Tag Archives: uniforms

Raise awareness to the CAUSE of cancer

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Look at all that pink respect for breast cancer! Breast cancer awareness, I mean to say. As Marie has pointed out, women’s basketball over the weekend was draped in custom pink uniforms for the cause of cancer. “Cause” is an unfortunate pun, actually. No one’s interested in raising awareness of the cause of cancer.

I saw some coaches awarding Coach Yow a symbolic check for $10,000, to go “100% to breast cancer research” the announcers were happy to point out: “Not 93%, or even 99%, but 100% to research!” That’s good. If it had gone toward raising awareness [through ad campaigns], that money would be going 100% back to the television network.

About medical research, I have to wonder, if it weren’t for private fund-raising efforts, would there be insufficient research for a cure for cancer? Without Jerry’s Kids, or Walk for a Cure, etc, would it not be in the public’s interest to cure diseases like cancer? Are the 50,000 women diagnosed with cancer each year going unnoticed? Is the Health Department not picking up on the trend?

Whether our medical/industrial system wants to cure cancer is a matter of reasonable doubt. From a management perspective, can our society afford to stop this natural-seeming population trimmer? Breast Cancer preys generally upon women of post-reproductive age. Is our economy terribly concerned about the longevity of a less productive population segment?

Breast Cancer awareness would appear to be more about remembrance, about honoring those women who’ve lost the lottery of industrial toxin exposure. What about awareness of what’s causing cancer? We’ve researched causal-links plenty. Perhaps we should be raising money to go toward awareness of the cancer culprits. Let’s see if the media talking heads will speak so glibly about that!

Aren’t we learning that cancer behaves like rust? Cancer is oxidation, it’s, well, a cancer, in the figurative sense. Cancer is decay. It can be thwarted by proper avoidance of carcinogens, such as cigarette smoke, pollutants, or toxins. We know the sources of carcinogens: industry, chemicals, manufacture of plastics, poisons, toxic foods, etc.

How does wearing pink make any of that more visible? We’ll cure cancer when we arrest the causes. When we, literally, arrest the purveyors.

The Cancer Cartel at work again

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Think pink Nike jerseyI don’t know how many of you are women’s basketball fans, but just in case you missed last weekend’s action, most of the top-ranked college teams played their games bedecked from head to toe in pink uniforms, compliments of Nike. The Think Pink initiative is a global, unified effort of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA) to raise breast cancer awareness on the court, across campuses, in communities and beyond. More than 800 universities participated in some capacity in the event which happened to coincide with ESPN’s ‘February Frenzy’ of games. Fans of the game were encouraged to don pink in support of the cause.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen a typical women’s basketball fan, but I can assure you that pink is not her favorite color. However, like the rest of us, she’s always willing to do her part in the fight against breast cancer.

During last week’s action, in addition to the play-by-play reminder of breast cancer, fans were repeatedly encouraged to give generously to the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund. We were told that we must band together to stop this ruthless killer of women. Yes, we surely surely must.

My question is why didn’t Nike just write a big check to the fund and be done with it? We could’ve actually WATCHED the Rutgers-Tennessee game, a rematch of last year’s NCAA final; the fund would have its money; more “research” could be done; big Pharma and their minion-surgeons could have their pin money; big food could keep fucking with the food supply so that these fundraisers will always be necessary. And Nike will be at the ready to supply gear for each of them, swoosh color negotiable.

Even more importantly, more women would be convinced to cough up money for an annual mammogram, more biopsies of benign tissue would be done and, in the process, even more of them would get cancer from the large, very unnatural and unhealthy, doses of radiation they regularly receive. I mean, let’s forget that one of the world’s foremost authorities on radiation, John W. Gofman, (MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus at UC-Berkeley–no hack, this guy), estimates that 75% of breast cancer cases could be prevented by avoiding exposure to the ionizing radiation of mammography and x-rays.

Sounds like a win-win for everyone. Except, of course, the people who are supposedly benefiting by thinking pink. Maybe next year they could really get everyone’s attention, not just basketball fans, by naming the campaign Think Dead. Just a thought.

Ghosts of Thanksgiving Past

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Devon praying
I was obsessed with Bernadette Soubirous when I was a Catholic schoolgirl. You’ll recall, or perhaps you won’t, that the Mother of God appeared to Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858. Or so Bernadette claimed.

Filled with unbelief and not wishing to delude the gullible faithful, the church hierarchy convened a Council of Enquiry to check out Bern’s story. Oh how the Bishop wrestled with his monumental burden!
“But if Bernadette does not want to deceive, was she not deceived herself? How could she believe to see and hear what she did not see and hear? Was she not the victim of hallucinations? How could we believe her? The wisdom of her answers reveals in this child a spirit of goodness, a quiet imagination, good sense beyond her years. Religious feelings never showed in her a spirit of exhalation; nobody could prove in the young girl neither intellectual disorder, nor change of mind nor unusual personality nor morbid feelings which would allow her to give way to a creative imagination.”

The Bishop of Tarbus, after only four years’ deliberation, decided that Bernadette was worthy and the people were given permission to believe her. The divine presence revealed, because of the moral purity of one young girl. Hmmmmm.

Upon hearing this story as a ten-year-old I determined to be the next Bernadette. I was certain I could be as holy and pious as she was. I secreted myself in my room at night and quietly recited the rosary, lingering over the Hail Marys. Surely the Blessed Virgin would take notice of my glow-in-the-dark rosary beads and appear to me as I lay in my little bed. I worried about my response. Should I feign surprise? Perhaps a sense of peaceful recognition? What if she expected tears of joy? Would I be able to produce them without delay? What if she appeared and my acting was deemed inferior? What would happen to poor Mary?

I enrolled in a Creative Dramatics class to ensure my success.

Despite years of piety, countless novenas (guaranteed to work! follow instructions exactly or no money back!), mental sojourns along the Via Dolorosa, Easter vigils, midnight masses, prayer flags, candles, medals–still no Mary. After learning that Marie was synonymous with Mary in the eyes of linguists everywhere, my final act of radical devotion saw me refuse to take a confirmation name. There could be no saint that I hoped to emulate more than the Mother of God. Mary, are you listening?

I finally gave up hope the summer after my sophomore year. I burned my uniforms and transferred to a public school. I decided that if Mary was too good for me, I’d find another other-worldly persona that liked my obviously flawed self. Who could be bad enough for me? Perhaps Satan?

After a short stint as a bad girl I found Jesus and stopped grieving my fractured relationship with Mary. I was drawn to the fundamental purity and wisdom of that most-revered and infallible document, the Holy Bible. In my youth, the Bible was clad in white leatherette with garish gold writing and a big picture of Jesus. It was placed in a prominent place in every Catholic home. But read? I was sure the Pope would not approve. Popes are popes and have need to pontificate. This requires a certain degree of cooperative ignorance on the part of the pontificatees, does it not? Feeling like a teenage boy with his daddy’s Playboy magazine, I sat in my room and studied the Bible. I could not believe how deceived I had been! Satan himself had been standing between me and the Holy Spirit, the only true path to peace and enlightenment. Jesus had been there all along, quietly knocking on the door to my heart, and I had been so caught up in my works-based salvation, my meager attempts to be holy, that I missed his call. Fuck.

Thus began a twenty-year stint as a religious fundamentalist. I will spare you most of the details of my quest to reconcile my inherently sinful nature with my holy and perfect god. I will say that I had a team of prayer warriors beseeching god to reveal himself to Dave, my militant atheist husband. I begged the Lord to allow the scales to fall from Dave’s eyes so he, too, could see as clearly as I did. It turns out that it wasn’t only Dave who was in grave danger. It was pretty much everyone I knew. And every unreached person in the four corners of the earth. It was up to me personally to pray without ceasing for each and every one of these lost souls. Their eternal destiny depended entirely on me. Holy fuck. I had wasted a lot of time on Mary.

Try as I might I could not suppress my rational nor my spiritual side forever. An academic approach feels safe when treading in parts unknown, so I embarked on a study of comparative religion. Surely most of the world could not be held accountable for truths that God in his infinite wisdom had not chosen to reveal to them. And surely it could not possibly fall on me and a handful of the idiotic chosen to make certain that the world had a chance to hear the good news. While I was sporting my hard-won Mind of Christ, my mind developed a mind of its own. What a crock of shit! was the refrain that replaced the time-honored Praise the Lord!

I’ll cut to the end. I believe that there is something more knowing, more powerful, more permanent, more loving than me. But to attach a personality, a gender, a shape, even a part of speech, to a universal force is not only foolish, it’s often tragic. If you want to see human frailty in action look no further than organized religion.

Spiritual reality has been a part of mankind since the beginning. We do our best to give our ephemeral understanding structure. We fashion an idol that resonates within us. Where food is scarce and money more so, perhaps god resembles a golden calf, the highest and best we know. Where women suffer together and depend upon the earth’s bounty to bear daily burdens, perhaps she is a goddess who permeates the natural world. Men stripped of their voices and forced to serve a capricious master create a suffering servant who will rule heaven and earth one day. When our basic needs are met and we are perched on the top of Maslow’s ladder, we have nowhere to go but inward. Divinity resides within.

At the deepest place we are the same. We are one tribe. We are protected and loved by a universal force that knows no bounds. We are free to define it as we will. Our understanding of it may change over time, a reflection of our growth. We must give others the same freedom to be, to know, to discover, to change. I am thankful that I have had that chance. That I still have that chance.

Nike tags more advertizing surface

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Viking uniform a maze of swooshesOh my goodness look at the Swooshes TM! Nike strikes again with its branding of the Minnesota Vikings. How many not so subliminal Nike trademarks do you see in this picture? The Viking uniforms sport the same torso swoosh as the Broncos but there’s more! Above the shoulders, behind the arms, and the refashioned horns.

Original Viking helmetIf the NFL is more restrictive than the NCAA about displaying manufacturers logos on uniforms, that’s not keeping Nike from tagging the athletes like so much graffiti.

On the old helmet, the ring around the horn was a semi circle, not a lateral crescent.

I only wish I believed my own rhetoric

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Marie argues with Officer Paladino
Freedom to express oneself, to think independently, was the lure that led the masses to our shores. Safety from abusive and intrusive government is the dream that continues to draw people to our borders. Our military men and women are in Iraq and elsewhere fighting for these same principles on behalf of those who cannot battle tyranny alone. Yet here in Colorado Springs, where so many are at great personal risk because of American ideology, we do not recognize the basic Constitutional freedoms of our own citizens.

It was a private parade, you say. The police were just following the orders of John O’Donnell, the parade organizer. Those people had no right to be there. What a load of garbage. The city was a partner in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. They blocked off public streets and used public resources. For the city and the CSPD to hide behind another organization’s insurance policy is not only cowardly, it is un-Constitutional. The ACLU won a recent case in Hawaii, wherein a “private” parade sought to exclude a particular group from marching. The conclusion: government entities can not shield themselves, nor take directives, from private citizens using public resources. The rest of the country seems to understand this.

In any case, the excessive force used by several of the policemen called to the scene is absolutely indefensible. Miscommunication, fear of public safety, parade crashing. None excuse what ensued. Not for a minute. Today it was peace activists; tomorrow it will be someone else. This type of unchecked abuse of power is a terrifying thing to witness. The lack of accountability by the CSPD illustrates that this thug behavior is tolerated, perhaps encouraged. If they are willing to behave that way in the presence of hundreds of spectators, can you imagine the treatment of those less visible? Are they taught to leave their humanity at the door when they don their uniforms and guns?

While I appreciate the attempts made by John Weiss to reconcile the community, his call to the activists to drop the threat of a civil suit is wrong. Where the people have no voice the court system is the next step. A hung jury in so simple a case shows that we are a town that is not as freedom-loving as our local daily newspaper professes. Perhaps, as in Hawaii, a higher court will possess greater wisdom. It is the next peaceful step in our cherished democratic process. The checks and balances built into the Constitution provide a measure of hope.

If there is no relief to be found by those who have sworn to defend the Constitution, then we will have to take to the streets. Systemic change is always resisted by those in power. If the populace had not banded together in the past to demand its rights, women would not vote, blacks and whites would be segregated, workers would toil in dangerous conditions, children would be chattel.

We should not live in fear of our local government, they should fear and respect us. They are public servants. We are a country of the people, by the people, for the people. We will not rest until our government, including those on Capitol Hill, abides by the Bill of Rights. Don’t mistake quiet acquiescence for peace. It is a reaction to oppression.

What the peace marchers need is not a call to lay down, but the rising up of their fellow citizens. They call for peace. Let the rest of us support them with a call for justice. As Thoreau said in Civil Disobedience, “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.” It is time for every concerned citizen to help stop the rampant abuse of power in our city and beyond. Without liberty and justice, there will never be peace. Here, there or anywhere.

Impersonating a soldier

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We all know it’s illegal to impersonate a police officer, but is it illegal to impersonate a soldier? This notion appears to me to be an utter urban myth, readily quoted but unsubstantiated. Is there such a restriction? We are seeing recent veterans getting in trouble for wearing their uniforms at peace rallies, they don’t face jail time, but rather not insubstantial downgrading of their discharge status. But you and I face no such punitive risk. Why don’t we take the lead and don their uniforms?

I’m not certain that pretending to be soldiers protesting the war would come off well at all, but perhaps it could embolden real soldiers to do it. What if they wore each other’s uniforms, from an opposite branch of the military for example? Does their code of conduct preclude that? Would such political expression jeopardize a vet’s retirement benefits?

The so-called surge has yielded an upsurge of soldiers now calling for peace. We see it on the streets when we hold up our PEACE NOW banners. A good portion of honks, thumbs-up, and peace-signs come from active duty soldiers. We even see them tooting their horns to get our attention, less we miss their smiling encouragement. Our soldiers are ripe for taking a stand against this war. Let them do it. Let’s figure out a way to include their voices. They have earned the right, after all, to speak out as soldiers. We sent them to war as soldiers, however can we presume to strip them of the authority when they return?

I could only find a law passed last year, the Stolen Valor Act, which made it illegal to impersonate a decorated soldier, such that “anyone who knowingly wears, manufactures, or sells any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the U.S. armed forces, or any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, or the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration or medal, or any colorable imitation thereof, except when authorized under regulations made pursuant to law, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.”

Which gives me an idea. Let’s get some Op. Iraqi F. uniforms and decorate them with LEGAL NON-US medals, such as Iron Crosses and Nazi regalia, and then parade as satiric soldier-dissenters. Neither military getups nor creepy regalia appeal to me, but there might be something pretty chilling about the sight.

Condemning our soldiers

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We’ve sentenced our soldiers to death, why not condemn them too?

At the supermarket this evening I ran across an unusual number of Fort Carson soldiers doing their shopping in their OIF camo and buzzed heads. I deliberated with making eye contact, but they seemed like condemned men in what we know now to be death-row uniforms, being led by their girlfriends or mothers through the aisles to buy their last meals.

I wanted to look at those young men with condemnation. Poor lads, but pawns for a murderous agenda. Please don’t kill anyone I wanted to say.

At the checkout I looked from the side into the pale blue eyes of a shaved-bald, sunburned junior-security-guard-in-training, and pitied the Iraqis for whom our uneducated underclass are making on-the-spot decisions about life and death. These are boys you do not imagine should be entrusted with an ounce of authority, much less guns. (In fact, critical operations such as protection of our politicians or of the Ministry of Oil are not entrusted to these boys, but rather to professional private contractor mercenaries.)

Hang the soldiers’ commanders of course, but brand these poor soldiers too for what they are. Brand them lest others, their children for example, follow their apparently patriotic path. Shit happens, that’s the soldier’s apology for killing the undeserving Iraqi, let it be the mantra over the soldier’s condemnation as well. Your leaders were bad men, but you followed them. Let no one imagine that your complicity was laudable, even acceptable. Shit happens Bro, now you IT.

I’d just been thinking about the necessity of confronting war-doers head-on instead of letting the opportunity pass for the sake of civility. Political aids to President Bush, for example, retiring at age 36 to spend their loot on their children, averting being confronted with their critics. We need to punish these people. A newscaster who characterizes the Haditha episode by saying “the marines were attacked by an IED” should meet the fate of a propagandist.

Let no war-supporter go un-criticized, and why not start now? Perhaps it will prompt some to think about why they are being condemned with such ferocity? Perhaps our scolding can lay the groundwork to effect eventual introspection and reform. How could anyone begin to think they might actually be guilty of war crimes if their accusers are always so civil? Certainly such accusations must be merely academic, otherwise would they not come with a noose? By waiting politely our turn to intone, by not calling urgently for each miscreant’s apprehension, are we not misleading the soldiers about the reprehensibility of their role?

We can talk about forgiveness later. Right now we have to stop the unthinking manslaughterers.

Why did the city police attack the pro-Peace group at the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade?

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The city police and parade organizers did not fully think out the consequences of their actions, but the attack on the peace group at the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was not unintentional. In fact, it followed logically from the political direction given by the Colorado Springs city council and mayor.

The city police are employees under the control of the city council and mayor, and it is the city police on behalf of the city government itself, that gives out John O’Donnell his own permit each year to hold a parade. In all effects, John O’Donnell is merely a sub contractor for the city who is given a permit to issue yet even more permits, that simply allow and disallow who amongst the general public can participate in a city sponsored parade each year.

John O’Donnell has a long history of operating city promoted events in our city, and most of them have a highly charged social message of support for the wars waged by the US government. He takes positions on social issues, and they are almost always relatively in support of war, and many events he has helped organize have been fully funded by the city of Colorado Springs city government. Though some have only been partially underwritten.

In fact, less than 3 years ago, John O’Donnell, the city government, and the US military (US government) used large amounts of city and federal tax moneys to parade troops through Colorado Springs streets in support of the Republican Administration led US invasion and occupation of Iraq. They called this ‘supporting the troops’, and called the parade a ‘Welcome Back Home’ rally. Of course, we now know that the troops have been redeployed over and over from Fort Carson, and the public has slipped dramatically in its support of this US government war making. At that time, nobody appeared too much concerned to see the city government and federal government working through O’Donnell to parade for a partisan cause.

Because the city government and John O’Donnell are so intertwined in supporting the partisan cause of celebrating the constant US government wars and aggressions that destroy other nations, it is no surprise that the city police acted to thump peace partisans for entering into the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. It was a natural reflex on their part, and to their credit, at least they did not get so totally out of hand and severely injure anybody they manhandled. That is the reason that the new police chief, Richard Myers can posture that ‘nobody got hurt’.

However, the city government and its police do hurt others when they take up partisan causes like supporting a US government war, and make no mistake about it, that is what they have been constantly doing. Driving down Cascade Ave. one sees the city tax money’s paid-for signs that say ‘Colorado Springs Supports the Troops’. Hint, hint… That means that the city government is supporting the Iraqi War. How clever the city government thinks it is to phrase their support for the Iraqi War in this manner.

In short, the city has a history of taking up the ‘social issue’ of supporting the US war on Iraq and uses the tax monies of all its citizens to do so. The annual military air shows each year are yet more ways that the city government uses tax monies and facilities to sponsor pro-war Pentagon fed propaganda. And through this steady city support of military aggression, now 7 people face criminal charges coming from a police action that could easily have led to no arrests, no threats, and no physical take-downs if the police had only had directions to use restraint, instead of heavy force.

To the city police, it seems natural to stop pro-peace participants from participating in city events. They have received no city government direction to do otherwise, and Mayor Lionel Rivera’s continued refusal to admit that the several police ambushes on us through the years have been totally totally uncalled for, only will lead to repeats of the same excessive use of police force in the months and years ahead. Too, he has repeatedly shown so far that the city government will refuse to accept that it has real bias in what events are allowed to parade through city streets. The bias is in favor of the military and war, and against peace advocacy by any public pro-peace assembly that would appear against war. The police are directed in their activities with this bias in effect no matter how much they might state that they are out there to protect us all. It will surprise no one that the police actually protect some more than others, and endanger many.

It is highly symbolic that John O’Donnell and the police decided to use the intersection of St Vrain and Tejon to have the police ambush us on St Patrick’s Day. This is the same intersection where the city and federal governments had him lead off the ‘Welcome Home Troops’ pro-war parade in June, 2004. They marched the troops with our tax monies around in a circle and then ended their pro-war demo at the same point. They had no problem with pushing social causes at that event at all. They do have a problem with us when we cross that fatal intersection calling for PEACE instead.

Mayor Lionel Rivera and his city police will do what they can do to try to stop us from participating in future city organized events. As it has been said already, we got roughed up for the message we carried, and not just for how we went about bringing it to the public. They will try to deny us the use of the public streets again unless policies are changed now.

The police and the mayor have refused to accept any blame for what was done St Patrick’s Day. To the credit of some of the city council members, others have done the opposite. Our thanks goes out to them for that.

We do want to work together with all to assure that all do have a way for public assembly without censure. Let the military march with kids in their camouflage khaki uniforms on, and let those that have the opposite message march alongside. The city belongs to both of our groups, and both of our groups pay tax dollars to open up city streets for public parades, and to close it off for other tax paying citizens who might even be against what the parades might seem to them to be about. After all, we don’t want the type of sectarian violence that the US military now has brought to the Iraqi people inside America itself. Do we? So city government needs to stop bias in what social causes it funds and endorses.

When are ‘the troops’ going to support the rest of America?

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Antiwar protesters repeatedly get told they are not supporting ‘the troops’. Yesterday, in fact, a woman screaming out “You Bastards!’ at our peace vigil from her car, claimed that we were not supporting her husband who was one of ‘the troops’ in Iraq. Our standard refrain has always been, ‘Support The Troops, Bring Them Back Home Now!’ But I have another reply on my mind, and that is simply to ask the pro-war hecklers when are ‘the troops’ going to support us Americans?’ What do I mean by this?

Simple. You ‘troops’ are part of a war machine that is bankrupting the funding of social programs for the elderly, children, and needy in our society. You are fighting a war that most Americans no longer want, and that will put our children into debt for a long time to come. Yet you and your families continue to want you to be considered heroes, when you sign up and join the war machine and go after the preferential benefits that are yours for joining the government imperialist team. And many of you even have the nerve to get angry at us peace activists that want money spent in better ways than in just killing foreigners for corporate profit! That takes a lotta damn gall!

Yes, when are ‘the troops’ going to start to support the American people themselves? We want you back home alive where you won’t be helping bankrupt us civilians through the love of Halliburton and your own pride. Putting on your damn uniforms does not make you heroes, a class above us tax paying commoners. You went into the military thinking that the military pseudo socialism was the way to help yourselves out, but you bargained with the Devil and he may well take your heart and soul and your very life, too, if you are not very, very careful. Reconsider what you are doing.

Troops, help the rest of us Americans out, and support stopping the Iraqi war and occupation. True patriotism supports less militarism, less imperialism, and less money spent on you the troops, to the detriment of America itself. Troops and families of troops, speak out now against this thuggery you have become part of, and we wish you the best back home alive for those in other folk’s lands.

Stop the bloated war spending to help out the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the peoples of Haiti and Colombia, too. And most of all, to help out us, the people of America. America needs less of you ‘troops’ in prison guard, police, and military uniforms, not more. Patriots support more peace in the world, and less war. So do your part as you can. And try not to let the government dehumanize you, through the insane war the government has you fighting in.

Best wishes, from the antiwar community. But there is no way we are going to ‘support’ you by cheerleading the killing the government has you engaged in. Stop the constant wars. Our money for the people, not The Pentagon!

Neocon regalia

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Neocon Bald-faced EagleFor decades after the Second World War, German vets would get together in beer halls to remember the great days of the Third Reich. The Nazi cause may have become perverted, but its ideals were certainly grandiose: a Germany reborn as the worker’s utopia, a master race unshackled to bring order to a never-before united Europe.

My father grew up in occupied Norway. He remembers the incomparable German swagger. To this day he judges the authenticity of war movies based on whether the actors capture the arrogance of the German officers in their walk. I remember reading a Wehrmacht soldier’s autobiography reflecting on the initial ease with which Germany had overrun its neighbors. “It was impossible in those days not to feel immense pride in being a German.”

German regalia is highly collectible now, though my father remembers the days immediately following the war when Norwegians wouldn’t deign to pick up the Nazi medals, ribbons and flags strewn outside the German headquarters in newly freed Oslo.

Of course the German WWII regalia is collected fervently also because it was esthetic. A deliberate malevolence was courted by the fascists, a darkness amplified by the visual design of their uniforms, equipment and printed material. Albert Speer and Leni Reifenstahl were widely condemned for their contributions to the glorification of Nazi culture.

So when old SS veterans are clanging their glasses in memory of Germany’s grab for the brass ring, the nostalgia has quite a bit of pomp and polish. It was an Aryan dream in smart costumes and effective looking machinery.

Are ex-American servicemen going to look back at the U.S. adventures in Fascism with equal nostalgia? What trappings do the Neocons offer to distinguish their racist machinations? Wrap-around Oakleys? Kneepads and leggings? The mercenaries’ gold chains and Hawaiian shirts? And what stateside? Yellow ribbons? Cheap suits? Americans exude nothing but our simpleton arrogance I’m afraid. Yankee Fascism has probably required banality to disguise it. Later Americans will have to own up to our inhumanity and hubris with the additional shame that we couldn’t even transcend our ugliness for the occasion.

damn I can’t think of a good title

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But I was just checking my yahoo mail. Nothing special, every day I get good stuff to ridicule, applaud, or just plain run through the streets singing “man, check out what those freak peckerheads did THIS time”
which one first which…hhmmmmm
Ok the first one is on the yahell news ticker about bush overhauls iraq team just before the Big Announcement.
now I am putting some of my own words on the title, because they sound better.
One may well ask oneself “Self, what do they mean “overhaul”? are they sending the team to get their brakes checked? Maybe fitting themselves for those prison uniforms that are loosely based on overalls? (one can only hope)

but of course there is the teaser, almost obligatory, that Mr Bonzo ooops I mean Bush is going to unveil his new plan for the New Direction in Iraq. Apparently the media whores have this idea that all of America, left right and in the middle, (and the guy in the rear, burned his driver’s license, but that’s another story) are actually awaiting and anticipating and also anxiously (sorry, got on a roll with the A) but we are sitting on the edge of our seats EXPECTING the trained Chimp to come up with a plan.

Ummmm….. in light of his recent “leadership” experience, I’m not quite convinced that he will. I mean, call me a doubter or a nay-sayer or whatever but I just can’t muster much confidence and optimism.

But if you don’t have any other game plan, fake it and maybe nobody will notice that you are packing your bags to split the country. That’s called “spin”. But apparently this story has been spun so long it should be called a dreidel.
For those not familiar with Judaism that is a sort of a top kids play with and also has mystical meanings.

Then the other is some stock market news, actually an online broker publishing what he hopes I will believe enough to buy into his crazy scheme. I guess I used keywords like capitalism and Stocks and Bonds and money grubbing greedheads enough to make some automated spam program think I was actually interested in sending my money down the hole.

But the header on it was Applications rise greeted as positive sign by investors….

ok. What investors? By applications of course they mean job applications. Which means large unemployment.
and thus less inflation. And more people willing to work for lower wages.

See, to these kids, anything is positive investment news. A flood in China? Buy stock in companies that make sandbags… Nuclear war imminent? buy companies that make survivalist crap to supply your worthless bunker…
Massive cases of people dropping dead of bird flu? Invest in coffin manufacturers. A rise in the Death Penalty? Buy companies that make ropes and gallows. Ok I’ll stop, before giving myself a complex.

The good news is that we can still see the signs. You are still able to read what I write, so neither of us is in jail…. yet.

Meet you at the barricades.

Mothra vs Nopalzilla, Taco Bell, GM food, and bioengineering

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Two articles today in the news got me thinking about genetically modified food and bioengineering again. In short, I think we have Ag gone mad, medicine gone mad, and Hey!, we just plain got Science gone mad! What drove HighTech crazy? Unfortunately it is the same thing that is driving all of us crazy, the constant insane drive by our ruling class to find new ways to profit and to max all profits out, and to speedup profit making all for themselves. In short, their greed is doing us all in. Let’s look at the story of Mothra vs Nopalzilla first, to see what got me into a tizzy on this one. It would be comical, except it’s really not.

As we can see, the moth that came to threaten Mexico got its start 90 years ago by an attempt of ‘scientists’ to ‘bioengineer’ in Australia. Some 125 years previously, settlers in Australia had imported a dye producing bug to help color their uniforms red. How important was that! They then imported cactus nopales to feed this bug with the red dye inside. But the nopales ran amuck in Australia like the poisonous cane toads later did, and wrecked havock on the natural habitat. That’s when the genius scientists stepped in with the moth that they took from Argentina to kill the nopales. Great success!

But this moth then made its way from Australia to Florida and started heading south towards Mexico, where 1/2 of all the world’s many species of nopal lives. Stopped in Alabama, the moth decided to hit the Isla of Mujeres offshore in southern Mexico, where now it may be blown a few miles to mainland Mexico in a few days, and then go on to destroy the nopal plants that just happen to hold down much of the soil of Mexico! In short, bioengineering scientists can later be proven that they have been about as adept as the Three Stooges.

So speaking of the Stooges, we have Taco Bell and Monsanto genetically modifying corn. But these stooges forgot the scallions it seems. E-coli, served at Taco Bell in the scallions has been killing and injuring folk now in several Eastern States, and Taco Bell and US health officials initially blamed Mexican produce for that. But just today, the actual culprit had been tracked down to California once again, where just a few weeks previous the Spinach had been killing folk that had bought those nice packaged, clean looking bagged specimens we are all tempted to buy while grocery shopping. Should we really trust people like Taco Bell with the GM corn, when they can’t even get the regular old onions right? I rather think not. Plus, we have the example of Mothra and Nopalzilla, too, to also help make us think twice about the supposed benefits that the HIghTech Ag folk say will come our way with mutating corn and other farm products.

Which brings us to medical bioengineering. It’s just the big thing now to be playing with genes, Dr Moreau. Go to the journals Lancet and Scientific American, and all sorts of groovy things are on the way, they say. Not only farm animals and farm plants are going to be modified right and left genetically, but medicines, vaccines, and lab rats. And you and I are the lab rats, it appears. All disease is going to disappear due to these tinkerings! Never mind the trillions being spent to blow the world up, reduce people down to utter squalor and despair, and to make us …. well…. SICK.

We need a lot less techology guiding the world on behalf of rich pirates that own the ag labs where it is being produced, and more common sense from the peasants. So in regards to genetically engineered foods, we should still say Down With the Food Czars! They are interested in making more bucks, and not interested really in our overall health. Don’t believe that? Walk down the grocery aisles some and ponder it a little more then.

And Doctor Moreau? You scare me the most. Your bizarre experiments on us all through your med labs and hospitals are producing a monstrous world ahead. The net result of the last decades’ practice by the corporate docs, is a world of disease we never ever dreamed possible not even in Hell, all flying our way at once. Don’t believe me? Pay a visit to some of the cancer wards perhaps. Try the burn units. Try the ICUs. Then go to the labs where reaserch is done on Dr. Moreau’s creatures. Hell with George Orwell and 1984. It’s more like HG Wells and his famouns book about the mad doc, instead. Todays’s Dr Moreaus promises us vaccines to cure all diseases that taste just like lollypops to lure us aboard his grand experiment. Yes, the bioengineering story has a little of Hansel and Gretel in it, too.

The Fighting Arabs

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The Notre Dame football players are called the Fighting Irish. Where did that come from? They’re Catholic, so they’re Irish? They’d more likely be Italian, or Belgian, or everyone who speaks Spanish. What is it about the Irish?

Our country has a love affair with the Irish, the Catholic Irish, and it explains Saint Patrick’s Day and our support of the IRA. We fought for our independence from Britain, why shouldn’t they?

English friends used to ask me, why do Americans send money to the IRA? Don’t we see the results of the IRA bombings in London? Do we mean to be supporting cold-blooded terrorists?

I didn’t know the answers to those questions, except one: no, the American public was not regularly shown the devastating bombings in England. Curious. Americans want to love the Irish.

If our support of the Irish cause has anything the slightest in common to do with Notre Dame, I have an idea for the Arab peoples. Buy an American university, at least control of its team, and nickname your athletes the Fighting Arabs. Give them an inspirational Muslim coach. Why not? Imagine them, scrappy Arab underdogs in resplendent heroic uniforms, they too can fight with God on their side.

There is absolutely no reason why Americans can’t cheer for the beleagered Arabs, and won’t pray for an upset, regardless a fan’s normally favored regional school team. Go Arabs! Go Islamists! Go you Fighting Persians!

White Mountain

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Hitch your horse to this manservantWhite Mountain met its match last night, at their homecoming football game. The idea usually is to pick an opponent to beat at your homecoming festivities. Later you might visit a fellow school on their homecoming weekend and lose to them in return. But “South,” the underprivileged shoe-in with half the athletic department and budget, would not play ball. And that was the good news.

There was a distinct home advantage, the bigger, better lit bleachers, the multiple cheerleading squads, the band, the fireworks, everything uphill and upwind from the diminutive visitors stands. But the Indians got whooped by the visiting Pueblo South Colts, and maybe expected it. It felt like a surprise to most, and it was pretty dark out there. Add to that the anonymity of shiny football helmets under high school stadium lights, but if you looked closely you could tell it was darker on the south side of the field. The Pueblo South High School players were black and hispanic.

White Mountain gets its name because there are no children of color there. Well, there are the occasional adopted black children, and the whitish black children of privilege, but few others. Cheyenne Mountain is very very white. Nothing wrong with that, it’s an affluent neighborhood and welcomes all who can afford to be there.

But at the base of Cheyenne Mountain is a racism more overt and the children of White Mountain pass it everyday. Cheyenne Mountain Resort is a terribly exclusive country club with amazingly expensive membership fees and golf tee fees. And all the attendants there are black. It’s the Pullman porter valet concept with plantation era uniforms. They look like lawn jockey figurines. Thin black people in pure white clothes. Smiling black faces, happy to be there. Nothing illegal about the hiring standard, here’s how it works:

Cheyenne Mountain Resorts applies for an immigration waiver to hire international workers. They claim the jobs which resorts offer cannot be filled by the local labor force. The pay’s not enough, the career prospects are not enough, and true enough, the local populace is not enough either. Too fat maybe, poor work ethic, have social problems perhaps, and locals have their own transport to bring or fetch complications for the resort. Locals bring too much financial baggage to the table.

On the other hand, imported laborers are housed at company apartments. They’re shuttled to and from work. When they’ve finished their three month stint they are sent home. Deliriously uncomplicated and cheap. Cheyenne Mountain Resorts does its hiring in Jamaica. Know any white people in Jamaica? Well, they don’t appear to sign up to work across the sea, away from their home and family, on a rich man’s plantation.

The Broadmoor takes advantage of the same immigrant labor waiver to staff its hotel and restaurant, except they hire exclusively in Eastern Europe. I’m not sure that’s not racist to another extreme. The slavic labor force is the least expensive in the world, in the world of white people. There are no colored peoples there.

The immigrant labor waiver is an unfair means for local employers to escape contributing to a sustainable and healthy local community. It’s a foreign aid program of sorts, but at the expense of what could be local jobs. And when it’s racially segregated, it’s ugly. I plan to ask around if White Mountain prefers its golf jockeys all black. If they can’t say it with a straight face, they should stop it.

This isn’t about racism, it’s about economic justice. If we want to believe in the notion that the American dream is available to people of all shades and heritage, we must not teach our children that racial differences dictate social status.

Veteran’s Day parade, part 1

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Prussian charge
I should say that I had never watched a veteran’s parade, I think. Wasn’t it supposed to be a parade of veterans? This was a parade of mostly active duty soldiers and soldiers-to-be. It was very disturbing.

There was a flatbed trailer, there may have been several of these interspersed, on which stood a current war hero. He straddled the platform, his hands on his hips, striking a valiant pose, his chin held high and to the side. A large placard read: recipient of medal so-and-so.

There were marching bands, real young faces. I hoped that as excited as they were to be in the parade, that they weren’t thinking of joining the military.

I had just met a gentleman looking for legal advice for his daughter who’d recently signed up. She was a promising musician in high school, she played the coronet. A recruiter had told her that the army was in desperate need of musicians. They needed her for their marching band. The recruiter assured her that she wouldn’t have anything to do with the fighting, but that she could serve her country in its hour of need, by offering to do something that she loved. She signed on.

No sooner was she through boot camp that she learned she was being sent to Iraq. She and her fellow musicians were told: leave your instruments at home, you won’t need them.

Among the marching bands was a band called the Rampart Regiment, (actually Rampart High School’s marching band, and state champions). But their uniforms were terribly unfortunate. They were black, a sort of turn of the century look with high hats, and a large black feather. They looked like Prussians, or what we would recreate in our minds if we were trying to visualize those mercenary Hessians! Their outfits hearkened to a day when the uniforms meant to intimidate.

Does anyone remember what distinguished the aggressive from the defensive soldiers in the last world wars? The Allies had the frumpy uniforms because they didn’t mind being seen as sympathetic. The aggressive soldiers are the ones who want to scare the bejezus out of their enemies. This has been true since warfare began.

White hat versus black hat, it’s true for cowboys and hackers. Good guys and bad guys.

What was Rampart thinking to dress their band looking like black draped raiders? They look like Cossacks about to swing down and slice you in the back as you try to flee from them.

What business do we have trying to glorify the terror of war?

I was horrified too by what appeared to be den mothers, preening their little kids in their little uniforms, to salute the passing soldiers. These were not just boy scout uniforms but miniature military outfits. I couldn’t help but think these kids were wishing that someday they too could be featured in the parade.

At that point I noticed there weren’t any wheelchairs in the parade. Top be sure many of the WWII vets may not be so ambulatory nowadays, but their disabilities were concealed by the antique cars from which they waved. Why couldn’t something like that have been arranged for the wounded Iraq war vets?

There weren’t any crutches or wheelchairs or homeless drunkards which comprise the largest contingent of Vietnam vets. Now we’re learning it’s even more true for the Gulf Gar vets. And there were no mentally addled vets with bandaged heads to symbolize their injuries.

And certainly the Veterans For Peace and the Iraq Veterans Against the War were denied permission to participate.

Then there was something most disturbing of all: a guy in army fatigues, youngish, stocky, probably a drill sergeant but uncharacteristically casual, and he was working the crowd. In nonchalant fashion, he was rallying both participants and spectators with a call and response routine.

“God bless America” he would shout. “God bless America” the crowd answered. I was reminded of something Bismark had famously said in the 19th century: “God protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

There we were, this veteran’s day, a day to honor veterans, ignoring the veterans altogether. An active duty soldier rallying soldiers and the families of soldiers: “God bless America.” “God bless America.”

Over and over. “God bless America.” “God bless America.”

We will need it.