? Hey, I'm no one to preach the virtues of a positive attitude--that kind of forced, almost elitist point of view, presumes that if you're unhappy about anything, you're just not looking at it the "right" way--ha, ha, ha... What a hoax...

This is basically like saying "shut the hell up," really. "Stop complaining and get back to work..." And the point of this meanness? To make sure the established order gets their rent check on our ass... No doubt...

So consider if you will, what the turn of thought might be from this, for if they can enslave your mind, what do you think this does for the rest of the world? The ecology? The distribution of wealth? The right of people to exist, if not thrive? Just think of the collective ingenuity that is crushed by a servile dependence on bad ideas.

Can you imagine? Every problem we have could disappear if people were given a chance to climb up Maslow's pyramid, and to develop their collective intellect in terms of sustainability and other innovations. Can you imagine that?

Its probably not too much of a stretch When you think of the fact that ideas function at the core everything that goes into our "modern" lives. So what isn't possible then? This reminds me of R. Buckminster Fuller's lament, and I'm paraphrasing, that we have the technology to make this world a paradise, but for ignorance and greed, we remain chained to the failed notions of hollow men.

For it takes a good amount of courage to no longer participate in what experience shows to be a fallacy--even as there is an elaborate and intricate infrastructure to support to presumption of a particular thought process, social norm or worldview is "too big to fail."

Well, I'm here to tell you, everything dies, and so do bad ideas. And like the mystic Krishnamurti wrote (and again I'm paraphrasing), you only give evil power through recognition, through allegiance...

Our economy is shot, many of our institutions bankrupt--financially and morally--so what to do? Sit on you ass and do nothing!cI say... Don't participate. Stop. Do not give the bastards what they want. An what is that? Your allegiance to their worldview. That, and the also the think that make you and all of us unique and valuable, in essence, as an essence, our joy. And what is joy an expression of? Our freedom.

That, and the fact that we find wrongdoing repugnant--whatever its stripe. As we live, almost instinctively, tribally, by the notion of fair play, and the so-called "golden rule."

So, let's try this again. And this time, let's get it right. My friends, patriots, and countrymen and women and children--it's time to stop. It's time to strike. And take our frickin' country back by doing nothing. Just unplug, and walk outside and recognize that you're mortal and this is your life. Take it back. It belongs you. I have a little faith left. Go ahead. You can do it. We can do it. Sans politics too!

Peace-out.

2009-10-25T11:59:00.004-04:00

>

How is it that men like Greenspan, Summers and Rubin, so devoid of a sense of consequence or responsibility, who show such a blatant lack of regard for the effect their dictatorial decisions have on the lives of common people around the globe, are able to continue to walk around as freemen? Let alone own any property...? I don't get it? For is not the Randian credo, which Greenspan offered a deathbed confession to Mr. Waxman at the end of "The Warning", little more than the Protestant work ethic on steroids, where the "righteous" amass wealth as a birthright, and by means of some one-size-fits belief in market forces that remain just, all by themselves, without human intervention? Isn't there a certain madness to this? Like corporate personhood? Where this sort of laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank cynicism is really just the exploitive basis of any profit based system, where to exist, someone has to lose? Because as any true believer must ask themselves once they wake up from their delusions of choice, and the carcass has been picked to the bones, so there's no need to hang around anymore, can any one person be so wise as to speak for the totality of human experience, let alone any one aspect of reality without having to rely on fable? Are we really that gullible? Well, ask Timmy Geithner and Larry Summers--they'll tell ya. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." And as far as Mr. Greenspan's rude awakening--what's good for Maddoff, is too good for him, or maybe even what happened to Benedict Arnold.

YOU NEED TO WATCH THESE

2009-08-25T21:59:00.004-04:00

Go to http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7374 to watch the video taped deposition of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

Vimeo links here too:

PART 1 (appx. 51 mins) - Direct

Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 1 of 5 from Velvet Revolution on Vimeo.

PART 2 (appx. 35 mins) - Direct continues

Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 2 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.

PART 3 (appx. 17 mins) - Direct continues

Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 3 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.

PART 4 (appx. 43 mins) - Cross

Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 4 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.

PART 5 (appx. 54 mins) - Redirect & Recross

Sibel Edmonds Deposition, 8/8/09: PART 5 of 5 from Justice Through Music on Vimeo.

That's it... Now go out and raise some hell!

From Jews to Jesus & Health Care Costs from Fruits to Nuts...

2009-08-19T09:19:00.003-04:00

Check this out...

First, the non sequitur of "hail to Hitler" as an antecedent to Universal Health Care is analogous to National Socialism? Huh? The connection evades me especially when it comes to a Jewish man and the debate over whether poor people deserve to see a doctor or not? Yet if this binary, knee jerk response on part of this christo-fascist dolt is a natural defense to stuff she didn't like hearing, then its clear that the Nazi is. (S)he who smelt-it, dealt-it...

Then she says (as she is interviewed off the main floor to give her the room to speak without being harassed--that's nice. But we're talkin' the corporate media. So go figure...) Anyway, she claims (replete with beatific air quotes), that she's not aligned with a "group." After which she lavishly tells of her group affiliations in such a matter-of-fact way that appears she thinks everyone surely agrees with her. Is that arrogance or ignorance? You be the judge...

Next, she dribbles something about "Biblical founders." So who were these "Biblical founders?" And what did the found? A Charter school? A cult? A Sturmabteilung rally? She should consult with the Deists...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism...to find out what the "founders" believed.

Then she asked about the event itself, and she responds, "The turn-out is good...but a thousand people really isn't (aren’t) a lot of people." I'm confused, which is it? Good? Not so good? This surely speaks to her sluggish synapses... Non sequitur number two...

Next... Health care "...needs reform... (Heil Hitler! Oop! Too soon)...but IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE TAKEN OVER BY THE GOVERNMENT...." What? This dunderhead needs a Reality Check (http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck/)... Then government is the conduit and not the provider (as it is the government, by and for the "the people," so it’s ours since that's us...). Don't scare me like that! You'd think we live in a democracy where "you get the government you deserve..." That was another time and place...

Next...she leap frogs to the meme of "supporting or not supporting the dreaded illegal aliens," with obviously little sense of the historical precedents that were set by our own trade policies. Of which they have "downwardly harmonized" populations, like in Mexico where the average worker makes $5 a day. She could play Marie Antoinette if she wasn't such a jesu-con parrot and a hater...

For this she muses over how the "government" wants THEM to have care, "...but (my) HUSBAND DOESN'T HAVE CARE..." So why is she against health care reform? Anyway, here thesis of "screw the illegals" is really just racism based on her getting what she wants. Not that's civic minded. And I wonder what nationality her relatives are when they came to America? Hmmm...

Next... So she's "lucky to have it (health care) through her work...." And the basis for her discontent is that she doesn't want others to have it because it might mess up her coverage? Yes? No? And, being "lucky," doesn't that infer that maybe she shouldn't have it in the first place, or that it could be taken away from her at anytime? Again, she's a real thinker that one...

So her husband has "three jobs, no, two and a half...." Now that's uniquely America, right? Ah yes, the neocon panacea, the godly, can-do spirit that made not being able to afford to go to the doctor so great... Then if you do go, you can't declare chapter 11 no more because of the Bush Bankruptcy Bill, when, say for instance, YOU, Missy, can't pay for your $8000 emergency room visit if your husband can't show up to any of his jobs no more. All together: Waaah! Waaah! Waaah!

Next the mensch starts to pontificate about "natural rights." There are "rites" in nature, but what about those "inalienable" ones that frame our civil society? We didn't pick off the tree of liberty. We had some notion of how our human dignity was tied to the catch all phrase: the rights of man. Except, that's right, if you're an "alien!" In that case you can just pass-out and die in the waiting room of your local emergency care provider... "God bless 'em..."

Why? Because "no one is obligated to give you anything," as she says... And this calls into question so many things that go into maintaining a civil society, that if such a Libertarian delusion would come true, "every man for himself and all against god" would surely be the rule when it came to such "entitlements" as public safety, infrastructure upkeep, schools, food & drug safety, etc. etc. For without an agreed upon sense of "burden" there can be no society. What's the point? Might as well live in mud huts...

On that note, I'd like to see how long she could go without clean water, or even the gas to get to the shopping mall or church. She'd be a basket-case in a fortnight...

Last, Obama has been is office 7 months. Granted Harry Reid is a jellyfish, but of these long term "corrupt people who have been in office," hasn't there been a Republican hegemony in D.C. for the past three decades (including Clinton's mock-democratic tenure)?

Jeez, this woman is thick, and the Westinghouse/CBS Arizona affiliate just seems to have no compunction about giving her all the time she needs to ramble on her merry way off the top of her pre-programmed head...

As a topper, he gives her a nice little hand shake, and that's it. Job well done...

In closing I am amazed at the level of unconscious callousness and just plain selfishness that she exhibits, as she dutifully repeats the frames that have indelibly stamped in her short term memory by her pastor and the corporate media. Her Pavlovian meanness is just astounding... Ruthlessly insane, really, with no sense of consequence... A good German, I'd say.

BTW: I wonder if the anchorman shook the Jewish fellow's hand... Doubt it.

2009-07-30T23:32:00.003-04:00

On Jul 8, 2009, at 4:41 PM, Verizon Online wrote:

For the first time, Verizon has introduced a single, integrated Privacy Policy that covers Web site visitors and U.S. customers across the Verizon family of companies. You can easily learn about the information Verizon collects, how it's used, and what choices you can make with regard to that use by clicking on the "Privacy Policy" link at the bottom of any page on our Website. For your convenience, you can find quick answers to immediate questions on the summary page or read the full Privacy Policy to see more information.

AND MY RESPONSE?

Oh please. What a bunch of horse hockey! A little after the fact dontcha think? Since you already bent over for the NSA and squatted on our 4th amendment rights. Then you got a free pass for breaking the FISA law from the new Pres.! So please, spare me the road apples...

What a bunch of malarkey you corporatist pigs! You, as if "you" were a living thing--ha!--even as you illegally do enjoy the privileges of the living, thanks to the head note inclusion in Union Pacific v Santa Clara County decision on eminent domain, that had something to do with fence posts. Jeez! You should revive the "Reach-out and 'F' someone" theme from Ma Bell.

For the only thing you Morlocks care about is your bottom line. So piss off with your too late, too insincere, too typically condescending little missive that just radiates the contempt you feel for us post-citizen "consumers."

Because for all the vague niceties of this depersonalized blast, what you're really saying is, we screwed you, and there ain't nothing you can do about it. Ha, ha, ha...

Thank god my connection to your smarmy, chthonic little communication monopoly is done with at the end of next month. My privacy! Jesus you really think we're all stupid dontcha?

Skype Recharged! Or the dance of the pronouns.

2009-06-19T10:05:00.006-04:00

Dear Skype:

Well you (as I say "you" advisedly, with the pretense of Skype being a "person"--which "it" is not--maybe something akin to a saprophyte, with many de-personalized carbon units slavishly following the dictates of their Brahmin paymasters, with no sense of purpose beyond the emulation of the alienated gestures of prescribed work drained of all originality and passion, a.k.a. soul), may have lost me as a customer.

Since "you," like other semi-benevolent corporations have stooped to preying upon the ignorance, qua laziness (or the inability to read ALL the details on your transactions page in a glance), of the consuming public by sneaking in that little Auto Recharge Trojan check box when "we" order more talk time from "you."

Which, if it is assumed, taken for granted, over looked, by "your" customers that when "we" click submit (not as an act of giving over our "will" to "you") it means "I'm buying time" where actually it means "I'm giving you open access to my bank accounts." Nice.

Thus making it necessary to go back after "we" purchase time--a decision made by "us", not "you"--and unsubscribe from this euphemistic "feature." Which really only benefits "you," as it makes it possible that if "we" don't un-check it... oops! More money in "your" coffers and the hassle of contacting "you" to get it back... No mean feat since all "your" contact info. is readily available on "your" website.

Well, to put it bluntly, this is dishonest.... Not that "you" really care, since "you're" not real...

Have "you" forgotten that the most basic element of a good business relationship is trust? Apparently so... Because if "you" want to offer Auto Recharge as courtesy to "your" customers, I'd suggest that "you" let THEM decide if they want to use this service, and don't try to pull a fast-one by placing a pre-checked box on "your" transaction page.

But I know, this won't effect anything, "you" bloodless corporate types have the liability of the likes of "me" accounted for, with a stable of lawyers to put "me" in my insignificant place. Now don't "you"?

So, just as a courtesy to "you," I'm going to do little research for other companies that offer VOIP service without any little trip-wire or booby-traps that "you" now feel compelled to use against the unwittingly trustful--hence stupid--public. I've de-activated by Paypal account so "you" can't dip in my scant resources at "your" whim....

Thanks.

Viva Oprah!

A Last Gasp For Gaza: An Open Letter To Obama, Clinton & George Mitchell

2009-05-28T15:25:00.003-04:00

But for the grace of God?

I believe this country must operate in a sane, empathic and humane manner, and be an example to the world as to how we, as a species, can evolve above our barbarity, and prove, as it were, the enlightenment ideal of our perfectibility. And I believe, if this nation is to continue to exist, that we must recast this moral center to our actions abroad and domestically….

So my opening in many ways obviates my response to you here, as I no longer have the slightest inclination of trust when it comes to the Malthusian indifference that has populated the DC beltway since the rise of the neo-conservative movement some thirty years ago. For despite the hope-on-rope, grinning ear-to-ear happy-face aspect of your recent election, what you're now trading in is murder and deception of the highest order--all at the behest of globalists, military strategists, and ideologues, all bent on expanding their agendas no matter the human cost.

So to implore such a group of heedless and ruthless Übermenschen to consider the lives of the children before moving onto the next imperial conquest is on its face, ridiculous. It’s like asking a serial killer stop his blood work while sharpening his blade for him. For such challenges to their clandestine authority only emboldens them, and whet their craven appetites... Such is the hubris of unchecked power...of which you are not exempt.

For isn't the euphemistic business ethos of "collateral damage" certainly ascribed to what is cost effective? As whatever lives are sacrificed somehow represent a payment toward the greater good just by the utterance of the phrase… If this is so, then Mssrs. Obama & Mitchell, only you can determine if your function is one of courage and principle or one that is bought and paid for by the Power Elite...

Regardless, you must know that without the bureaucracy to protect your well considered decisions that result in the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq, Afghanistan Palestine and elsewhere, the retribution that would come at you from all corners of the planet would surely overwhelm whatever "reason" you use to justify this brutal calculus.

Sir, you have children, and unless you are so far removed from what makes a person human, the sheer function of this or any society is to protect them at any cost. And to not do so surely unhinges the entire basis for the existence of that society. And this goes for whether we allow this to happen here or anywhere in the world. For this principle means nothing if it is not universally applied. Hence, human life means nothing….

So I hope-against-hope that you'll somehow learn the diplomatic expedient of the word "NO!" when it comes to anymore drones, cluster bombs, bunker busters, MOABS, Whiskey-Pete, etc. being dropped on children who had nothing to do with the strife of nations. And I pray you find raping them in front of there parents to extract false confessions to be about the last straw when it comes to prolonged detention of nations that we have allowed to suffer without redress. So please consider those who have only had a few years in this world, and have the already been taught cruel lessons from which they are not likely to heal. And be a father, not a politician. For all children belong to one nation, one world… And without them we become wraiths, and irrelevant…

A Note To Malloy: On The Obama Concession Regarding Torture & The OLC Memos

2009-04-17T22:55:00.004-04:00

Hey Mike & Kathy,

This is getting very real... But is it real enough to wake the pathologically self-involved masses who have had their compassion free-marketed out them? Who've had the love of their neighbors dulled by consumer goods to the point that they've all become little better than dogs growling over our food bowls when anyone approaches them, or asks for help.

Come on Mike, your imploring for reason is why I listen to your radio show up night after night, yet as I've written to you time and again, asking the question when will it be enough? What will it take for the people to rise up to tell this president and his cabinet, hell no? Well, I don't even what to speculate on that anymore. We just don't give a damn, that's clear.

We're so cut off from reality and from each other, that we truly live provisional lives of Thoreauian "quiet desperation." We are a people bereft of meaning beyond the relevance claimed of the corporate news cycle. And like the Eloi we respond automatically, without true depth, or genuine emotion... And so it goes, as we are operantly conditioned out of our humanity...

And that's why our politicians prey on our weak sentiments by telling us what we want to hear so they can just go ahead do what they want. They laugh in our faces because they know we won't do squat. We are not a courageous people. We wouldn't give up our iPods for the sake of liberty, let alone our lives.

So what do we get from this new era of openness? The same old, same old, like I suppose we suspected it would be. We gave him our trust like a bunch of idiots. So meet the new boss... And yeah we did get fooled again...

I don't mean to gloat, but I always suspected that Obama had a bit of the Willy Loman in him. Even as far back as his rousing speech at the Dem convention in 04', I didn't feel he was being absolutely up front. For despite his seeming deprivations, he's still a yuppie offspring, and the only person he's in it for is himself--and no one can tell me otherwise.

I thought he was a phony somewhat during the election, but after eight years of Bush and thirty years of Reaganomics, I was willing to let down my guard and believe in the process--that it could again work for us. I was ready to be done with the anxiety that dark part of our recent past, and I did hope sanity could return to the U.S.... But boy was I a sucker...

And after the wiretapping retreat and his about face on torture, Obama can go ahead and insist on "moving forward," but at least on my end, the gloves are off, and I want to make him do the will of the people, the people who got him elected, however that rolls out.

'Cause I'm not tea-bagging for anybody. And just like you, I've got a six year old, and I'm worried about what kind of a world he'll inherit. And if I do nothing ensure that he doesn't have to live in hell, then what kind of father am I?

A Note on the Death of the 4th.

2009-04-09T15:51:00.022-04:00

P-resident Obama,

I voted for you on the outside chance that you might have the integrity and chutzpah to right the overturned lifeboat of this still fledgling democracy. But who was I kidding? Well, obviously, myself. And so, you got your wish, by handily stealing ours, by incessantly smiling in our faces, by making a mockery of OUR hope right before our eyes. What a fascist pig you are!

I know writing doesn't do a damned thing, and that you'll never actually read my words, but to the apparatchik who does, this act on the part of the Obama DoJ has broken the camel's back.

There's nothing you can say from here on out that will make a damned bit of difference with me, and many others. You, Herr Obama, are a liar, a flim-flam man, and a fraud before the very Constitution you swore to uphold. Ha! Ha! Ha! You fooled the rabble now didn't ya? Can I say it again? You're a pig!

So what's next? Public execution for those who dissent against your regal edict to cover-up the crimes of the previous administration? How dare you block justice? So, I guess you're one of those relativists who think that what Hamilton and Jefferson penned is up for interpretation. You did haunt the U of Chicago, famous for another theorist, the later day Eichmann, Milton Friedman. So do you likewise think of the Constitution is just a "goddamned piece of paper," as your predecessor did?

Why was I born in such an evil country? I'm ashamed to be associated with such a treacherous lot of halflings and throw-backs who think nothing of murdering tens of thousands of Arabic people in a "war" based on an over-the-top, in your face, beyond the bounds of reason, lie. A lie...

Is there no moral outrage left? Are my fellow country folks nothing better than subservient cattle? I guess so. We're all commodities that can be replaced. Feeders, breeders, and labor bots...with one message for us: "We'll do what we want, so shut the fuck up or we'll take away your X Box..."

Well, I rebuke your "kingly" immunity, your section 223 of the PATRIOT ACT, and call you, as can be derived from the decision made by your DoJ, an enemy of the state.

Because for me and others, the 4th amendment IS the law of the land, and you can't just arbitrarily suspend it without a fight.... Be damned you traitor!

Et.al. Mssr. Holder & Hertz, esq.

The King Can Do No Wrong?

2009-04-09T07:00:00.009-04:00

_______________________________________________________________________________________
BACKGROUND #1:

SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY - A doctrine precluding the institution of a suit against the sovereign [government] without its consent. Though commonly believed to be rooted in English law, it is actually rooted in the inherent nature of power and the ability of those who hold power to shield themselves.

In England it was predicated on the concept that "the sovereign can do no wrong", a concept developed and enforced by - guess who? However, since the American revolution explictedly rejected this interesting idea, the American rulers had to come up with another rationale to protect their power. One they came up with is that the "sovereign is exempt from suit [on the] practical ground that there can be no legal right against the authority that makes the law on which the right depends." 205 U.S. 349, 353.

"[S]tatutes waiving the sovereign immunity of the United States must be`construed strictly in favor of the sovereign." McMahon v. United States, 342 U.S. 25, 27 (1951).

11 U.S.C. S 106, "Waiver of Sovereign Immunity," provides:

(a) A governmental unit is deemed to have waived sovereign immunity with respect to any claim against such governmental unit that is property of the estate and that arose out of the same transaction or occurrence out of which such governmental unit's claim arose.

The interest served by federal sovereign immunity (the United States' freedom from paying damages without Congressional consent)

Federal sovereign immunity is readily distinguishable from the states' immunity under the Eleventh Amendment and foreign governments' immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The latter two doctrines allow one sovereign entity the right to avoid, altogether, being subjected to litigation in another sovereign's courts. Pullman Constr., 23 F.3d at 1169. Similar sovereignty concerns are not implicated by the maintenance of suit against the United States in federal court. Federal sovereign immunity has had such broad exceptions carved out of it that, as Pullman Construction concluded, "Congress, on behalf of the United States, has surrendered any comparable right not to be a litigant in its own courts." Id. In the present day, federal sovereign immunity serves merely to channel litigation into the appropriate avenue for redress, ensuring that "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law." Pullman Constr. at 1168 (quoting Art. I, section 9, cl. 7).

Federal sovereign immunity is a defense to liability rather than a right to be free from trial.

The Supreme Court has ruled that in a case involving the government's sovereign immunity the statute in question must be strictly construed in favor of the sovereign and may not be enlarged beyond the waiver its language expressly requires. See United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U.S. 30, 33-35 (1992).

____________________________________________________________________________________
BACKGROUND #2:

SEC. 223. CIVIL LIABILITY FOR CERTAIN UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURES.

(a) Section 2520 of title 18, United States Code, is amended --

(1) in subsection (a), after "entity', by inserting ", other than the United States,';

(2) by adding at the end the following:

"(f) ADMINISTRATIVE DISCIPLINE.—If a court or appropriate department or agency determines that the United States or any of its departments or agencies has violated any provision of this chapter, and the court or appropriate department or agency finds that the circumstances surrounding the violation raise serious questions about whether or not an officer or employee of the United States acted willfully or intentionally with respect to the violation, the department or agency shall, upon receipt of a true and correct copy of the decision and findings of the court or appropriate department or agency promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action against the officer or employee is warranted. If the head of the department or agency involved determines that disciplinary action is not warranted, he or she shall notify the Inspector General with jurisdiction over the department or agency concerned and shall provide the Inspector General with the reasons for such determination.'; and

(3) by adding a new subsection (g), as follows:

"(g) IMPROPER DISCLOSURE IS VIOLATION.-- Any willful disclosure or use by an investigative or law enforcement officer or governmental entity of information beyond the extent permitted by section 2517 is a violation of this chapter for purposes of section 2520(a).'.

(b) Section 2707 of title 18, United States Code, is amended --

(1) in subsection (a), after "entity', by inserting ", other than the United States,';

(2) by striking subsection (d) and inserting the following:

"(d) ADMINISTRATIVE DISCIPLINE. -- If a court or appropriate department or agency determines that the United States or any of its departments or agencies has violated any provision of this chapter, and the court or appropriate department or agency finds that the circumstances surrounding the violation raise serious questions about whether or not an officer or employee of the United States acted willfully or intentionally with respect to the violation, the department or agency shall, upon receipt of a true and correct copy of the decision and findings of the court or appropriate department or agency promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action against the officer or employee is warranted. If the head of the department or agency involved determines that disciplinary action is not warranted, he or she shall notify the Inspector General with jurisdiction over the department or agency concerned and shall provide the Inspector General with the reasons for such determination.'; and

(3) by adding a new subsection (g), as follows:

"(g) IMPROPER DISCLOSURE. -- Any willful disclosure of a 'record', as that term is defined in section 552a(a) of title 5, United States Code, obtained by an investigative or law enforcement officer, or a governmental entity, pursuant to section 2703 of this title, or from a device installed pursuant to section 3123 or 3125 of this title, that is not a disclosure made in the proper performance of the official functions of the officer or governmental entity making the disclosure, is a violation of this chapter. This provision shall not apply to information previously lawfully disclosed (prior to the commencement of any civil or administrative proceeding under this chapter) to the public by a Federal, State, or local governmental entity or by the plaintiff in a civil action under this chapter.'.

(c)(1) Chapter 121 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

"Â§ 2712. Civil actions against the United States

"(a) IN GENERAL. -- Any person who is aggrieved by any willful violation of this chapter or of chapter 119 of this title or of sections 106(a), 305(a), or 405(a) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) may commence an action in United States District Court against the United States to recover money damages. In any such action, if a person who is aggrieved successfully establishes such a violation of this chapter or of chapter 119 of this title or of the above specific provisions of title 50, the Court may assess as damages --

"(1) actual damages, but not less than $10,000, whichever amount is greater; and

"(2) litigation costs, reasonably incurred.

"(b) PROCEDURES. -- (1) Any action against the United States under this section may be commenced only after a claim is presented to the appropriate department or agency under the procedures of the Federal Tort Claims Act, as set forth in title 28, United States Code.

"(2) Any action against the United States under this section shall be forever barred unless it is presented in writing to the appropriate Federal agency within 2 years after such claim accrues or unless action is begun within 6 months after the date of mailing, by certified or registered mail, of notice of final denial of the claim by the agency to which it was presented. The claim shall accrue on the date upon which the claimant first has a reasonable opportunity to discover the violation.

"(3) Any action under this section shall be tried to the court without a jury.

"(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the procedures set forth in section 106(f), 305(g), or 405(f) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (50 U.S.C. 1801 et seq.) shall be the exclusive means by which materials governed by those sections may be reviewed.

"(5) An amount equal to any award against the United States under this section shall be reimbursed by the department or agency concerned to the fund described in section 1304 of title 31, United States Code, out of any appropriation, fund, or other account (excluding any part of such appropriation, fund, or account that is available for the enforcement of any Federal law) that is available for the operating expenses of the department or agency concerned.

"(c) ADMINISTRATIVE DISCIPLINE. -- If a court or appropriate department or agency determines that the United States or any of its departments or agencies has violated any provision of this chapter, and the court or appropriate department or agency finds that the circumstances surrounding the violation raise serious questions about whether or not an officer or employee of the United States acted willfully or intentionally with respect to the violation, the department or agency shall, upon receipt of a true and correct copy of the decision and findings of the court or appropriate department or agency promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action against the officer or employee is warranted. If the head of the department or agency involved determines that disciplinary action is not warranted, he or she shall notify the Inspector General with jurisdiction over the department or agency concerned and shall provide the Inspector General with the reasons for such determination.

"(d) EXCLUSIVE REMEDY. -- Any action against the United States under this subsection shall be the exclusive remedy against the United States for any claims within the purview of this section.

"(e) STAY OF PROCEEDINGS. -- 1) Upon the motion of the United States, the court shall stay any action commenced under this section if the court determines that civil discovery will adversely affect the ability of the Government to conduct a related investigation or the prosecution of a related criminal case. Such a stay shall toll the limitations periods of paragraph (2) of subsection (b).

"(2) In this subsection, the terms 'related criminal case' and 'related investigation' mean an actual prosecution or investigation in progress at the time at which the request for the stay or any subsequent motion to lift the stay is made. In determining whether an investigation or a criminal case is related to an action commenced under this section, the court shall consider the degree of similarity between the parties, witnesses, facts, and circumstances involved in the 2 proceedings, without requiring that any one or more factors be identical.

"(3) In requesting a stay under paragraph (1), the Government may, in appropriate cases, submit evidence ex parte in order to avoid disclosing any matter that may adversely affect a related investigation or a related criminal case. If the Government makes such an ex parte submission, the plaintiff shall be given an opportunity to make a submission to the court, not ex parte, and the court may, in its discretion, request further information from either party.'.

(2) The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 121 is amended to read as follows:

"2712. Civil action against the United States.'.

________________________________________________________________________________________
HERE'S THE POST:

As many of you know, the 4th amendment has ceased to be legally binding. We now live in a state run by the dictates of a military and justice departments which no longer recognizes the legal authority of the Constitution to protect the citizens of this country from "illegal searches and seizures." All Americans are now under house arrest.

The claim of "Sovereign Immunity" by the Obama DOJ basically sets the legal standard for its ruling in the Jewel v. NSA this week. The Electronic Freedom Frontier was suing the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional, and ongoing dragnet surveillance of their communications and communications records.

Can indecent exposure be claimed against a government? I guess not. For if they can strip search us electronically without "probable cause," and we're all hiding something until disrobe and are then determined to be innocent, what then is to stop them from applying "sovereign immunity" to say the first amendment? Oh, that's right. That's the provision of the "fusion centers" popping up across the country.

Let me make this clear: the 4th amendment is null and void.

For as Jonathan Turley said on Keith Olbermann's show April 7th, regarding the "sovereign immunity" defense that gave BushCo a pass for spying on us, that with the Obama justice department invocation the section 223 of the PATRIOT ACT, what this does is:

"...leaves citizens with a right without protections... And It's impossible to have a Constitutional right that can't be enforced...."

So, what do you do when you can no longer retreat? YOU FIGHT TO THE DEATH!!!

Got that you NSA fascist motherfuckers? Who in the fuck you protecting anyway? You pigs!

BTW: I just scratched my ass...

Think anyone will notice?

On the obfuscation of privacy & C-BS

2009-01-16T10:50:00.002-05:00

The following was written in response the story on CBS.com regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Appeals Court upholding the current wiretap laws: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/15/national/main4723800.shtml

Wasn't the original intent of the post-Watergate induction of the FISA court set-up to provide a review process for granting supra-Constitutional authority to surveil domestic communications, as opposed to international communications, over which no claim of jurisdiction can be made within the legal parameters of the 4th Amendment without such a review?

For with a strict reading of the 4th amendment, despite general Hayden's insistence on defining the intent of the amendment by what is considered "reasonable" above and beyond the legal measure of "probable cause," even the legality of such a special court of review is suspect as it relates to what constitutes the meaning of "privacy" as inferred from the Constitutional penumbras.

For even as this ruling secures the right of the president and the Congress to wiretap international communications, this reaffirmation is little more than a red herring
as is concerns the real issue of domestic surveillance, which is the most strident Constitutional issue as it concerns the interception of communications within the borders of the United States.

So where's the beef? Well, if you look at the scorched-earth policy supported by the FISA Amendments Act--beyond the issuance of telecom immunity for repeatedly breaking federal law as per the authority granted by president Bush and his (for the lack of a better word) Justice department--this act basically gives the legislative and the executive branch the power to supersede key provisions of the Bill of Rights without fear of retribution. Does it not?

I say trash the whole procedure, and use the existing federal courts for such reviews. And let the sunshine in.... For this whole thing is a tissue of lies, and CBS is just another corporate mouthpiece for an administration that has trampled on our rights, spat in our faces, and belittled our outrage as fanatical, if not terroristic, even as they claim the higher ground a patriots while blatantly breaking the law.

Don't tread on me. Don't listen in on me. Don't f**k with me. Got it? Good...

The New Magic Christian: Obama the Centrist! And You're Surprised? Really?

2008-11-28T09:47:00.011-05:00

FAIR recently reported on Obama's cabinet selection process, and they seemed surprised that a majority of the appointees were Clinton-era, pro-corporate insiders, with only one thing in mind: changing absolutely nothing--despite all the campaign hype... See: Media Cheer(s) for "Non-Ideological" Centrists... Starting to feel like a dumb ass yet?

Corporate media are largely cheering Barack Obama's early appointment of Clinton-era centrists. Many of these nominees have a distinct record of support for the corporate-friendly NAFTA trade pact, gutting public assistance programs under the guise of welfare "reform," and pushing various deregulatory policies in the financial sector (including the elimination of the Glass-Steagall Act). Yet, to hear the media tell it, Obama's centrist nominees inhabit an ideology-free political zone.

The praise began with Obama's pick of center-right Clinton Democrat Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff. Time magazine's Karen Tumulty explained (11/13/08):

Emanuel is a win-at-any-cost partisan but not an ideologue; in his earlier White House stint as a top aide to Clinton, he was a key figure in shepherding through the North American Free Trade Agreement, a crime bill and welfare reform--none of them popular with the Democratic Party's liberal base.

As more centrist nominations began to pile up, New York Times reporter David Sanger wrote (11/22/08), "Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues."

Obama's subsequent choice of Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary and Geithner's mentor, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, to head the White House National Economic Council, likewise prompted media praise for the men's supposed lack of ideology. A USA Today piece by Richard Wolf (11/25/08) noted that "experts"--in a typical broad media spectrum ranging "from the White House to Wall Street"--raved about Obama's choice of the two centrists, lauding them as "pragmatists" who represent "practicality over ideology."

The Wall Street Journal concurred (11/24/08): “The records of Messrs. Geithner and Summers suggest views more pragmatic than ideological, on a range of issues that they will likely confront after Mr. Obama takes office in January.”

The Journal highlighted a number of quotes from Summers and Geithner in an apparent attempt to show how wise the two have been about the current turmoil; the great majority were from the last year, when trouble had already arrived.

Even conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks hailed Obama's 'superb' choices (11/21/08), explaining, "They are not ideological."

The "pragmatic rather than ideological" centrists theme emanates from the Obama camp as well as the media. As U.S. News & World Report wrote (12/1/08), Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs "says...guiding standard is pragmatic rather than ideological as he seeks advisers who will put the middle class first and have a 'philosophy of getting things done.'"

What makes these Clinton era centrists' positions "pragmatic" rather than "ideological"? Notably, those positions were all heartily supported by a corporate media that system that clings fiercely to the notion that it, too, is non-ideological (see Extra! 10-11/89).

So, it's not like the bastards that brought this republic to its knees are going to stop kicking just cause we're begging please. They've freakin' sold us out, and all that's left are the last rites...

Obama is wallpaper. A people pleaser, a be-all-to-everyone kinda guy, a palliative, a morphine drip for a terminal patient. Because if one thing is true, the corporate wife beaters saw their victims start to show signs like they might get up and kick some ass again, so they had to play nice for a bit, until we laid back down and spread our legs....

Too bad we believed they were sorry for spending the rent on booze, cheatin' with the baby sitter, and coming home mean and trying to drown us in the dog's water bowl.

Afterwords, begging and pleading with us to stay once they've busted open our lips, blaming us for the hits we've received, then promising they're gonna start doing the right thing from here on out...

Jesus we're a bunch gullible, punch-drunk saps... Obama is just playing both sides against the middle--sorry folks, we been had again... Now to all you Dems, whose feet are going to be held to the fire? And to you progressives, what's say we stop talkin' and ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE!

Post Election Tramatic Syndrome: The SNAFU Economy Ain't The Only Flock of Roosting Chickens

2008-11-15T10:21:00.005-05:00

I don't post much, because all I end up doing here is talking to myself anyway. Which is nothing new with me, as at any given moment, you could find me mumbling to myself, strolling down some blind alley sans bluetooth. This is especially the case when I'm concentrating on something complicated--more so if there are instructions--so that anyone within ear shot might have suspicion that I'm frickin' mad--which I am, and I'm quite fine with it, thank you very much...

Besides this, I don't feel that self important enough to think I've got anything so poignant to say that I'd impose it on others without their consent. And even then, I'm alert for signs of pain and irritation. For all I've got to say, is just a regurgitation of the same old "slanted and enchanted" Prolefeed by which we all have our urge to self actualize dampened....

Speaking of mad, how could anyone be expected to maintain a spic and span brain pan in a world where the likes of Bill Ayers is demonized as a "terrorist" (even though he never killed anybody--a key component of terrorism is that you target people to scare them isn't it?) And even though he blew up buildings in response to a government that was killing 2,000 Vietnamese and U.S. civilians and soldiers every day. You gotta ask yourself, the U.S. government ever blown-up any buildings lately? Or shot people's children without provocation? Fried babies in their saddling, in their cribs with Whiskey Pete, despite Geneva Convention bans on the use of such weaponry? Well?

And what about the in war Ayers was protesting, that history has judged a hoax, based in a fake torpedo attack U.S.S. Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin? This was the same war that sent my cousin Donny Bailey back home paralyzed from the neck down after a sniper's bullet severed his spinal cord. And at age thirteen I got a real lesson in what war means as I watched him deteriorate--having understandably lost the will to live--despite the mediocre effort the DoD and VA hospital did putting him back together. No heroics please...

It was beyond pathetic to watch a person who before the war was a well respected graphic artist in our mid-sized upstate New York community. An avid skier, and e said "to hell with it," and bugged-out a year later. And Tricky Dicky got pardoned, Reagan re-cast the such military in the So who's the damned terrorist here, huh?

So wouldn't any sane person would find such wholesale slaughter terrifying and barbaric? There again, this speaks to the questioned sanity of a world that can justify the death of one child, for any reason, in my books, just plain fruit loops. And I'm sad to say, in this opinion I seems to be in a minority. I look around for the real, drop what you're doing, beat your ploughshares into swords, outrage against the continued slaughter--that's going on right now--in the Middle East.

On The Heels of Olberman: The Hatemongering of Palin, Bachmann, Pfotenhauer and Limbaugh

2008-10-22T00:05:00.008-04:00

In the final analysis, there are two fears that motivate the majority of human responses: fear that we won't get what we want, and fear that someone or something will take away what we have.

The Hobbesian/Machiavellian points of view that suppose at base all humanity is corrupt, are really the infernal engine behind the Neoconservative worldview. So how does this speak to the liberal humanist assumptions of Locke and Rousseau, as written into the immortal documents of this country by Madison and Jefferson, that we're essentially good, especially when we're treated fairly and honestly?

Well, the simple answer is that they are oil and water, positive, negative poles on a magnet, an allegory of the unmet twain.

For this latter line of thinking further presumes that class warfare, injustice, and social unrest are a by-product of treatment to the contrary, by those in charge, our "betters," as it were, who gain this purview by fate or inheritance.

So, when it comes to the ideal of self-governance, which at core is the only true pro-American stance there is, what in the words of these jackals indicates anything other than an allegiance to the second fear, and derision for any notion of an equality where they might have to share any of the things they so desperately cling to for substance to the paltry lives?

For as they mince and murmur their pieties all for the sake of maintaining appearances while they pilfer the treasure of this country, do you have any doubt that these aren't the rightful inclination of a race of people who view humanity so dimly, no matter how often they genuflect and indulge your ignorance to feign kinship?

Which to say they are nothing more than selfish and ruthless by virtue of this belief, no matter what pretzel logic they use to justify, if not valorize themselves to the contrary patent distrust of their fellow human beings.

The contempt they have for the democratic ideals as derived from the "Sermon on the Mount," and the Bill of Rights should be clear to everyone by now... As surely the maxim: "Every man for himself and all against god" is the rule of the day for the fashionably holy mega-church goer that can now prance on stage and rub our noses inferior beliefs, when we consider man's law before God's.

The withered, Gollem-like souls of pseudo-Jesus-freaks such as Palin, Bachmann, Pfotenhauer and Limbaugh, who use their religiosity to fan the hatred of those most hurt by the theft of our liberty and ideals, posing as their "kin," is surely grotesque, if not Medieval in manner and intent.

For these opportunistic "good ol' boys and girls" seek only to mesmerize the unwashed in these "small towns," and use them for Potemkin Village props for their theocratic wet dream. And as they have been the beneficiaries of the false prophesy of Reaganomics--as the loss of their industry has left them stranded both economically and socially--these outcasts in their own country, will become the other "disappeared" of Friedman's economies of scale for sale to the highest bidder, if this crew takes the Whitehouse.

And the use of this fake town vs. country rivalry to cloak the implicit racism of this campaign, it only proves how shamelessly power-mad these charlatans truly are. It is form micro-level disaster Capitalism, to be sure...

And the sick thing is how many people still buy their schtick... They're like abused wives who return again and again to their hateful husbands.

I swear if McCain and crew are able to steal this election too, it'll be, screw-it, I'm out, for me.... Because the death dance of America just ain't funny anymore. Right...

empty

2008-10-02T23:26:00.006-04:00

A Letter To My Congresswoman On The Pending Bailout Of Wall Street

2008-09-28T22:09:00.016-04:00

Congresswoman Schwartz,

I read in the Sunday New York Times this morning that a bailout agreement had been reached regarding those pesky neo-liberal investment houses (like Treasury Secretary Paulson’s former employer Goldman-Sachs), whose speculation in the derivative markets have all but sent our country (and others) into receivership.

So does this mean that we “wee folks” are supposed to foot the bill for their ill-gotten gains? Will the "smartest guys in the room" soon be laughing all the way to banks--which they own!

So has deception become such a virtue that we now use it to gauge intelligence? What kind of allegory have we devolved into as a culture? Are the seven-deadlies the by-the-numbers steps we use to define success?

You’ve got to know these “disaster capitalists” are charlatans, little better than the proverbial bully who forces you to hit yourself in the face with your own fist. Do their Italian suits and Ivy League degrees give them a pass on what would surely have landed us plebes in the pokey?

So instead of the “perp walk,” the Übermenschen involved in this debacle are about to do an “end zone” dance?

I hate to tell you but this bailout isn’t going to stop the landslide. But that’s not the point, right? It’s all smoke-and-mirrors just to hold back the deluge until the election is cinched…. Because if you compare what this bill entails with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation of 1932 that Hoover used to bailout investment banks then--it didn’t stop the Great Depression, now did it? And George H.W. Bush was still able to drive to school in a limo, while his contemporaries, like my father, had to quit the eighth grade to go to work, so his brothers and sisters could eat.

Also, with this bailout, we’ll have the largest fiscal transfer of power from the legislative to the executive branch in American history. And no one will blink once the deal is done…. Hell, in the original bill, Paulson imaged he could become the fiscal Commissar by fiat…. There was to be no legal oversight for how the 700 billion was to be disbursed? Can you believe it?

Well at least then we wouldn’t have any confusion about who’s running the show…. Makes you feel kind of like a vestigial organ doesn’t it?

Yet as those involved with negotiations for the draft provisions of this bill seem to have no compunction about using of taxpayer dollars to shore these private institutions, isn’t it odd how the same party that brought about this crisis are now decrying this bailout as “socialism.” Cockroaches running for cover, I swear….

Be that as it may, many of us outside of the sphere of influence from which these crybabies speak recognize that this piece of legislation is nothing more than an extortion payment, as it allows for the out and out theft of public revenue to pay for personal mistakes—and no matter how the corporatist media tries to spins it, we aren’t buying it.

I watched Senator Obama speak on Face The Nation about the four main points of the bill he supports, which includes the oversight provision (to keep Mr. Paulson in his place), caps on executive pay, sharing of any capital gains from the bailout with tax payers, and providing homeowners threatened with foreclosure, with a debt renegotiation provision so they don’t lose their homes.

This is all well and good, but what about the legislation that allowed this mess to occur in the first place? What’s going to happen with the Chicago School ideology that has lead to such a blood bath of laissez faire capitalism at the expense of the middle class? What about the Reagan-era trickle-down model that lead to the passage of such laws as the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980, the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999-- all of which pretty much killed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933?

Obama's position, although prudent, is that this bailout bill shouldn't include “issues like bankruptcy reform, which are very important to Democrats...[and] probably something that we shouldn't try to do in this piece of legislation.” But why oh why? If these robber barons want almost three quarters of a trillion dollars, wouldn’t that be the time to bring them up short, and examine the how these laws work in real time, and close-off any legal loopholes that allowed their debt to accumulate to such historic proportions?

Isn’t bailing them out, without some sort of reevaluation, a mite foolhardy? For just as the main presumption of “trickle down” qua “voodoo” economics is based in the naïve notion that rich people are trustworthy, as a matter of course, and will shower the under classes with jobs if they give them all their money. Should we bestowing such a incredible measure of largess to these institutions without any consideration of how they were able to make such a mess? Otherwise, aren’t we just paying a tribute to thieves? For isn’t the real issue in all of this, as Robert Reich suggest, a matter of trust or the lack thereof?

For it is also senator Obama’s contention that, “we shouldn't…try to get everything done in this package. What we should be doing is following the clear principles, that taxpayers are protected, that we have oversight, that taxpayers are going to get their money back, and that the housing crisis is going to be dealt with as well….” But are these concessions enough to speak for the incredible damage this type of free market capitalism has wrought in this country and the world? What about the fact they these jackals just cost us a bunch of cash for playing the slots with our treasury? Do we just give them a pass?

There may be “no atheists in foxholes, [or] Libertarians in a financial crisis” as economist Paul Krugman has said, but one thing is certain, if the people eventually do understand, in content and context, what has happened and how they have been swindled—that is if main stream media fails to protect the interests of their elite paymasters for whom this bill has been drafted—and the people are “informed,” then you'd better speed up production of those Tindall portable prisons I got a glimpse of recently, and rustle-up some more of those teevee-evangelized Blackwater folks who love to work out their male insecurity on people in handcuffs….

But as the WWI cliché above assumes, you first must be stupid enough to jump into said hole to need a prayer to dodge bullets. And as I'm a man on the street, I can give you the skinny from the local laundry-mat, where I recently spoke with a retired Philly cop of over thirty years, and he wasn’t buying the ruse either. So despite what talking heads like Andrea Mitchell spew, who out of a sense of shame (as she is married to Alan Greenspan, a Randian free-marketer if there ever was one, who could be said to be the arbiter of our present economic meltdown), she and her other corpo-cheerleaders should just give up the shtick… Because people are pissed in way I haven’t seen since I was a kid in the 60s, and nothing that’s coming out of the prolefeed is making a dint to their mounting ire.

So I suggested that Congress, and you, consider otherwise before signing-off on this Get-Out-Jail-Free bill...

For even as the financial markets aren’t solely to blame, as it’s true that the extravagances of the American people, as is concerns their prodigious use of credit, have been shockingly callow. Nonetheless, I ask a simple question, who was it that schooled them? If you said Madison Avenue, you're close...

For like Charlie Sheens character in the movie “Wall Street,” we have all been bamboozled by the leering, urbane visage of self-satisfaction from the likes of Donald Trump, Robin Leach and Paris Hilton. Not that our willful ignorance excuses anything, but our worldview rises from the garbage-in, garbage-out culture in which we live, and that has given us more than ample reason to conclude that “greed is good”—all at the expense of reason.

Pavlovian psychology, operant conditioning and the work of Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays aside, we have been drubbed into an enervated state of siege by technocratic forces that seek to surveil the dimensions of our very souls. So any determination of culpability on the part of a people so assailed, to blame them for our current difficulties, is to fault them for seeking a reprieve from the incessant social engineering that has changed us all into citizens to consumers. As such, any consideration of the reason to our impulsiveness, especially when it concerns the current death groans of our republic, needs to include a critique of how our communal spirit has been supplanted by mass marketing and propaganda.

Further, for an answer as to how this came about, look no further than the “gipper” and his henchmen as the architects of our thirty-year race to the bottom. We have in fact been sold a bill of goods by a pack of duplicitous con artists who have used our trust and good natures against us, as if we were marks… The buyer beware you say? Well, in a civil society, this applies only if you’re given enough information to avoid getting "took"….

In closing, the person's name you might want to re-familiarize yourself with is John Maynard Keynes. His ideas worked for FDR, and they might work for Mr. Obama, and all concerned. But the party's over, you've all made fools of yourselves, and now, Ms. Schwartz, its time to REALLY represent the wishes of your constituency, and let the chips fall where they may. Vote Nay! For it’s clean-up time…

Thank you

The Evil of Two Lessers

2008-08-20T21:09:00.010-04:00

NADER/GONZALEZ CAMPAIGN TO SUBMIT 53,000 SIGNATURES FOR PENNSYLVANIA BALLOT LINE Supporters of Independent Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader will submit petitions Friday, Aug. 1, to the Pennsylvania Department of State to place Mr. Nader and running-mate Matt Gonzalez on the November 2008 election ballot. Pennsylvania will be the 21st state in which the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign has filed for a ballot line since the celebrated consumer advocate announced his intent to run during a February 24 appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press". To qualify to appear on Pennsylvania's ballot, state law requires submission of the signatures of 24,665 registered voters. The Nader/Gonzalez campaign will submit more than 53,000 signatures....

According to a July 1 CNN poll, Ralph Nader is polling six-percent nationally, higher than his major poll numbers during the same time period in 2000 and approaching the ten-percent threshold required for eligibility to participate in "America's Presidential Debate in New Orleans," a Google-sponsored event scheduled for September 18. In the key swing state of Michigan--whose voters were partially disenfranchised by the Democratic National Committee--an EPIC-MRA poll found Nader at eight-percent.

RALPH NADER ON PENNSYLVANIA BALLOT

POSTED: 11:57 am EDT August 5, 2008

The independent presidential candidate apparently succeeded in collecting the 24,666 signatures needed to qualify for the November 4 ballot.

The deadline to file challenges to independent and third party candidates is Friday.

Copyright 2008 by WGAL.com

Well if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm one of those ill-informed, self-indulgent yahoos who thinks their opinion really matters. That somehow, what I write will be singular, salient and evidence of my incisive analytical acumen that is the birthright of American citizens feat. "consumer." (Nice to be thought of as little more than a food vacuole). The truth is, I'm just another punch-drunk Joe-schmoe wandering aimlessly on the shoulder of the info superhighway. Talk about irrelevant--yeah buddy.

But you know as well as I do, there isn't a chance in hell that this election, like the last two, will be conducted in a way to ensure that the will of the people will matter. Fuck, what will? What people? No body gives a shit anymore. We're all fattened for slaughter--falsely secure in our apathetic torpor. We have passed into the realm of meaninglessness where the scared trust of the Constitution has slipped from from its sconce.

And since we've all grown used to being lied to openly by everyone from Mr. Friendly on the evening news to our in-name "representatives," we now seem to accept without question the gentle encroachment to our civil liberties from surveillance cameras to private e-vote machine without paper trail, loaded with "proprietary" software that we don't have the right to inspect. So how much of this are we supposed to take on faith before we realize we've been sold a bill of goods?

To the point of the above epigraphs, I've come to the conclusion I will never vote for a person who destroys any part of the Bill of Rights, as the presumptive candidate Obama did with his "yea" vote on HR 6304. He's a messiah in hawk's clothing. Another corpo-candidate with sweet wooing words but an obvious contempt for our system of self-governance that is dependent on the sacrosanct nature of the document penned by Mr. Madison.

On that note, I am stunned, first, by the lack of knowledge of the fact that we no longer have a working fourth amendment, then to hear time and again the excuse that he had to vote in the manner he did to get elected. My god! So if murder were a contention, then he'd have to kill someone to get into office like some sort of gang banger eh?

And last, the majority of the people I talk to seem to have no concern for this fact, if they have prior knowledge of his vote last month at all, that we are now liable to all-out surveillance by the Feds without much legal recourse... So Amerika has quietly turned Stalinist, and no one pays it any mind, except those in free speech zones that Michael Mukasey now wants to digitally rape for the exercise of that likewise foregone right.

So sheeplette, I'll have nothing to do with either corporate approved candidate in this dog-an-pony show election (I'll be casting a ballot for either Nader or McKinney). Because you can pretend this country will resume normal functioning once either ascends the throne, but the indulgence of plenary power granted to the Bush presidency will be far too tantalizing for either of these potential hegemons to return to the people. Your a fool to think otherwise.

And remember: What we need one big one to help those who would utter dismissive and placating cake eating comments to those who suffer at their metaphorical feet, remember THEIR place."

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. - Thomas Jefferson

A Note to Libertarians:

2008-07-25T10:02:00.006-04:00

Hey, sheep hatin' dudes,

What's wrong with having to pony-up for your country, i.e. the "commons," or the Jeffersonian idea of ensuring the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of some modicum of bliss, for all, especially when it concerns the "weak," the elderly, the infirmed, children and the poor? So what are you guys advocating? Just let them die-off in some grand social-Darwinist panacea where Randian Ubermenschens bring about a quasi-democratic valhalla for all free MEN of great physical prowess and business acumen?

Wasn't the idea behind the Declaration to give voice to the downtrodden? To provide for the general welfare to encourage the success of this, yet to be realized, experiment in self rule? Are you guys (and gals) some sort of closet-Malthusian geld hoarders who view the equitable distribution of wealth, to serve the greater good, as theft, or what?

So, do you like clean water? Safe bridges and roads? Do you like the fancy telecommunications and transit systems we have? What about that other Jeffersonian scheme to preserve the union, that we must inform the public, via a free media and most noticeably through public education? Just repeal child labor laws, the minimum wage act, the 40 hour work week (for which some meat packers in Chicago were hanged), etc. And that will be that... And the angel choirs will sing ushering in the triumphant return of Aryan feudal states all trying to store-up their riches in case heaven is a sham!

Yaw'll a bunch brotherly love, Sermon on the Mount kinda wet blankets, I can tell...

BTW: Your Libertarian "every big, strapping he-MAN for HIM(self), and all against gawd" routine is just plain simplistic, callow, and damned malignantly narcissistic. Your money, your life, your petite bourgeois habitude (in the frame of Marx--that horrible, evil genius who sought to keep the rich man down), is available to you only by the labor of others, from all over the world. Their sweat, their dreams, their want for a better life for their off spring is the carpet upon which your fair notions tread. Imagine that?

So the next time you wanna pop all tough and Ron Paul on a blog, just remember that everything you are is a product of many hands, and their toil, and their want to be free--just like you.

Deny one and deny all... What we need is unity not hypocrisy and greed.

Sad how teevee has made us all satellites of each other--I've seen the enemy, and he is my neighbor. And that works just fine for all the divide-and-conquer elites who should be the focus of your ire. But nooo... And that's the way they like it. Cause as you're just perpetratin' the idea of living off the fat o' the land, those suckers got the deed on all of our collective asses...

Yet we can leave the Engels for another day--but for the time being, paying your taxes for the opportunity to make your stash is still your civic duty, and a form of gratitude for having the chance, and the right to change things in your favor, dude. Where else is this happening, for real? And despite the fact that the Fed Reserve & IRS are criminal (RIP Aaron Rousseau), for which you guys are spot on, don't get anywhere by killing the poor for being poor. Change the bureaucracy--that is if you want a sane, compassion world for all... To set up barriers against this is just plain unenlightened, mean spirited and atavistic...

P.S. Don't like taxes? How about we go back to tariff trade to fuel the economy like we used to to do in the olden days? Hmmm...

A Note On Arar & The Convening of a Special Council on the Practice of Rendition

2008-07-19T09:12:00.011-04:00

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and Foreign Affairs Chairman of the International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight Subcommittee, Bill Delahunt (D-MA), today called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to appoint a special counsel to investigate the rendition of a Canadian citizen, Maher Arar, to Syria.

Here-here! But, as the cliché goes, who will watch the watchers? Who will enforce the Constitution against them? Ahhh... The sticky wicket.

It is mind numbing when you think that the freaks "in charge" of this country, people with more than a fair dose of messianic, malignant narcissism to assume "representation" a.k.a. power over a group of people from the get-go, and then to assume that they would, without fail, do the right thing? Please... Ever hear of the K Street Project?

Its the same dilemma as how the use of misinformation spurred anti-union sentiment during the Reagan-era. Sure the unions sucked. But only for a lack of participation their membership, and the guts to hold the leadership's feet to the fire--en masse. To do the Will of the People, remember?

That's how it goes folks, in a democracy. Sometimes you gotta suffer some to get your point across.... And let's face it, the present crop of fascists pushed the envelope to see how far we'd go. To see what they could get away with without us reacting en masse.

So far so good, we've proven to be simpering cowards, just too damned pee-pants scared to give up our tech-joys to sacrifice for OUR country, to do OUR civic duty to "self represent" to OUR "representatives," with force if necessary--yes we're talkin' ouchies here folks--to make them do THEIR elected duty to defend OUR rights (which includes Mr. Arar's) under OUR Constitution.

We need a march on Washington. A big one! And we shouldn't leave until the toadies concede!

But No... We're too teevee stupefied/pacified to raise a REAL ruckus even about the 4th amendment squashing HR 6304 FISA revision. Damn you all for that! I can say that because I wasn't quiet. And never will be till the DHS hauls me off too... Its called the courage of your convictions folks.

So where's the outrage dammit! Arar could be you or me--and these neo-con punks had him tortured for reasons of national security? Are we that friggin' stupid? Dude, they're testing the waters to see how long they can hold our heads under before there's "severe pain equivalent to that associated with organ failure or death." With or without the board...

So, let me translate, this means they take our trust as weakness... Get it? [This is where you wave your flag on cue and drool through the Battle Hymn of the Republic...]

So I say, special council my tookus! Keel-haul the landlubbers! Democracy Now!

(A note to boiling frogs everywhere: jump!)

An Open Letter To Jonathan Turley

2008-07-13T00:32:00.008-04:00

Professor Turley,

I hate to sound like a sycophant, or some sort of shrill puddin' head, but after watching your interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC regarding Jane Mayer's book "The Dark Side," sweet Jesus in the morning, I have to say, you are my hero! For as the New York Times reported, Mayer qualifies that the Red Cross found evidence of the CIA using torture on prisoners that would make the Bush administration guilty of war crimes. Go figure... After Mr. Hitchen's nearly has a coronary, giving water boarding a try for the Vanity Fair audience, could there be any other conclusion that what we do in Gitmo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib is torture?

So your my hero, at least for the time being, or for a news cycle or two. Ok? I haven't had one for some time. So I'm a little rusty. But please don't send me a press shot...I'm not good at the venerating, mythologizing part.

You see, I'm a pretty crusty, if not near-savagely cynical 48 year old, who isn't prone to being swept away by the actions of any others in our species who pretend that their lives will have a historical impact beyond their years. I possess a kind of "what is this quintessence of dust?" worldview, just this side of Twain's "damned human race." For speaking of history, I believe, ours is tome whose pages are scribed in blood.

So my hero worship comes really in the form of a pre-death rattle, an unburdening, a sense of relief wrought of hopelessness, that someone from the "reality based" community can still tell the shape of a spade, and call it by its name.

For I am deeply ashamed of what my country and what its people have allowed to be done in the once hallowed name of America. It sickens me beyond expression to consider that WE have stood by as this cadre of jackals has sullied our great--shall I say it?--Liberal humanist tradition of being the place where "wretched refuse" can cop a squat. For was it not George Washington who ordered that the Hessians be not treated as American prisons of war were treated by the British?

We have lost a high and noble standard, as a people, without a doubt.

And to all those whose liberty we have constrained, whose loved ones have been disappeared in a veil of red mist, to those for which the name of this country will forever be associated with unspeakable misery, I pray the Hague has room for the lot of them. For there is no measure, no eye-for-an-eye, in any of this... Only one life, one heart, one principle, and one freedom that's at stake, for us and for the world.

Thank you professor Turley for being so tactfully disgusted, as your demeanor, at least on TeeVee, portrays quite bemusedly. Your conduct as a gentleman and a man of conscious is an admirable thing... Please continue. And I'll try to keep my gushing to myself...

On The Death Of The 4th

2008-07-10T15:25:00.006-04:00

As many of you are well aware of, thanks to the capitulation of the elitist hookers in the senate, everything you make explicit (like this), either in writing or speech, is now government, qua corporate property, and can maybe get you jacked-up as a "domestic terrorist." Oh goody! So the Bill of Rights is on life support...But here's the thing, I watched the live vote (at work, oops...), and the funny thing was that the cows mooed, the sheep baaed, and the chickens clucked, and everything on the plantation went on chewingly without the least recognition. On my train ride home people were appropriately clandestine with their personal, masturbatory My conclusion? PEOPLE DON'T CARE.

Get it? All you who yearn for liberty...fagetaboutit! Expect no boycotts, no protests, or riots in the streets. The post-America teevee zombie hoards all buzz along in the same hive mind. THEY DON'T CARE... They got Pizza Hut gut bombs to gobble, big swinging prick four-bys to gas-guzzle and support their gender insecurity, all the while under the influence of copious prescription meds assured make them feel their awesome god will save them from every possible question that might bum their high...

They have been junk food pacified. Yet oddly they all yen for something cataclysmic to happen. A second coming made to order. Talking with colleague who is losing her job at the end of the month, and she concluded of the vote that "the world is coming to an end, and so is my job.... [So]since I don't have any kids and I can't even collect welfare...so maybe I'll just starve or something...." Totally apocalyptic huh? Totally...

So more than not caring, I'd say we have literally been de-moralized. Bereft of morals we stumble around like the Germans at the end of WWII, that a friend of mine who was stationed in Berlin during the early fifties described as careless and atemporal. He said the rule of the day was carpe diem--and not the gleeful sort of timeliness. He was pretty happy about that in a gross way, because he claimed women would just throw themselves at him... Sorta like seventeen year old Iraqi girls trying to survive in Syria...

So the fourth is toast, but take a look at what is left of the Bill of Rights after "free speech zones," "faith based initiatives," and people being detained or arrested for hand made signs or t-shirts with uncomplimentary saying on they? [ONE DOWN] With the Patriot Act and what has happened to detainees in Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantánamo and all those secret rendition facilities worldwide--not to mention little things like Herr Bush's PD 51, and you can say goodbye to: FIVE, SIX SEVEN, EIGHT... With the Military Commissions Act say goodbye to Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution (better known as habeas corpus), and with the 2007 Defense Authorization Act, there was language to broaden the president’s powers to federalize National Guard units and to use federal troops in domestic situations... [TEN..poof!] Now the FOURTH with the passage of HR 6304? So what's left? TWO? We can keep our glocks? Yeah they'll prove useful against Blackwater seizures--ahem--like during Katrina, or some DU munitions. Are you getting it? The time for talk is over... Submit plebes! Democracy has been dismantled via a media sponsored, consumer driven, corporate strategized lack of interest. Reconnect to the Matrix and shut the "f" up. Its game over. We lost... Go to work, pretend, and wait for the bottom to fall out... Pay no attention to the man behind the screen...no, make that, anything. Birth, School, Work, Death...