Ayn Rand SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let me first begin with how I was exposed to Ayn Rand. I am in high school and awhile back my teacher was doing a course on homelessness. In a ‘prompt’ that she gave me as to what are the causes of homelessness, I answered CAPITALISM. A week later I was astonished to get back my paper with a Zero. I showed this to many people all of whom agreed that it was in no way deserving of a zero. My dad and I took this question as to why I had gotten a zero on  my paper to the teacher. I wasn’t expecting much but even after one hour of asking my English teacher why I had gotten a zero on my paper she had no reasonable answer other than that I had not followed the ‘format’ correctly, even though I had a previous organizational sheet on which I based my writing on following her format. she ended by saying I was a horrible writer;  we gave up trying to get to through to such a numbskull.

I didn’t quite understand why she had given me a zero until a couple months later, and so began my experience with Ayn Rand. My teacher took us to get the book. As I read the summary I knew it would be some sort of method for her and d-11 to push their politics on students;  however I had no previous knowledge of who Ayn Rand was.  The next day in class she gave us a powerpoint on the background of Ayn Rand and what the book Anthem was about. It was filled with negative comments on communism including that communism supposedly takes away knowledge, individuality and free expression.   As I was assigned to read more and more of Ayn Rand I realized how horrible of a writer she was. I started to listen to Ayn Rand’s interviews. I then understood that  they were forcing me to read a writer who didn’t believe in helping anyone, because she was a racist, a nationalist and a pure evil witch. These interviews can be found on <youtube> and <bluecorncomics> among many other articles revealing Ayn Rand to be a racist.

The more and more I read into the book the more i was infuriated at the pure ridiculousness and hypocrisy of it.  In the ending chapters it is written by Ayn Rand that

“The word WE is the lime poured over me, which sets and hardens to stone, crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?”

As i read this I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, throw up, or rip the book apart . I was sickened by how when I had expressed my “free speech” I was given a ZERO; by how I had to read an author who believes being selfish is  a virtue. And by how every day, whenever I went to class instead of being taught English literature I got the teachers Right Wing, anti-communist politics thrown into my face. Each time a question on the book was asked I didn’t hear an opinion on whether the book was good or bad i only heard questions on how communism takes away individuality and how  Ayn Rand is right on what her idea of what communism is? I said the teacher was expressing personal opinion and the whole class started to yell at me to shut up. I got so alienated and depressed after they  said that communism makes robots, and brain dead people  even though I couldn’t find more brain dead robots as hard as I looked than the ones that were sitting right next to me.

I couldn’t take the class anymore as it was an insult to who I was, what I believed in, and all the people I respected were continually insulted and lied about. I started skipping the class after my dad not only talked at a school board meeting but also to my assistant principal, in both cases we were given the cold shoulder and treated horribly rude. I decided to go to the class again and deal with it. As I read the quote given above in that class and as I looked around i became terrified of being like them. I was torn between staying and swallowing my believes and to be JUST LIKE THOSE SHEEP or to get up and leave. The overwhelming fear of being lost into them made me get up and walk out of the class. Later that day the assistant principal took me out of a class and made me feel like an outsider, like a weird person that needed to be put in a psychiatric hospital. I complained that I was being pushed politics in a public school and his response was that no other students felt like I did. When I told him that the teacher had given me a zero and was now failing me out of the course, who had said I was a horrible writer; he said He didn’t believe me and that I was wrong. He told me that if I was to walk out again I would have to deal with the consequences even though he wouldn’t deal with a teacher pushing politics.   He smiled as I cried for being  looked at as being an idiot and a weirdo kid ; it took me about two hours to get with it. We continued to try to get me switched out of the class, which finally we did only to find that Ayn Rand was being taught in that course too and  in all English classes for that matter.

I realize I will probably never get them to change, to respect students, parents and INDIVIDUALITY. But this  continuing fight which is probably the hardest I’ve ever had to fight proved to me that I would stand up for myself against a herd of flesh eating zombies, that I would NEVER BE LIKE THEM . And I felt pride in knowing I stood up to being brainwashed by  anti communist right wingers.

MIND THE GAP, chides Occupy Denver

Mind the gap
DENVER- Concert, 1000-strong march, and the customary Broadway sidewalk shenanigans. Here’s a paint-tub drummer, PVC didjeridoo and my vote for best sign: MIND THE GAP. Saturday’s musical festivities in Civic Center Park meshed well with the annual Zombie Crawl, but the day’s highlight came after dark, when Denver’s anarchist community held a march against police brutality in memory of DPD victim Marvin Booker. The unpermitted route began at Denver Zoo and defined “Whose streets? OUR STREETS!” as it took 23rd, York, Colfax, Broadway, around OCCUPY DENVER’s CC park and into the 16th Street Mall where nocturnal Zombies swelled the ranks and found themselves chanting and carrying the banners STOP POLICE TERRORISM and LAW ENFORCEMENT: END YOUR WAR AGAINST THE PEOPLE.

Help this Settler-Zombie video go viral before totalitarian zombiehood spreads

Israeli West Bank Settler lunges at Palestinian youthOMGoodness, finally a settler video to go viral. There’s no bashing of Palestinian heads, no brandishing of guns, no drunken West Bank Settler mob on the rampage, nothing Youtube can censor, it’s pure comic theater! Here is a proverbial fat bully lurching as best he can, goading, coaxing, even screaming primordially, itching to pummel the young Palestinian cameraman who stays nimbly out of reach.

The scenario is spelled out in the Youtube comments, the cameraman is trying to document his friends’ efforts to tend their West Bank land, while Israeli Settlers repeatedly force police confrontations which result in the area being declared “militarized” and thence, theirs. While the cameraman observes, an angry settler who is already trying to allocate the land for his vineyard decides to run him off with brute force.

The ZOMBIE characterization describes Deutch’s particular Lurch-like lack of agility, but the relentless advance is a disturbing body language of Israeli Settler aggression. The hopped-up settlers move upon Palestinians with the confidence that their victims are unarmed and dare not strike back, that the Palestinian can presume that their attackers might have guns, and that sympathetic policemen have the the Israelis’ back. So yes, when it’s an able-bodied young settler advancing at a clip, clapping his fist, looking to draw blood, the effect is less comic.

Obviously, most settler videos are violence porn. Not this one — if you ignore what would have happened had Moshe Deutch got his mitts on him. That footage of course would not have survived.


Be sure to watch the follow-up, where a younger settler arrives at a gallup to reinforce Moshe Deutch’s stalled advance. The cameraman is forced to run, then looks on as the settlers slash all four tires of his car. It’s the high price he pays, but he’s got the West Bank’s Funniest Home Video.

West Bank Settlers intimidating unarmed Palestinian farmers

Joe Stack’s Piper Cherokee Manifesto

Single Engine AircraftIt’s getting so you can’t fly a plane into a federal office building and hope somebody will finally find your website. Though engineer Joseph Stack left an online statement to explain his last act of desperation against the IRS, it was deleted “in compliance with a request from the FBI.” I guess his web hosts think the 1st Amendment has an FBI exemption. Even Google’s cache was expunged. This has freed Reporters to characterize Stack’s missive as a crazed rant. Nothing threatens the establishment like this conclusion: “Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, … violence … is the only answer. The cruel joke is that [those] at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at … fools like me all along.” I don’t know about you, but when I hear that a self-made engineer-businessman who has his own plane, commits suicide on principles he has articulated in a manifesto, I’m curious to hear him out.

I’m reminded of the sad story of the desperate antiwar activist who set himself on fire as a final protest of the escalating wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He knew accomplices would only dissuade him, so he chose an isolated spot where he could proceed unmolested and set up a video camera to record the act. Naturally, policemen were the first to encounter his body and thus the footage of dramatic statement are consigned to the obscurity of their files.

single engine airplaneFortunately the internet is still too porous for redaction on the grounds of national security, or whatever reason the FBI contrived to censor Stack’s suicide note/screed/diatribe. The Smoking Gun has the usual non-text scans of what Joseph Stack wrote before he piloted his single-engine Piper PA-28 into the Austin TX IRS office. Here’s the full text of Stack’s manifesto.

If you’re reading this, you’re no doubt asking yourself, “Why did this have to happen?”  The simple truth is that it is complicated and has been coming for a long time.  The writing process, started many months ago, was intended to be therapy in the face of the looming realization that there isn’t enough therapy in the world that can fix what is really broken.  Needless to say, this rant could fill volumes with example after example if I would let it.  I find the process of writing it frustrating, tedious, and probably pointless… especially given my gross inability to gracefully articulate my thoughts in light of the storm raging in my head.  Exactly what is therapeutic about that I’m not sure, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

We are all taught as children that without laws there would be no society, only anarchy.  Sadly, starting at early ages we in this country have been brainwashed to believe that, in return for our dedication and service, our government stands for justice for all.  We are further brainwashed to believe that there is freedom in this place, and that we should be ready to lay our lives down for the noble principles represented by its founding fathers.  Remember? One of these was “no taxation without representation”.  I have spent the total years of my adulthood unlearning that crap from only a few years of my childhood.  These days anyone who really stands up for that principle is promptly labeled a “crackpot”, traitor and worse.

While very few working people would say they haven’t had their fair share of taxes (as can I), in my lifetime I can say with a great degree of certainty that there has never been a politician cast a vote on any matter with the likes of me or my interests in mind.  Nor, for that matter, are they the least bit interested in me or anything I have to say.

Why is it that a handful of thugs and plunderers can commit unthinkable atrocities (and in the case of the GM executives, for scores of years) and when it’s time for their gravy train to crash under the weight of their gluttony and overwhelming stupidity, the force of the full federal government has no difficulty coming to their aid within days if not hours?  Yet at the same time, the joke we call the American medical system, including the drug and insurance companies, are murdering tens of thousands of people a year and stealing from the corpses and victims they cripple, and this country’s leaders don’t see this as important as bailing out a few of their vile, rich cronies.  Yet, the political “representatives” (thieves, liars, and self-serving scumbags is far more accurate) have endless time to sit around for year after year and debate the state of the “terrible health care problem”.  It’s clear they see no crisis as long as the dead people don’t get in the way of their corporate profits rolling in.

And justice? You’ve got to be kidding!

How can any rational individual explain that white elephant conundrum in the middle of our tax system and, indeed, our entire legal system?  Here we have a system that is, by far, too complicated for the brightest of the master scholars to understand.  Yet, it mercilessly “holds accountable” its victims, claiming that they’re responsible for fully complying with laws not even the experts understand.  The law “requires” a signature on the bottom of a tax filing; yet no one can say truthfully that they understand what they are signing; if that’s not “duress” than what is.  If this is not the measure of a totalitarian regime, nothing is.

How did I get here?

My introduction to the real American nightmare starts back in the early ‘80s.  Unfortunately after more than 16 years of school, somewhere along the line I picked up the absurd, pompous notion that I could read and understand plain English.  Some friends introduced me to a group of people who were having ‘tax code’ readings and discussions.  In particular, zeroed in on a section relating to the wonderful “exemptions” that make institutions like the vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church so incredibly wealthy.  We carefully studied the law (with the help of some of the “best”, high-paid, experienced tax lawyers in the business), and then began to do exactly what the “big boys” were doing (except that we weren’t stealing from our congregation or lying to the government about our massive profits in the name of God).  We took a great deal of care to make it all visible, following all of the rules, exactly the way the law said it was to be done.

The intent of this exercise and our efforts was to bring about a much-needed re-evaluation of the laws that allow the monsters of organized religion to make such a mockery of people who earn an honest living.  However, this is where I learned that there are two “interpretations” for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws; the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.

That little lesson in patriotism cost me $40,000+, 10 years of my life, and set my retirement plans back to 0.  It made me realize for the first time that I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie.  It also made me realize, not only how naive I had been, but also the incredible stupidity of the American public; that they buy, hook, line, and sinker, the crap about their “freedom”… and that they continue to do so with eyes closed in the face of overwhelming evidence and all that keeps happening in front of them.

Before even having to make a shaky recovery from the sting of the first lesson on what justice really means in this country (around 1984 after making my way through engineering school and still another five years of “paying my dues”), I felt I finally had to take a chance of launching my dream of becoming an independent engineer.

On the subjects of engineers and dreams of independence, I should digress somewhat to say that I’m sure that I inherited the fascination for creative problem solving from my father.  I realized this at a very young age.

The significance of independence, however, came much later during my early years of college; at the age of 18 or 19 when I was living on my own as student in an apartment in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  My neighbor was an elderly retired woman (80+ seemed ancient to me at that age) who was the widowed wife of a retired steel worker.  Her husband had worked all his life in the steel mills of central Pennsylvania with promises from big business and the union that, for his 30 years of service, he would have a pension and medical care to look forward to in his retirement.  Instead he was one of the thousands who got nothing because the incompetent mill management and corrupt union (not to mention the government) raided their pension funds and stole their retirement.  All she had was social security to live on.

In retrospect, the situation was laughable because here I was living on peanut butter and bread (or Ritz crackers when I could afford to splurge) for months at a time.  When I got to know this poor figure and heard her story I felt worse for her plight than for my own (I, after all, I thought I had everything to in front of me).  I was genuinely appalled at one point, as we exchanged stories and commiserated with each other over our situations, when she in her grandmotherly fashion tried to convince me that I would be “healthier” eating cat food (like her) rather than trying to get all my substance from peanut butter and bread.  I couldn’t quite go there, but the impression was made.  I decided that I didn’t trust big business to take care of me, and that I would take responsibility for my own future and myself.

Return to the early ‘80s, and here I was off to a terrifying start as a ‘wet-behind-the-ears’ contract software engineer… and two years later, thanks to the fine backroom, midnight effort by the sleazy executives of Arthur Andersen (the very same folks who later brought us Enron and other such calamities) and an equally sleazy New York Senator (Patrick Moynihan), we saw the passage of 1986 tax reform act with its section 1706.

For you who are unfamiliar, here is the core text of the IRS Section 1706, defining the treatment of workers (such as contract engineers) for tax purposes. Visit this link for a conference committee report (http://www.synergistech.com/1706.shtml#ConferenceCommitteeReport) regarding the intended interpretation of Section 1706 and the relevant parts of Section 530, as amended. For information on how these laws affect technical services workers and their clients, read our discussion here (http://www.synergistech.com/ic-taxlaw.shtml).

SEC. 1706. TREATMENT OF CERTAIN TECHNICAL PERSONNEL.

(a) IN GENERAL – Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 is amended by adding at the end thereof the following new subsection:

(d) EXCEPTION. – This section shall not apply in the case of an individual who pursuant to an arrangement between the taxpayer and another person, provides services for such other person as an engineer, designer, drafter, computer programmer, systems analyst, or other similarly skilled worker engaged in a similar line of work.

(b) EFFECTIVE DATE. – The amendment made by this section shall apply to remuneration paid and services rendered after December 31, 1986.

Note:

·      “another person” is the client in the traditional job-shop relationship.

·      “taxpayer” is the recruiter, broker, agency, or job shop.

·      “individual”, “employee”, or “worker” is you.

Admittedly, you need to read the treatment to understand what it is saying but it’s not very complicated.  The bottom line is that they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d).  Moreover, they could only have been more blunt if they would have came out and directly declared me a criminal and non-citizen slave.  Twenty years later, I still can’t believe my eyes.

During 1987, I spent close to $5000 of my ‘pocket change’, and at least 1000 hours of my time writing, printing, and mailing to any senator, congressman, governor, or slug that might listen; none did, and they universally treated me as if I was wasting their time.  I spent countless hours on the L.A. freeways driving to meetings and any and all of the disorganized professional groups who were attempting to mount a campaign against this atrocity.  This, only to discover that our efforts were being easily derailed by a few moles from the brokers who were just beginning to enjoy the windfall from the new declaration of their “freedom”.  Oh, and don’t forget, for all of the time I was spending on this, I was loosing income that I couldn’t bill clients.

After months of struggling it had clearly gotten to be a futile exercise.  The best we could get for all of our trouble is a pronouncement from an IRS mouthpiece that they weren’t going to enforce that provision (read harass engineers and scientists).  This immediately proved to be a lie, and the mere existence of the regulation began to have its impact on my bottom line; this, of course, was the intended effect.

Again, rewind my retirement plans back to 0 and shift them into idle.  If I had any sense, I clearly should have left abandoned engineering and never looked back.

Instead I got busy working 100-hour workweeks.  Then came the L.A. depression of the early 1990s.  Our leaders decided that they didn’t need the all of those extra Air Force bases they had in Southern California, so they were closed; just like that.  The result was economic devastation in the region that rivaled the widely publicized Texas S&L fiasco.  However, because the government caused it, no one gave a shit about all of the young families who lost their homes or street after street of boarded up houses abandoned to the wealthy loan companies who received government funds to “shore up” their windfall.  Again, I lost my retirement.

Years later, after weathering a divorce and the constant struggle trying to build some momentum with my business, I find myself once again beginning to finally pick up some speed.  Then came the .COM bust and the 911 nightmare.  Our leaders decided that all aircraft were grounded for what seemed like an eternity; and long after that, ‘special’ facilities like San Francisco were on security alert for months.  This made access to my customers prohibitively expensive.  Ironically, after what they had done the Government came to the aid of the airlines with billions of our tax dollars … as usual they left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY!  After these events, there went my business but not quite yet all of my retirement and savings.

By this time, I’m thinking that it might be good for a change.  Bye to California, I’ll try Austin for a while.  So I moved, only to find out that this is a place with a highly inflated sense of self-importance and where damn little real engineering work is done.  I’ve never experienced such a hard time finding work.  The rates are 1/3 of what I was earning before the crash, because pay rates here are fixed by the three or four large companies in the area who are in collusion to drive down prices and wages… and this happens because the justice department is all on the take and doesn’t give a fuck about serving anyone or anything but themselves and their rich buddies.

To survive, I was forced to cannibalize my savings and retirement, the last of which was a small IRA.  This came in a year with mammoth expenses and not a single dollar of income.  I filed no return that year thinking that because I didn’t have any income there was no need.  The sleazy government decided that they disagreed.  But they didn’t notify me in time for me to launch a legal objection so when I attempted to get a protest filed with the court I was told I was no longer entitled to due process because the time to file ran out.  Bend over for another $10,000 helping of justice.

So now we come to the present.  After my experience with the CPA world, following the business crash I swore that I’d never enter another accountant’s office again.  But here I am with a new marriage and a boatload of undocumented income, not to mention an expensive new business asset, a piano, which I had no idea how to handle.  After considerable thought I decided that it would be irresponsible NOT to get professional help; a very big mistake.

When we received the forms back I was very optimistic that they were in order.  I had taken all of the years information to Bill Ross, and he came back with results very similar to what I was expecting.  Except that he had neglected to include the contents of Sheryl’s unreported income; $12,700 worth of it. To make matters worse, Ross knew all along this was missing and I didn’t have a clue until he pointed it out in the middle of the audit.  By that time it had become brutally evident that he was representing himself and not me.

This left me stuck in the middle of this disaster trying to defend transactions that have no relationship to anything tax-related (at least the tax-related transactions were poorly documented).  Things I never knew anything about and things my wife had no clue would ever matter to anyone.  The end result is… well, just look around.

I remember reading about the stock market crash before the “great” depression and how there were wealthy bankers and businessmen jumping out of windows when they realized they screwed up and lost everything.  Isn’t it ironic how far we’ve come in 60 years in this country that they now know how to fix that little economic problem; they just steal from the middle class (who doesn’t have any say in it, elections are a joke) to cover their asses and it’s “business-as-usual”.  Now when the wealthy fuck up, the poor get to die for the mistakes… isn’t that a clever, tidy solution.

As government agencies go, the FAA is often justifiably referred to as a tombstone agency, though they are hardly alone.  The recent presidential puppet GW Bush and his cronies in their eight years certainly reinforced for all of us that this criticism rings equally true for all of the government.  Nothing changes unless there is a body count (unless it is in the interest of the wealthy sows at the government trough).  In a government full of hypocrites from top to bottom, life is as cheap as their lies and their self-serving laws.

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand.  It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants.  I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after.  But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I ensure nothing will change.  I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white-washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less.  I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.  Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.  The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.

I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different.  I am finally ready to stop this insanity.  Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let’s try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well.

The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.

The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

Zombies infest Information Super Highway

dead iphoneAre you part of the growing INTERNET zombie crowd? You know what I mean, are you a cyborg zombie infested with spyware, spam, and HIV (hijacked INTERNET voices)? Are you down with the Microsoft runs? Zombie plague sweeps the internet You are sick because the police target the wrong people to harass and now you are a zombie! The cyberpolice aren’t after them that made you sick, but you!

George W. McCain: Because facing reality is just too scary.

McCain makes stateside Berliner speech
The McCain transmogrification into a ZombieCon has accelerated, he now supports a bill to end affirmative action, a bill he previously opposed.

It all depends on McCain’s definition of “success.” Today 75 people were killed, and 300 wounded, in suicide attacks in Iraq. The only thing the S[pl]urge has succeeded at is pumping another hundred billion of your future tax dollars into the accounts of the war profiteers.

You say Silverado, I say Silverstate. McCain’s son, Andrew, has suddenly resigned from the boards of two failing banks. Maybe his middle name is “Neil?”

Disabled American Veterans cancels Cheney invite, after he all but demands waterboarding of guests.

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) says America can’t afford to keep giving Bush blank checks for the war. Wow, he must really think we are stupid, since Democrats are the ones who keep giving an endless supply of blank checks to Bush.

Murder in Jesus name. NeoChristian terrorist kills 2, wounds 7, in church shooting.

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes July 28, thomasmc.com.

Is John McCain a zombie?

Hypocrite John McCain, who thinks “Social Security is a disgrace,” received $23,157 last year from it. His total income for the year was $405,409, and his wife’s was in the tens of millions.

The McCain campaign, which has been complaining for months that Obama hasn’t visited Iraq, is now complaining that Obama is visiting Iraq. It’s amazing how many Republicans I’ve talk to say they are sick of McCain’s crap, and will vote for Obama just to spite him.

McCain isn’t just McBush, he’s also McHelms.

Calling Dr. Freud, stat! Larry Craig speaks .

Karl Rove tried to get Patrick Fitzgerald fired for investigating his role in Valerie Plame leak.

The profits of terror. Air Force caught using anti-terrorism funding to provide luxury suites on aircraft for brass.

Cop busted for blackmailing Starbucks for thousands of cups of free coffee.

What nonsense Christians can be made to believe! “The sun (and entire universe!) rotate earth”. I guess, once you have convinced yourself to believe one lie, you are open to anything.

Conservative radio host Michael Savage declares that Autism is a fraud, the kids “are just brats!” Well, that’s Compassionate Conservatism for you.

Why is Israel — the only Middle Eastern nation threatening, and on a regular basis attacking, its neighbors — allowed to have nuclear weapons, but Iran — who is only threatening to defend itself from such attacks — not? Because Israel bought our corrupt Congress (both parties) via AIPAC. Who says treason doesn’t pay?

Israeli Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz says Israel has “no choice” but to attack Iran and drag the USA into Armageddon.

Con job. Israel alledges that al Qaeda in Israel plotted to kill Bush. Hmm. Al Qaeda is in Israel. We must attack!

Rahm Emanuel for Speaker of the House? He’d be even worse than Pelosi, but the Dems do always do seem to promote the worst of the worst.

Court Jester House of Representatives promises to investigate Bush/Cheney “Imperial presidency,” while at the same time reiterating that impeachment is “off the table.”

Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes July 18, thomasmc.com.

Passive Public Tense

Republican DemocratAmerican political grammar is stuck right now in the Passive Public Tense of expression. Tens of thousands of writers daily complain about The Bush Administration publicly… and also yet passively, even as their veins pop out in fury. These folk are tense, no doubt about it, but also extremely passive. The only plan they have is to vote for the who-evers that the Right Wing Democrats set up for them around the country.

Sad to say, many of these passive folk will claim that organization, demonstrations, and political independence are futile, and that the only ‘realistic’ thing to do is go to the voting booth and pull that lever. Forward, Zombies! Sadly, these zombies claim to be merely being ‘realistic’. ‘Realistically’ though, what will they get with so little effort on their part?

How did the US sink into this passive public tense? I mean, it leads to depression! Depressed patriotism, depressed, liberties, depressed Constitution! Really, is it all that ‘realistic’ to just roll over face down, play dead, and be passive public tense during a raping from Dick Cheney. Would it not be better to fight back and hope you give them a heart attack. I know that Barack Obama wants his time at us, too, but….?….passive public tense will just get you more abuse and from even more of the bipartisan corporate gang humping away at their victim in mass.

Many have personalized all this mess, and see it now as an epic struggle between God and Satan, Barack and John… Remember when this same passive public tense thought that the other John (Kerry) was God? Where is that god now? Certainly he was the god that failed.

The passive public tense don’t like these sort of commentaries about their wimp-pee-ness, pee in their pants mind sets. They feel guilty, and get angry if their passive public tense is pointed out to them. They like to think of themselves as ruff and tuff heroes and heroines instead. All because they go out and pull that lever (true, many now just mail in their ‘resistance’ to the repressive state).

The passive public tense is a lazy tense. Lazy, not scared. Scared only to be anything other than lazy. Oh well, pull that lever for the lesser of two. Pull it for the greater of two. Sad to say though, you have done nothing, simply because the two are not the problem when you have only the passive public tense all around. It is the passiveness of the guy and gal who only ‘vote’ that is.

Conspiracy and Betrayal

America is getting to be something like Czarist Russia, where conspiracy theories swirled about people’s minds big time. Many ordinary Russians back then thought that there were all sorts of conspiracies to control the Czar, who was seen as almost a national icon, saint, and benevolent dad all wrapped up together. Of course he was none of those things. Still, people believed that he was, and that there were conspiracies galore to hijack this good man away from the people.

In America today, conspiracy theories are becoming the IN THING among many sectors of the population. Many nice liberals seem to be prone to fall for the various veins of betrayal and conspiracy thought. Many claim that The Truth is Not Being Told, etc. Yes, but it never is in fact, but the conspiracy fan thinks that this is something new and is caused by a band of conspirators in high power.

Conspiracies are real. There are multiple real conspiracies flying around our country at this very moment, down to the dog track level. But the liberal conspiracy fan, like the Russian peasant of old, fixates on usually only one idea. This idea becomes sort of an obsessive compulsive disorder fixated on political dirt, so to speak. The liberal conspiracy fan sees contamination, and those who do not agree with them are idiots and even part of the conspiracy to deny the political betrayal seen by mainly an elite core group of believers.

The conspiracy theorist believes in devils, Satanic plots, and zombies, who are not informed actors on the scene as they see themselves to be. Over on counter punch. org there is an interesting examination of the current state of this phenomena. within antiwar circles

Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today’s Anti-War Movement This is scary stuff like a horror show, as nefarious people in dark shadows destroy our nation. Or so thinks the liberal conspiracy fetishist.

Are anti-depressants really Doc ordered placebo drugs?

There is category of meds I call Doctor ordered placebos. You see, the doctors are, within the general population, the most fooled of them all by pill placebos. They often truly believe in drugs that don’t much work, simply because it makes them feel more powerful and strong to prescribe medication not generally thought of as placebo like, rather than just admitting that pharmaceuticals might not be of much effect for a condition. In short, doctors prescribe instead of admitting helplessness in confronting some condition.

‘Doctor, Mrs Hoot is acting up, what can we give her?’

Usually, instead of a swift kick in the ass, it will be a pill of some sort. Zombies are easier to manage for the doctor and his side kicks. It beats a wooden mallet, I guess? Besides, the police aren’t armed with them, but with elephant guns instead.

From the BBC… Anti-depressant prescription rates have soared. New generation anti-depressants have little clinical benefit for most patients, research suggests.

Maybe you need ‘counseling’ instead? But that’s probably way too much trouble.

The Iowa horse race feeds our delusion of being a democracy with peppy pap

I Hate Iowa… no make that…. I hate the horse races, which along with America’s football fetish, are two gambling sports we should not participate in if we value our mental health. Too much steroids involved. Too much TV bullshit coming from meathead announcers and shills of all naughts. And now live from Iowa’s Cargill Stadium comes American Democracy Night! Turn it all off, for it will just rot your brain out entirely if you don’t!

Smedwards lost to Alabomba beating the Lesbian gal. Huckster in just ahead of The Mormon! This is worse than the cheerleader contests back in Junior High times. Somebody export some real democracy to us now, PLEASE. Not this Stepford thing of flesh and brain eating candidate corporatized zombies they call American Idol… I meant the American Primaries.

The Cloverfield al-Qaeda Witch Project

Promo postcard for CLOVERFIELD“Whatever it is, it’s winning.”
 
Our Lady Liberty beheaded, smoke and ash circa 9/11, Cloverfield would seem to know what it’s insinuating. So this is The Blair Witch Terrorist Project, where there’s nothing in focus but black void, and we’re to fear what? The unknown? Kids are afraid of it already, it’s called the dark. I’d be afraid of fearing the unknown: that was the Dark Age.
 
The marketing campaign should offer this caveat:

As the media conglomerate Hollywood studio behind this movie, in the interest of full disclosure, I am an agent for WHATEVER (where “whatever” is defined as totalitarian oppression by reign of fear). Thus it is my interest, and that of WHATEVER’s, to make you believe we are winning. After all, winning is simply the act of convincing you, by deed or by decree, that your protectors have lost. In effect you must come to see that your upstream is obsolete, and of the necessity to fall in with new masters. Whether or not it is true, it will become true. That is how another is victorious, how the conqueror vanquishes you.

You’ve seen this presumably pompous routine from prizefighters. It’s the same unspoken intimidation from athletes to chess grand masters: the psych-out. You’ve lost the match before stepping into the ring, do not fool yourself otherwise.

Military propaganda fliers say it from the sky: resistance is futile. I’m Psych-Ops baby! I’m a ruse permitted by the conventions of war, so long as I’m not perfidy: I can’t lie and tell you an armistice has been signed, but I can mislead you into thinking you’re surrounded. The clever propaganda convinces you it will be easier for you if you lay down your gun. Easier for us too. We can shoot you but it’s a lot more effective to conquer you en masse, that you survive to resume your peacetime task in what becomes our labor pool.

Look at this Cloverfield promo. (Ignore for the time being what you might have gleaned from their viral marketing campaign that this is a movie about a Godzilla-esque hydrant who takes the head of the Statue of Liberty for a game on kick the can around Manhattan.) Can you think of anything more chilling than the Statue of Liberty with her head torn off, dark gaping slashes across her back, leaving vulnerable every American’s liberty?

I can.

Imagine headless American zombies who don’t know right from wrong, up from down from a hole in the ground, running from every sudden noise, every unexpected voice they don’t recognize, even and especially, in another language or praying to another God, anything that deviates from their norm or the accepted behavior they believe will not displease their masters. These zombies will be insisting that you run and cower as they do, lest you draw wrath and misfortune upon all. Or be treated as a deviant about whom they have been warned.

NPR movie critic Bob Mondello in his review of I AM LEGEND tried to insinuate that its zombies reflected the terrorists we fear, being as they were determined to destroy America for nefarious zombie-terrorist reasons. What a crock. We are the zombies.

Torture en mass

Amnesty International says that the US government has been actually worsening conditions for POWs and other prisoners (many can’t even be called POWs, since they were basically sold to the US by mercenary forces) held at Guantanamo. That can be only with deliberate intent, too.

How does it feel to be part of a society led by a government that is deliberately torturing several hundreds of prisoners en mass? Good? This has been going on for 5 years now, and the American public acts as if they were a bunch of brain dead zombies. And not one leading Democratic Party presidential candidate has come out against this torture and has called for closing Guantanamo.

I am ashamed to be an American. We need to overthrow this two-faced one party dictatorship that rules over us and the world. Unfortunately most of our fellow citizens seem to be total chumps and chimps, out shopping and driving around in circles endlessly refusing to take the smallest steps to help liberate themselves. Luckily all this must eventually self destruct. There won’t be much left though.

Evo Morales leads Bolivia out of US orbit

The Miami Herald has just published an interesting interview with Evo Morales, Bolivia’s new president, and it looks like Che Guevarra might have succeeded after all.

If I had a dollar for all the times I have heard people say that socialism or communism doesn’t work I would be rich. These people never complain about capitalism not working though when they spout off their Western World shopping mall common horse sense. opinions. But can anybody really say that capitalism has worked well for the indigenous people’s of the Americas, or the indigenous people of anywhere for that matter? We could go on here, too. Did capitalism work for Europe’s Jewish population? Awe blame it on the Muslims’ though, that’s the new vogue!

These new South American leaders like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are about the brightest rays of hope we have in the world today. Thank God that Bolivia has a leader now that wants to take Bolivia out of the US orbit. There’s nothing to be gained by continuing down that dead end alley followed for so long in the past. Viva Sud America Libre!

Now if we could only begin to liberate the brain dead zombies of the USA, too. We have to do it before they eat the rest of the planet alive.

Songs banned by Clear Channel radio stations

As part of the project to mirror web resource material that the media would otherwise hope to bury, here is the list of music recordings which Clear Channel banned from the airwaves of its enormous network of radio stations. On the heels of 9/11, Clear Channel asserted these songs had “questionable content.”

Drowning Pool “Bodies”
Mudvayne “Death Blooms”
Megadeth “Dread and the Fugitive,” “Sweating Bullets”
Saliva “Click Click Boom”
P.O.D. “Boom”
Metallica “Seek and Destroy,” “Harvester or Sorrow,” “Enter Sandman,”
“Fade to Black”
All Rage Against The Machine songs
Nine Inch Nails “Head Like a Hole”
Godsmack “Bad Religion”
Tool “Intolerance”
Soundgarden “Blow Up the Outside World”
AC/DC “Shot Down in Flames,” “Shoot to Thrill,” “Dirty Deeds”
“Highway to Hell,” “Safe in New York City,” “TNT,” “Hell’s Bells”
Black Sabbath “War Pigs,” “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” “Suicide Solution”
Dio “Holy Diver”
Steve Miller “Jet Airliner”
Van Halen “Jump”
Queen “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Killer Queen”
Pat Benatar “Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” “Love is a Battlefield”
Oingo Boingo “Dead Man’s Party”
REM “It’s the End of the World as We Know It”
Talking Heads “Burning Down the House”
Judas Priest “Some Heads Are Gonna Roll”
Pink Floyd “Run Like Hell,” “Mother”
Savage Garden “Crash and Burn”
Dave Matthews Band “Crash Into Me”
Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian”
Pretenders “My City Was Gone”
Alanis Morissette “Ironic”
Barenaked Ladies “Falling for the First Time”
Fuel “Bad Day”
John Parr “St. Elmo’s Fire”
Peter Gabriel “When You’re Falling”
Kansas “Dust in the Wind”
Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven”
The Beatles “A Day in the Life,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,”
“Ticket To Ride,” “Obla Di, Obla Da”
Bob Dylan/Guns N Roses “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”
Arthur Brown “Fire”
Blue Oyster Cult “Burnin’ For You”
Paul McCartney and Wings “Live and Let Die”
Jimmy Hendrix “Hey Joe”
Jackson Brown “Doctor My Eyes”
John Mellencamp “Crumbling Down.” “I’m On Fire”
U2 “Sunday Bloody Sunday”
Boston “Smokin”
Billy Joel “Only the Good Die Young”
Barry McGuire “Eve of Destruction”
Steam “Na Na Na Na Hey Hey”
Drifters “On Broadway”
Shelly Fabares “Johnny Angel”
Los Bravos “Black is Black”
Peter and Gordon “I Go To Pieces,” “A World Without Love”
Elvis “(You’re the) Devil in Disguise”
Zombies “She’s Not There”
Elton John “Benny & The Jets,” “Daniel,” “Rocket Man”
Jerry Lee Lewis “Great Balls of Fire”
Santana “Evil Ways”
Louis Armstrong “What A Wonderful World”
Youngbloods “Get Together”
Ad Libs “The Boy from New York City”
Peter Paul and Mary “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane”
Rolling Stones “Ruby Tuesday”
Simon And Garfunkel “Bridge Over Troubled Water”
Happenings “See You in Septemeber”
Carole King “I Feel the Earth Move”
Yager and Evans “In the Year 2525”
Norman Greenbaum “Spirit in the Sky”
Brooklyn Bridge “Worst That Could Happen”
Three Degrees “When Will I See You Again”
Cat Stevens “Peace Train,” “Morning Has Broken”
Jan and Dean “Dead Man’s Curve”
Martha & the Vandellas “Nowhere to Run”
Martha and the Vandellas/Van Halen “Dancing in the Streets”
Hollies “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”
San Cooke Herman Hermits, “Wonder World”
Petula Clark “A Sign of the Times”
Don McLean “American Pie”
J. Frank Wilson “Last Kiss”
Buddy Holly and the Crickets “That’ll Be the Day”
John Lennon “Imagine”
Bobby Darin “Mack the Knife”
The Clash “Rock the Casbah”
Surfaris “Wipeout”
Blood Sweat and Tears “And When I Die”
Dave Clark Five “Bits and Pieces”
Tramps “Disco Inferno”
Paper Lace “The Night Chicago Died”
Frank Sinatra “New York, New York”
Creedence Clearwater Revival “Travelin’ Band”
The Gap Band “You Dropped a Bomb On Me”
Alien Ant Farm “Smooth Criminal”
3 Doors Down “Duck and Run”
The Doors “The End”
Third Eye Blind “Jumper”
Neil Diamond “America”
Lenny Kravitz “Fly Away”
Tom Petty “Free Fallin'”
Bruce Springsteen “I’m On Fire,” “Goin’ Down”
Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight”
Alice in Chains “Rooster,” “Sea of Sorrow,” “Down in a Hole,”
“Them Bone”
Beastie Boys “Sure Shot,” “Sabotage”
The Cult “Fire Woman”
Everclear “Santa Monica”
Filter “Hey Man, Nice Shot”
Foo Fighters “Learn to Fly”
Korn “Falling Away From Me”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Aeroplane,” “Under the Bridge”
Smashing Pumpkins “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”
System of a Down “Chop Suey!”
Skeeter Davis “End of the World”
Rickey Nelson “Travelin’ Man”
Chi-Lites “Have You Seen Her”
Animals “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”
Fontella Bass “Rescue Me”
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels “Devil with the Blue Dress”
James Taylor “Fire and Rain”
Edwin Starr/Bruce Springstein “War”
Lynyrd Skynyrd “Tuesday’s Gone”
Limp Bizkit “Break Stuff”
Green Day “Brain Stew”
Temple of the Dog “Say Hello to Heaven”
Sugar Ray “Fly”
Local H “Bound for the Floor”
Slipknot “Left Behind, Wait and Bleed”
Bush “Speed Kills”
311 “Down”
Stone Temple Pilots “Big Bang Baby,” “Dead and Bloated”
Soundgarden “Fell on Black Days,” “Black Hole Sun”

Special effects masked King Kong’s erection

When I came across the headline MIRACULOUS SPECIAL EFFECTS MASK KING KONG’S MIGHTY MEMBER I thought, that explains a lot.
 
Virginal maidenHollywood convention:
Innocent white maiden
displayed for the taking
against her will
by large beast.

Promotional posters for Peter Jackson’s KING KONG remake show a Naomi Watts, even fully dressed looking every inch desabiller, facing an admiring Kong looking every missing inch a eunuch. What’s up with that?

What is Kong’s interest in his little friend supposed to be about in the first place? I don’t know, is Naomi the mouse who removed his thorn? Is she like KOKO’s kitten? Is she simply an aesthetic beauty with which Kong is so enthralled he must possess her? (Would art-loving in itself be necessarily platonic? I don’t know, can someone pay 58 million dollars for a Van Gogh and not masturbate to it?)

If this primate is in fact infatuated, even if he knows he can’t copulate with his tiny Fay Wray, it would seem only primal that were he to set his petite ami down anywhere to gaze at her, it would not be atop his hand.

And so there it is, the film is about fluff. There is no Mrs. Kong, there are no Kong hormones, there is nothing in Peter Jackson’s Kong world, like the Middle Earth trilogy before it, that has anything to do with sex, with the sexes, with what life is about. It’s like a film about race cars without wheels, not going anywhere useful.

You may tell me that I’ve missed the point, you may ask what do I think Fay Wray is screaming at, you may say that King Kong is sex, but I’ll tell he is not. The Empire State Building may be about sex, but having a hairy ape climbing to the tip of it is not about sex, with a partner at least. And what about all the dinosaurs for God’s sake! (If you think I’m a kill-joy, I’ll tell you that if the part of the virginal maiden had been played by BENJI, I would not have an issue.)

So this is a tale for children, western children, who needn’t grasp a sense of the real world until they are sensibly grown apparently. But there cannot be much good in perpetuating children’s stories to adults.

The problem with storytelling in modern times is bigger than Kong’s erectile disfunction. From today’s Saturday morning cartoons to the typical Hollywood blockbuster, there’s a distinct lack of telling any actual story. There’s an adventure usually, a road story at best, but never anymore a transformation or a lesson or something which an audience could take home with them to illuminate their own life experience.

And not only is there a lack of lesson or insight, there’s deliberate disinformation.

A not very profound example might be Hollywood’s interesting take on how to shoot a gun. Every gang banger has learned from the movies that a handgun is fired sideways, just as you would throw down a gang gesture. A hand extended straight out looks like you’re wanting a handshake, putting your elbow out to the side projects a dancer’s ambivalence of gravity, thus attitude.

Doubtless a gun held sideways is more attractive to film, you can get more of the actor’s face in the shot, but it’s impossible to aim a gun that way. Weight, recoil, even the gunsight conspire against you.

A simply nefarious example of movieland disinformation is sexless male aggression. When Wes Craven makes a film like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, or Sam Peckinpaw makes STRAW DOGS, or Stanley Kubric makes A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, community leaders are outraged, and those filmmakers are vilified!

But the studios are all strangely comfortable with American horror villains like Freddy Krueger of HALLOWEEN and Jason of FRIDAY THE 13TH, both on fruitless psychotic rampages. Even SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE features an intruder bent on killing, not raping the girls. Has there ever been a serial killer who was not motivated by sex, however disfunctional? Hannibal Lecter exudes all of the sadism of a believable predator, without any of the biology. Vampires used to represent sexual malevolence, back when there was just Dracula. Now vampires abound but they’re all zombies.

Am I intending to say that I wish American horror films were more pornographic? Absolutely! The violence is pornographic, why not throw in the sex? Does this exclude children from being able to watch? Certainly!

But I mention these horror films chiefly as examples of villainy depicted out of context. Villainy abounds in the real world, much of it disguised. Villainy abounds in the movies, and usually without a human face. It’s often mega-maniacal or psychotic, far removed from the reality of despotic patriarchs. This is one reason perhaps why President Bush finds it an easy sell to describe terrorists as simply evil-doers. Few in his audience seem to question that terrorists might have any plenty obvious motivions.

Why not describe a real motive or two in the movies? Maybe the world’s 800 pound gorillas don’t want to offer too many clues lest their real world villainies be rooted out. A culture informed about sexual aggression might better understand and respond to problems of gender violence, human trafficking, war atrocity and systemic abuse.

In truth, Shakespeare pioneered the archetype of the faceless villain with Iago, whose plotting against OTHELLO seemed all the more evil because Iago had no discernible motive. But Shakespeare’s devices highlighted his insight into humanity. Hollywood offers not even artifice. Its fables are just plain dumb.

Not that it is terribly brilliant to worry that Peter Jackson’s KING KONG misrepresents what gorillas have in mind with minuscule waifs. The marked absence here of King Kong’s genitalia may not be the most egregious case of cinema-verité violé, but I have to say I’m curious that it may have been pretty big.

Shadow of a snuff film

Here’s what I thought of SHADOW OF A VAMPIRE, a film that offered itself as candy for film history buffs but tasted more like a poisoned apple.

Willem Dafoe pulled off a reluctant Hannibal Lector. His Nosferatu, aka Dracula, was more like a blind mole rat than Schreck’s unblinking menace. I know! He was Yoda with an appetite! A fine performance for trick-or-treating.

But above all I can’t excuse this plot’s two main suggestions: that Murnau intended a snuff film with his two unsuspecting stars, or that he decayed into lunacy years before his greatest films!

I found Murnau’s voice-overs about the potential of the film medium to be compelling, but I was turned off at the conjecture that as an artist he would repudiate the creative act. Here Murnau’s character dismissed rehearsal and script and acting in exchange for a live freak upon which he needed to add no makeup. What a lame idea for a story! Here’s an idea: Murnau rises from the grave as a zombie and slays everyone who is dumbing-down his medium. The players in this movie all have the financial means and talent to say something meaningful!

If Murnau’s character had been a Hollywood hack, it might have worked as a self condemnation: no faith in the invocation of art, live voyeurist spectacle is all that’s needed to entertain. But Murnau’s Nosferatu was a technical tour-de-force. This film borrowed his footage without giving the credit, then dismissed the real talent that it took in the first place. If Murnau doesn’t want to rise from the grave, I will!