Monthly Archives: December 2006

Laura Bush to help out the little African pickaninnies

Posted on by
Reply

Those Bushes! When they’re not helping out the infidels in Afghanistan and Iraq, they’re helping out the pickaninnies of Africa! This Thursday, according to the theorectical section of Parade Magazine (Intelligence Report- page 24, Dec. 10,2006), First Lady Laura is having a tea and ‘malaria summit’ at the White House. She’ll be asking good Christians to donate $10 a piece to buy a malaria net for the little African pickaniinnies, who she has become devoted to. The Bushes would be using some US taxpayer funds to help out, too, but this pork is designated to go to help improve conditions elsewhere for the Pentagon and their friends, the contractors.

I know. Some of you have gotten down on Laura. You ask just what is she doing married to a man like Dubya? But Hell, she might have saved the world even by staying in that marriage. Imagine if the President started to drink again while driving under the influence of Dick Cheney? Laura has him on the wagon, reading, and now she even has him helping out with getting the little African pickaninnies live healthier lives. She’s a credit to the South. A little more work with Dubya, and Laura might even get him to withdraw from Iraq! Because James Baker sure as hell ain’t.

We owe a lot to Laura. Let’s hope she keeps up the good work.

Baroness Thatcher is sad

Posted on by
Reply

Lady Thatcher is sad today in England. A long time family friend, the Chilean torturer general , Augusto Pinochet, has died. Margaret did what she could to keep this man from ever being held accountable for his crimes against humanity, and she had the help of Tony Blair, too.

Jack Straw, former British Foreign Secretary for Blair and good friend of Condaleeza Rice, allowed the popular Chilean thug to rest in bed under ‘house arrest’. Current Foreign Secretary for Blair, Margaret Beckett, hails Pinochet today as being a model economic genius. Aw shucks, Marge, all he did was follow University of Chicago Professor, Milton Friedman’s advice. And torturerama! All that said, Our lovely Baroness Thatcher today laments that she has seen her last tea with Augusto.

Is it any wonder that our own US and British thugs and warmongers fell in love with the idea of freely and openly using torture themselves? They have been hobnobbing with the Faisals, Saddams, Pinochets, Shah of Irans, Ferninand and Imelda Marcoses of the world for the longest time now. It even almost looks like Margaret Thatcher was carrying on an extramarital affair with Augusto, to see how fiel she has been to the man! And to think that Soviet CPer, Mikhail Gorbachev, also fell in love with the Iron Maiden! Certainly that love affair harmed the Soviet Union’s many peoples even more than Pinochet has harmed Chile.

But what is it that makes the leaders of our Western ‘Democracies’ enamored of the Third World torturers so? It’s like they don’t have even a shred of democratic sensibilities in them, is it not? I guess that’s what being leaders of a corporate model does to them. There is no other explanation. Cut the rebels down; those serfs! Pinochet led the way for them, and now they are sad in London and D.C.

Princess Diana and the end of civility

Posted on by
12

Princess Diana on Dodi Fayed's yacht a week before her deathThe Queen is the first film to be made about the woman who has presided over England for half a century. The story deals with the days following Princess Di’s fatal crash in 1997 and the personal challenge her death might have posed for the monarchy’s public relations. The same period saw Prime Minister Tony Blair’s ascendancy to power. The story gives Blair credit, where the queen appeared to faulter, for recognizing Diana as being the “People’s Princess.” And then some.

Asked about his fawning depiction of Tony Blair as man of the hour, director Stephen Frears thought it “a mark of my incredible maturity” to cast Blair in the light of his glory days, this at a time when Blair and his government have fallen irrecoverably, adding that “it’s preposterous that he’s not in jail.” In the interview Frears also makes light of whether Queen Elizabeth II is possibly really as bright as her character portrayed by Hellen Mirren. The Queen celebrates the resolve of royal blood facing a crisis. Elizabeth is both humanized and lionized, by sticking to the stiff upper lip “the world expects of us.” Frears interweaves real news footage of celebrities and the flowers flooding the Buckingham Palace gates, counting the days from Lady Di’s death to the climax when the queen finally makes her long delayed statement.

That’s when Frears lies. He lays the behind the scenes personal anguish which might have explained the dishonor the royals paid to Diana, leading to the Queen’s famous address, but then rewrites the ending. As if Mighty Casey, his vainglorious ambitions thwarted in the minor leagues, stays true to his character that day in Mudville, and now because we can all feel a little sympathy for the self-centered fella, he swings and DOES NOT strike out!!

We all were there when Queen Elizabeth took to the microphone, and no close-ups of a fictional Tony Blair’s tearing eyes, proud of his stalwart sovereign, are going to recast the disgraceful blue-blooded reaction for what it was.

And what of lingering accusations of the royal family being behind Diana’s death? What of the rape tape which Diana posited with a servant for safe-keeping which tells, it’s conjectured because the British press are forbidden to tell us, of Prince Charles interrupted sodomizing a valet. What of Lady Diana being, not even arguably, by the power of her personality, the most powerful woman in the world? But unlike Oprah or Martha Stewart, Diana was a loose cannon championing the cause of AIDs in Africa, and the fight to ban land mines, both subjects the powers that be, certainly in America, did/do not want highlighted.

The Queen‘s smartest character, Tony Blair’s advisor who supposedly coins the term People’s Princess is let to murmur early on, “It wasn’t the press that killed her.” But the subject is dropped there. Instead Blair and his crew seize upon Diana’s death like Mayor Giuliani to 9/11, being seen offering bedside comfort to a traumatized populace, and reaping the accolades. Except director Frears offers nothing behind such scenes. Blair is shown as the earnest surrogate, standing in for his monarch until she can regrasp the helm.

With the ensuing years having shown us Blair’s true colors, what do you think was the more likely scenario? A self-effacing Danny Kaye Pauper Prince or a Rudy Giuliani? I find Frears’ characterization of Blair even more disingenuous, showing Tony living in a modest flat strewn with children’s messes, taking the dinner plates to do the “washing up,” and keeping watch on world events on a television with a Nintendo game atop it. This coming from a “labor” minister who was leading the conservative counter-revolution to restructure the British economy for the elites. Perhaps Frears’ adopted class.

The Queen owes its entire first act to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911, the music, the build, the black out of the familiar awful moment, and the protracted montage we needed to absorb the tragedy and understand how it’s changed us.

The great disservice that Stephen Frears does to history, and to all of us because we are still living it, is amplified by the fact that he did get Diana’s death right. Princess Di’s sudden death did change the world, perhaps more than did 9/11. The World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 was a comeuppance. If the American people did not see it coming, the world did. That such a terrorist act was bound to happen was attested to the fact that the same people had already tried it and at the very same location.

But Diana’s death marked the end of civility, and people felt it. The third world may have been fit to burst under the weight of its post-colonial oppressors, but a great English civility had prevailed since the days of Ghandi. This was a sense that disagreement could be visceral, but apart from the brutality of the unwashed French or the uncouth Americans, a British sense of decency would rule out. Britain, not long ago the Empire, was where we got the rule of law, our rights, and everyone’s concept of a representational parliament.

The circumstances around Diana’s death would present an incredibly interesting lesson in power usurped from the people; Tony Blair’s arrangement with Rupert Murdoch for starters, instead of showing Blair reacting to the newspapers and coaxing his old queen along. The Queen is a marvelous story of two people facing adversity introspectively. Fine, except those personages were at the center of the unification of global corporate power and could not have been idle participants. As if Frears had made a film about the Titanic and chose to focus on the captain’s preoccupation with feng shui.

The 1990s saw a decline in every aspect of benevolent leadership, and I believe the premature death of Lady Diana was the curtain. It was hard those days after her death to imagine a world without her, and indeed events have proved that we were to face the worst. The turn of the century marked the ascendency of the Neocons, the political face of the globalization overlords. It meant corporate overseers with gloves off, Zionist zealotry unabashed, banks with no limits on their usury, and the world media watchdogs in the hands of the wolves.

The ruling few have their hands bloody in genocides the world over, endless wars, massacres, slavery, epidemics, poverty, famine and reckless abandonment. Before Diana’s death at least I believe they would have been concerned to wash the blood off.

Corporate America’s micro-management addiction

Posted on by
1

Decades ago, while working as a Seattle garment cutter where Jimmy Hendrix’s brother once worked, I observed with awe and amazement a White man, overly dressed in coat and tie, stand directly behind the seated rows of bent over Oriental women with stopwatch in hand.

He was measuring each and every fraction of a second their motions as they sewed together cut parts of skiwear. He was part of the management team’s effforts to micro-manage the workers at this factory. He would write down his observations and then they would be mathematically calculated to squeeze these women out of every ounce of their energy, for the least pennies to be paid. My thoughts back then were, Good God Almighty! This micro-management of people is sick, sick, sick!

Today, I am a proud parent of a District 11 school kid. Everyday she comes home at 2:45, angry, hostile, and upset. Why is this? The kids at this ‘excellent’ facility are being micro-managed, that’s why . No time for recess, no time for play, no time for socialization. Every second is to count.

If you might ask, I am voting for recall. My only wish is that the whole bunch of them were being recalled on that School Board. Their micro-management of kids is sick! There is no kid left behind from it, either. At the school my kid goes to, the teachers don’t even much get the chance to teach. They have a computer called ‘Success Maker’ supposedly doing that. Computers can micromanage little kids better than humans can, I guess?

All the teachers and principals are part of this micro-management, too. Even their cheerleading for the school seems totally forced. Like a Toyota production circle almost! And the kids conduct in this repressive setting becomes quite coarse. Another manifestation of the US corporate zeal for micro-management of others. Little kids even! Every second must count. We must ‘rationalize’ education! Speedup the teachers!

Last week in the New York City metro area, ecoli@TacoBell.com shut down 6 stores. But what is the New York City municipal health inspectors concerns per another article online last week? That there were sales of armadillo meat and other exotics at ethnic markets going on that were not kosher enough for them. The ethnic markets are not being micro-managed by the Health Dept. like they should supposedly be. In city across city in the US, it is next to impossible to vend food like is done in every other country around the world. The food cannot be micro-managed like at McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Burger King by the ‘health’ bureaucracy. No way to stand stop watch in hand and measure productivity, etc. Uh, I meant sanitary conditions.

Pretty pathetic is it not? All those fast food joints have kids working without sick leave, and no health inspector ever is there to micro-manage the snot coming from them onto the food while at work sick. Got to spend more time micromanaging armadillo meat instead, and I guess cuy (guinea pig), too, which is available to South American immigrants in a park of one of their barrios in that city. In other cities, just try to vend even hot dogs around town! Food not Bombs gets harassed if they give away cooked food on the streets. Unhealthy. You guys are not going to get away from being totally micro-managed by corporate America! It’s for health reasons, the authorities will all announce. Shut up and eat your triple fat burger, Buddy.

Everything is micro-managed these days. The Iraq Study Group was micro-analyzing how they could micro-manage those savage Arabs and Kurds? How can ‘our’ oil be micro-managed in that faraway land? Bipartisan unity now. Democrats and Republicans all 100% behind the idea of corporate America micro-managing other peoples. Can they not micro-manage other people? No, they are addicts, are they not? They need Micro-Managers Anonymous.

At Safeway, the clerks are told what to say. At the hospitals, nurses are told what to say. At Wendy’s, management is taking away what to say and micro-managing that from the Exit 42 Corporation located in New Hampshire. At America On Line, what to say is not micro-managed on line by Americans on line, but by micro-managed Indians on line micro-managed in Quien Sabe, India! This corporate micro-management addiction is sick!

The in thing for business, is to violate labor law and micro-mange your break time, take it away, destroy it! It’s WalMarts specialty, and ask any nurse how management micro-manages them at the hospitals? Haven’t seen your nurse come by? They’re being micro-managed over at the desk by management. To see you in person they would need to have skates on. That would go with their bundle of equipment (cellphones, buzzers,sensors, etc.) that they have to carry around, like US soldiers on patrol. All a result of micro-management of their time by the corporation. Management must always be in contact!

Computers are used to program nurses these days, as they are other workers. Aw sure, those poor machines get programmed, too. But believe it, the machines program far more people than the other way around. Cash registers force the pace. Cameras are everywhere. Micro-management is in, big time. Satelites taking down your conversations on the ol’ cell phone even. All part of micro-management addiction by the business community. Real patriots, them! And it is sick, sick, sic, is it not? These efficiency and organization nuts need some major political metamucil!

Notice the headline this week? America is NUMBER ONE in the world in number of citizens in jail. Highest in per capita percentage, too. 5% of the world’s population, with 25% of those micro-managed in jail. Oh, and it really is micro-management in US jails! See Jose Padilla? See those guys at Guantanamo? It’s no aberration, either. Go to jail, and they will micro-manage your ass. And I mean that literally, too. Go to the airport and pray, they’ll micro-manage you there, too. They got you coded, Dude. And in jail, well they got ot watch your ass. You might have some palmed Tylenol tabs up your rear a foot or two. Wouldn’t want you to get high from smoking the stuff! Now that’s true micro-management, is it not?

So what is the first thing that corporate America will say to you if you want to stop their addiction to micro-managing you? They will scream and whine and shout!

“That is socialism! Keep your liberty. Socialists want to micro-manage you, and you won’t have the freedom we allow you here! We’re against micro-management!”

Comical, is it not? Despite corporate America’s micro-management addiction, all this micro-management is to be done on you. Try to ask for it to be directed their way, and they scream and squeal like the pigs they are. They are pigs, too. They not only will micro-manage your ass, if they get a chance, but if perhaps you fall by the road side in illness or old age, they will micro-manage your processing down the conveyor belt and into the hole in the ground the funeral micro-management industry has prepared for you. They will micro-manage the prayer said in your last behalf, want it or not! Yes, the last prayer before God will process you, and then you will get micro-managed for eternity. Corporate America is just obeying God on this matter.

Corporate America is addicted to micro-management of your life, from birth to graveyard. The Christian’s God gets you then.

Bush, just who is it that is destabilizing the Lebanese government?

Posted on by
Reply

The Bush Adminstration has been making statement after statement claming that Iran and Syria are in a subversive campaign to destabilize the government of Lebanon. But wasn’t it just some few months ago that so many hundreds of thousands of Lebanese were in the streets demanding that Syria remove its troops from inside Lebanon’s borders? And Syria did pull them out, too.

But now, many of the same Christian Lebanese that demonstrated then, are now back in the streets of Beirut together with Hezbollah Muslim Lebanese, and both groups are demanding that the present government resign and dismantle itself. What happened? How did this Lebanese government, clinging desperately now to the reins of power, lose such previous popularity? Commander in Chief Bush, inquiring minds would like to know?

The answer is pretty simple and obvious, though apparently the entirely whorish US press refuses to answer it, or in fact, to even ask this question. How did this current Lebanese government clutching to power by its little finger held so tight, lose its credibility within a few short months? Simple, they opened up the Cedar-lined Lebanese national gates, per US government request, and let Israeli troops rampage unrestrained (except by Hezbollah) across Lebanese national territory. The Lebanese beaches became clogged with a thick oil slick, the fields got strewn with land mines for children to blow themselves up with, and hundreds of thousands became refugees, lost their property, and even lost their lives. Who the hell would want a government that allowed this to happen and stood by passively?

So whose strategy was it, to undermine this government? Was it Syria and Iran that came up with the idea, Dubya, to give the green light to Israel to go on its Jewish pogrom against Muslim Arabs? Or was it the twin US GeneralisiMoes, Dick and Donald Duck?

The people united, never Hamas will be defeated, it seems. One, two, three, a thousand officious ‘Iraq Study Groups’ need to be Christened now. Baker and Hamilton to study Afghanistan, Lebanon, Colombia, and the Balkans, too! Time to play, neocon domino!

Oh yeah. And one more US study group about the ‘Palestinian problem’, too. Duh? Just who destabilized the Lebanaese government?

Guilt by association with the drunk tank

Posted on by

Guilty by associationIt used to be cameras were not allowed in the court room. Now they’re permitted in the jail, where people have yet to have their day in court?
 
Under the pretext of holding a video conference with the judge, these people are given no chance to let the camera, and the public at large, see their best side.

The price of chicken

Posted on by
1

Child laborers at the looms making affordable fabric
The American high standard of living is built on economies of scale, predicated on cheap supplies on terms usually detrimental to the suppliers. In materials, this means exploiting the environment, in manufacturing it means cheap labor, in food it means industrialized farming.

It’s an oft repeated mantra, and counter to a consumerist imperative, but this dilemma can be addressed by showing restraint, even in light of growing populations. It’s resource conservation.

If we can’t afford a fairly traded commodity, we should perhaps consider going without it. We could make do with fewer consumer goods for example. or less meat and more beans and rice maybe. We would not need to subject animals to factory farms if we could reduce our demand; not going without, going with less. If range fed beef is indeed a luxury, couldn’t we consider not having a feast of it everyday? Just because a substitute can be had for cheaper doesn’t mean we have to indulge yourselves. Especially, I would think, if the cheap price means inherent harm on the other end.

A free-range. grain-fed chicken costs $2.85 per pound to bring to your table. Not $0.89 per pound, or $1.99 for the whole chicken, but $2.85/lb, or $7.30/lb for the boneless breast fillet. That’s what it costs to raise a chicken in conditions that wouldn’t turn our stomach or haunt us if we were really knew. Priced any lower and the chicken supplier has to cut corners and mistreat the animals in ways you would never willfully approve. Instead of three cheap chickens in every pot, how about buying one humanely raised chicken instead? Permit yourself the luxury of feeling good about the demands you are making on the food supply, about the sacrifice being made by others to sustain you.

A healthy-raised pig costs $8 per pound. Anything less comes from a place you don’t want to get within 20 miles downwind, much less see. Same deal. If you are now eating cheap bacon, pay more for an honorable source but buy less.

Range-fed beef costs upwards of $8 per pound. You’ll be doing yourself a favor avoiding the mad cow disease of factory abused cows and calves. $8/lb. Any less and it’s packing the trauma of its final breaths into the flesh you think you are enjoying. Plus the antibiotics pumped into the cow to enable it to survive the cramped unhygienic conditions of feed lots.

Wild salmon costs $12 per pound. It’s good for you, one of the best sources of nutrition this side of broccoli. But that’s not true about farm grown salmon. Now the domestic stocks are contaminating the natural fisheries. Stop encouraging the aquaculture robber barons. Don’t eat their salmon or their shrimp, they’re killing the environment and the local fishing communities.

The price test works for everything that’s unbelievably cheap. What? Were you thinking it was the miracle of modern capitalism? Goods available for less than the cost you would think they could be made? If it wasn’t affordable to you before, the company has now found out how to steal it from someone to bring it to you.

If you see something you never thought you could afford, and its price is too good to be true, it is for someone. The true cost is being born by someone else, maybe a pre-teen indentured servant, maybe someone who works a 12 hour shift sharing a bunk with the person who handles the other 12 hours, maybe someone who’s been incarcerated for the sole reason that their governor needs a low-wage labor pool, maybe it’s someone working off a debt which just keeps growing, maybe it’s an immigrant living in a special economic development zone from which one may neither move in nor out, maybe it’ll be you in a few years, without options in our race to the bottom global economy.

Mel Gibson’s Mickey Mouse Maya porn flick, “Apocoridiculo”

Posted on by
Reply

As if the US bigwig’s Iraq discussions are not pornographic and absurd enough for us all, along comes Mel Gibson’s new porn flick into theaters everywhere. Sasha Borat Cohen fucked Kazakhstan and world Muslims over royal, so that left Mel only with Native Americans to purvey.

I have seen the many US movie reviews that mainly treat Mel with religious adoration, and some have called it a Maya ‘Mad Max’ flick. But from the trailers, it appears to me to be more a pretend-Maya, Silence of the Lambs Chucky horror gorefest. Don’t expect historical and cultural authenticity here. It’s more a drunk Mel with the cops routine again.

“Officer, are you Mayan?”

Best review I came across was titled… Is “Apocalypto” Pornography? My vote is YES! Another Gonzo flick for porno nation, USA.

And what next from Walt Disney Studios? Mickey pumps Minnie you know where? Should be out soon I think.

The Economist shows its hue

Posted on by
Reply

The British press is held to a higher standard than the US media. Maybe because it’s thought they have a reputation to uphold, maybe the English accent lends an air of being better educated. The BBC is certainly trusted where their American counterparts are not, Cover of December 8 The Economisteven though the BBC is explicitly government controlled and Blair’s Labor Party has been complicit with Neocon adventuring everywhere there’s oil.
 
You might still hear even journalists revere London’s The Economist as the preeminent news weekly. If the magazine’s stance was on the whole conservative, at least it appeared thoughtful. What to make of this week’s cover, their response to the recommendations of the ISG report? I’d say The Economist has tipped its hand. Bravo. Oxford accent be damned, they are goose-stepping Neocon prigs.

Handle with care

Posted on by
Reply

Southern craker resists appleThe Snake King is dead. Tragically, Ali Khan Samsuddin, a fifth generation snake charmer, died last week in Kuala Lumpur after being bitten by a cobra. He had been bitten many times before and always managed to survive. Not so this time.

Though originally tied closely to religion, modern day snake handling is a trade without much religious significance. The religious practice of handling snakes does still exist, believe it or not, in the American South.

In 1992, a man named Glen Summerford stood accused of attempted murder after forcing his wife to put her hand into a cage full of snakes. He was the pastor of the Church of Jesus with Signs Following. Services at this tiny church, located in the Northern Alabama town of Scottsboro, include speaking in tongues, playing with fire and drinking strychnine from mason jars. But even more exciting is their practice of picking up poisonous snakes.

The faithful at the Church of Jesus with Signs Following interpret literally a passage in the Book of Acts: And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. When the Spirit moves ’em in Scottsboro, they get out the snakes.

Dennis Covington was a freelance journalist covering Summerford’s trial for the New York Times. After the trial was over, Covington was befriended by some of the snake handlers and other members of the church. He started to attend services at the church out of curiosity and, over the course of a few months, was pulled into a bizarre world of fundamentalist Christianity where “believers” base their entire Christian identity on one or two Bible passages. Apparent lunacy was the result of this type of limited Biblical interpretation.

While mainstream Christian fundamentalism is not quite as zany, nor as interesting, as it is in Appalachia, the practice of carving the Bible up into little passages and verses that serve particular agendas is just as common. Leviticus does say that for a man to lie with another man is an abomination. It also says that shellfish are an abomination. It says don’t cut your hair, don’t wear clothing made with two different materials. It’s okay to own slaves. Just don’t disrespect your father or you’ll be put to death. I say take one verse, take all. Or else step back and open up to a larger perspective, one that doesn’t diminish God or re-create him in our own limited image.by Dennis Covington
Fortunately, Dennis Covington escaped the cult and made it back to New York. He wrote about his experience in an amazing book called Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia. Covington says that the snake-handling experience confirmed his long-held suspicion that madness and religion are a hair’s breadth apart. That feeling after God is dangerous business. That Christianity without passion, danger, and mystery may not really be Christianity at all. I’m with Dennis on this. Let’s not reduce faith in God to a small-minded, verse-picking, powerless and fearful way of life. Gimme a snake.

Viva Chavez!

Posted on by
Reply

Chavez won with over 60% of the vote in last Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela. The US government is getting thumped hard in the northern regions of South America.

Washington’s man in Ecuador went down in defeat, too, just a week previous to Chavez winning his new 6 year term in office. And Colombia’s US puppet, Uribe, is facing a major scandal, as it seems that his party’s politicos are being exposed as being more death squad connected every other day now in the country’s press. Colombians are getting fed up with this murderer. Peru is unstable, and Bolivia also has gone with Evo Morales and the ‘Indians’ in the hills. What’s Washington to do?

It seems that for the moment, that Bush has decided not to go with another coup attempt in Venezuela. They would be flaming that kettle of gusanos from a position of weakness. Even Cuba looks as stable as ever. Castro is still in power, though it might be a Raul, and not a Fidel. The only area where it looks like D.C. is hanging on, is Mexico, as unstable as the current ‘dedazo’, Felipe Calderon, might be. President Fecal with his buddy Chente The Fox seems to have brutally suppressed the current rebellion in Oaxaca. And the north of Mexico appears too frozen in its shopping spree at Walmart, to raise much of a voice forward in favor of change.

Still, with Dubya in charge, Latin America will continue to disintegrate outward from US orbit. As the gringos go bankrupt, there’s not much for ‘Merica to offer in the days ahead. Viva Chavez! And the Zapatistas and APPO still are presente just south of us, too. All eyes seem focused on the Middle East, but meanwhile…. others are looking for liberation from the US, too.

The Democrats’ masochistic bondage games with Dubya and Dick

Posted on by
Reply

All the press is gaga about the conclusions of the Iran Study Group Report, but what is this thing? It is more than just Republican James Baker the the Third pronouncing his so very esteemed judgements about the fighting.

What we have here is the most climaxic portion of the Democratic Party’s bondage game with the Bush Adminstration, where Hillary and Nancy Pelosi get to play their masochistic roles to the hilt! …. Yes! Hit them harder, Dub! Oh…. Whip it quick, Dick!

Wimp Howard Dean and DP head announced pre-election that this Democratic Party bondage game would be continued to be played no matter what, but nobody liberal believed him. But then Nancy Pelosi came along and appointed Silvestre Reyes to be top dog of the House Intelligence Committee. Within a day or two, Silvestre the Cat was calling for not a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, but yet more to be sent in. Whip them Dubya. Whip them Dick. Pelosi is loving you hard.

To add to this extreme level of masochism by the Democratic Party, they agreed to sit in with Baker the Third and cochair the Iran Study Thing with Republican pirate, Baker the Third. Conclusion? We need to stay in there longer. Ouch! But it is such a controversial form of masochism for the Democrats to say that, too. I have never seen such a tolerance for punishment!

The report also called with getting buddy buddy with Iran and Syria to soothe the perversion in Iraq down just a bit, but Dick and Dubya want to flail those two countries apart, too. Masochists like the Democratic Party leadership can never top well from down below, it seems. Plus, Nancy and Hillary are playing with these sadist savages, Dick and Dubya, without seemingly ever having decided on a ‘safe’ word like, Out Now! Guys! It Hurts too much!

Internment camp Granada Colorado

Posted on by

Rocky Mountain News has more pictures of Camp Amache in Granada Colorado
It can happen here. It did.
 
Continuing our tour of the American penal system… we’re told about the WWII internment camps for Japanese-American citizens. Where were they? The Granada War Relocation Center, or Camp Amache, 1942-1945, was located near Granada Colorado, east of Lamar on Highway 50.

PFOA & Mermaids’ Tears

Posted on by
3

All the talk nowadays is about the threat that terrorism supposedly has on National Security. But reality is that Americans are more likely to be taken down by cancer or heart disease instead. Perhaps, companies like Dupont and 3M actualy pose much greater threats to our personal security than does al quaeda? Cheney would disagree, I am sure, but the evidence is not on his side.

Dupont, especially, is a company that has been engaged most recently in a tobacco industry style campaign of disinformation and cover-up about the dangers of PFOA, an artificial substance that has accumulated in 95% of us Americans. It’s produced by Dupont (and was also by 3M previously) for use in making fabrics and non-stick cookware, amongst other items. We’re talking Teflon and GorTex now. This is big moneymaker for Dupont, and they have been just a s stubborn about the reality that it causes cancer as Exxon-Mobil has been about denying that global warming is a world threat.

The headlines this week get yet worse about capitalist driven, factory production’s effects on life here on earth. It appears, too, that microscopic pieces of plastic are in ocean water in greater and greater concentrations and in the life forms that live in salt water, too. These are called mermaids’ tears. See the BBC article, Plastics Poisoning World’s Seas. Humans are filling up with PFOA, and sea life is collecting just plain old plastics in their bodies. Oh, along with mercury and numberous otehr toxins. I guess polar bears get it all, since they are finding PFOA in them, plus they also eat the fish filled with mermaids’ tears besides. Lesson. Don’t eat polar bear!

Both articles I linked to illustrate that capitalism does not self-regulate its production. To the contrary, capitalist enterprises deliberately produce harmful products that destroy the environment and destroy your health. The corporate management attitude is simply that if the product does not knock you over seconds after it you consumed it, then who cares about the longer term consequences? That can be hidden away from public view forever, or at least for centuries, oops but maybe only decades. But it can be hidden for the longest time, and by then, the consequences to public health have become enormous.

There simply is no effective observation of the dangers that these ‘free enterprises’ routinely put us in. It is if the meth lab next door was subject to no observation, no requirements to cease production, and the operators of it were also to be held in the highest public esteem even as they were cooking up a poisonous vapor for all the neighborhood. In fact, the neighborhood I lived in last before moving here, had both meth labs in the neighborhood, and a film production facility that did its dirty production at night, as vapors were then vented to float through our streets. Could I have called the police to check them out for safety and health? I think not. Our ‘botanical gardens’ there were run by the Benzene producing company that dominated the regional business community. Our big marine aquarium had a display where the enormous tank was filled with miniture oll derricks to explain to us the suppopsed benefits that the offshore oil rigs gave to sea life! The people effected by these criminal enterprises are nobodies, while the rich owners strut around as if they were the communities’ patron saints of benevolence.

The mermaids cry, the fish do die, and meanwhile, us humans keep dying of cancer. What a stupid way of ‘life’. All because we are taught to adore the rich, and to never, ever question them.

A Pearl Harbor timeline

Posted on by
Reply

I found this timeline which addresses the lead-up to what Franklin D. Roosevelt knew would be a day to live on in infamy. His.
Japanese attempt at SHOCK AND AWE, our permission slip to go to war

1904 – The Japanese destroyed the Russian navy in a surprise attack in undeclared war.

1932 – In the Grand Joint Army-Navy Exercises, 152 aircraft carrier planes caught the defenders of Pearl Harbor completely by surprise. It was a Sunday

1938 – Admiral Ernst King led a carrier-born airstrike from the USS Saratoga successfully against Pearl Harbor in another exercise.

1940 – FDR ordered the fleet transferred from the West Coast to its exposed position in Hawaii and ordered the fleet remain stationed at Pearl Harbor over complaints by its commander Admiral Richardson that there was inadequate protection from air attack and no protection from torpedo attack. Richardson felt so strongly that he twice disobeyed orders to berth his fleet there and he raised the issue personally with FDR in October and he was soon after replaced. His successor, Admiral Kimmel, also brought up the same issues with FDR in June 1941.

7 Oct 1940 – Navy IQ analyst McCollum wrote an 8 point memo on how to force Japan into war with US. Beginning the next day FDR began to put them into effect and all 8 were eventually accomplished.

11 November 1940 – 21 aged British planes destroyed the Italian fleet, including 3 battleships, at their homeport in the harbor of Taranto in Southern Italy by using technically innovative shallow-draft torpedoes.

In a letter of January 24, 1941, the Secretary of the Navy advised the Secretary of War that the increased gravity of the Japanese situation had prompted a restudy of the problem of the security of the Pacific Fleet while in Pearl Harbor. The writer stated: “If war eventuates with Japan, it is believed easily possible that hostilities would be initiated by a surprise attack upon the Fleet or the Naval base at Pearl Harbor. . . . The dangers envisaged in their order of importance and probability are considered to be: 1) air bombing attack; 2) air torpedo plane attack; 3) sabotage; 4) submarine attack; 5) mining; 6) bombardment by gunfire.” The letter stated the defenses against all but the first two were then satisfactory.

The Secretary of War replied February 7, 1941. Admiral Kimmel and General Short received copies of these letters.

11 February 1941 – FDR proposed sacrificing 6 cruisers and 2 carriers at Manila to get into war. Navy Chief Stark objected: “I have previously opposed this and you have concurred as to its unwisdom. Particularly do I recall your remark in a previous conference when Mr. Hull suggested (more forces to Manila) and the question arose as to getting them out and your 100% reply, from my standpoint, was that you might not mind losing one or two cruisers, but that you did not want to take a chance on losing 5 or 6.” (Charles Beard PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE COMING OF WAR 1941, p 424)

March 1941 – FDR sold munitions and convoyed them to belligerents in Europe — both acts of war and both violations of international law — the Lend-Lease Act.

23 Jun 1941 – Advisor Harold Ickes wrote FDR a memo the day after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, “There might develop from the embargoing of oil to Japan such a situation as would make it not only possible but easy to get into this war in an effective way. And if we should thus indirectly be brought in, we would avoid the criticism that we had gone in as an ally of communistic Russia.” FDR was pleased with Admiral Richmond Turner’s report read July 22: “It is generally believed that shutting off the American supply of petroleum will lead promptly to the invasion of Netherland East Indies…it seems certain she would also include military action against the Philippine Islands, which would immediately involve us in a Pacific war.” On July 24 FDR told the Volunteer Participation Committee, “If we had cut off the oil off, they probably would have gone down to the Dutch East Indies a year ago, and you would have had war.” The next day FDR froze all Japanese assets in US cutting off their main supply of oil and forcing them into war with the US. Intelligence information was withheld from Hawaii from this point forward.

14 August – At the Atlantic Conference, Churchill noted the “astonishing depth of Roosevelt’s intense desire for war.” Churchill cabled his cabinet “(FDR) obviously was very determined that they should come in.”

On October 16, 1941, the Commanding General, Hawaiian Department [Short], and the Commander in Chief of the Fleet [Kimmel], were advised by the War and Navy Departments of the changes in the Japanese Cabinet, and of the possibility of an attack by Japan on Great Britain and the United States.

18 October – diary entry by Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes: “For a long time I have believed that our best entrance into the war would be by way of Japan.”

November 24, 1941, the Chief of Naval Operations sent a message to Admiral Kimmel in which he stated that in the opinion of the Navy Department, a surprise aggressive movement … by the Japanese . . . was a possibility.

November 27, 1941, the Chief of Staff of the Army informed the Commanding General that hostilities on the part of Japan were momentarily possible.

On the same day (November 27, 1941) the Chief of Naval Operations sent a message to the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, which stated in substance that the dispatch was to be considered a war warning.

November 28, 1941, the Commanding General received from the Adjutant General of the Army a message stating that the critical situation required every precaution to be taken at once against subversive activities.

The Navy Department sent three messages to the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet; the first of December 3, 1941, stated that it was believed certain Japanese consulates were destroying their codes and burning secret documents; the second of December 4, 1941, instructed the addressee to destroy confidential documents and means of confidential communication; and the third of December 4, 1941, directing that in view of the tense situation the naval commands on the outlying Pacific islands might be authorized to destroy confidential papers.

On December 6, the Japanese government began sending a long message to its diplomats in Washington. The last part of that message arrived in the early-morning hours of December 7. Japanese diplomats Nomura and Kurusu prepared for a final meeting with Secretary of State Hull, knowing that they were being ordered to break off all negotiations with the U.S. What they didn’t realize was that the same message had been decoded and rushed to President Roosevelt and to the high commanders of the U.S. Army and Navy. The U.S. was now aware that Japan might strike somewhere in the Pacific, but a warning did not reach Pearl Harbor until nearly 8:00 a.m., Hawaii time. By then, Nomura and Kurusu were in Secretary Hull’s office, and Japanese bombs were falling onto the neat lines of U.S. warships in Pearl Harbor’s “Battleship Row.”

At about noon E.S.T. (6:30 a.m. Honolulu time) December 7, an additional warning message indicating an almost immediate break in relations between the United States and Japan, was dispatched by the Chief of Staff. . . . The delivery of this urgent message was delayed until after the attack.

The Commanding General [Short], the Commander in Chief of the Fleet [Kimmel] and their principal staff officers considered the possibility of air raids. Without exception they believed that the chances of such a raid while the Pacific Fleet was based upon Pearl Harbor was practically nil.

The Moon Fades- the beauty of the oud

Posted on by
Reply

If I had any ability as a musician, my instrument of choice to play would be the oud. In the US it is rare to have the opportunity to ever hear a live oud concert. Luckily, as a student at the University of Texas, I was able to attend several concerts of the legendary Sudanese oudist, Hamza El Din. I have been hooked on this instrument ever since.

A good introduction to the oud also can be found at Naseer Shamma’s website. He is Iraq’s master oudist. His site has seven albums by him showcased, with very good musical clips of one piece from each album. My favorite is the clip from the second album listed, The Moon Fades. Beautiful cover, beautiful melody, beautiful instrument, the oud. Go and enjoy.

If you are curious about the politics of this master musician from Iraq, check out an article about him at the newspaper, al Ahram.

What Bush and Osama together have taught the world

Posted on by
Reply

September 11 was important in world history, because Osama bin Laden taught the world that resistance to US domination was most effectively fought on US soil, and not the soil of the world’s oppressed nations.

Seems simple enough, but most victims of US foreign policy up to then had fought back directly against their own US propped-up puppet governments. Osama bin Laden globalized the resistance to US imperial policies by taking the fight to US soil. His message? Not to let D.C. fight the war solely on your home territories.

The 9/11 attacks might have not alone taught the world much of anything, if there had not been the Bush Adminstration team in office. That was the genius of Osama. He knew how elite American arrogance would most likely respond, being of elite lineage himself. He knew that the US ruling class would tend to try to destroy this new resistance against their world domination by using pure and total violence, much as the ruling class in Osama’s native Saudi Arabia does when threatened. But pure violence is dangerous since it tends to overheat like a nuclear meltdown occurring within the core of a reactor.

At present glance, it appears that nothing much has changed. The response of the Bush Administration to 9/11 was to up the level of violence against the peoples of the Third World states of Afghanistan, then Iraq, and next Lebanon No new attacks have occurred on American soil meanwhile. And as usual, there have been yet new hundreds of thousands of victims of the US military and its ME Frankenstein, the state of Israel’s IDF. The European governments have done their part, as junior cheerleaders of the US mandated blood bath outside their own continent.

But what will be the ultimate cost that the American people will eventually pay for sitting by and silently allowing its corporate-run government to go bezerk after 9/11? I talk not of the trillions of dollars in national debt that is being run off, but rather of the fact that the Bush Adminstration has practically guaranteed that Osama’s message did take root in the populations of the world.

Osama said let’s start a dirty war of attrition against the US rulers on their home soil. Osama had the ability to give the lesson that this was the Achille’s heel of US imperialism, but he didn’t have the organization to do much more than just explode one big bonfire or two for the passive and impoverished crowd he was trying to wake up to see. Bush has now given this previously dormant crowd the knowledge of the technique to create one, two, a thousand mini or maximum 9/11s in the years ahead.

It does not involve airports nor planes, And the world is more awake now. It is probably only a matter of weeks, or months at best, before the war stirs once again on the US mainland soil, but this time with newer techniques learned on Afghan and Iraqi soil. The ultimate price to be paid by Americans for their acceptance of this carnage, is that the carnage will most likely hit our soil once again, just like it hit New York previously.

So let’s look some at the new techniques to wage war on American soil. Let’s look at the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which is close cousin to the cluster bomb. The IED has accounted for about 1/3 of the US casualties in Iraq. The components of an IED are cheap and its materials easily found. And let us not think that only Muslims can use these devices within the US. Anybody can.

Ex- US soldiers can come back and construct them. Hispanics tired of the US messing with their countries can put them together. Gang members trafficking in illegal substances and human flesh can do the same. That’s what a dirty war is all about. The weak use weaker weapons against the more powerful, but weapons they do begin to use. Iraq plus 9/11 = the ability and desire by yet more people, to use cheap weapons against the US government on US soil. Bush has given that little shove that was needed to make Osama’s lesson to the world more effective.

These IEDs are what has been giving the Iraqi resistance its sharpening edge. But where might this dirty war of attrition begin to play out in yet another battlefield? See William S. Lind’s commentary, The Boomerang Effect that shows how one scenario most likely might occur.

Osama taught us that what goes around comes around. Americans have just yet to learn that lesson, though the Bush Klan is determined that we certainly will. Dubya, Dick, and Donald helped the world find the most hard to stop weapon that could be used against the American people. The IED. The lesson was learned in Iraq, but the whole world has been watching.

Alcatraz of the Rockies

Posted on by

Supermax fortress in Florence ColoradoWho’s being kept at SUPERMAX in Florence Colorado? Here’s a Frommer’s guide to the celebrity enemies of the state, actually an abridged list:

Ted Kaczynski -the Unabomber

Terry Nichols -1995 Oklahoma City bombing conspirator

Eric Rudolph -abortion-clinic bomber

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef -1993 bombing of the World Trade Center

Wadih El-Hage -1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa

Omar Abdel-Rahman -blind sheik convicted of plot to blow up New York City landmarks

Richard Reid -“shoe bomber”

Zacarias Moussaoui -9/11 conspirator

Antonio Guerrero -alleged spy, Cuban Five

Not on the list: Manuel Noriega, Kenneth Lay or OJ Simpson.

How well is the war in Iraq going?

Posted on by
1

Finally there is unity! The war in Iraq is not going well for the United States so say the press, the politicians, Rumsfield, even. Oh the suffering amongst the British and Americans. They did not forsee the unfolding problems. If only the Iraqis would act normal!

It’s so bad they say, you think that the American government would be suing for peace? Cut in run, don’t cut and run? How do we get out of this unfolding disaster for our beloved country? So now we are awash in crocodile tears we are. Boohoohoo. Our poor suffering America. Yes, and the entire elite spectacle is so sickening it makes one want to vomit.

And, yes, this spectacle even includes our churchly ‘peace movement’. One group of kind people, the nuns. were rushing around Colorado last week to send canned goods to the soldiers and their families. And now, the CS pacifists are beginning a countdown. Tick-tock-tick-tock. Look what’s been done to our soldiers! We are nearing the magical 3,000 mark! Time to light some candles and pray.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Iraqis, too! Mention them at the press release for when the clock strikes 3. Don’t let it strike 4! We beg of you. One would open one’s mouth to say something to them about this sad approach, but for the fact that lighting a candle or two is a major ‘peace action’ for them. They’re in motion now! So better to remain mum so that at least the ten or fifteen of them get their pictures in The Gazette and Indy as concerned folk.

All this wailing and despair. Both Democrats and Republicans are creasing their brows with worry and cold sweat. We’ve lost Iraq they moan. It’s all going so wrong! It’s become like one big sorry soap opera. Oh the agony, and Oh the guilt. We tried to do good, but we failed. Why, oh why, oh why? Maybe it was them? Yes that’s it. The Arabs cannot be trained!

All this would be way comical if it weren’t so absolutely pathetic. First all, the start of wartime didn’t begin yesterday with Bush’s invasion of Iraq. It didn’t begin with 9/11. It didn’t even begin with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. So where do all these stupid calculations begin? The liberal churchgoing peacenics would have it all start with the number ZERO, and would have our time of great despair calculated now at 3,000. It’s very Biblical to do it that way, but it is utter nonsense. US foreign policy effecting Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq have killed millions. ‘We’ lost less than 3,000 US soldiers in this time, and all America begins to cry like babies! Jesus H. Christ! Talk about being absolutely self-centered? YES, our society definitely takes the cake!

All this hysteria proceeds from the previous nonsense we have been spoon fed. Stuff about WOMD, protecting the sovereign country of Kuwait, helping establish democracy in the Middle East, and so on for ad nauseum. Can our elderly still remember all the nonsense about what a supposedly remarkable man was the Shah of iran? I date myself here, because I certainly can. Time Magazine, and all the usual rest of the pornographic US press, loved the guy! The Shah was the world master of running a state torture regime, like the one that America’s top criminals now copy so fanatically. Back then, it was claimed in the US that he was a man ahead of his time. Oh such a teacher that Donald and his ilk had! The Shah. Oh shit! Ask the British and they will show you how it started all way before even then.

And then, the unfortunate takedown. This modern day American hero, the Shah, fell. Tears. Where did ‘we’ go wrong? Where did this modern leader go wrong? We need to arm Osama and gang to the tune of multi-billions, and make the Soviets have their own Vietnam. Osama the freedom fighter! We need to cook up a war with Iran to show them we wouldn’t let them get away with thumping our patron saint, The Shah. So America and its buddies, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia armed Saddam Hussein. Killed a million plus.

Fast forward to now. Where did Bush go wrong, The chimp? Boohoohoo. It’s a bloodbath. And we get the ‘debate’ of the press corp buffoons. Stay the course, or cut and run? Yeah, but how ’bout we all just throw up? This is not a real debate our elites are engaging in, just a charade. A country that allowed its elites to destroy the lives of millions in this stretch of ME alone, deserves to go bankrupt. And we are! Boohoohoo. How we suffer they say! We approach 3,000 of our own dead, in the midst of this shower of blood we have constructed for others, and all the press propaganda brigade can talk about is American trauma! Nauseating. The real trauma for America will come when the bill arrives in the mail, Chumps.

Let’s face it. The war is going rather well. There have been 2 main goals for Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Lockheed, and President Cheney. Max out the profits that can be financed from the public treasury. And control the oil. These pied pipers of the Democratic and Republican politician rats are not going to ‘cut and run’. From what? They’re looking to extend the war, are they not? And for good reason. The war in Iraq is going well for them. Why not take it further? Why not make it permanent war? After all these decades of killing, the local peacenics can’t even get it together enough to get 100 people out to pray and light candles. The Iraq War is going well for the war machine. Three thousand? Oh get real, please.

The war in Iraq is going well; there is no anger in the air. Only religious pacifist good will. Feliz Navidad. When people get angry, they will not light candles and meditate. And without real anger, the bloodbath will go on.

Icarus icon

Posted on by
10

Not my iconI’m working on an idea for a logo, I mean icon -a personal icon. It could work in a static pose, or animated. Here’s the concept: Icarus.
 
Icarus escaped from wherever with attached wings but (against his father’s warnings) flew too high/close to the sun and died. What lesson is being taught here? There are plenty of depictions of Icarus faltering, just as the feathers melt off, and then falling. BUT WHAT OF ICARUS SOARING?

I want to portray Icarus sailing skyward, with the exuberance and vitality that drove him to believe he could go beyond his limit. That’s the lesson I’ take from the original story. In pursuing our ambitions, if we are diligent, we all will ultimately reach a height at which we are incompetent. The Peter Principle being perhaps the point. The apex, climax, mortality of flame. Life is, no matter what else, finite. We all die whether close or far from the sun. Instead of the Icarus story being one of warning, perhaps it illustrates the glory of life and mortality.

I’m struggling with several elements of that story right now: vitality, an energy limited by one’s concept of potential and purpose; and as I put writings and creative energy unto the web, competence. And so perhaps Icarus can be a model, to heed no warnings and fly higher. I’d make the animated graphic of Icarus flying toward the sun, the sun always an infinity away.

Lockheed and Bush are LunarTicks

Posted on by
2

I just love this new Bush plan to militarize green cheese! It’s all very Ray Bradbury even. Let’s put the Pentagon on the moon!
 
The way this is announced is to try to convince people that all their tax payer money is not going for warfare from way up high, but will just be an innocent little moon rock expedition. Of course, none of this will actually go as scheduled. By the time 2020 Space Odyssey roles around, the US will have a national debt of about a google’s google of dollars.

Look at it

Posted on by
3

Suspended by feet pants offSomeone’s leaked video footage of an interrogation/torture session in Iraq. Information Clearinghouse has a short clip, thankfully not completely explicit. I’m of two minds about whether to look. Because the scene will haunt you, I advise not looking. On the other hand, what about the poor victims of torture? Are they given such a choice? Look at the outrage we are perpetrating. Be queasy. Live with it. So long as we permit torture, condone it, and subject others to it, the least we can do is have it haunt us.

A word about this clip. Is it real? Who are the torturers? Are those American shouts among the Arabic? Who filmed this session? Could these have been Saddam’s thugs at work previous to the US invasion?

I would submit that those details matter only to the voyeur getting off on the clip. I could care less. No matter what and who we are seeing, we know it depicts what we Americans are doing. We’ve approved torture for use by our military, and American contractors are conducting interrogation sessions beyond what even has been tacitly approved. We know this. We know that our Denfense Department’s definition of permitted duress is the infliction of pain which falls just short of causing organ failure. That’s a lot of pain. The guys in the clip are just getting started.

Exit 41 on the road to Mumbai via New Hampshire

Posted on by
Reply

So what is the fast food management mindset that has led to Taco Hell having to close 4 restaurants, this week, in response to an E Coli outbreak? Well, take Exit 41 in New Hampshire to find out, but first, let this company’s website load. It takes just a couple of seconds. Exit 41

Yes, Big Dave, your company has gone totally mad since you passed away from an excess of fat. Wendy’s management is now outsourcing skilled labor, lol, to New Hampshire! But I doubt that it will stop here. Why not follow Dell Computers and others, and outsorce to India as well?

“Hi, this is Patel. That will be one Holy Cow square burger and a Mango Lassi. Will that be all?”

Can capitalism get any more efficient at alienating the Hell out of us all? Are you still listening to the.. uh.. music at Exit 41 and watching the little cars drive thru? Kind of captures the Milton Friedman essence of the thing, doesn’t it? And global warming be damned, too! Let’s get them cars moving, shall we? We need to speed up labor, and speed up consumption! Let’s turn people into little programmed consumer machines!