Smell test shows KONY 2012 viral vid tests positive for military grade virus

Solidarity with AngolaWas mainstream media endorsing a viral Youtube video your first clue that the Invisible Children campaign bears the suspicious signs of US war-making propaganda?! What “Save Darfur” was to Sudan, the CIA-spelled backward [Africa’s] Invisible Children operation is to Uganda. With its Libyan protector out of the way, Africa and its resources have never been more accessible, so now AFRICOM’s cross-hairs are on regional insurgent defenders. Apparently Joseph Kony is today’s poster villain, and those pitching a US intervention in Central Africa want to convince the public the engagement would have an exit strategy not to exceed 2012. Flowers and candy.

What are we holding against Joseph Kony, indoctrinating child soldiers? What are American recruiters doing in our middle schools but trolling for our Invisible Children who, undereducated, undernourished and unprotected from predatory militarist propaganda, succumb to the economic or criminal justice draft?

Stop recruiting US soldier terrorists

Did I hear this right — Minnesota families are alarmed that their young men are recruited to travel overseas to commit acts of terrorism? Except reporters aren’t talking about shadowy military recruiters with unfettered access to US classrooms and kindergartens enticing American youth to join the global capitalist Jihad, the alarm is about Somali relatives enjoining their fellow refugees to return to their homeland to defend Somalia against Ethiopian invaders.

Trouble is, al-Shabaab, the organization leading the fight in Somalia is being declared a terrorist organization by the US Government. Strange really, because the only acts of terrorism in Somalia are being committed by the US military or their Ethiopian proxy. But terrorism has always been defined by authoritarian propagandists as only what the enemy does. Whether it is a state or an insurgency.

I should think this is problematic when the definition of terrorism is linked to a religious cause. Radical Islam, it would seem, becomes by definition a terrorist goal. Is there not something about the separation of church and state that should hinder the US from deciding that one religion can be outlawed?

Doesn’t this mark an escalation of US state oppression — for the state to decide on which side of foreign struggles its citizens are permitted to weigh? How are foreign populist movements to manage lobbyists in Washington to ensure their struggle isn’t blacklisted as “terrorist?”

It does open the door to American domestic counter-recruiting efforts. Declare the US military a terrorist organization, and we can halt its recruiters in their tracks. No more fresh recruit pipeline to the occupation zones, no more “underground railroad” to Fort Hood. Have the US Congress declare our military a perpetrator of terrorism. It’s not a difficult argument to make. Evidence goes back to before US independence, when “Americans” fought dirty against the continent’s aboriginal population. Now examples of US state sponsored terrorism are gratuitous. The young men we send on Jihad return with haunted consciences from the acts they inflict on innocent populations. What are the motives of indiscriminate bombing, apprehension and torture, but pure terrorism to buttress subjugation to US goals?

Who says there is no good news?

1. Celebrity activists have joined to condemn the Toronto Film Festival’s celebration of the movie industry of Tel Aviv, inappropriate while an Israeli regime ruthlessly exterminates its Palestinian Problem by seizing their lands, driving them into exile, and interning those who refuse to leave in the ghettos of Gaza and the West Bank, then making warm fuzzy movies about it.
2. Iraqi Bush Shoe-Thrower Muntadhar al-Zaidi has been freed! He says he was tortured for his act, but he didn’t regret it. “I got my chance and I didn’t miss it,” he said, now missing a few teeth. The US media is equating Joe Wilson’s affront to earnest debate to al-Zaidi’s internationally-hailed angry repudiation of a lying mass-murderer. Good luck with that.
3. Activists have been arrested for protesting war recruiting in a Philadelphia mall where children were being offered an “Army Experience Center”. Alright, arrests are not good news, in particular when they include the OpEdNews reporter covering the action, but it’s always encouraging to see Americans stand between Army recruiters and their prey.

Note on #1: Signers of the complaint to the TIFF, who include Naomi Klein and Howard Zinn, explain that they are protesting the festival’s framing of the Israeli films, they are not “black listing” the films as the defenders of Israel charge. To me, equating a protest of the festival to blacklisting smacks of decrying “anti-Semitism.”

The chief celebrities rushing to counter the TIFF complainants are, according to the Toronto Star: Jerry Seinfeld, Natalie Portman, Sacha Baron Cohen , Lisa Kudrow, David Cronenberg, Minnie Driver, Simon Wiesenthal Center founder and filmmaker Marvin Hier, Cineplex Canada CEO Ellis Jacob, Norman Jewison, Lenny Kravitz, Sherry Lansing (former head of Paramount Studios), producer Robert Lantos, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Interesting pattern?

In the interim, a UN probe determines war crimes were committed in Gaza incursion, and US envoy seeks to reach compromise with Israel over illegal settlements.

Barack Obama is your president

Does the presidential plane say NIGGER?COLORADO SPRINGS- The superintendent of District 12 schools announced Friday that Barack Obama’s address to schoolchildren on Tuesday will not be shown in his district’s schools. I’m no defender of this president, but I have to ask, what possible rationale could excuse such disrespect? It’s probably too easy to decry racism, so what’s left?

Personally, of course, I could imagine steering schoolchildren clear of George W. Bush. Old President Bush had a 13% or so approval rating. Foreign leaders dismissed him as a moron. It was whispered that he’d resumed drinking, and it was common knowledge that he’d been a cocaine user until his forties. George Bush was no example for impressionable youth. What parent could hold him up as a role model, other than the town drunk or village idiot who was not to be emulated? But I’m certain the same schools just a year ago would never have crossed that president.

Setting aside his surprising political turns, Barack Obama projects inspiring leadership qualities. He speaks intelligently with attentiveness and compassion. His message to children is to be one of encouragement in the hard times ahead, dealing with the increased imperative of higher education. Recent generations have been growing successively nihilistic. Perhaps the economy’s turn is an appropriate occasion for a president to address our nation’s kids. We like to call them our future.

Bush gave our schools the disastrous NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT which completely degraded public schools and ushered the calls for privatization of education under the guise of Charter Schools. In Colorado, Bush’s measure prompted the CSAPs, which hobble teachers by requiring classes to focus on passing standardized tests, instead of teaching broader lessons. Bush’s act also guarantees that military recruiters have access to the personal records of our children at their most vulnerable, to more easily prey upon them when they are rebellious teens. Bush was no friend of schoolchildren.

Election button 2008Obama on the other hand won a decisive victory in November, and no small number of his supporters were young children. Many teachers were pushing for Obama and his promise of hope, in the midst of a culture of pessimism sowed by George W. and his destructive agendas. Bush waged war against everything schoolchildren are fostered to care about. Obama’s campaign represented salvation for our planet. How now are school administrators prepared to extricate the students from their own personal rapport with the new president?

To quote a favorite Twit, Badbanana:

Obama is going to address the nation’s schoolchildren? One good fart joke and the Democrats control Congress for 60 years.

We know of course the high pitched extremists groups whom the superintendent thinks he is placating. They are the Teabaggers and Birthers who reject Obama as president. “He’s not my president” they say. They learned the phrase from their adversaries who protested the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, but never understood its meaning. Obviously they have nothing to teach children about the workings of democracy.

At the recent health care town hall hosted by Congressman Doug Lamborn, I had a chance to witness these Birthers, so named because they reject Barack Obama’s birth certificate. They are so certain that Obama will be discovered to be foreign born and will thus be stripped of the presidency. “Three More Months, Three More Months” they countered, while progressive citizens were chanting for health care reform.

Ed Bircham of Bircham Office ProductsLocal wing nut business owner Ed Bircham was dancing a jig singing “Ho Ho, Obama’s Got To Go, Ho Ho.” Egged on by KVOR djs and unabashed gay-bashers, Ed Bircham repeated his calls for Obama’s removal from office.

Incredible. Obama hasn’t done anything yet –which is my complaint– so what have the teabaggers against him? It’s patently absurd, if it wasn’t so obviously bigoted. “No Country For Old Bigots” I yelled.

Actually I joined local NAACP leader James Tucker in interjecting “Obama Is Your President” between Bircham’s call for his ouster. “Respect Your President” we found ourselves saying, even as I knew that I would not hold myself to such restraint. On the other hand, my opposition to President Obama has nothing to do with his skin color. On what principles do these white men disagree with Barack Obama, except that they’re not about to show deference to a nigger?

Cindy, Lockerbie, recruiters, organ theft

Four great reads: AntiWar.com’s John Walsh describes Cindy Sheehan’s reception at Martha’s Vineyard: Barack Obama to Cindy Sheehan: get lost. John Pilger decodes the indignation about Scotland’s release of a terrorist: Lockerbie: Megrahi was framed. Mother Jones’ David Goodman details the military recruitment of American school kids: A Few Good Kids. An interesting inquiry into Professor Yehuda Hiss and Palestinian organ theft: The autopsy surgeon Aftonbladet forgot.

DMNS refutes allegations of data misuse

NOTMYTRIBE received this response from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to our post: IS THE MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE GATHERING PRIVATE DATA FOR HEALTH INSURERS? In the July 26 article I outlined concerns that medical data specialists could be harvesting checkup results conducted on visitors to the DMNS exhibit “Expedition Health.”

July 29, 2009

Dear Eric,

As the Curator of Human Health at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, and a member of the team that created the Expedition Health exhibition, I can say unequivocally that visitor information recorded in the exhibition is NEVER shared with insurers, and the “signs of subterfuge” you detail in your blog have no basis in fact.

Privacy issues were a top consideration in the development of Expedition Health because the exhibition was deliberately designed to be highly personalized. Based on research and best practices in informal science education, we know that people learn human biology better when they’re learning about their own bodies, not the human body in general. The data that visitors provide when they sign-in to get their Peak Pass serves no other purpose but to customize Expedition Health for each person with the goal of creating a relevant, empowering, educational and memorable experience.

While visiting Expedition Health, visitors can choose to participate in activities that record their resting heart rate, their target heart rate, their height and arm span, their stride length, speed and energy score. These activities are designed to provide data that is accurate, but this information is not intended to be used for any clinical or diagnostic purpose. The true reason for this data collection: through these measurements, visitors see that their bodies are constantly changing in ways they can see, measure and optimize though healthy lifestyle choices.

Contrary to the claims made in your blog, we do not collect biometric data such as fingerprints,, voice patterns, retinal scan, etc., nor do we gather information about diet preferences, weight, body fat ratio, “stress test” results, vital statistics or present/past tobacco or sunscreen use. Visitors are challenged to build a healthy meal and see hypothetically what they might look like based on lifestyle choices such as wearing sub block.

Information provided by visitors in Expedition Health—information that personalizes the experience and therefore enhances the educational experience—is stored in a secure database. This database does not interface with the Museum’s ticketing systems. A very limited number of staff members in the Museum have access to the visitor information that is gathered at the exhibit components. The data is kept so that visitors can look at their information and extend their learning experience at home by logging on to their own unique and secure web site.

Visitors have two weeks to access their information online. Every two weeks, 98 percent of our visitors have their data purged from the database because they have not accessed it online after their visit to Expedition Health. The remaining two percent of visitors who elected to see their data online and extend their learning experience have their data saved in the database for six months should they wish to access their data again. The Museum never shares this data with any outside entities.

Finally, the Museum maintains as strict policy with donors when it comes to the development of exhibition content and the sharing of information gathered in the exhibition. Kaiser Permanente Colorado is the presenting sponsor of Expedition Health, and the lead donors include Boettcher Foundation, The Colorado Health Foundation, and Gates Family Foundation, a Colorado-based foundation that is not connected with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. While these organizations did provide funding, they did not have any involvement in content development for Expedition Health, nor have they ever received any visitor information recorded on Peak Passes. This distinct separation between content and funding is critical to the Museum’s long-standing credibility.

As the region’s leading resource for informal science education, the Museum is committed to presenting objective scientific content, and retains control of and responsibility for all exhibits and programs. When the Museum developed Expedition Health, we worked to ensure that our new exhibit was firmly grounded in the most current biological science and was relevant to visitors. All content in Expedition Health was created or vetted by Museum staff members—scientists, educators and exhibition designers—with the help of a blue ribbon advisory board. Our overall aim with Expedition Health is to broaden visitors’ knowledge of human biology, disease, and wellness, and inspire the application of these discoveries to their lives.

I respectfully request you post this response online. If you would like to discuss this further, I invite you to contact me directly at the Museum.

Sincerely,

Bridget Coughlin, PhD

Thank you Dr. Coughlin, we are eager to take you up on your offer. Ultimately I would hope to see the museum provide its visitors a written assurance of what you’ve explained.

Ours is a surveillance society where military recruiters are granted access to high school records, where consumer profiles are traded among marketers, and health insurers are pushing to overcome national privacy safeguards by digitizing all medical records. You have explained that the “Expedition Health” exhibit is not collating its data with others. Because current technology makes clandestine data harvesting feasible, perhaps the museum could introduce firewalls to demonstrate how their visitors’ anonymity remains protected. This would offer more comfort than docents who assure patrons that the information is purged every night, or you, who explain it is purged after two weeks.

You had a good home but You Left (You’re Right!)

Your Recruiter LIED to you so you Left (You’re Right!) Classic Basic Training marching cadence chant.
You’re all supposed to be “in step” because if you have a single person planting his left foot forward while everybody else is planting the Right, a Column Left or a To the rear, March! command or any other won’t work out correctly.
If The Military is such a good career move, why would the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo and others have to donate the proceeds to “Military Charities”?

Go on Craigslist and in Barter and Free classifications, and Rants & Raves you find military families, especially right before payday, begging for FOOD. Food which is subsidized at the Commissary, the Post Exchange and the Base Exchange.

And, these families, they’re not kidding. They actually ARE hurting.

But the Recruiters still Lie through their teeth. Daily.

They even have special programs TARGET-ing poorer kids, Minorities…

In Hispanic and Black neighborhoods the recruiter drives around in a “tricked-out” Hummer with a sound system blaring Hip-hop, the recruiter himself is going to be Ethnically Matched to the neighborhood or barrio, and a younger guy, and even with that will be TRAINED in Street Talk as though it were a foreign dialect.

Are they foolin’ the 18 year olds (17 and dropped out of school if yo’ Momma signs you in)? Apparently not. They give out their pamphlets to pre-teens.

Recruiting Children for a Later Date With Death.

For the 17 and 18 year olds, they break out the Economic Opportunity and the closely related Educational Opportunity bullshit.

But then, the U.S.O., Red Cross, Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo… they come right along and spoil the lie. Because those organizations have to scramble to raise funds, beg a little less obviously…

But the Recruiter Lies are spoiled only if the kids see or hear or read something like this.

All y’all young dudes who want to sign up, try this first… when you turn 16 and can legally do it, volunteer at the VA hospital.

Hang back a little, don’t crowd, let the Human Misery speak for itself. And the humans who are suffering that misery. Go around emptying the wastebaskets and dry-mopping the floor in the waiting rooms, listen to the guys and ladies talking to each other, listen to their stories about how the VA is screwing them.

Volunteer at the U.S.O. and there are others, fill out forms for the guys and Ladies.

See people and talk to them and try your best to help them when the VA screws them.

When a guy is dying from a service related cancer like you get with Agent Orange or from the Uranium Poisoning, that the VA officially denies even exists, try to help him get his basic medical needs tended to.

Volunteer to read or sing to the guys in a Persistent Vegetative Coma. Or the guys who can’t communicate, can’t see, but are conscious under the bandages.

Keep in mind when you’re doing it that some of these guys are laying there with half their body mass taken off by American fire.

Then when you see the Recruiter rolling through the ‘hood jamming some tunes…

See all the young kids flocking around eager to be part of the next Children’s Crusade…

Eager to be lied to, eager to be seduced into the Glorious War.

Listen to the commercials again, watch with fresh eyes as they Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines tell the parents of kids too young to legally join on their own to go ahead and sign the papers for their sons and daughters.

Telling young guys who are dropping out of High School that somehow the Army is going to pull off a magic trick that will get them into College and a highly paid profession.

Because you KNOW, don’t you, that if Yo Momma is signing you in, that means you’re not 18 and there’s very little chance that you completed High School.

And that those commercials are aimed at the guys who are having trouble in school and about to drop out anyway.

When the Recruiter rolls through the ‘hood blasting the jams, walk up to him and tell him, in front of his intended victims, that he’s a damned liar. Print this up and make your OWN pamphlets.

I’m not saying commit acts of violence against him, or vandalism.

That perpetuates the Hate cycle and nothing more.

Even though it would be entertaining to watch one get dragged out of his tricked out Liar-Mobile and having a case of Advanced Whoopage liberally applied, don’t do it.

Confront Hate with Hate and everybody loses. Confront the Hate and the Lies with truth.

It’s our only weapon, and it’s more effective than all their bombs, and guns, and Air-shows, and “see how many chinups you can do” demonstrations, all their pamphlets and commercials and their Tricked Out Humvee can ever be.

You know how I can tell? Because they’re having so much trouble trying to recruit people that they’re going after the young kids now.

The kids are getting smarter and asking more questions. The Army loses. Too bad, so sad. They shouldn’t be trying to convince Kids to go and kill for the “super-patriots” so the “super-patriots” can make money off their lives, and deaths, and the lives and deaths of those people whose countries are being stolen for their resources.

The “super-patriots” who like Bush and Cheney and Wolfowicz and Limbaugh and O’Reilly, aren’t going to enlist and when they had to do so, they had their parents buy their way out of the Draft.

They expect YOU to die for THEIR comfort and riches. And pay you so little for it that your families will literally have to Beg in order to survive.

Our own IDF propagandist blows gasket

DanMore from our IP-swapping blog spammer in Newark NJ: He pretends to be a NYU law student, although he trolls here 24/7; he says he’s read over 1000 books on the Middle East, but his comments never stray from pro-Israel website talking-points –even his “personal anecdotes” can be traced to Israel Internet Megaphone PDFs.

In reality he’s an appliance salesman in New Jersey who changes his username and IP to appear to be several people, who all bring up Israel, regardless the subject. My guess is he’s under the employ of the IDF Haganah propaganda arm, of which the US internet PR work is subcontracted to US private military contractors, staffed by telecommuting veteran invalids, but that’s entirely conjecture.

The evolution of “David-Daniel-Melissa’s” spam grew from dullard contradictions to flat out goading when we cut him off. He asserts we censored his comments out of cowardice because we couldn’t refute them. Want a look-see at what you’ve been missing? It appears to me that IDF hiring standards have to be lower than even those of US military recruiters.

We present these statements to give context to his earlier propaganda spam:

David Chinitz, IP: 71.187.131.55, May 14, 5:51 PM
Hey, poor white trash, go back to high school and graduate before writing about foreign affairs, you dumb, ugly ass.

David Chinitz, IP: 71.187.131.55, May 14, 8:27 PM
Hey, Eric, how’s life for the ball-less wonder?

David Chinitz, IP: 96.242.105.25, May 15, 2:58 PM
Yo, members of the Colorado Trailer Trash Society. How are you. Eric, grow a pair of balls, yet, you dumb coward.

Mamie Eisenhower, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 11:01 AM
Hey Tony, how’s the world of white trash today. Seems your ignorance extends far and wide, eh? Life must be tough for a high school drop out and a total degenerate.

Mamie Eisenhower, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 11:03 AM
But, Tony, you’re a high school dropout and a degenerate doper and alky, making you the ultimate dumb ass, you dumb ass. You are a pathietic example of human life.

Mamie Eisenhower, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 11:06 AM
Eric, why don’t you impress everyone with your impeccable academic credentials? LOL You’re as dumb as your high school dropout colleague Tony and the proctologist’s assistant Marie. What a sorry lot you losers are.

The Pope, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 3:15 PM
The staff of NMT are some of the most uneducated white trash losers I’ve ever come across. You have Eric, who attended community college, Tony, a drunk high school drop out junkie and Marie, a proctologist’s assistant. Such a collection of cretins is hard to find elsewhere.

Flying Nun, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 3:18 PM
I must agree. Eric, Tony and Marie are three of the most uneducated misfits I’ve ever seen. Eric and Tony delete posts that they are incapable of refuting, making thie blog totally bogus, baby!

Blake, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 4:45 PM
Marie, what is worse, being a proctologist’s assistant, or a drunken, drugged out high school drop-out like Tony?

Picasso, IP: 96.242.100.31, May 16, 6:07 PM
The Israelis are doing the opposite of taking land, you dummies. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and returned the Sinai to Egypt, which was three times the size of Israel. Being drunk, drug addicted and a high school dropout is such a pathetic way to go throug life.

Saipan abuses impervious to outrage?

A 2006 article in MS Magazine exposed labor abuse in the US territories of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Have conditions changed since protectors Tom Delay and Jack Abramoff were dislodged? Consider that US Senator Daniel Kahikina delivered this condemnation of human exploitation in the Saipan in 1998.

The Commonwealth shares our American flag, but it does not share the American system of immigration.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a CNMI immigration system that issues permits to recruiters, who in turn promise well-paying American jobs to foreigners in exchange for a $6,000 recruitment fee. When the workers arrive in Saipan, they find their recruiter has vanished and there are no jobs in sight. Hundreds of these destitute workers roam the streets of Saipan with little or no chance of employment and no hope of returning to their homeland.

The State Department has confirmed that the government of China is an active participant in the CNMI immigration system. There is something fundamentally wrong with an immigration system that allows the government of China to prohibit Chinese workers from exercising political or religious freedom while employed in United States.

Something is fundamentally wrong with a CNMI immigration system that issues entry permits for 12- and 13-year-old girls from the Philippines and other Asian nations, and allows their employers to use them for live sex shows and prostitution.

Finally, something is fundamentally wrong when a Chinese construction worker asks if he can sell one of his kidneys for enough money to return to China and escape the deplorable working conditions in the Commonwealth and the immigration system that brought him there.

There are voices in the CNMI telling us that the cases of worker abuse we keep hearing about are isolated examples, that the system is improving, and that worker abuse is a thing of the past. These are the same voices that reap the economic benefits of a system of indentured labor that enslaves thousands of foreign workers — a system described in a bi-partisan study as “an unsustainable economic, social and political system that is antithetical to most American values.”

There is overwhelming evidence that abuse in the CNMI occurs on a grand scale and the problems are far from isolated.

The reasons for Military Service, Training and Recruitment Programs…

Such as the Youth Programs which the Right WingNuts are so upset because we compare them (correctly) to the HitlerJugend.
I am fully aware that everything I write here will be denied and called false, simply because the Pentagon says differently.

But the reasons many have put forth about the mission of the Military and Paramilitary Youth groups as to what their Training Programs are set to accumplish are purest bullshit.

Joining the Military to get health benefits, education, build a career or to get your life together, for instance.

The military doesn’t care about your health beyond what is necessary for you to complete your mission.

And that mission is to Kill when you are ordered to do so.

The Military likewise doesn’t care if you remain uneducated, in fact, Education is contrary to the training mission.

People who are educated, who think independently, are a liability to the mission of the Military, which is to Kill when you are ordered to do so.

Thinking for yourself would make you question your orders.

The Military does not exist as a Career Opportunity, if you can make a career of the Military they won’t object, but the primary mission is for you to Kill when you are ordered to do so.

If it’s done by Career people or people who are in only for one enlistment it doesn’t matter.

The Military does not exist as your own publicly funded private counseling service.

They don’t care if you “become a man” or “straighten out your life” by or through their training.

The training is to make you accept, without ever questioning orders, their mission, which, once again, is to Kill People when you are told to do so.

After you complete your “duty” to Kill People when told to do so, and you are out of the Military either through being killed, wounded so badly that you are no longer of any use to the Military and their mission, if your enlistment is finished or you retire, the Military no longer has any reason to care about your Education, your health care, your career goals or your lifestyle.

The “goals” you set as a reason for Military service are your own affair.

The so-called Benefits are a Recruitment Pitch, and remember, the Recruiter gets paid more for every kid he gets to join the service.

Paid more directly in bonuses and paid more in promotion in rank, rank being your Pay Grade.

The Recruiter is literally selling you to the Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines.

The training regimen is designed to make you obey without thinking and without question.

Whether in the Marine Corps, other branches of the Military such as the Air Force, or the Kiddie Korps like Devil Dogs, the fundamental part of the training is a technoque politely called Pavlovian Conditioning.

Other groups who use this Conditioning Technique are Cults, Dictatorships, Torturers, and Prisons.

When Cults do the same technique, it’s called Brainwashing.

When the Red Chinese did the same thing in order to SUCCESSFULLY control the prisoner of war camps in the Korean War, it was called Brainwashing.

Did you know, there was not ONE prison insurrection nor even ONE escape from the Chinese prison camps?

The level of severity of the training regimen doesn’t make any difference.

The end result is the same if you’re in the Marines or in the Air Force or The People’s Temple or in Devilpups.

Devilpups would have the least Intensive training of them because they’re working with children, and that does NOT mean that they’re “going soft on the kids”.

It simply means that kids are easier to train to follow orders.

They’re more prone to accept “groupthink”.

It’s the same reason Reverend David Wilkerson said in his book “The Cross and the Switchblade” that they YOUNGEST gang members were the most dangerous.

And in truth, they ARE.

It’s the same reason the United States Army Office of Special Services, the precursor to today’s C.I.A., wrote in training manuals for Resistance Groups in Axis-occupied countries that children as young as 12 make the most effective recruits in these organizations.

It’s the reason the U.S. Government Claims to oppose “terror” groups like Hizbollah and the Resistance in Gaza and Iraq and Afghanistan.

They feel so bad for these poor kids that they imprison them, torture and kill them the same as though they were adults.

In other words, crocodile tears.

It’s the reason Military Recruiters are allowed to ply their Sick Trade among Elementary School kids.

A little break for the AIPAC ChickenHawks Flooding the Site..

Something more the War-mongering Freaks can bitch whine and snivel about, Welcome back, David Haddad errr “Mary”
 
So, since unabashed ChickenHawks like Glenn Beck like to “donate” Tax Deductible stuff like free airtime on their “news” shows, and the USO is begging for money for the families of the troops…
How, then, can the Recruiters claim in other (taxpayer funded) advertisements that the Military is a Good Career?
A few background items, if you will.

Glenn Beck, Chickenhawk, in 2007 participated in a “charity” Auction and one of the articles he donated (For a Tax Break…) a really really butt-ugly painting.

The bidding on it at the point where I tuned in, was 3400 dollars.

That means, for a few minutes of his time, about $10 worth of paint and a $30 canvass, he was getting a Tax Break to the tune of $3400.00

And publicity for his show, which consists almost entirely of licking Government Boot for an hour at a time.

He earns Is GIVEN his pay for Promoting The War and thus the very poverty/slash/hardship conditions the Military Personnel have to endure.

An Establishment Media Whore like that then gets to Pretend that he gives a damn about the Soldiers, their wives and children/slash/widows and orphans…

Gets paid to spew his drivel on the Air and then gets paid again by “donating” something to the USO.

His equally Cowardly Loud-mouthed War-Monger Friend who bought the painting also got to take an equal tax deduction

So far, that was $6800 dollars taken off their taxes,

The Same Taxes Which Form The Basis For The Costs Of The War

So they’re not only getting OTHER People to Fight for their Obscene profit Margins Ooops I was supposed to say “our Freedom”, thus putting the Soldiers and their families in dire financial straits…

They’re Getting Paid To Sell the “necessity” of THEIR War to those of us who DO pay taxes, and thus PAY THEIR BILLS for THEIR War…

On a show that gets Government Subsidies as well,

And make a huge Show of Concern for those poor families of the Soldiers.

The Soldiers who are being aggressively recruited even before they leave high school, whose Parents are being told several times an hour to support the decisions of their sons and daughters Sign The Papers Allowing Their Underage CHILDREN to drop out of school and join the Killing Machine.

Because being an Imperial Storm Trooper is such a Good Economic and Educational Opportunity.

It’s Payday today. because the 1st is on a weekend.

Since the middle of the month Military families have been seeking donations to just feed the kids until the end of the month.

People who get Food Stamps.

That’s not a slur against the families or the soldiers themselves.

The “Welfare Cadillac” Food Stamp Queen (who is invariably depicted as Black, although our Republican “Friend” tells us that the propaganda they put out is not Racist at all in any way, shape or form) Is And Always Was a Mythological Construct.

People don’t get rich off being on welfare.

Although the Right Wing Professional Liars, like for instance Glenn Beck, tell us that they do.

Remember though, in the Information Age, their lies about How Righteous and Noble the War is, how we’re obviously Winning the War, how Everybody in the Army Loves The War, How Great a Career The Army is…

Get shown simultaneously with advertisements begging for relief for their families, ads for the Army recruiting CHILDREN to quit school, give up any chance of a real educational opportunity, and Join The Storm Troopers… because they can’t retain enough of the soldiers who are already in their Glorious Wonderful Marvelous Career to keep fighting a war that was supposedly won 5 years ago.

Excuse me, that last figure is inaccurate… it was 5 1/2 years ago.

I wonder if the AIPAC Anti-Semitic types who post all these long letters that say “blah blah blah Israel is always right blah blah blah you’re ignorant to say otherwise blah blah blah how DARE you criticize people for being Babykillers blah blah blah”

I wonder if they’re getting a tax-break for it, or maybe just making money from the “Defense” Industry which is supplyin’ the (Israeli Puppet) Army with the tools of the Trade?

Or is it

D) All Of The Above.

Pardon, your hypocrisy is showing.

More outrageous fight-pickin’ speech about Chambliss…

It’s a strong case of poke-poke-poke at him with a stick in the hopes that he’ll go ballistic.
Or any of his supporters, especially locally.

Like when I point out that the “medical problems” that kept him from joining Martin and Cleland in Viet-Nam was this strange yellowish rash on his abdomen and running from his neck to his buttocks along his spine.

I don’t mind people not going to war, in fact I encourage people not to go to war. Where it starts to bug me is when they develop mystery illnesses like Spinal Jaundice (Chambliss) rectal pimple Limbaugh, Mormon Missionary Duty Romney, Too Stupid to find his way to the recruiters office Giuliani…

And then insist that Other People have a duty to go to Viet-Nam or Iraq, in place of their coward arses.
Is it a personal attack against the “man”? Hell yes.

Resoundingly and Proudly YES!!

Just like that other protegé of McBush Jr and Karl Rove, Not-Joe the Not-a-REAL-Plumber, who also is conveniently not serving in the War he Claims to support…

Both of the chickenshit grovelling toadie bastards also use Claims to be Heirs to the Confederacy as well, trying to put themselves up front as Real Macho He-Man Warrior Class individuals…

When they’re essentially loud-mouthed cowards.

I hear tell that Chambliss’ REAL great great grandpappy was a Carpetbagger from New Jersey.

See, it used to be that Southern Gentlemen would be so offended by being characterized like that they would challenge you to a Duel, swords or pistols at sunrise, My Second will be Calling on you, Suh…

Or take another slug of ‘shine and jump up and attempt to beat the living dogshit out of you.

I don’t think either of these Faux-Confederate “Heroes” would do anything that would put themselves in physical danger though.

Nor would any of the wannabees who have bumper stickers saying “I’m voting for Joe the Plumber”.

Marine recruiters pursue high schoolers

COLORADO SPRINGS- I saw a local military-education atrocity the other day when I passed a school as kids recessed for lunch. Next time I’ll have a camera and I won’t be alone making sure it doesn’t happen again.

You’ve seen it at outdoor fairs, the Marine recruiter canopy. Bolt upright Marines stand in uniform around a chin-up bar beckoning teenage boys to come show off their upper body strength. Usually there’s a tank-topped ringer crediting his biceps to a military regimen.

In past this was as innocuous as any misappropriated emphasis on physical fitness. The services were voluntary after all, and short of the special forces, most military duty was served at sleepy bases in Germany, Korea or Okinawa. Of course, since Granada we’ve come to see how much more combat our soldier boys have been seeing.

These days with high casualties in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and growing conflicts in Somalia and Sudan, covert exposure in Georgia, Colombia and elsewhere, the prospect of the military getting their claws on your child takes on a sinister consequence.

Probably today’s chin-up bar would be akin to the archery tournaments of medieval days. Fun, irresistible, a sure ticket off the farm but to a destiny of a vagabond with a lost limb if you were lucky. Mothers no doubt cautioned their boys against showing off their bow and arrow skills, just as today they might panic about military recruiters seeing their kids’ Xbox scores.

Today I passed by Palmer High School at about lunch time. Kids were pouring out the front doors to spend their lunch hour in Acacia Park across the street. What did I spy, not in the city park, but right in front of the school building, but a handful of smartly dressed Marines with their chin-up bar. Right at the front door. You’d have to walk around around them to get in or out.

All around the red-painted chin-up bar were high school peers watching as others stood in line waiting for their chance to show their strength. There you have it. If I’d had my camera, I could have gotten the red bar, the formal marine uniforms, their cohorts in black wife-beaters, and all the eager kids, right beneath the WILLIAM J. PALMER HIGH SCHOOL lettering above the school entrance. I wonder how many mothers that image would have pleased.

A call to the counselor’s office revealed that the recruiters cannot be denied from visiting a school at a moment’s notice. A further conversation with the principal revealed that the recruiter’s presence is supposed to be no more than a table with literature. The circus attraction was news to him. But a quick survey of a couple high schoolers revealed that the chin-up bar attraction has made the rounds before.

I imagined circulating among them with antiwar fliers, and earning the teenager scorn as if I was crashing a scene to which they were already wise. Kids know everything these days, except of course they do not. Nothing’s changed over the centuries, neither war predatory appetite, nor a child’s vulnerability, nor their stubbornness to defy wisdom.

I think it’s the same foot you have to put down on drugs. You, Mister Know-it-all, may think you’ve got your eye on the ball beneath that shell game, but the scheme’s much larger than your peripheral vision. You’re in school to learn about widening your view, and before you graduate there are predators whose only crack at you will be during adolescence.

Young would-be drinkers often raise the argument that if you’re old enough to serve your country in the army, you should be old enough to drink alcohol. Now it’s true that the soldier-makers want you in your prime. Except for that perversion of a life’s purpose, we need to turn that comparison on its head. If you’re not ready for alcohol, perhaps you shouldn’t be let near the soul-changing fork in the road presented by a military recruiter.

Support your junior proto-fascists

German Girl Scout
What are the Girl Scouts exactly? Like Boy Scouts, they wear uniforms; and not Catholic school uniforms, or sports team uniforms, but military uniforms, of colors made to camouflage a wearer in nature. We know Baden-Powell was about well-behaved boys, kept off the street, appreciating conservationism. Did he have to dress them like soldiers?

Couldn’t girl scouts, for example, dress like girls? Probably the images of Hilter Youth would not be so stigmatized if they hadn’t looked like uniformed Nazis in training.

Republican Youth Scouts of today seem to be about the same unquestioning patriotism: duty, honor, ratting on their parents, and dressing like Fascists. In a not unrelated exploitation of youth, Girl Scouts are made to peddle cookies of a quality Keeblers wouldn’t feed a pet hobbit, hyped by the urban-mythical Thin Mints, surely viral marketing if ever there was a poor cookie

Advising Hillary about advising Obama

Weren’t they so cute, Mary Matalin and the bald guy, circa Election 1992, political advisers and marital partners, swinging for opposite teams, both obviously high-roller clever wits. It could have made a sitcom. Did it? I remember a Mork-n-Mindy-esque book cover. Mr. and Mrs. Smith of political hit-making, presumably. Now I hear there’s another Carville-Matalin academic dream pair advising the Democratic rivals. Christopher Edley and Maria Echaveste. He for Obama, she for Hillary. Isn’t that cute? Now wait a minute.

Are we to believe the stakes are so high, and political acumen such a rarity, that married couples have to divide their energies between political campaigns? Out of our entire population, or out of the small pool of “experts” consulted by the networks, the political campaigns have to hire professors whose partners are otherwise indisposed with the other side?!

In any other line of work, it would be called a conflict of interest. But in politics we’re supposed to think it’s a matter of tomayto or tomahto. Nothing you can’t resolve after the 9 to 5. At the end of the day, which candidate wins is a wash.

Probably we’re encouraged to make this comparison. But do you know any couple to survive even a mismatched allegiance to sports teams? The only way I know to stomach a partner’s at-odds political views is to have separate abodes. I’m thinking that elections have indeed become so sophisticated that in order to collude effectively, you have to have intimately briefed operators. What are they called? Bed fellows!

Competing businesses can’t even be caught meeting in the same hotel room without drawing an investigation into price fixing. Election fixing, even with Diebold’s collusion, has got to be quite a tenuous balancing act. You can’t have a Rove type working on both sides simultaneously, attending the meetings at least. But if you’ve got dueling advisers, perhaps they can coordinate the tempo, mood and fiddle, lest one side or the other fall out of step.

If you were being considered for a consultancy, wouldn’t you recuse yourself if your wife was already advising the competitor? If you didn’t offer up the info voluntarily, you could be liable for civil damages if it was found out.

But when it concerns politics, what? Never mind that your wife works for the other side. We need YOU. Oh, and you can tell us what she’s up to, without letting her in on the game. And make certain she isn’t playing you for the same. Or, your recruiters could make this pitch: The public loves a team couple. It dispels the wacky idea that politics have to do with class, or social differences.

Americans are such romantics. They believe (1) love conquers all, it even settles differences of opinion, and (2) that married couples are ultimately faithful to each other above all. One person playing double agent between rivals, betrays both naturally. But two people? They’re kept honest because they can’t lie to each other. Dirty politics become sanitized by Ward and June, each too much a patriot to betray each other.

The Army wants you and for cheap

I just found this out a few minutes ago. It kind of dropped my jaw to the floor, the arrogance of it. Seems the Marines are E-mailing high school kids, the one in question is 15 years old. Offering 3 free music downloads, and in the fine print is, if they download them, a Marine Recruiter calls them.

That bullshit they’re using with the You made them strong, We’ll make them Army Strong and When your KID Talks To You About The Army…

You know, the only time your KID would need your permission to go into the military is if he actually is a KID, a minor, under 18.

There’s another, more sinister reason the Army wants to recruit kids straight out of high school. The pay.

The Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines don’t actually want your son or daughter to get a college education BEFORE going in, because They Would Be Promoted To The Pay Grade Of Sergeant Right Out Of Basic Training, And Would Be Sent To Officer Candidate School. In 3 months they would be commissioned and have the Rank, the Privileges and MOST IMPORTANTLY the PAY of Second Lieutenant, in the Navy it would be Ensign.

The Air Force and Navy and Marines will suck them in with pictures of Manly Men in Manly Flight Suits Striding Down the flight line in a Manly Manner to a Sleek Ultrapowerful Killing Machine….

But the only way you become a pilot is if you have a Bachelor’s Degree.
No way would you get in a plane if you only graduated High School, no matter what your GPA or how intelligent you are.

That’s how a Jackoff Agent like George W. Bush became a Lieutenant, even though he has no leadership ability, no physical courage and is dumb as a bag of hammers.

When they say that personal or family wealth doesn’t make a difference once you put on a Military Uniform they’re lying through their teeth.

Now, a job where you get to wear a flight suit on the flight line, without college, is the guys who stand out on the runways with the wand flashlights.

Of course, if they’re on the flight line when a plane makes a horribly wrong landing, they’re just as likely as the pilot to be killed.

More so, in fact. Because, you see, Pilots cost more to replace than mere enlisted men.

So the Medics will be forced, by Air Force rules, to save the Pilots first and enlisted men second.

And, the survivor’s benefits for the guy’s widow and orphans will depend on his pay grade. The Pilot’s widow and orphan will be paid more for Daddy being offed than the Flashlight Guy’s family will.

People’s Republic of Higher Education

Fair enough, the Berkeley City Council is being asked to reconsider whether it really meant to tell US Marine Corps recruiters to go fuck themselves. I hope it’s just a chance to say it again.

Maybe the People’s Republic of Berkeley is due for a new honor. Keeper of the Flame of Freedom. The United States of Berkeley. It used to be the joke to send the Statue of Liberty back to the French, because America wasn’t using it. How about we install Lady Liberty off the shores of Berkeley? They’re showing the temerity to claim her. Berkeley is standing up for everything America used to. What do you make of the vociferous accusations of treason being leveled at Berkeley in the name of patriotism? What fault can you find with the clear headed resolutions being pronounced by their City Council?

The only thing which differentiates Berkley from the rest of the country is level of education. I wouldn’t want to be caught poking fun at, much less belittling, someone smarter than me, especially for taking a more principled stand than I -err- me. You can tease them about inarticulate athletic ability, but the last thing you’d want to do is to presume to correct a grammarian.

How are dumbfuck Americans like Move Forward America so easily goaded to speak derisively of their own who know better? It’s one thing to question authority, another even to be skeptical in general. But Berkeley isn’t filled with the social engineers who’ve got a boot on your throat, it’s full of students, your children, who you sent to acquire an education. Not your education in fact, a better education. A world view beyond your own, a comprehension you were not afforded. That’s Berkeley.

Berkeley is not unique, though perhaps it has the highest visibility. Regionally there are other college towns that fit the leftist stereotype. Boulder and Ann Arbor for example. These are home to progressive populations, teachers, students and alumni which color the demographics significantly to affect the local politics. Why are better educated people always leftists? A dolt could only hope to chance upon the inspiration to ask himself such a doozy.

This dolt would ask the reverse: AS left EQUALS education, SO less-left MUST EQUAL less-education.

Why aren’t more college campuses like Berkeley? What’s going on that our educational institutions are producing idiots to mock the product of real education? It’s a terrible portent.

Prefering to rank the next to high score

I remember a guy in college who just by looking at him you could see he was ahead of the electronics learning curve. Sophomore year he disappeared from campus to complete a project for the Navy. It turns out in high school he’d taught himself an obscure programming language, which happened also to have military applications. The Navy requisitioned the teenager for want of sufficient specialists.

I thought about that classmate today as I watched a precocious gamer blaze through Galaxy Mario. Every household member has a player ID, and for each game a unique folder. And the console connects to the internet. In a couple years he’ll be playing serious first-person-shooters against others online. Who knows when we’ll get a call.

We think about our privacy when we consider that Google and Internet Explorer are logging our activities online. We worry about crackers getting our access codes and credit card numbers. Does it occur to us that our aptitude might too be of interest to others? We know military recruiters are looking at many signs that our children might be ripe for their pitch. Whether troubled, antisocial, low grades, dim prospects, these are easily discerned from school records. Imagine such information enhanced by cable TV or internet records. We think in terms of privacy rights, about protections from revealing our weaknesses and secrets. What about our strengths?

What of a government or military wishing to requisition our unwitting collaboration? What of an intelligence department holding all the marbles, in a position to make an offer we can’t refuse?

Arming recruiting with WRX STi

Out of desperation a friend of mine has entangled himself with army recruiters –that’s the way most around him want to see it. He’s buzzed his head and claims he wants to be “Army Strong.” He and the recruiter have already visited the car lot where an Impreza WRX STi awaits his sign-up bonus. All he will have to do to get financing is show his military ID.
 
Last night he took the tests at Fort Carson to measure his aptitude and psychological profile. He teased me afterward about a particular question for which his recruiter had coached him. “Do you have a conscience?” The advised answer was “no.”

Subaru Impreza cruiserUp to now it’s been mostly one on one with the recruiter because last night my friend kept expressing his surprised satisfaction at the large turnout of fellow recruits. “There must have been at least sixty, he said trying to torment me. Adding eagerly: “And lots of hot chicks.”

Hot chicks? Hmmm. Hmmm. Not to take anything away from the lovely female gender soldiers who’ve already joined the Army, but how likely is it that my friend saw lots of hot chicks at Fort Carson last night? Or lots of anybody? Any chance many of them might have been stand-in enlistees commanded to wear civvies, accompanied by girls from the Deja Vu moonlighting in pursuit of Iraq-bound soldiers to die and leave them beneficiary to the $250,000 insurance?

My sister was once targeted by card sharps on a bus ride home. She was wearing her waitress uniform so they probably knew she would be carrying what she’d earned for tips. Here’s what happened: she noticed a guy with cards challenging people to follow a particular card, etc. Most of the riders ignored him but gradually a small crowd was drawn to the action, including my sister. When she was finally lured to bet her cash, and lose it in the space of a few seconds, right then the bus stopped and the entirety of the little crowd vaporized. More than having been duped of her money, my sister was most shaken by the realization that she had been the lone target.

Same bait, same switch

Troops needed to watch the Mexico borderWell looky who’s used the protect the border bait and switch before! Ninety years ago, same illegal immigration scare, same perp.
 
I happened across some posters used to recruit soldiers during WWI. Here they raise the Mexico bugaboo to ease worries that enlistment into the military would automatically mean duty in the trenches. “No More Men Are Needed” at the western front. Oh really?! It reminds me of something Air Force recruiters were telling Colorado College students on Thanksgiving 2005. US troops would be out of Iraq by Christmas. Potential enlistees need not fear being sent to Iraq because America was already pulling out. Public opinion had already forced their hand, they said, and we were pulling out.

To: Bush and Gates Re: OUR Plan

Dear Messieurs Bush and Gates.
    Today you have once again proposed that anybody who does not support YOU and YOUR War have some obligation to put forth a better plan for victory in YOUR WAR.
   Also Mr Gates has presented the idea once again that LEGITIMATE PROTEST of YOUR WAR somehow emboldens YOUR enemies. Which would be an accusation of Treason, (a capital offense) against the majority of Congressmen and a majority of the people of the United States.

Apparently you are both somewhat confused about what exactly your legal status is.

Mr. Bush, you are at most an elected official. In a Democracy, or if you prefer, a Republic, THE PEOPLE are the ones who are the Decision Makers. You are our employee and NOT our master.

I realize that you have the mistaken notion that as a public employee you have no obligation to listen to the clearly expressed will of the people. You call it “leadership by polls”, and sneer at the prospect that mere mortals can criticize you or tell you what to do. You call yourself the Commander in Chief. Mr Bush, there are somewhat less than 2 million members of the Armed Forces in America. That means 298 million citizens of the United States are in fact Civilians, and therefore NOT under Your command.

   Now, Mr Bush, I realize that Laura will have to read this to you. I would ask Mrs. Bush to point out that 298,000,000 is substantially a larger number than 2,000,000.  In other words, as your Poppy used to say, YOU do the math.

      You and Mr Gates and Mr Cheney are OUR employees. WE are the deciders and WE have decided to support Our Other Employees, the Men and Women of the Armed Forces. Current and Future.

These men and women, and the children your ROTC and recruiters are grooming for future employment in the Armed Forces, have been placed in Harm’s Way by your stupid policies. Your policies are based on deliberate manipulation and deception of the American People, and the Congress, for more than 6 years now.

Apparently you don’t listen to polls. You keep repeating this, so I and others like me will have to repeat our reply: When the American People voted for President in 2000, more people voted against YOU. The only way you managed to attain office was by skillful manipulation of the electoral process by your family and their henchmen. Men like Mr Cheney and Mr Gates. You again failed to get a Majority of the votes in 2004, yet somehow you have represented that failure as a mandate from the people to allow you to lead us.

I know you can not read fast, so I am writing this very slowly… The people who you feel should obey you, are not going to obey you.

Your policy has continually failed since the day you stole your job. It has specifically failed with respect to YOUR personal war against Saddam Hussein. You have, through a long series of Lies, unlawfully targeted the people and government of Iraq as the Enemy, and demanded that we do the same. You have had Mr Hussein killed. You have done what you said you wanted, i.e.; Killed Mr Hussein, been allowed to search for Weapons of Mass Destruction throughout Iraq, been allowed to install a New Puppet dictator in Iraq, taken the Oil Fields of Iraq to give to Mr Cheney and your other Henchmen in the petroleum industry.

    In the 4 years since the unlawful conquest and pillage of the nation of Iraq began, exactly zero none nada zip bupkas of your promised Glorious Victory have emerged. You have murdered more than 3,000 members of the Armed Forces. At the lowest count, you have Murdered 75,000 citizens of the nation of Iraq. The higher count of up to 300,000 Iraqis is disputed by you and your Lying cabinet and lying supporters.

     Your unofficial Spokes Freaks at the FOREIGN owned Fox Television Networks have made the threat, repeatedly, that people who oppose this systematic Murder and Theft and Deception that you have been doing for so long, should be rounded up and punished for their Patriotic defiance of your unlawful policies.

      Today, YOUR henchman Mr. Gates has used the same lie, that not supporting you is giving “aid and comfort” to the alleged Enemies .

These people did not declare war against the United States. The people of the United States did not declare them to be the enemies. YOU and your Chicken Hawk Cabinet and advisors did. By allowing your spokespersons, either the official ones like Cheney and Gates, or the unofficial ones like the employees of Mr Rupert Murdoch, to threaten Americans with nothing short of DEATH for opposing your murderous policies, is Terrorism.

Mr Gates and you, and the people at Fox Networks, and other corporate information media, know very well that threatening Americans with death or in fact any punishment for engaging in conduct which is not only Lawful, but mandated by Our consciences, is unlawful in and of itself.

       Perhaps you believe that Americans who oppose you have no resolve. To cling to that mistaken belief, you would have to neglect and ignore the fact that we have not been cowed into submission, We Have Not Backed Down, but instead grown stronger in our Resistance.

       Many of us are former members of the Military, like you, Mr Bush. However, most of the former military who oppose you, unlike you or any member of your cabinet, are actually combat veterans. The Congressmen you and Mr. Gates say are traitors, AND MAKE NO MISTAKE you have openly accused us of TREASON, are likewise Combat Veterans.

      The fact that we have been using every Lawful Means to resist and defy your so called “leadership” is not an indication of weakness on our parts, it is instead a strong resolve to not destroy our nation further by abandoning Rule of Law.

         This restraint has kept the Opposition to your Dictatorship from taking up arms against our fellow citizens, in spite of you and your henchmen making terroristic threats and in many cases actually carrying out such threats.

The time for such restraint is rapidly approaching its end. If you and your lapdogs insist on making war against The American People, you and your lap dogs will have to be restrained, by force if necessary.

     Your New Plan for Victory, which you have arrogantly commanded us to support or propose a better, is the same Old Plan, which you have insisted on following, at the cost of our National Treasure, in short our relatives and friends who are in the military. Also you have spent the National Treasury and any conceivable payments into that Treasury, for generations to come. You have taken away our ability to respond to Real National Threats, as opposed to Non-existent threats from people like the late Mr Hussein.

Your plan has been given 4 years to work, it is not working and, even though you and your goon squads and lying henchmen keep saying otherwise, We The People are capable of seeing that it has not worked, and will not work.

      We do not owe you a better plan. You owe us your respect, and your obedience to the People. You, and your cabinet, owe us your resignations. You owe our fellow citizens in the military your respect, for their lives and for their service.

You can no longer hide behind the lies that a dictatorship is somehow a guarantee of freedom.

    Your incompetent dictatorship is instead a guarantee of slavery, but ONLY if we fail in our real duties, to bring your dictatorship to an end.

The people who you and Mr. Gates threaten, are quite capable of forcibly ending that threat. Mr. Bush, Mr. Gates, I strongly caution you not to make the rash mistake of continuing in your terroristic campaign.

The No Child Left Behind by military recruiters opt out form

Tomorrow we’re meeting in front of William Palmer High School to urge students to fill out their opt-out forms.
 
The No-Child-Left-Behind Act had a provision that gave military recruiters access to all secondary school student records. The act also provided an opt-out clause which allowed individual students to exclude themselves from the information exchange. To do so, their parents have to file the proper request, each year, one copy with their school, a second copy with the Defense Department. Every school district in turn was expected to inform the students and their parents about this option.

In Palmer High School’s District 11, letters were recently sent to all families with the forms and instructions. Whether this qualifies as adequate notice, is subject to question. The letters were sent without fanfare two weeks before the deadline.

Other Colorado Springs districts have done nothing about notifying the parents. The deadline is October 13.

On October 13 every student record from every high school and junior high will be sent to the Pentagon. Not just name, address and phone number, but complete school records. Military recruiters want to be able to profile students to best tailor their approach. Certainly there are typical profiles for present enlistees and recruiters will be able to spot students susceptible to heading that way. Children getting into trouble perhaps, failing certain subjects, showing signs of problems at home, requiring certain medicines, are all green flags for recruiters. A recruiter’s tools could be special field trips, peer groups, free X-Boxes, access to the school premises and your telephone.

There are probably a good number of civil liberty reasons why you wouldn’t want the military to be handling your child’s school records. Right now what your school knows of your child’s medical record, or criminal justice record, or mental health record, or personal counseling, goes no further than the school yard. This information would now travel on laptops in the cars of Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines/Coast Guard recruiters as they court your children between stops at the pawn shop, the strip bar and their home on the wrong side of town.

Not to mention if they succeed with your child, they could get him killed.

St. Patrick’s Day Parade peace infiltration

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Sarah, Mimi, Amy, Evie, Lara, Ryan, Devon, Marie, David, Peter, Diann, Amber)
 
Our peaceful infiltration of the Old Colorado City St. Patricks Day Parade was great fun. We had to scale back our original plans for using the Peace Snake and the Blue Lady in favor of giving more visibility to our green peace t-shirts. Turnout for our peace contingent was affected by the cold and more specifically by a flu going around which hampered a number of families.

We were also handicapped by having to gather participants by word of mouth only. Our fear was that had any fliers been brought to the attention of parade organizers, we might have been thrown out of the parade before it even began. As it was, we waited to the last minute to don our t-shirts and to unfurl the banners. To the parade marshall’s credit, no one found our message objectionable, least of all the crowd.

The Old Colorado City crowd in attendance was very receptive to our march for peace. We carried two messages, the first in keeping with the bookmobile cover: “Education is the key to peace.” Lest that message have been thought too radical, we brought up the rear with a sentiment meant to sound familiar: “Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Eric, Mark, Pattie, Amy F., Pallas)

Why were we so cautious with our message? The terms of the contract for participating in the parade read: ABSOLUTELY NO PROMOTION OF SOCIAL ISSUES. Stated in two places, the second time underlined. The final condition made clear that all decisions by the parade organizers would be final.

The parade was full of politicians, candidates, military recruiters and veterans groups. In fact this year there was more red white and blue than there was green. We did not anticipate that they would dare to take issue with advocates for peace, but we were taking no chances. An effort days earlier to solicit participants from a local elementary school met with resistance. Our intention to wear peace signs was deemed too political. On that basis we were not allowed to distribute fliers there about the event.

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Dennis, Steve, Amy and Hannah)

The National Dumbshit List

Our business card
The 2004 election provided an invaluable opportunity to identify the Republican support base. Progressive grassroots organizations were able to record which houses in their neighborhoods put up Bush/Cheney lawn signs. AMERICANS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY has solicited those names and addresses to gather into a national list. This information comprises not just who voted for Bush, but who was enthusiastic about the idea. Thus the National Dumbshit List!

FINALLY A REPUBLICAN dumbshit DIRECTORY!

The National Dumbshit List will be used to raise funds for anti-Republican causes such as education, health and the environment. The list will be sold to telemarketers, lotto commissioners, real estate speculators, military recruiters and others who thrive on exploiting the less intelligent. The draft board for example is looking for gung-ho Republican families with teenagers, as they are running fresh out.

The yard sign locations will be cross-referenced with County Clerk records to reveal accurate property owner names. Residences valued at over $750,000 will be footnoted because their owners may not have acted against their own self-interests in supporting Bush. But if not necessarily dumb, those Republicans were certainly shits.

If you suspect you may be included in the latter group and you do not feel that your name belongs on the shit list, you may rehearse the case you will have to make with your maker. It is our sincere hope that you can be reconsidered to have been merely a dumbshit.

Wasn’t there a hayseed comic, darlings of Republicans, who used to ask “where’s your sign?” Thank you to all Republicans who came through.

Reprinted from dumbshitlist.org