2011-08-29

rot A REALITY CHECK FROM JHK History is Not Your Therapist clusterfucknation 08-22--11

One of his best yet. Plan wisely.
 
I've attached a pdf of Kunstler's The Long Emergency, although it appears that Wall Street mammon has overtaken the piddling issue of peak oil. If only 20% of us can afford to drive, petrol should last into the 25th Century (if we're crazy enough to do so).
 
 
NOTE: moving away from my present e-mailing to 300+ of you has become more of an imperative. Please go now and sign up to receive these posts while you're thinking about it. Make sure you receive one more post via RSS and e-mail (to make sure you did it correctly) before requesting to be removed from receiving them this way. Thanks.

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
 

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti


2011-08-21

Re: nexi DISASTER CAPITALISM'S FINAL ACT - THE DEBT-CEILING 'CRISIS' - WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU Nigel Watson 08-20-11

Food for thought.......there is no better prison that the one in which the slave falsely believes that he/she is free.

I for one am no longer willing to participate in the charade know as electoral politics. To do so gives a political system a measure of credibility which in reality has none. Better to wake up late than never. Life is just way too short to play a game I cannot win. It is and for the most part, has always been rigged. 

Ken

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 11:51 AM, Nigel <freesense@gmail.com> wrote:
On August 2nd, 2011, the United States of America's form of government changed. On August 1st we had a somewhat creaky and cranky republic. But, Ben was right, we couldn't keep it, so... the very next day America crossed its own - exceptionally American, mind - Rubicon. This lone superduperpower is now a totally non-representational oligarchy. They don't give a fig what you or I want, so get over it. They will tell us what road the nation will go down. Input? They don't need no stinkin' input either.
 
No more messy House floor fights. Forget, Jimmy Stewart Going to Washington. Think of Senate filibusters and simple majorities as fond memories, never to return. And please, never speak again of the Presidential veto - no such thing any more, after Tuesday. You see, we've now got a much more streamlined way to run things, after Tuesday.
 
Good cop, bad cop. Duopoly Party. Demicans, Republicrats. Same difference. Least bad choice. Any one who bothers to vote in the 2012 election will now know one thing for sure, it doesn't matter. It became crystal clear to anyone paying attention, on August 2nd that, the people are now reduced to window dressing, nothing more. When they want our opinion, they'll give it to us.
 
The American people never had a chance (this was all decided, by a few, in secret) to figure out the pain and grief this measure would inflict on them, else they would have filled the nation's streets to bursting to stop it. Thanks to the non-stop U.S. carny of media, Hollywood, massive misframing of issues (epic lying), an endless stream of faux crises (including the national debt ceiling), disasters  and "terrorisms," rabid nativism, racism and the never-ending demonization of "the other," the citizenry has had no way to step back and take a breath (let alone reflect) in order to see the terrible - and I mean god-awful -  forces arrayed against them. But, they will soon enough.
 
With the passage of this Reverse-Fascist-Oligarchy-By-Stealth, criminal - and patently unconstitutional - betrayal of a bill, America is now firmly on a path (or did I just "miss" a source of power strong enough to push back against this naked power grab?) to become a vast gulag of Looting Fields. But, instead of Pol Pot's mounds of dead flesh and walls of skulls, we will see our lives destroyed by an equally devastating economic carnage prosecuted by The Nexi's legions of toadies and thugs. Eventually, we will see dead bodies in our streets as the people wake up to the sheer magnitude of this betrayal as it hoves into view. But, long before we ape the likes of a Hama or Bahrain, we will have to deal with the daily degradation and decline of our quality of life. 
 
The relentless drip, drip, dripping away of our heretofore comfortable lives is about to begun in earnest.
 
Each school closure will upset you; each library's hours curtailed; each neighborhood's street lamps hours reduced;
 
Revolution will come slowly, at first, then with gathering speed as folks who know folks who know folks who are affected by the passage of this travesty which serves only the ends of the scoundrels and scalawags bent on enslaving us all in their Neo-Feudal Capitalist Wet Dream.
 
Many of us will simply drop out in various ways. We may join one of the many branches of the Permaculture movement, move to a cabin in the wilds of a Montana, leave the country altogether (you can run, but you can't hide).
 
Few of us can say what our own flashpoint might be; the spark that ignites a burning desire to pull down the powerful from their perches of privilege and ill-gotten gain.
 
It might be seeing you father being denied life-saving  dialysis treatment due to his insurer's finding the thinnest of reeds to claim a pre-existing condition.
 
It might be the death or disfigurement of a child because the pharmaceutical company who made the vaccine performed their own test, then covered up a 2% death rate due to its having already spent $10 billion to bring the drug to market.
 
It might be a close friend who, one day, simply vanishes from the face of the Earth. One year later, you learn that s/he is in a FEMA camp and has been subjected to a variety of 'persuasive techniques' by Secret Ops commandos.
 
Or, your previously bright and engaged son has been rendered a vegetable by extensive use of sound cannons and invisible heat rays at a large protest.
 
You may be picking out your share of fruits and veggies from your local farm co-op. Suddenly, heavily armed men batter down the door, tell everyone they are from the FDA, and to drop what you were planning to buy because none of it has been FDA-approved for use by the public. Then, as you stand in fear, you bear witness to perfectly fine food being thrown willy-nilly into trucks and spirited off to who-the-hell-knows-where, leaving all shell-shocked in the wake of such a traumatic event.
 
Maybe it will be the tasing you get because you ask for an officer's badge number and name. Your reaction to such outrageous and gratuitous brutality will be presented as proof that you were "resisting an officer." But, no worries, The prison in which you do your trumped-up 90 days will be handsomely rewarded by the state to give you "3 hots and a cot."
 
Perhaps it will be the slip of paper that arrives in your mailbox/Inbox letting you know that the dietary supplements you ordered have been interdicted and will be held in your name until the manufacturer can come up with the $10 million (and 5+ years) for FDA testing and thereby comply with those rigorous FDA standards. Can't have you getting sick, you know.
 
You might be at a party and, unbeknownst to you, some folks in a back bedroom are toking up. The cops are called because a neighbor says "too loud." Sniffing deeply, the cops decide that where there's an odor, there's pot and search the premises. All attending are taken to the pokey as accessories, due to the raft of new entrapment-type laws custom-made by ALEC for the prison-industrial gang. You get 18 months and a $5,000 fine. Ignorance of the law (or the pot) is, it turns out, just plain ignorant law. And, oh yeah, you lose your job because having felons around is bad for biz. Now how mad are you?
 
 
With the "creation" of the Super Congress (ever wonder who gave our Congress and our President the authority to do this?) - a star chamber of 12 good men and true - I believe we can all now (hurriedly) pack our bags and bid adieu to this former republic; the skids are well greased.
 
Add to that insult the drop-dead, ultimatum-style of negotiation required to resolve any differences regarding the bilge set to emanate from our brand-new, extra-legal, Tea Party-tilted (no compromises. ever) superdupercongress (a fitting match for our brand-new superduperpower, you-know).  
 
Given the competing areas of real power in this country, I had thought up to now that America might be able to stave off the worst repercussions of its own excess for a few more decades. I am no longer that sanguine.
 
My optimism is now tempered by the realization - brought into full view by the passage of this clear slap in the face of the expressed will of the people (80+% of us think it sucks) - of how little real moral power still resides on the left side of our political spectrum. We appear to have die-hard, Christianist ideologues on the Right, ready to sink the country if they don't get their way, opposed by alleged Lefties who don't even appear to be too happy taking their own side in the argument. Can't we all just be reasonable, they whimper. This in the teeth of the rude, disrespectful, racist  (referring to the Prez as a "tar baby" - imagine how infantile that is – then imagine these 'kids' in charge) din coming from the very tall (it's the only way I can tell they're not children) Manchurian Tea Party zealots (aka, KKK and white-nationalist retreads).
 
In fact, the marked shift rightward in the debating points among those in power - counter to the clear, 2/3 Indy/Liberal/Progressive majority in America - speaks volumes for the persuasive power of the Right's cynically superior framing techniques (The Big Lie), the antiquated Electoral College system - the main reason the parties are anywhere near parity - and piles of money put to evil purpose.

This bill essentially removes us from the deliberative process. There is no other way to see it. I've tried. Can anyone tell me what will be the use of calling your Senator or Rep and asking her/him to do the right thing. Unless they're among the Star Chamber's Baker's Dozen (Mr. O is #13), Congress won't have much to say until the tablets are handed down to them. And, like Moses, don't even think about messing with those Mothers!

Among other bad things, The Nexi are now in a much better position to steal our remaining $40 trillion that would have taken them far longer within the Constitution.

But, as always in human affairs, there is a price to be paid for all this. It will be paid in full, first by us, then, by our oppressors.

Meanwhile, Mother tends to her slightly disarranged garden, resigned to allowing our picayune folly to run its course.

 
NjW  08-20-11
 
ANOTHER REMINDER, if you enjoy these posts, please click on the blue link below and sign up to receive future posts via RSS or e-mail. Then, wait until you receive the next post. If you get both my e-mail and the method you signed up for, let me know so I can remove you from my e-mail list. Thanks.
 

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
 
 
 

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti



nexi DISASTER CAPITALISM'S FINAL ACT - THE DEBT-CEILING 'CRISIS' - WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU Nigel Watson 08-20-11

On August 2nd, 2011, the United States of America's form of government changed. On August 1st we had a somewhat creaky and cranky republic. But, Ben was right, we couldn't keep it, so... the very next day America crossed its own - exceptionally American, mind - Rubicon. This lone superduperpower is now a totally non-representational oligarchy. They don't give a fig what you or I want, so get over it. They will tell us what road the nation will go down. Input? They don't need no stinkin' input either.
 
No more messy House floor fights. Forget, Jimmy Stewart Going to Washington. Think of Senate filibusters and simple majorities as fond memories, never to return. And please, never speak again of the Presidential veto - no such thing any more, after Tuesday. You see, we've now got a much more streamlined way to run things, after Tuesday.
 
Good cop, bad cop. Duopoly Party. Demicans, Republicrats. Same difference. Least bad choice. Any one who bothers to vote in the 2012 election will now know one thing for sure, it doesn't matter. It became crystal clear to anyone paying attention, on August 2nd that, the people are now reduced to window dressing, nothing more. When they want our opinion, they'll give it to us.
 
The American people never had a chance (this was all decided, by a few, in secret) to figure out the pain and grief this measure would inflict on them, else they would have filled the nation's streets to bursting to stop it. Thanks to the non-stop U.S. carny of media, Hollywood, massive misframing of issues (epic lying), an endless stream of faux crises (including the national debt ceiling), disasters  and "terrorisms," rabid nativism, racism and the never-ending demonization of "the other," the citizenry has had no way to step back and take a breath (let alone reflect) in order to see the terrible - and I mean god-awful -  forces arrayed against them. But, they will soon enough.
 
With the passage of this Reverse-Fascist-Oligarchy-By-Stealth, criminal - and patently unconstitutional - betrayal of a bill, America is now firmly on a path (or did I just "miss" a source of power strong enough to push back against this naked power grab?) to become a vast gulag of Looting Fields. But, instead of Pol Pot's mounds of dead flesh and walls of skulls, we will see our lives destroyed by an equally devastating economic carnage prosecuted by The Nexi's legions of toadies and thugs. Eventually, we will see dead bodies in our streets as the people wake up to the sheer magnitude of this betrayal as it hoves into view. But, long before we ape the likes of a Hama or Bahrain, we will have to deal with the daily degradation and decline of our quality of life. 
 
The relentless drip, drip, dripping away of our heretofore comfortable lives is about to begun in earnest.
 
Each school closure will upset you; each library's hours curtailed; each neighborhood's street lamps hours reduced;
 
Revolution will come slowly, at first, then with gathering speed as folks who know folks who know folks who are affected by the passage of this travesty which serves only the ends of the scoundrels and scalawags bent on enslaving us all in their Neo-Feudal Capitalist Wet Dream.
 
Many of us will simply drop out in various ways. We may join one of the many branches of the Permaculture movement, move to a cabin in the wilds of a Montana, leave the country altogether (you can run, but you can't hide).
 
Few of us can say what our own flashpoint might be; the spark that ignites a burning desire to pull down the powerful from their perches of privilege and ill-gotten gain.
 
It might be seeing you father being denied life-saving  dialysis treatment due to his insurer's finding the thinnest of reeds to claim a pre-existing condition.
 
It might be the death or disfigurement of a child because the pharmaceutical company who made the vaccine performed their own test, then covered up a 2% death rate due to its having already spent $10 billion to bring the drug to market.
 
It might be a close friend who, one day, simply vanishes from the face of the Earth. One year later, you learn that s/he is in a FEMA camp and has been subjected to a variety of 'persuasive techniques' by Secret Ops commandos.
 
Or, your previously bright and engaged son has been rendered a vegetable by extensive use of sound cannons and invisible heat rays at a large protest.
 
You may be picking out your share of fruits and veggies from your local farm co-op. Suddenly, heavily armed men batter down the door, tell everyone they are from the FDA, and to drop what you were planning to buy because none of it has been FDA-approved for use by the public. Then, as you stand in fear, you bear witness to perfectly fine food being thrown willy-nilly into trucks and spirited off to who-the-hell-knows-where, leaving all shell-shocked in the wake of such a traumatic event.
 
Maybe it will be the tasing you get because you ask for an officer's badge number and name. Your reaction to such outrageous and gratuitous brutality will be presented as proof that you were "resisting an officer." But, no worries, The prison in which you do your trumped-up 90 days will be handsomely rewarded by the state to give you "3 hots and a cot."
 
Perhaps it will be the slip of paper that arrives in your mailbox/Inbox letting you know that the dietary supplements you ordered have been interdicted and will be held in your name until the manufacturer can come up with the $10 million (and 5+ years) for FDA testing and thereby comply with those rigorous FDA standards. Can't have you getting sick, you know.
 
You might be at a party and, unbeknownst to you, some folks in a back bedroom are toking up. The cops are called because a neighbor says "too loud." Sniffing deeply, the cops decide that where there's an odor, there's pot and search the premises. All attending are taken to the pokey as accessories, due to the raft of new entrapment-type laws custom-made by ALEC for the prison-industrial gang. You get 18 months and a $5,000 fine. Ignorance of the law (or the pot) is, it turns out, just plain ignorant law. And, oh yeah, you lose your job because having felons around is bad for biz. Now how mad are you?
 
 
With the "creation" of the Super Congress (ever wonder who gave our Congress and our President the authority to do this?) - a star chamber of 12 good men and true - I believe we can all now (hurriedly) pack our bags and bid adieu to this former republic; the skids are well greased.
 
Add to that insult the drop-dead, ultimatum-style of negotiation required to resolve any differences regarding the bilge set to emanate from our brand-new, extra-legal, Tea Party-tilted (no compromises. ever) superdupercongress (a fitting match for our brand-new superduperpower, you-know).  
 
Given the competing areas of real power in this country, I had thought up to now that America might be able to stave off the worst repercussions of its own excess for a few more decades. I am no longer that sanguine.
 
My optimism is now tempered by the realization - brought into full view by the passage of this clear slap in the face of the expressed will of the people (80+% of us think it sucks) - of how little real moral power still resides on the left side of our political spectrum. We appear to have die-hard, Christianist ideologues on the Right, ready to sink the country if they don't get their way, opposed by alleged Lefties who don't even appear to be too happy taking their own side in the argument. Can't we all just be reasonable, they whimper. This in the teeth of the rude, disrespectful, racist  (referring to the Prez as a "tar baby" - imagine how infantile that is – then imagine these 'kids' in charge) din coming from the very tall (it's the only way I can tell they're not children) Manchurian Tea Party zealots (aka, KKK and white-nationalist retreads).
 
In fact, the marked shift rightward in the debating points among those in power - counter to the clear, 2/3 Indy/Liberal/Progressive majority in America - speaks volumes for the persuasive power of the Right's cynically superior framing techniques (The Big Lie), the antiquated Electoral College system - the main reason the parties are anywhere near parity - and piles of money put to evil purpose.

This bill essentially removes us from the deliberative process. There is no other way to see it. I've tried. Can anyone tell me what will be the use of calling your Senator or Rep and asking her/him to do the right thing. Unless they're among the Star Chamber's Baker's Dozen (Mr. O is #13), Congress won't have much to say until the tablets are handed down to them. And, like Moses, don't even think about messing with those Mothers!

Among other bad things, The Nexi are now in a much better position to steal our remaining $40 trillion that would have taken them far longer within the Constitution.

But, as always in human affairs, there is a price to be paid for all this. It will be paid in full, first by us, then, by our oppressors.

Meanwhile, Mother tends to her slightly disarranged garden, resigned to allowing our picayune folly to run its course.

 
NjW  08-20-11
 
ANOTHER REMINDER, if you enjoy these posts, please click on the blue link below and sign up to receive future posts via RSS or e-mail. Then, wait until you receive the next post. If you get both my e-mail and the method you signed up for, let me know so I can remove you from my e-mail list. Thanks.
 

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
 
 
 

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti


2011-08-10

`Inside The Lines REDISTRICTING NEWS ROUNDUP

DOES A GREAT JOB!
 
local politics blog too - a step ahead of the Trib and Times

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
 
 
 

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti


2011-08-06

race PURE UNADULTERATED RACISM - Helen Burleson

from a friend
 
Thank you for acquanting me with this fiery patriot - she so clearly loves America, just not the way it's run. While I can't agree with a few of her takes (just as spouse abuse is exactly that, regardless of gender, "racism" need not necessarily be inflicted by a person of a different complection to be valid), on the issue of race in this country, we are one.
This holds true especially in the eternally unreconstructed South; and it doesn't matter their latest "handle:" white nationalist, KKK, Solid South, Dixiecrats, Blue Dog Democrats or Tea Party (only now they're flying the Republican flag).
I recently finished Ray Arsenault's Freedom Riders. God, those kids had courage. In the face of a mindless, visceral hatred towards, what amounts to, a layer of epidermis less than 1.5mm thick (absurd, when you think about it), they were beaten, disfigured for life, murdered, imcarcerated (for "disturbing the peace" of segregation) and met everywhere by hordes of screaming whites, including small children (like, they know what they're carrying on about) in the thousands - all enslaved by a long-ago notion of superiority designed solely to dehumanize blacks and, hence, justify the owning of one human being by another.
While not to dismiss the dire effects of such policies on American blacks - whose embattled culture over the centuries has turned out to be remarkably resilient -  the Homerically tragic dimensions of this mental pathology has been most evident among whites in the American South, and their outmigrants, whose very culture has been hijacked and fatally formed by their continued fealty to such a toxic legacy. They might, today, be peaceful and gentle Scandinavians but for their luckless appointment with destiny.
I wonder what the very first slave trader (Portuguese, Arab or Italian) would have to say now about his inadvertent dooming of a sub-culture (600 years hence) of some 70 million to such an everlasting state of constant agida, persecution complex, self-loathing and intolerance. And even further, to the dooming of America to so much cruel and mean-spirited governance, engendered, in large measure, by one of the two most toxic strains of Anglo Saxons in its society.
The latest version of these may just turn out to have enough power to finish off this star-crossed place. That has always been the South's problem: always coming up a few votes shy.
Here's some more of this gal's trenchant thinking.
There's a fire-and-a half burning in this octogenarian's furnace
`race Helen Burleson spectrumtalk
You'll especially like this one

 

 

cid:image001.jpg@01CC4D26.C319DD90

 

 

 

PURE UNADULTERED RACISM

By Helen L. Burleson, Doctor of Public Administration

The President of the United States cannot say what I'm going to say. I am going to say it loud so that it resounds all over this land.

Racists, racists, racists! Racism is alive and SICK in America . Racial hatred is alive and SICK in America .

Can I prove it? Yes, I can.

I am 81 years old so I have lived through 13 administrations of presidencies: some weak and ineffective, some strong and yet neglectful; and yet a few, passionate, caring and humane.

These Republicans and Libertarians today are still fighting the Civil War! There is Texas where the governor is Republican Rick Perry. This Southern state wants to engrave the Confederate flag on the license plates of all the citizens in the state. There are Southern boards of education including, but not limited to Tennessee , Texas and Virginia who want to rewrite the text books either to omit slavery or to revise and rearrange history to fit their biased views. These three states all have Republican governors. The Tea Party, a group of extreme right-wing conservative theorists are among the proponents of this revisionist, altered version of American history. There are those semi-literate legislators, like Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota , who say the Founding Fathers fought to eliminate slavery. There's a Southern governor, Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi , who knows nothing about slavery and racial tensions in the South.

Ignorant! Yes, that's a part of it; but, the main thing is their psyche. Taught at an early age to look down upon and to hate people of African descent, this hatred is buried deep, deep, within the throes of every fabric and fiber of their beings. Just as a light weight object put into a glass of water will float to the top, no matter how long racism has been festering in their bodies, confronted with a president of African descent, the covert racism rises to the top. All of the subliminal messages weighing them down for years since infancy, now surface; and unabashedly, they would rather see this Nation, this Democratic Republic crumble as long as they can blame this Black man and cause his Waterloo! This is not my position. This is not my inference. This is exactly what some of these racists legislators have said. There is concrete evidence that they said it. I don't have to make it up or falsify what they said, it is there on video preserved for the lifetime of this Nation for the whole world to see that a group of racists legislators, like Republican Congressman Mitch McConnell, are so determined to make the presidency of President Barack Obama, a one-term presidency that they frankly, as Rhett Butler said, …don't give a damn,,,"

Collective bargaining came into existence in Wisconsin ; but Republican Governor Scott Walker, a governor influenced by Libertarian billionaires, destroyed it with the stroke of a pen. Social Security signed into law by Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of the more effective, caring and humane presidents, is about to undergo the chopping block despite the fact that workers have paid into the system all of their working years. Medicare and Medicaid, humane programs signed into law by Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson, designed to aid the elderly, the infirm and women, infants and children are about to come under the blade of the guillotine!

These programs benefit people most of whom have worked on minimum wage jobs all of their working years. Some of them are unmarried and/or divorced women, failed by the declining education system, find themselves unprepared to find work that will sustain themselves and their children.

Combined with racism is also classism; and, viewed and pursued by some, they are one and the same. Classism divides Americans by social strata with three defined levels: upper class (those with wealth accumulated either by top earning occupations or by inheritance), middle class (those who are either professional, have managerial positions or government workers with wages above the minimum income level, sometimes referred to as white collar workers), and lower class (those who work in production whose manufacturing jobs for the most part have been shipped overseas, often referred to as blue collar workers).

Then there's the undefined and often ignored underbelly of society who are invisible because they make no demands on society. They are the ones who roam the streets at night or sleep over the grate or under bridges, in bus stations or wherever they can lay their heads as they use what little belongings they have as a pillow under their heads. They are the unemployed, the homeless and hopeless, many are former military personnel who served their country all the while being neglected by their country. Many Americans of African descent have managed to escape the net and the web woven that would keep them out of the middle class, have benefited from these social programs after retirement years which has sustained them, along with their pensions,and have managed to remain middle class.

As one legislator decried, "This is class war!" Yes, it is! Though some semi-literate, misinformed legislators called President Obama an elitist, it is they, many formerly poor boys, who through their positions living off the dole of the citizenry, now look down on the very people from whom they rose. There are some ill reared and ill bred who call the President of the United States , a liar! Because my mind is alert and fertile, I challenge any American to refute any of the facts that I am stating. Never in the history of this country has an American President been openly disrespected as has President Barack Obama. One "pretender to the throne," Republican part-time governor, Sarah Palin, while in India spoke derisively about the President while on foreign shores, all the while saying that this is inappropriate. One thug of a legislator, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, of South Carolina , called out, to President Barack Obama, "You lie!" during the State of the Union Address. Just the other day in July, 2011, another barnyard pig of a legislator,

Republican Congressman Joe Lucas, of the 8th District of Illinois, called the President of the United States a liar.

Of course American ethics, morals and morality have gone to hell in a hand basket; but, when this same "pretender," Sarah Palin, featured on the cover of a major magazine, Newsweek, dressed inappropriately in a tight sweater opened a bit too much, then the world can see for itself the depravity and degradation of American principles and the American people.

As Republican President Abraham Lincoln stated eloquently, " A house divided against itself, cannot stand," we have reached that fork in the road and America is on the path to destruction at the hands of a few, petty, pampered, pretty boys who in their efforts to appease their "masters" are driving this country off a cliff!

Until we get a Secretary of Psychiatry to free racists of the hatred they are harboring, America will not prosper. America is already close to being displaced by China as the world's greatest power; and, this is only because of the pure unadultered racism pervasive throughout this land.

 


2011-08-04

cop POLICE STATE UPDATE - THE FEDS NEW VIDEO, AZ's INSTANT DESPOTISM, OTHER OUTRAGES

You will note that there are no controls on the Fed's video. No way to moderate volume, determine its length (8 mins), fast-forward or go to fullscreen. What kind of a mindset does that remind you of? As the links above the vid attest, the rise of police brutality around the nation is pandemic. He links to a few and I add my own links to incidents below. And I sure hope they sent copies of this thing to the CIA,FBI, NSA, NIS and INS (gets confusing, don't it?).
 
To be fair, it's a fine line and a host of split-second decisions our martial minions must make on a daily basis. However, the events below are essentially no-brainers.
 
While I personally believe that the majority of law enforcement officers return reasonable behaviour in kind, the incidents of bad judgment seem to expand daily. Scroll to bottom for a primer on knowing your rights in this area.
 
cop FED SENDS CIVIL LIBS VIDEO TO 18,000 COPS - EDUCATION?  PROPAGANDA?  we report...   08-03-11
 
#####################################
 
Now that you've digested the portrait of rectitude and devotion to professionalism above, what follows are a few items I had set aside with this post in mind. They serve as counterpoint - and perhaps, rebuke - to the lofty aims limned in the previous video.
 
While Mother Nature's tantrums of late have our attention, and ginned up crises (Naomi's Disaster Capitalism) beset us from all quarters, we need to also be on the alert for signs of, let's say, cracks in the empire. Translation: the greater the stress folks are under (including the gendarmerie), the crazier the shit they are more prone to do.
There are a number of signs that the social fabric in the U.S. is, to say the least, under stress. Folks my age (69), and, disturbingly, much younger, are saying things like, "I'm glad I won't be around too much longer." or, "I don't want to be here when the ball drops." Can you imagine it occurring to anyone to voice such sentiments even a decade ago?
There is a menace in the American air. You feel it. I feel it. We all know that yonder something wicked cometh our way:
  • from out-of-control cops with hair-trigger reactions at the tiniest (imagined) slight,
  • to the spectacle of bullied kids "paying back" mostly innocent fellow students by commiting mass murder,
  • to folks being injured in the stampede of hundreds to fill out applications for 35, low-paying positions; so great the desperation (or even to nab one of those 3, $50 TVs at Wal-Mart),
  • to city after Tea Party city (and state) shuttering the doors to "the common" (libraries, kids' after-hour sports programs, daycare) we all rely on to preserve and maintain a somewhat civil society,
  • to our increasingly brusque and restless highways and byways where vehicular transgressions - intended or un - elicit an extended middle finger, as though the owner of that finger was the only "perfect" driver on the planet (aren't we all?) - all at 70 mph and 4 bux-a-gallon.
The focus here, then, is on the little signs that tend to blend into the background after a flicker, if any, in the news cycle.
######################################
Let's begin with our loud and militant neighbors (they're right, you're wrong; get over it), the Tea Party. Turns out, they're "feelin' da power."
rot TEA PARTY TYPES HARASS Move On GATHERING IN PARK‬‏ youtube 07-17-11
It must be nice to be so cocksure of everything you believe that you can then go around and make damn sure that all opposing views are expunged from the land. "Freedom!," indeed. If the counterintuiive and paradoxical actions of these severely muddled minds doesn't scare the hell out of you, then, imagine that this pack of brainwashed super-patriots had rousted the MoveOns (am I the only one for whom a vision of Eloi and Morlochs comes to mind?) with firearms at the ready. Different deal, right? And how long do you think it will take this mentality to descend into the vigilantism-to-save-god-and-country oxymoron? As there are powerful, unseen, hands guiding the control bar of the T.P. Marionettes, my guess would be, not too bloody long.
As you watch the vid, note the aggresive body language (stances, close proximity to "the enemy"), intimidatory and mocking remarks as the "troublemaking Commie, Socialist pigs" pack up to peacefully get away from this thoroughly unpleasant gang of louts, whose skewed notion of "freedom" is to prevent its very practice by others, almost as if they were begging for the chance to "defend themselves," or their nations' (slightly soiled) "honor."
If you were to walk up to most of these TPers and tell them that what they were doing, while well within their First Amendment rights, was, in fact, mighty like the tactics employed by Rohm's Brownshirts and every schoolyard bully in the land, you would probably be greeted by blank stares, scowls, belligerence, curses, accostive posturing and the like. The one reaction you would most likely fail to elicit is introspection; as in, self-examination to see if the charges leveled held any merit. This is known in some quaint quarters as self-reflection.
As Will put it, therein lies the rub.
######################################
rot COP TASERS 10-YEAR OLD GIRL FOR NOT GOING TO BED- cnn #4.16 alexanderhiggins-youtube 05-18-11
Note all the qualifiers employed by CNN's guests. Whatever happened to simple declarative staements like, "That was the wrong way to handle this." or "This is simply unacceptable!"
######################################
 
You gotta really hustle to make the likes of today's Tea Party-blessed Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio look like paradise on earth, but, by gummy, The Grand Canyon State is giving it the old college try. It goes without saying that reason is the first to leave the building on this one.
 
cop CIVIL LIBS IN LOCKDOWN IN Quartsite AZ - CAN YOU SAY, 'INSTANT POLICE STATE'? (just ad water...) #10.40  brasschecktv  07-12-11
 
#######################################
 
Finally, a re-send of this - pass it on - it's not always "somebody else"
 
Be careful out there and always be polite to the cops. Know your rights.
 
They're not in that line of work because they failed the flower-arranging exam.
For some, it brings out their inner-thug when you resist; even legally.
 
TIP: When dealing with any authoritarian personality (I can always tell, how about you?);
 
BE PASSIVELY, BUT FIRMLY ASSERTIVE. You have a right to be treated as a human.
NEVER BE AGGRESIVE OR CONFRONTATIONAL: You will lose every time.
 
 
Yibbida-yibbida, that's all folks.

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
 
 
 

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti


2011-08-02

rot USA = KLEPTOCRACY (THINK GREECE ON AN 'EPIC TRAGEDY' SCALE) bizinsider 06-29-11

Just in time to place the penny-ante assaults on "we the people," outlined below, in context, comes Paul's acid commentary on the latest stand-down by our "defenders."
 
nexi OBAMA SURRENDERS TO KOCH BROTHERS' TEA-PARTY EXTORTION ON DEBT CEILING - Krugman  nyt  07-31-11
 
And, in case you missed it,
 
nexi ELITES' UNWISDOM AT ROOT OF CRASH, DEFICIT, RECESSION (and the unraveling of civil society) - Paul Krugman  nyt  05-08-11
 
#################################
 
The following article focuses on financial machinations. I would suggest that America is now so far down the rabbithole to ruin that there are few trustworthy (intellectually honest) institutions left standing upon which we can rely to level with us. As I said in an earlier piece, at this point, every economic hand is turned against us (Bernie and Dennis notwithstanding), as the latest "deal" oozing its slimy, double-dealing, four-flushing way out from under the door of the Oval Office should attest. What a stench!
 
You might ask yourselves what kind of civilized, law-abiding country permits: one-man war-making ability; fracking; "untraceable" e-coli outbreaks; lengthy prison terms for formerly minor offenses; police brutality masquerading as "keeping us safe from _____"; endless and increasingly intrusive rifling of our personal communications by numerous alphabet agencies accountable to no one but their secret superiors; regular entrapment of the citizenry by multiple levels of law enforcement agencies (red light cameras) and, indeed, the bald-faced manipulation of the law whenever deemed inconvenient (in the way) by those with the power to change them to be more to their liking.
 
And that's not to mention the slew of victimless "crimes" (prostitution, drug use, feeding the homeless, wearing "inflammatory" T-shirts - ad nauseum) that our cockamamie Puritan/Calvinist/Lockian heritage says must be punished with the relentless zeal of an Anthony Comstock or The Inquisition. Fuggedaboud mercy, redemption and compassion, you sinner, you. We've got prison-industrial mouths to feed and a payroll to meet
 
 
 "If mortgages were not properly transferred in the securitization process, then mortgage-backed securities would, in fact, not be backed by any mortgages whatsoever, and could cloud title to nearly every property in the United States."
- Georgetown University bankruptcy expert Adam Levitin, in testimony to subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee
(assuming one could actually lay hands on that pesky piece of paper)
 
 
#################################
 
And this latest docu from our friends, the uncivil Libertarians on the Wrong. You can have fun picking your way through the stuff you agree with - invasion of privacy, due process outrages, entrapment galore - and the stuff you don't - it's all the fault of lazy folks, if we could only send those brown people (too late for the black ones) home where they belong, our institutions are being laid low by unAmericans hogging the trough slots, yada, yada.
 
You also won't hear NAFTA mentioned, nor a host of other self-inflicted wounds, for the sole benefit of the uber-rich. But, skip over the appeals to racism and nativism and the sly (they think) fearmongering touts for gold and silver to tide you over the hyperinflationary period (with Mr. O's latest cave today -8-/1 - this economy's deflationary spiral will only accelerate), and gaze in wonder on the passing parade of a government gone mad as it thrashes around in its desperate search for a sword that will smite the calamitous Dearth-of-Debt/Jobs Dragon (seems nobody trusts anyone else these days, imagine that!) and, in turn, driving its citizenry plumb loco as it does.
 
I had been aware of many of these outrageous attempts to balance the city/state/nation's books on the back of the working stiffs, but this flick contains quite a few new wrinkles on the unfolding, creative panoply of government traps 'n tricks that I've dubbed ('cause no one else has), govgrift. Has a nice ring to it. Think it'll catch on?
 
rot COLLAPSE OF AMERICA & POLICE STATE A-RISING - LIB POV  End of Liberty  w Gerald Celente NIA ‬‏ #1.14.06  inflationus-youtube  2010
 
A word of caution: the uber-Libertarian and laissez-faire Mr. Celente tends to get carried away in his righteous indignation (Oh, the wealthy humanity!). Parts of this film (produced by his Trends Institute) will rub the Progressives among you the wrong way. Try to remember that the uncivil Right agrees with us civil libbers on the Left only in so far as keeping government respectful of our personal space. We come apart when it comes to the role of government in providing a social safety net; referred to in some parts as , compassion for the least among us (to quote some dude, I forget who).
 
This in no way obviates the film's many examples of government intrusion and interference in what should be (and is) our private, legal, personal affairs.
 
#############################
 
Be careful out there and always be polite to the cops. Know your rights.
They're not in that line of work because they failed the flower-arranging exam.
For some, it brings out their inner-thug when you resist; alas, even legally.
 
TIP: When dealing with any authoritarian personality (I can always tell, how about you?);
 
BE PASSIVELY, BUT FIRMLY ASSERTIVE. You have a right to be treated as a human.
NEVER BE AGGRESIVE OR CONFRONTATIONAL: You will lose every time.
 
Martin and Mahatma are the way to defeat them.
 
NjW

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2 
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/

"There is no greater disaster than greed."Lao-tzu

 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti


2011-08-01

NjW's LETTER TO BILL NELSON RE THE 'DEBT PLANS'

This 33-second spot ad, and others like it, are, like fleas: often and everywhere. I bet you're wondering who paid for them and what the ulterior purpose is (nothing is as it seems in the house of illusions)
 
The ad shows regular folks, complaining about regular taxes. What's really going on is, by framing this as a tax on "little" people, the greedy bastards trying to privatize your government can recruit the less informed, who then join in the fight against no new taxes (previous tax cuts for the rich, and any other "unfair" taxes on the wealthy. No new revenue reduces the options to fund Medicare, Social Security, education, et al, to cutting services or privatizing large chunks of the government and its assets. And so we go the way of Greece; turning all these "burdens" over to Wall Street to be run so much more "efficiently" (and profitably).
 
As Bob Reich said, this is a jobs crisis. All the rest is 24-caret BS.
 
Or, as Dennis said in even less than 700 words:
rev DENNIS KUCINICH - 74-SECOND SPEECH FROM A TRUE PATRIOT ON HOW TO FIX ALL THIS #1.14  youtube  07-27-11
 
 
 
 
If you want to send a message to Senator Nelson, please Click here
                            
 
July 27, 2011

Dear Friends,

Facebook President Obama asked Americans to contact members of Congress and ask them to reach a fair resolution of the looming government default.

He rightly noted that both political parties bear some responsibility for running up the federal debt – so it's up to both to end this stalemate. Since the President's speech I've heard from thousands and thousands of folks who responded to his call. I also sensed growing support in Congress to avert a first-ever government default early next week. Thus I'm optimistic about quick passage of some $2.7 trillion in savings and spending cuts – cuts that wouldn't hurt Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.

Such a solution strikes me as a fair compromise – and, exactly the kind of thing I think we need right now.

If you want to pass along your thoughts, just click here to send me an email. Also, feel free to ask others to weigh in as well.

Thanks for your thoughts,




 
                       
 
 

 
 
Bill, it's really disheartening to know all I know about the deception and skullduggery that has passed for our government for the last 30 years.
 
Even though the SS "Trust" Fund cupboard is bare, it changes not one iota the solemn oath of the government to repay those funds. Cutting a program - even by freezing the COLA, or some other such sleight-of-hand (in my case, it's like my gov't came along, said "Stick 'em up!", then robbed me of $1,500 cash) - that is forbidden by law from running in the red, would be a most rank betrayal of the folks who trust their government to do right by them.
 
How can you-all even look at yourselves in the mirror? Forget the Tea Party Marionettes, those god-besotted, elite-funded folks are too far gone to hear sweet reason. But, Democrats, DEMO-CRATS! - and I include The Oh, Man! - need to stand firm for the people and claw back a few paltry pennies on the dollar of the 2-3 trillion that has been stolen (that's the word, don't you agree?) by the banksters in the form of TARP, etc.

As for the alleged "debt crisis," we both know it is 100% bullshit, don't we? Instead of going after the bedrock institutions that put the "civil' in America's civil society (trust me, you don't want to see an uncivil society), you might consider these simple remedies (until after 2012 at any rate):
 
1 - Have the Fed generate an additional 3 trilion in fiat money, say, this afternon at 3PM. This would be a small addendum to the 14-18 trillion (who the hell really knows, eh? "A trillion here, a trillion there, and  pretty soon...") it has given to banksters and elites around the world to buy up the toxic derivatives foisted on every nation on the planet, creating the chaos we now see all about us.
 
If that's too audacious for you, how about...
 
2 - Have Obama pay the damn bills as the 14th says he must as head-knocker-in-chief. Did you know that no other developed nation has (or needs) a "debt ceiling"? And a boatload of Constitutional law mavens, of all political stripe, now emphatically agree that Mr. Obama need not "raise the debt ceiling" in order to pay the nation's legal obligations.
 
So, where's the crisis in all this (other than the Capitalist/Christianist cabal dedicated to privatizing everything on god's green earth, including, BTW, god's green earth)?
 
Re a balanced budget:
 
After all the SOBs have done to screw up what used to be a working economy - full of folks actually making things - is it be too much to ask that Congress pass a law adding a .05% tax to every hedge fund, derivitive and cd transaction (and whatever other cockamaimie bubble scams they come up with)?
 
Finally, do the right thing, rinse and repeat.
 
And while I have your attention...
 
You (and Mr.O) blur the facts when you posit in your letter that, "...both political parties bear some responsibility for running up the federal debt." While true, such sophistic couching of the issue purposely (I'm assuming both you and Obama have made it your business to know the facts on how we got here) misleads and misdirects the reader as it allows, even encourages, her/him to infer a rough balance between the parties as to their respective responsibilities for the debt. The facts say otherwise:
 
ADMIN            $trillions*  REMARKS
LBJ-Carter15    1.0          Vietnam
Reagan       8    2.9 +1.9  trickle-down BS, dereg, non-enforcement, bust unions
                                         NOT COUNTING $1.0 trillion theft from SS Trust Fund
Bush 41      4    4.4 +1.5   trickle-down BS, dereg, non-enforcement, Gulf War !
Clinton        4    5.8 +1.4   trickle-down BS-lite, dereg, Kosovo, Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Bush 43      8  11.1 +5.3   9-11, Afghanistan, Iraq II, Part B, Katrina, Disaster Capitalism
                                         NOT COUNTING $1.2 trillion theft from SS Trust Fund
Obama est  2  12.5 +1.4    Afghanistan surge, health care, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, etc.
                                         (momentum factor from previous "worst president ever" admin)
 
Total additions to National Debt, 1981-2010:  DEMS-> $1.6 trillion  GOP->   $8.0 trillion
           STOLEN FROM SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST FUNDS ACCOUNT->   $2.2 trillion
REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS' TOTALS-> 20 YEARS-> 65% of new debt ->  $10.9 TRILLION
 
Note: numbers are not my strong suit, they may be slightly off. But, that's not the point.
You might prefer these
:
con DEBT CRISIS - WHO'S YOUR DADDY - OBAMA's 2-YEAR DEBT = $1.44 Trillion v. BUSH's 8-YEAR DEBT = $5.07 Trillion  tnr  07-28-11
 
*cumulative rounded figure as of the end of September of year left office
 
My question, Bill, is when do you people (alleged Democrats and Progressives) intend to call a spade a spade and not a bloody shovel? When do you push back. The Rove crew is already plotting away to steal a few more governorships and Senate seats as I type these words. Obama had 10+ million votes cast for him, but, never counted.
 
Are you guys on the Left and the alleged Liberal media just going to wait around until the
Fascists have so much power no one will be able to stop them and their Neo-Feudal agenda?
 
This type of mealy-mouthed equivocation merely allows the real cowards - who try to never do anything in the light of day (otherwise no one would vote for them, right?) - to burrow away at the foundations of the republic, largely undisturbed and out of view of the public eye.
 
Why would you carry the first drop of water for these miscreants who supposedly stand for everything you say you despise?
 
So you know, I eschew both wings of the Duopoly Party, but, I do insist folks call 'em the way they are with no subterfuge, especially those posing as Liberals; which includes your own sweet self.
 
Take care, NjW

Nigel Watson  freethinker  727.493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo  http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
"There is no greater disaster than greed." – Lao-tzu
 "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti