14 September, 2008
Obama is not an anti-War Vote
Above Link contains Question and Answer session on Obama’s nuke and war policies.
Please visit it.
Unfortunately, voting for Obama is not an anti-War Vote.
It is more of the Shame, only boobless.
The following is from World Can't Wait:
Thursday, Barack Obama and John McCain were in NYC. They billed it as a break in campaigning to mark September 11. In their separate interviews at Columbia University, they both stressed military service as a high calling, and supported the idea of Columbia to bring back the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Program), which the students drove off campus in 1969. Meanwhile -- what are those trained officers doing to avenge 9-11? Bombing civilians in Afghanistan, and sending bombers into Pakistan, as per the wishes of Bush, McCain, and Obama.
On August 22nd, according to the United Nations and even the U.S.-installed Afghanistan government, U.S. airstrikes on the village of Azizabad in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians, including 60 children. The New York Times reported: "Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them." The U.N. Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said: "Investigations by UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
"Outrage" doesn't even begin to describe this-- this is indisputably a war crime. George W. Bush's response? He announced sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan in the next several months! McCain chimed in: "It is clear that we need additional forces in Afghanistan, and I support the new deployments." Obama expressed being "glad that the president is moving in the direction of the policy that I have advocated for years." Obama criticized Bush for not being harsh enough: "His plan comes up short -- it is not enough troops, and not enough resources, with not enough urgency."
This week there were revelations that George Bush authorized bombing raids into Pakistan without prior approval of the government of Pakistan. This comes after a bomb raid that killed 23 people, including 8 children, at what the US said was a family compound of "Taliban leaders". The Bush administration has made a principle of its right -- or rather the right of its executive -- to enter other countries with impunity, in contravention of ALL international law. More on this.
As World Can't Wait said last night, while holding signs against the war, "If you are opposed to our government launching immoral and illegal wars, killing innocent civilians for oil and empire, it is time to realize: neither Barack Obama nor John McCain wants what you want. It is up to us. The only chance of stopping these atrocities and these wars is a movement of mass independent political action demanding these atrocities and wars stop!"
Please visit it.
Unfortunately, voting for Obama is not an anti-War Vote.
It is more of the Shame, only boobless.
The following is from World Can't Wait:
Thursday, Barack Obama and John McCain were in NYC. They billed it as a break in campaigning to mark September 11. In their separate interviews at Columbia University, they both stressed military service as a high calling, and supported the idea of Columbia to bring back the ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Program), which the students drove off campus in 1969. Meanwhile -- what are those trained officers doing to avenge 9-11? Bombing civilians in Afghanistan, and sending bombers into Pakistan, as per the wishes of Bush, McCain, and Obama.
On August 22nd, according to the United Nations and even the U.S.-installed Afghanistan government, U.S. airstrikes on the village of Azizabad in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians, including 60 children. The New York Times reported: "Accounts from survivors, including three people wounded in the bombing, described repeated strikes on houses where dozens of children were sleeping, grandparents and uncles and aunts huddled inside with them." The U.N. Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said: "Investigations by UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men."
"Outrage" doesn't even begin to describe this-- this is indisputably a war crime. George W. Bush's response? He announced sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan in the next several months! McCain chimed in: "It is clear that we need additional forces in Afghanistan, and I support the new deployments." Obama expressed being "glad that the president is moving in the direction of the policy that I have advocated for years." Obama criticized Bush for not being harsh enough: "His plan comes up short -- it is not enough troops, and not enough resources, with not enough urgency."
This week there were revelations that George Bush authorized bombing raids into Pakistan without prior approval of the government of Pakistan. This comes after a bomb raid that killed 23 people, including 8 children, at what the US said was a family compound of "Taliban leaders". The Bush administration has made a principle of its right -- or rather the right of its executive -- to enter other countries with impunity, in contravention of ALL international law. More on this.
As World Can't Wait said last night, while holding signs against the war, "If you are opposed to our government launching immoral and illegal wars, killing innocent civilians for oil and empire, it is time to realize: neither Barack Obama nor John McCain wants what you want. It is up to us. The only chance of stopping these atrocities and these wars is a movement of mass independent political action demanding these atrocities and wars stop!"
Anti-Palin protest in Alaska
For slideshow of rally Under the picture click "more"
Great signs!
"Ask Me Why I'm Palinoid"
"Blind Ambition Tour"
"Not Those 2 Boobs in the White House (McCain/Palin)"
Great signs!
"Ask Me Why I'm Palinoid"
"Blind Ambition Tour"
"Not Those 2 Boobs in the White House (McCain/Palin)"
13 September, 2008
Sarah Palin – Femme Fatale
I don’t “believe in evolution” as fact either. But there’s where any common ground ends between me and “Mrs. Palin” – the supposed “feminist” choice in the upcoming election.
Let’s get it right. Sarah Palin is no “feminist.” Neither is she “pro-life.”
She’s one huntin, killin submachine sumbitch “femme fatale.”
See the following from Eve Ensler.
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy white ness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But every thing Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/ Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall- out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storm \s that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the Unite d State s. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of every thing America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will deter mine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, under mining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alter natives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do every thing in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008
Let’s get it right. Sarah Palin is no “feminist.” Neither is she “pro-life.”
She’s one huntin, killin submachine sumbitch “femme fatale.”
See the following from Eve Ensler.
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy white ness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.
But every thing Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.
I believe that the McCain/ Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall- out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storm \s that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not. She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the Unite d State s. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of every thing America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will deter mine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, under mining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alter natives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do every thing in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?
Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008
What YOU can do to prevent another stolen election
thanks to Iona Miller for this:
September 12, 2008
What YOU can do to prevent another stolen election
By Mark Crispin Miller
There's really only one way to prevent another stolen race, and that's to focus national attention on the revelations of whistle-blower Stephen Spoonamore, who's lately been revealing all we need to know about the Bush regime's conspiracy to rig the vote from 2000 to the present. Spoonamore knows all the principals in this conspiracy, has been dealing with them for some time, and has a trove of emails, etc., to back up what he says.
There have been several other whistle-blowers on this front, but none is as compelling as he is--not just because he knows about the whole plot overall, but also because he is (a) a Republican, (b) an erstwhile member of the McCain campaign (he quit some months ago, when he discovered what they have planned) and (c) a prominent and well-respected expert on computer fraud. Detection of such fraud is, in fact, his specialty.
Spoonamore has named the man who was Karl Rove's IT guru from 2000 until sometime last year: Mike Connell, a pro-life zealot who told Spoonamore that he had helped the Bush regime subvert elections "to save the babies." (The actual nuts and bolts of the election fraud machinery are largely in the hands of Christianist fanatics, who have done whatever Karl Rove asked them to.) Connell's fingerprints are thick on every dubious election of the last eight years--not just the presidential races, but Gov. Don Siegelman's stolen re-election in Alabama in '02, Sen. Max Cleland's in Georgia that same year, and many others.
Spoonamore's testimony is the driving force behind a RICO lawsuit in Ohio. The lawyers handling it--Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis--are terrific, and they have a game plan that provides us with some hope. They intend to order depositions of Karl Rove, Connell, Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney and all the other major perpetrators of Bush/Cheney's (and McPalin's) fraud. Since this is a civil case, those guys can't weasel out of it (cf. Paula Jones); and in any case a number of them (including Connell, whom Rove has lately threatened with reprisals if he doesn't take the rap) want to testify. Also, the judge happens to be highly principled, which is a godsend.
So the best thing we can do is help to spread the word about what Spoonamore knows, first of all, and, no less, to get those depositions out there once they're taken.
What I urge people to do is to donate whatever they can spare to Velvet Revolution, the non-profit that is managing the suit. It was VR's Brett Kimberlin who got Spoonamore to open up, and he also has other sources with a lot to say. In order to conduct these depositions, and to fight off all of the inevitable legal challenges thereto, they're going to need as large a war chest as possible. So if you can donate to that, it would be great. (I've had some fair success in raising funds for them so far, but they need more.)
For more, as well as instructions on how to donate, go to http://www.rovecybergate.com.
Authors Bio: Mark's new book, Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008, a collection 14 essays on Bush/Cheney's election fraud since (and including) 2000, is just out, from Ig Publishing. He is also the author of Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform, which is now out in paperback from Basic Books, with over 100 pages of new material. He may be reached through his blog at markcrispinmiller.com. A movie based on his off-Broadway show, A Patriot Act, is available on DCD at www.patriotnation.com.
People of Color versus Honkies, a Palin satire
Sarah Palin's Acquired Ego Priapism
My 'myspace' friend, Casie, posted this rather cryptic blog:
"but....I don't want to hunt caribou..
Someone (who might not remain nameless) suggested to me that my intense dislike of Sarah Palin was actually internalized misogyny. I suggested it was actually externalized literacy. You should try it. Really."
This cryptic posting by Casie recalls to mind my own accusing certain women (once upon a time;) of "Misogyny" and rather than feel a pang of guilt, something I rarely experience in my native sociopathic mentality, I decided instead to accept the challenge on behalf of the to now anonymous 'someone' with the following 'externalized literacy.'
So I will write about an Indian, a culturally intact Indian. Imagine the insanity of a tribal mentality taught to oberve and honestly remark on the world around them suddenly cast adrift into the ego shielding 'Honky' sea of political correctness. Now, this native mentality is only certifibly insane because of context, or better said, an out of context circumstance. Because in the native world from which he had sprung, politically correct is actually a buzz word for the circling buzzards of humor, any Native who hears the buzz words 'politically correct' is apt to drop everything and listen in to the most recent wisdom and insight (always in the format of the often untranslatable to the Whiteman 'Indian Humor') into ripping the people who trashed 200 years of treaties and moved on pretending as though nothing had ever happened.
This endeavor goes to shatter stereotype of the 'taciturn' Indian which is actually a reflection of the little understood Native cultural communication phenomena of rather than say something honest to a Whiteman that threatens the Whiteman's ego and be killed, just shut up. Unless of course, you are not afraid to die.
Now, for simple literary device sake, we will make this Indian 1) White skinned and 2) the last of his kind. How could this happen and the said Native persona is alive in the 21st century a full 150 years since the Native custom of a White captive child raised to be Indian?
Well now, to be honest in the Native way, we must address this portion of the of the literary endeavor with a joke story drawn from real life, a sort of collage of facts assembled from bits and pieces of diverse experience combined with anecdotal information to create the culturally intact inherent Native wisdom found in their humor. In other words, parts of the story from here out is an autobiographical facts incorporated multi-faceted rip-off of other peoples life stories and experience. And because unlike the White world, the Native world entertains paradox in daily approach to life, some more of what follows is simply made up from the imagination's fund of plausible improbabilities.
We'll call the Indian 'Ron' although his native name in the Cree Indian country he hails from is 'Moon-i-Yas' which can be translated either "Not like us" or "Paleface." In Ron's case it is "Paleface" when properly translated because the other translation applies to people who act like Whites rather than look like them. And by Native definition, Ron is Indian on account of his cultural behavior, his 'pale face' simply being unfortunate circumstance or, better said from the Indian perspective, that peculiar cosmic joke of his life circumstance which one way or other manifests the Trickster aspect in all Native experience.
To kick off the story, back in the late1940s there were people just like today's truly Honky folk, real White people, that behaved in all sorts of self- repressed ways and repressed their own kids because of their staunch Puritan belief in H.L. Menecken's maximum that 'proper' Puritans must preoccupy themselves with the horrifying thought "Someone, somewhere, might be happy." So they learned to follow Jesus command to 'love' by 'loving' to hate. Because of the 'love' factor in 'loving' to hate themselves, their kids and their fellow man, making 'love' is more often a rape than not, 'loving' their brothers and sisters is 'loving' to tell other people how to live their lives, and 'loving' security is to create an insecure society so they can 'love' the idea of a police state.
Now the daughters of these fundamentalist people, whether the arch-conservative Protestant or the ultra-conservative Catholic, are not so different to some of today's young women, raised in families that with bared fangs dare anyone to so much as mention sex to their children let alone have it taught anywhere other than at the kegger parties of the young people who learn to hide the realities of their lives from their parents because you are punished whether you lie or tell the truth. So lying becomes in vogue because if you are young and you lie, you might not be caught and punished for enjoying yourself whereas if you tell the truth you will be punished everytime.
So impromptu sex education at the young peoples kegger parties gives a whole new meaning to expressions such as 'powerpoint' and the many unwed young mothers resulting are simply one manifestation of God's will and Jesus commandment that people 'love' (to be in miserable circumstance in the case of the Palins and Puritans.)
So in the late 1940s a young Catholic girl had gone from her conservative family upbringing and all girls school where the nuns would not touch sex ed with the proverbial ten foot pole, in Chicago, to college at Gonzaga in Washington State where she was intruduced to sex education as a sorority girl by innumerable happy to oblige young men at the 'Girls Gone Wild' parties before the era of exploiting these events on video tape.
Concealing her inevitable pregnancy from her far away folks, not having known what a condom is, she was driving home to Chicago with her new born at summer break, this was in 1950, give or take a year or so, and dropped the infant off on the doorstep at the Catholic Rectory at Havre, Montana, with a note pinned of the swaddling infants dress: "Ron."
As fate would have it, a Chippewa Medicine Man from the nearby Rocky Boy Indian Reservation was at the cinema close by, he enjoyed the classic 'Bugs Bunny' cartoons preceeding the movie and paid his entry fee for that but then always left. The movies themselves were non-sensical to him.
Walking along the street, he noticed a dropped envelope, picked it up and was surprized to see it was stuffed with cash. He noticed the black ink stamp of the Catholic parish on the envelope and walked to give it to the priest at the rectory and found the infant. Stepping around the child and standing on the step above, he knocked and the priest answered the door. The Medicine Man stated "I found your lost money" and handed the surprised priest the envelope. The priest, who hated this Medicine Man who his Native parishioners would sometimes sneak off to see behind his back, nearly shouted "Returning it won't buy your way out of Hell" and slammed the door in his face before he could tell him about the child. He knocked several times again, patiently waited, but there was no further opening of the door. He picked up the kid and took "Ron" home.
Given to the Medicine Man's neice who had her own infant the same age, "Ron" was suckled, named "Moon-i-Yas", surrounded with love and the native joke the newly found 'twin' was "Indian immaculate conception." No one of the Indians wanted to give the found kid to the meaner than shit racist White people at Havre, Montana, it just seemed wrong. When it came time to take the infants to the Indian Agency for birth certificates and enrollment, the Agency people just figured they were fraternal twins and there was a White father of the one child. So "Ron" grew up Indian. He moved to Al-boo-quark-ee in the southwest because of his fond memories of the old Medicine Man mimicking Bugs Bunny's pronunciation of that city's name.
Fiftyeight years after his birth, when President Palin ordered DNA tests on all Indians to reduce the Native Enrollment and save money better spent on wars than Indian health by kicking Indians that could not demonstrate 75% Native American blood off their reservations, it was discovered Moon-i-Yas a.k.a. "Ron" was the last White captive and he became a national sensation. What bloodthirsty savage had murdered his family and kidnapped this child? And anyway, any White Indian had to be a subversive, the bloodthirsty murdering savages that raised "Ron" had to have imparted their pagan licentiousness to him. The FBI was ordered to investigate "Ron", it was a matter of 'National Security.'
Meanwhile Ron had discovered a few things about White people. Like when an arch-conservative fundamentalist republican principal of a lily-white charter school surreptiously run as a private christian institution breaking every civil rights law you can imagine discovers you have raised your own kid Indian, all of the state apparatus is arrayed against you for the satanic act of being an ultra-liberal permissive parent. Allergies causing red eyes are interpreted as the child being a devil but because there is no law to charge you with for that, you are investigated for drugs. When you are honest enough to fight back for your kid and call a spade a spade, it is 'undue hostility towards authority' and you are investigated for terrorism.
Because Ron really IS Indian, he fights back with taunts and satires, in the post –modern weapons of emails and blogs;0) In one such email, "Ron" taunts his kid's teachers with the idea of "Jewells Misogyny", where in this republican institution of accererated education attended by the children of the rich and powerful only the brightest and most beautiful women teachers are hired… and must submit to the ego of the male institution.
The end result? Either liberal women who hate themselves (Jewells Misogyny) for their participation in this travesty, job security being more important than ethics and fighting back or, women with "Acquired Ego Priapism" like Sarah Palin or the 'imaginary' school principal. Women who behave like sexist and racist men. Woman male rapists of our values of tolerance and compassion, the liberal and libertarian values that are uniquely American, the ability to live and let live. Women of Palin's class which join with criminal right wing men in covering up constitutional crimes with religious façade Obama is afraid to pick on.
Of course the initial culture clash long ago was the Indians being shocked at how harshly the Putitans treated their children, the cause of many a 'captive White' raised in Native freedom and, conversely the Puritan horror at the liberty of the Native children resulting in the saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Not so different to Palin's persecution of the Native Alaskan children of today in her administrations racist drive to remove Native jurisdiction over Native child welfare. Palin is a Honky (not hockey) fundamentalist White male oriented racist woman with Acquired Ego Priapism, i.e. a chauvinist.
What I mostly enjoy about this story is in the modern politically correct world where only women can refer to a woman as a Bitch, and get away with it, no differently than only blacks can call themselves Niggers, Asians can call themselves Gook or Chinks or Jews calling themselves Kikes without a hate crime referral, but this Indian author in a White skin can call right wing White people in absolute racist terms "Honkies" and totally get away with it. I can say that especially because Supreme Court Justice Alito referred to "Marauding Indians" in a in a context of self-defense in recent decision on firearms, I suppose he thinks we should be hunted like wolves from planes. But because no one can comment on physical attributes such as gender or skin color outside their own race or sex, this prevents in any politically correct circumstance the real or broad examination of the perverse sexist and racist BEHAVIORS tied to the descriptions which underlie psychologically male oriented right wing Honky criminal women like Palin. Oh, and lest I forget if you did not see the point, now days the liberals are the 'Indians' and subject to the metaphorical Rovian Indian massacres in today's world. Hey liberal America, how's it feel to be the Indians?? How do you like getting massacred??? How about fighting back???? F**K Barak Obama's nice guy treaties with the right wing. It never worked for the first liberals, the Indians. You all better learn how to fight back or your future is starving to death on the Reservation.
Gee. Somehow the story did not end up funny. I'll work on that.
My 'myspace' friend, Casie, posted this rather cryptic blog:
"but....I don't want to hunt caribou..
Someone (who might not remain nameless) suggested to me that my intense dislike of Sarah Palin was actually internalized misogyny. I suggested it was actually externalized literacy. You should try it. Really."
This cryptic posting by Casie recalls to mind my own accusing certain women (once upon a time;) of "Misogyny" and rather than feel a pang of guilt, something I rarely experience in my native sociopathic mentality, I decided instead to accept the challenge on behalf of the to now anonymous 'someone' with the following 'externalized literacy.'
So I will write about an Indian, a culturally intact Indian. Imagine the insanity of a tribal mentality taught to oberve and honestly remark on the world around them suddenly cast adrift into the ego shielding 'Honky' sea of political correctness. Now, this native mentality is only certifibly insane because of context, or better said, an out of context circumstance. Because in the native world from which he had sprung, politically correct is actually a buzz word for the circling buzzards of humor, any Native who hears the buzz words 'politically correct' is apt to drop everything and listen in to the most recent wisdom and insight (always in the format of the often untranslatable to the Whiteman 'Indian Humor') into ripping the people who trashed 200 years of treaties and moved on pretending as though nothing had ever happened.
This endeavor goes to shatter stereotype of the 'taciturn' Indian which is actually a reflection of the little understood Native cultural communication phenomena of rather than say something honest to a Whiteman that threatens the Whiteman's ego and be killed, just shut up. Unless of course, you are not afraid to die.
Now, for simple literary device sake, we will make this Indian 1) White skinned and 2) the last of his kind. How could this happen and the said Native persona is alive in the 21st century a full 150 years since the Native custom of a White captive child raised to be Indian?
Well now, to be honest in the Native way, we must address this portion of the of the literary endeavor with a joke story drawn from real life, a sort of collage of facts assembled from bits and pieces of diverse experience combined with anecdotal information to create the culturally intact inherent Native wisdom found in their humor. In other words, parts of the story from here out is an autobiographical facts incorporated multi-faceted rip-off of other peoples life stories and experience. And because unlike the White world, the Native world entertains paradox in daily approach to life, some more of what follows is simply made up from the imagination's fund of plausible improbabilities.
We'll call the Indian 'Ron' although his native name in the Cree Indian country he hails from is 'Moon-i-Yas' which can be translated either "Not like us" or "Paleface." In Ron's case it is "Paleface" when properly translated because the other translation applies to people who act like Whites rather than look like them. And by Native definition, Ron is Indian on account of his cultural behavior, his 'pale face' simply being unfortunate circumstance or, better said from the Indian perspective, that peculiar cosmic joke of his life circumstance which one way or other manifests the Trickster aspect in all Native experience.
To kick off the story, back in the late1940s there were people just like today's truly Honky folk, real White people, that behaved in all sorts of self- repressed ways and repressed their own kids because of their staunch Puritan belief in H.L. Menecken's maximum that 'proper' Puritans must preoccupy themselves with the horrifying thought "Someone, somewhere, might be happy." So they learned to follow Jesus command to 'love' by 'loving' to hate. Because of the 'love' factor in 'loving' to hate themselves, their kids and their fellow man, making 'love' is more often a rape than not, 'loving' their brothers and sisters is 'loving' to tell other people how to live their lives, and 'loving' security is to create an insecure society so they can 'love' the idea of a police state.
Now the daughters of these fundamentalist people, whether the arch-conservative Protestant or the ultra-conservative Catholic, are not so different to some of today's young women, raised in families that with bared fangs dare anyone to so much as mention sex to their children let alone have it taught anywhere other than at the kegger parties of the young people who learn to hide the realities of their lives from their parents because you are punished whether you lie or tell the truth. So lying becomes in vogue because if you are young and you lie, you might not be caught and punished for enjoying yourself whereas if you tell the truth you will be punished everytime.
So impromptu sex education at the young peoples kegger parties gives a whole new meaning to expressions such as 'powerpoint' and the many unwed young mothers resulting are simply one manifestation of God's will and Jesus commandment that people 'love' (to be in miserable circumstance in the case of the Palins and Puritans.)
So in the late 1940s a young Catholic girl had gone from her conservative family upbringing and all girls school where the nuns would not touch sex ed with the proverbial ten foot pole, in Chicago, to college at Gonzaga in Washington State where she was intruduced to sex education as a sorority girl by innumerable happy to oblige young men at the 'Girls Gone Wild' parties before the era of exploiting these events on video tape.
Concealing her inevitable pregnancy from her far away folks, not having known what a condom is, she was driving home to Chicago with her new born at summer break, this was in 1950, give or take a year or so, and dropped the infant off on the doorstep at the Catholic Rectory at Havre, Montana, with a note pinned of the swaddling infants dress: "Ron."
As fate would have it, a Chippewa Medicine Man from the nearby Rocky Boy Indian Reservation was at the cinema close by, he enjoyed the classic 'Bugs Bunny' cartoons preceeding the movie and paid his entry fee for that but then always left. The movies themselves were non-sensical to him.
Walking along the street, he noticed a dropped envelope, picked it up and was surprized to see it was stuffed with cash. He noticed the black ink stamp of the Catholic parish on the envelope and walked to give it to the priest at the rectory and found the infant. Stepping around the child and standing on the step above, he knocked and the priest answered the door. The Medicine Man stated "I found your lost money" and handed the surprised priest the envelope. The priest, who hated this Medicine Man who his Native parishioners would sometimes sneak off to see behind his back, nearly shouted "Returning it won't buy your way out of Hell" and slammed the door in his face before he could tell him about the child. He knocked several times again, patiently waited, but there was no further opening of the door. He picked up the kid and took "Ron" home.
Given to the Medicine Man's neice who had her own infant the same age, "Ron" was suckled, named "Moon-i-Yas", surrounded with love and the native joke the newly found 'twin' was "Indian immaculate conception." No one of the Indians wanted to give the found kid to the meaner than shit racist White people at Havre, Montana, it just seemed wrong. When it came time to take the infants to the Indian Agency for birth certificates and enrollment, the Agency people just figured they were fraternal twins and there was a White father of the one child. So "Ron" grew up Indian. He moved to Al-boo-quark-ee in the southwest because of his fond memories of the old Medicine Man mimicking Bugs Bunny's pronunciation of that city's name.
Fiftyeight years after his birth, when President Palin ordered DNA tests on all Indians to reduce the Native Enrollment and save money better spent on wars than Indian health by kicking Indians that could not demonstrate 75% Native American blood off their reservations, it was discovered Moon-i-Yas a.k.a. "Ron" was the last White captive and he became a national sensation. What bloodthirsty savage had murdered his family and kidnapped this child? And anyway, any White Indian had to be a subversive, the bloodthirsty murdering savages that raised "Ron" had to have imparted their pagan licentiousness to him. The FBI was ordered to investigate "Ron", it was a matter of 'National Security.'
Meanwhile Ron had discovered a few things about White people. Like when an arch-conservative fundamentalist republican principal of a lily-white charter school surreptiously run as a private christian institution breaking every civil rights law you can imagine discovers you have raised your own kid Indian, all of the state apparatus is arrayed against you for the satanic act of being an ultra-liberal permissive parent. Allergies causing red eyes are interpreted as the child being a devil but because there is no law to charge you with for that, you are investigated for drugs. When you are honest enough to fight back for your kid and call a spade a spade, it is 'undue hostility towards authority' and you are investigated for terrorism.
Because Ron really IS Indian, he fights back with taunts and satires, in the post –modern weapons of emails and blogs;0) In one such email, "Ron" taunts his kid's teachers with the idea of "Jewells Misogyny", where in this republican institution of accererated education attended by the children of the rich and powerful only the brightest and most beautiful women teachers are hired… and must submit to the ego of the male institution.
The end result? Either liberal women who hate themselves (Jewells Misogyny) for their participation in this travesty, job security being more important than ethics and fighting back or, women with "Acquired Ego Priapism" like Sarah Palin or the 'imaginary' school principal. Women who behave like sexist and racist men. Woman male rapists of our values of tolerance and compassion, the liberal and libertarian values that are uniquely American, the ability to live and let live. Women of Palin's class which join with criminal right wing men in covering up constitutional crimes with religious façade Obama is afraid to pick on.
Of course the initial culture clash long ago was the Indians being shocked at how harshly the Putitans treated their children, the cause of many a 'captive White' raised in Native freedom and, conversely the Puritan horror at the liberty of the Native children resulting in the saying "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." Not so different to Palin's persecution of the Native Alaskan children of today in her administrations racist drive to remove Native jurisdiction over Native child welfare. Palin is a Honky (not hockey) fundamentalist White male oriented racist woman with Acquired Ego Priapism, i.e. a chauvinist.
What I mostly enjoy about this story is in the modern politically correct world where only women can refer to a woman as a Bitch, and get away with it, no differently than only blacks can call themselves Niggers, Asians can call themselves Gook or Chinks or Jews calling themselves Kikes without a hate crime referral, but this Indian author in a White skin can call right wing White people in absolute racist terms "Honkies" and totally get away with it. I can say that especially because Supreme Court Justice Alito referred to "Marauding Indians" in a in a context of self-defense in recent decision on firearms, I suppose he thinks we should be hunted like wolves from planes. But because no one can comment on physical attributes such as gender or skin color outside their own race or sex, this prevents in any politically correct circumstance the real or broad examination of the perverse sexist and racist BEHAVIORS tied to the descriptions which underlie psychologically male oriented right wing Honky criminal women like Palin. Oh, and lest I forget if you did not see the point, now days the liberals are the 'Indians' and subject to the metaphorical Rovian Indian massacres in today's world. Hey liberal America, how's it feel to be the Indians?? How do you like getting massacred??? How about fighting back???? F**K Barak Obama's nice guy treaties with the right wing. It never worked for the first liberals, the Indians. You all better learn how to fight back or your future is starving to death on the Reservation.
Gee. Somehow the story did not end up funny. I'll work on that.
An Interview With Raul Oscar Chaves of CiufosLaPampa
By Scott Corrales, Inexplicata
Readers of Inexplicata have become familiar over the years with the reports provided by Raul Oscar Chaves, one of Argentina’s most prominent researchers of cattle mutilations and UFO activity. He took time from his busy schedule this week to answer a few questions regarding the current wave of animal mutilations occurring in his country.
What is Ciufoslapampa and how did it come about?
This organization, whose visible heads are Rosa Ester Urban and Raul Oscar Chaves, was created in 2002 immediately following the manifestation of the cattle mutilation phenomenon in Argentina, particularly in La Pampa, playing a role in the research of early cases at the provincial level and in the province of Buenos Aires. The reason for this was the need to know the details of the phenomenon in its various manifestations, that is to say, its implications and even its consequences from the standpoint of research.
Are animal mutilations common in your area?
They were and are customary. Although they have decreased at the present time, having reached their peak in the year 2002, when over 1500 cases of large cattle mutilation were reported. Lesser species were also mutilated, such as rabbits, chickens, cats, dogs, pigs, wild boar, deer, foxes, sheep, etc. Cases are being reported at this time, although the number is not significant in this province, and they involve beef cattle and pigs. There is a certain concern among cattlemen regarding the particular characteristics displayed by the phenomenon this time.
Is there any connection between mutilations and UFOs?
In cases that have been detected since 2002, finding mutilated carcasses invariably followed sightings of strange lights, particularly in rural areas. The emerging theory indicates the intervention of other Intelligences operating over highly specific sectors or areas. Veterinarians and former members of the School of Veterinary Medicine of La Pampa were unable to find answers to the following during their research into the phenomenon:
· The precision and neatness of the incisions, both under cold and hot conditions, after having performed lab tests using electric scalpels and thermocauterizers, without being able to come “even close” to results similar to the ones obtained in mutilations. This was evidence of the use of unknown technologies and procedures, according to experts.
· The nearly total absence of blood in some cases, with the flesh itself being found bloodless.
· The absence of corneas, in certain cases.
· The absence of fetuses or neonates in cases of pregnancy established by palpation and in the final months of gestation, without any deterioration to the birth canal.
· Absence of muscular mass in unopened bodies, with minor incisions (jawline only) attesting to the absence of Longinis Dorsis in a 40 cm tract, with signs of exposure to microwave radiation.
· Preservation of mutilated carcasses for up to 20 days under death conditions occurring within 24 hours.
· Changes in the coloration and consistency of pastureland in areas adjacent to the animal, attesting that even microfauna had been affected, detection of very high temperatures or some type of radiation in the soil, which acquires a notorious compacting and consistency.
· Detection of a crystalline, viscous, gelatinous element on the animal that changed to the liquid state, followed by crystallization and subsequent disappearance, presumably of exogenous or unknown origin and playing a role in the mutilations.
· Detection of a bluish-green pathogen inside various parts of the mutilated bodies, without any origin being established.
It was also established that the flesh of a mutilated animal exposed to the open air was preserved up to some 40 days with evidence of a slight fetid odor, with only some flies present. The work of these experts was highly important despite the absence of results from a rational standpoint and given the lack of adequate technology for research of this nature.
What is the popular opinion about this phenomenon?
Although the most critical and vivid stage is behind us (2002-2003), which left a powerful impression on public opinion, the uncertainty is experienced by rural livestock farmers, especially those who had significant losses (12-15 animals) and are trying to glean more details about the phenomenon’s manifestation in this instance.
By Scott Corrales, Inexplicata
Readers of Inexplicata have become familiar over the years with the reports provided by Raul Oscar Chaves, one of Argentina’s most prominent researchers of cattle mutilations and UFO activity. He took time from his busy schedule this week to answer a few questions regarding the current wave of animal mutilations occurring in his country.
What is Ciufoslapampa and how did it come about?
This organization, whose visible heads are Rosa Ester Urban and Raul Oscar Chaves, was created in 2002 immediately following the manifestation of the cattle mutilation phenomenon in Argentina, particularly in La Pampa, playing a role in the research of early cases at the provincial level and in the province of Buenos Aires. The reason for this was the need to know the details of the phenomenon in its various manifestations, that is to say, its implications and even its consequences from the standpoint of research.
Are animal mutilations common in your area?
They were and are customary. Although they have decreased at the present time, having reached their peak in the year 2002, when over 1500 cases of large cattle mutilation were reported. Lesser species were also mutilated, such as rabbits, chickens, cats, dogs, pigs, wild boar, deer, foxes, sheep, etc. Cases are being reported at this time, although the number is not significant in this province, and they involve beef cattle and pigs. There is a certain concern among cattlemen regarding the particular characteristics displayed by the phenomenon this time.
Is there any connection between mutilations and UFOs?
In cases that have been detected since 2002, finding mutilated carcasses invariably followed sightings of strange lights, particularly in rural areas. The emerging theory indicates the intervention of other Intelligences operating over highly specific sectors or areas. Veterinarians and former members of the School of Veterinary Medicine of La Pampa were unable to find answers to the following during their research into the phenomenon:
· The precision and neatness of the incisions, both under cold and hot conditions, after having performed lab tests using electric scalpels and thermocauterizers, without being able to come “even close” to results similar to the ones obtained in mutilations. This was evidence of the use of unknown technologies and procedures, according to experts.
· The nearly total absence of blood in some cases, with the flesh itself being found bloodless.
· The absence of corneas, in certain cases.
· The absence of fetuses or neonates in cases of pregnancy established by palpation and in the final months of gestation, without any deterioration to the birth canal.
· Absence of muscular mass in unopened bodies, with minor incisions (jawline only) attesting to the absence of Longinis Dorsis in a 40 cm tract, with signs of exposure to microwave radiation.
· Preservation of mutilated carcasses for up to 20 days under death conditions occurring within 24 hours.
· Changes in the coloration and consistency of pastureland in areas adjacent to the animal, attesting that even microfauna had been affected, detection of very high temperatures or some type of radiation in the soil, which acquires a notorious compacting and consistency.
· Detection of a crystalline, viscous, gelatinous element on the animal that changed to the liquid state, followed by crystallization and subsequent disappearance, presumably of exogenous or unknown origin and playing a role in the mutilations.
· Detection of a bluish-green pathogen inside various parts of the mutilated bodies, without any origin being established.
It was also established that the flesh of a mutilated animal exposed to the open air was preserved up to some 40 days with evidence of a slight fetid odor, with only some flies present. The work of these experts was highly important despite the absence of results from a rational standpoint and given the lack of adequate technology for research of this nature.
What is the popular opinion about this phenomenon?
Although the most critical and vivid stage is behind us (2002-2003), which left a powerful impression on public opinion, the uncertainty is experienced by rural livestock farmers, especially those who had significant losses (12-15 animals) and are trying to glean more details about the phenomenon’s manifestation in this instance.
Feminist Essay on Palin
Well, I'd made the case awhile back Clinton is no Jeanette Rankin (still true) but considering the circumstance I'll admit I've been guilty of 20-20 hindsight my entire life, lol. But I will add here as a man-cynic, think about the convention timing. It allowed for the Rovian ploy of choice. If Obama had chosen Hillary, McCain would NOT have picked Palin who would have been fodder for Hillary in the upcoming debate. In a sense that double damns not haven chosen Hillary but if she had been chosen, Hillary would be the issue with her immense baggage in Bill and Monicagate. Rovian politics would exploit that very effectively with media complicity right down to unlaundered dress with 'DNA' stain paraded before the world on TV AGAIN. However none of that takes away from this brilliant woman's insight- Repost:
Zombie feminists of the RNC
by Rebecca Traister
How did Sarah Palin become a symbol of women's empowerment? And how did I, a die-hard feminist, end up terrified at the idea of a woman in the White House?
Sep. 11, 2008 | I have been dreaming about Sarah Palin. (Apparently, I'm not alone.) I wish I could say that I'd been conjuring witty, politically sophisticated nightmares in which she leads troops into Vancouver or kindergartners in the recitation of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But, alas, mine have been nonsensical, kiddie-style doozies in which she kidnaps my cats, or enjoys a meal with my girlfriends while I bang on the restaurant window. There's also a chilling one, in which a scary witch stands on a wind-swept hill and leers at me.
What troubles me most -- aside from the fact that there is suddenly a Republican candidate potent enough to so ensnare my psyche -- is my sense that these are dreams in which it matters very much that Palin is a woman.
I have been writing about feminism for more than five years; I have been covering the gender politics of the 2008 presidential election for more than two. And I am absolutely gobsmacked by the intensity of my feelings about Sarah Palin. I am stunned not only by the way in which her candidacy has changed the rules in the gender debate, or how it is twisting and garbling the fight for women's progress. But I'm also startled by how Palin herself is testing my own beliefs about how I react to women in power.
My feelings about Palin have everything to do with her gender -- a factor that I have always believed, as a matter of course, should neither amplify nor diminish impressions of a person's goodness or badness, smartness or dumbness, gravitas or inconsequence. Why are my rules changing?
I am still perfectly capable of picking out the sexism being leveled against the Alaska governor by the press, her detractors and her own party. Every time someone doubts Palin's ability to lead and mother simultaneously, or considers her physical appeal as a professional attribute, or calls her a "maverette," I bristle.
But that's the easy stuff. The clear-cut stuff. I'm far more torn about the more subtle, complicated ways in which Palin's gender has me tied in knots.
Perhaps it's because the ground has shifted so quickly under my feet, leaving me with only a slippery grasp of what the basic vocabulary of my beat -- feminism, women's rights -- even means anymore. Some days, it feels like I'm watching the civics filmstrip about how much progress women made on the presidential stage in 2008 burst into flames, acutely aware that in the back of the room, a substitute teacher is threading a new reel into the projector. It has the same message and some of the same signifiers -- Glass ceilings broken! Girl Power! -- but its meaning has been distorted. Suddenly it's Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum schooling us about pervasive sexism; Hillary Clinton's 18 million cracks have weakened not only the White House's glass ceiling, but the wall protecting Roe v. Wade; the potential first female vice president in America's 200-year history describes her early career as "your average hockey mom" who "never really set out to be involved in public affairs"; and teen pregnancy is no longer an illustrative example for sex educators and contraception distributors but for those who seek to eliminate sex education and contraception.
In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism -- a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin's potential power -- means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children's books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education.
In this "Handmaid's Tale"-inflected universe, in which femininity is worshipped but females will be denied rights, CNBC pundit Donny Deutsch tells us that we're witnessing "a new creation ... of the feminist ideal," the feminism being so ideal because instead of being voiced by hairy old bats with unattractive ideas about intellect and economy and politics and power, it's now embodied by a woman who, according to Deutsch, does what Hillary Clinton did not: "put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," says Deutsch. "I want her laying next to me in bed."
Welcome to 2008, the year a tough, wonky woman won a primary (lots of them, actually), an inspiring black man secured his party's nomination for the presidency, and a television talking head felt free to opine that a woman is qualified for executive office because he wants to bed her and have her watch his kids! Stop the election; I want to get off.
What Palin so seductively represents, not only to Donny Deutsch but to the general populace, is a form of feminine power that is utterly digestible to those who have no intellectual or political use for actual women. It's like some dystopian future ... feminism without any feminists.
Palin's femininity is one that is recognizable to most women: She's the kind of broad who speaks on behalf of other broads but appears not to like them very much. The kind of woman who, as Jessica Grose at Jezebel has eloquently noted, achieves her power by doing everything modern women believed they did not have to do: presenting herself as maternal and sexual, sucking up to men, evincing an absolute lack of native ambition, instead emphasizing her luck as the recipient of strong male support and approval. It works because these stances do not upset antiquated gender norms. So when the moment comes, when tolerance for and interest in female power have been forcibly expanded by Clinton, a woman more willing to throw elbows and defy gender expectations but who falls short of the goal, Palin is there, tapped as a supposedly perfect substitute by powerful men who appreciate her charms.
But while the Republicans would have us believe that Palin can simply stand in for Hillary Clinton, there is nothing interchangeable about these politicians. We began this history-making election with one kind of woman and have ended up being asked to accept her polar opposite. Clinton's brand of femininity is the kind that remains slightly unpalatable in America. It is based on competence, political confidence and an assumption of authority that upends comfortable roles for men and women. It's a kind of power that has nothing to do with the flirtatious or the girly, nothing to do with the traditionally feminine. It is authority that is threatening because it so closely and calmly resembles the kind of power that the rest of the guys on a presidential stage never question their right to wield.
The pro-woman rhetoric surrounding Sarah Palin's nomination is a grotesque bastardization of everything feminism has stood for, and in my mind, more than any of the intergenerational pro- or anti-Hillary crap that people wrung their hands over during the primaries, Palin's candidacy and the faux-feminism in which it has been wrapped are the first development that I fear will actually imperil feminism. Because if adopted as a narrative by this nation and its women, it could not only subvert but erase the meaning of what real progress for women means, what real gender bias consists of, what real discrimination looks like.
Perhaps that's why my reaction to Palin is so bone-deep, and why she is shaking some of my convictions about how to approach gender. When, last Sunday, I picked up the New York Post, with its front-page headline "Ladykiller: Hillary to Check Hockey Mom" next to photos of Palin in porno librarian mode and Clinton with her teeth bared, I didn't roll my eyes in disgust at the imagined cage match. Instead, I envisioned it. And I enjoyed it. I was overcome by the desire to see Clinton take on Palin, not only checking her but fouling her, smushing her, absolutely crushing her. Get her, Hillary! Don't let her channel all the energy generated by you and your Democratic supporters into anti-woman, pro-God government! You are the only one who can stop her.
It's true that the last time I had this kind of visceral yearning for a politician to save the day was on the evening of Sept. 11, when the only person whose face I wanted to see on my television was Bill Clinton's. Perhaps when the Clintons took office in my 18th year, they became imprinted on my brain as my presidential parent-figures, my ur-protectors. But it's hard not to notice that if that's the case, it's Bill I want to nurture and soothe me, and Hillary I want to show up, guns blazing Ripley-style, to surprise the mother alien just as she is about to feast on independent voters, protectively shouting, "Get away from them, you bitch!"
There I go again with the hyper-feminized anxieties. I think it's mostly that I want Hillary Clinton -- the imperfect history maker whose major selling points for "First Woman..." status, in retrospect, included the fact that she was not a Republican, not pro-life, did not believe in teaching creationism alongside evolution, had never inquired about the feasibility of banning books, understood the American economy, supported universal healthcare and did not kill wolves from planes -- to make Sarah Palin go away and stop threatening to make history I don't want to see made.
It is infuriating that Clinton, her supporters and, yes, also those Obama supporters who voiced their displeasure at the sexist treatment Clinton sometimes received, and also female voters, and also females full stop, are being implicated in feminism's bastardization.
But if we inadvertently paved the way for this, then the Democratic Party mixed the concrete, painted lanes on the road, put up streetlights and called it an interstate. The role of the left in this travesty is almost too painful to contemplate just yet.
For while it may chafe to hear Rudy Giuliani and John McCain hold forth on the injustice of gender bias, what really burns is that we never heard a peep or squawk or gurgle of this nature from anyone in the Democratic Party during the entire 100 years Hillary Clinton was running for president, while she was being talked about as a pantsuited, wrinkly old crone and a harpy ex-wife and a sexless fat-thighed monster and an emasculating nag out for Tucker Carlson's balls. Only after she was good and gone did Howard Dean come out of his cave to squeak about the amount of sexist media bias Clinton faced. That may not be pretty to recall, especially in light of the Grand Old Party's Grand Old Celebration of Estrogen. But it's true. And it's also true that if there hadn't been so much stone-cold silence, so much shoulder-shrugging "What, me sexist?" inertia from the left, if there had been a little more respect (there was plenty of attention, of the derisive and annoyed sort) paid to the unsubtle clues being transmitted by 18 million voters that maybe they were interested in this whole woman-in-the-White-House thing, then the right would not have had the fuel to power this particular weapon.
Which leads us to my greatest nightmare: that because my own party has not cared enough, or was too scared, to lay its rightful claim to the language of women's rights, that Sarah Palin will reach historic heights of power, under the most egregious of auspices, by plying feminine wiles, and conforming to every outdated notion of what it means to be a woman. That she will hit her marks by clambering over the backs, the bodies, the rights of the women on whose behalf she claims to be working, and that she will do it all under the banner of feminism. How can anybody sleep?
Zombie feminists of the RNC
by Rebecca Traister
How did Sarah Palin become a symbol of women's empowerment? And how did I, a die-hard feminist, end up terrified at the idea of a woman in the White House?
Sep. 11, 2008 | I have been dreaming about Sarah Palin. (Apparently, I'm not alone.) I wish I could say that I'd been conjuring witty, politically sophisticated nightmares in which she leads troops into Vancouver or kindergartners in the recitation of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." But, alas, mine have been nonsensical, kiddie-style doozies in which she kidnaps my cats, or enjoys a meal with my girlfriends while I bang on the restaurant window. There's also a chilling one, in which a scary witch stands on a wind-swept hill and leers at me.
What troubles me most -- aside from the fact that there is suddenly a Republican candidate potent enough to so ensnare my psyche -- is my sense that these are dreams in which it matters very much that Palin is a woman.
I have been writing about feminism for more than five years; I have been covering the gender politics of the 2008 presidential election for more than two. And I am absolutely gobsmacked by the intensity of my feelings about Sarah Palin. I am stunned not only by the way in which her candidacy has changed the rules in the gender debate, or how it is twisting and garbling the fight for women's progress. But I'm also startled by how Palin herself is testing my own beliefs about how I react to women in power.
My feelings about Palin have everything to do with her gender -- a factor that I have always believed, as a matter of course, should neither amplify nor diminish impressions of a person's goodness or badness, smartness or dumbness, gravitas or inconsequence. Why are my rules changing?
I am still perfectly capable of picking out the sexism being leveled against the Alaska governor by the press, her detractors and her own party. Every time someone doubts Palin's ability to lead and mother simultaneously, or considers her physical appeal as a professional attribute, or calls her a "maverette," I bristle.
But that's the easy stuff. The clear-cut stuff. I'm far more torn about the more subtle, complicated ways in which Palin's gender has me tied in knots.
Perhaps it's because the ground has shifted so quickly under my feet, leaving me with only a slippery grasp of what the basic vocabulary of my beat -- feminism, women's rights -- even means anymore. Some days, it feels like I'm watching the civics filmstrip about how much progress women made on the presidential stage in 2008 burst into flames, acutely aware that in the back of the room, a substitute teacher is threading a new reel into the projector. It has the same message and some of the same signifiers -- Glass ceilings broken! Girl Power! -- but its meaning has been distorted. Suddenly it's Rudy Giuliani and Rick Santorum schooling us about pervasive sexism; Hillary Clinton's 18 million cracks have weakened not only the White House's glass ceiling, but the wall protecting Roe v. Wade; the potential first female vice president in America's 200-year history describes her early career as "your average hockey mom" who "never really set out to be involved in public affairs"; and teen pregnancy is no longer an illustrative example for sex educators and contraception distributors but for those who seek to eliminate sex education and contraception.
In this strange new pro-woman tableau, feminism -- a word that is being used all over the country with regard to Palin's potential power -- means voting for someone who would limit reproductive control, access to healthcare and funding for places like Covenant House Alaska, an organization that helps unwed teen mothers. It means cheering someone who allowed women to be charged for their rape kits while she was mayor of Wasilla, who supports the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, who has inquired locally about the possibility of using her position to ban children's books from the public library, who does not support the teaching of sex education.
In this "Handmaid's Tale"-inflected universe, in which femininity is worshipped but females will be denied rights, CNBC pundit Donny Deutsch tells us that we're witnessing "a new creation ... of the feminist ideal," the feminism being so ideal because instead of being voiced by hairy old bats with unattractive ideas about intellect and economy and politics and power, it's now embodied by a woman who, according to Deutsch, does what Hillary Clinton did not: "put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," says Deutsch. "I want her laying next to me in bed."
Welcome to 2008, the year a tough, wonky woman won a primary (lots of them, actually), an inspiring black man secured his party's nomination for the presidency, and a television talking head felt free to opine that a woman is qualified for executive office because he wants to bed her and have her watch his kids! Stop the election; I want to get off.
What Palin so seductively represents, not only to Donny Deutsch but to the general populace, is a form of feminine power that is utterly digestible to those who have no intellectual or political use for actual women. It's like some dystopian future ... feminism without any feminists.
Palin's femininity is one that is recognizable to most women: She's the kind of broad who speaks on behalf of other broads but appears not to like them very much. The kind of woman who, as Jessica Grose at Jezebel has eloquently noted, achieves her power by doing everything modern women believed they did not have to do: presenting herself as maternal and sexual, sucking up to men, evincing an absolute lack of native ambition, instead emphasizing her luck as the recipient of strong male support and approval. It works because these stances do not upset antiquated gender norms. So when the moment comes, when tolerance for and interest in female power have been forcibly expanded by Clinton, a woman more willing to throw elbows and defy gender expectations but who falls short of the goal, Palin is there, tapped as a supposedly perfect substitute by powerful men who appreciate her charms.
But while the Republicans would have us believe that Palin can simply stand in for Hillary Clinton, there is nothing interchangeable about these politicians. We began this history-making election with one kind of woman and have ended up being asked to accept her polar opposite. Clinton's brand of femininity is the kind that remains slightly unpalatable in America. It is based on competence, political confidence and an assumption of authority that upends comfortable roles for men and women. It's a kind of power that has nothing to do with the flirtatious or the girly, nothing to do with the traditionally feminine. It is authority that is threatening because it so closely and calmly resembles the kind of power that the rest of the guys on a presidential stage never question their right to wield.
The pro-woman rhetoric surrounding Sarah Palin's nomination is a grotesque bastardization of everything feminism has stood for, and in my mind, more than any of the intergenerational pro- or anti-Hillary crap that people wrung their hands over during the primaries, Palin's candidacy and the faux-feminism in which it has been wrapped are the first development that I fear will actually imperil feminism. Because if adopted as a narrative by this nation and its women, it could not only subvert but erase the meaning of what real progress for women means, what real gender bias consists of, what real discrimination looks like.
Perhaps that's why my reaction to Palin is so bone-deep, and why she is shaking some of my convictions about how to approach gender. When, last Sunday, I picked up the New York Post, with its front-page headline "Ladykiller: Hillary to Check Hockey Mom" next to photos of Palin in porno librarian mode and Clinton with her teeth bared, I didn't roll my eyes in disgust at the imagined cage match. Instead, I envisioned it. And I enjoyed it. I was overcome by the desire to see Clinton take on Palin, not only checking her but fouling her, smushing her, absolutely crushing her. Get her, Hillary! Don't let her channel all the energy generated by you and your Democratic supporters into anti-woman, pro-God government! You are the only one who can stop her.
It's true that the last time I had this kind of visceral yearning for a politician to save the day was on the evening of Sept. 11, when the only person whose face I wanted to see on my television was Bill Clinton's. Perhaps when the Clintons took office in my 18th year, they became imprinted on my brain as my presidential parent-figures, my ur-protectors. But it's hard not to notice that if that's the case, it's Bill I want to nurture and soothe me, and Hillary I want to show up, guns blazing Ripley-style, to surprise the mother alien just as she is about to feast on independent voters, protectively shouting, "Get away from them, you bitch!"
There I go again with the hyper-feminized anxieties. I think it's mostly that I want Hillary Clinton -- the imperfect history maker whose major selling points for "First Woman..." status, in retrospect, included the fact that she was not a Republican, not pro-life, did not believe in teaching creationism alongside evolution, had never inquired about the feasibility of banning books, understood the American economy, supported universal healthcare and did not kill wolves from planes -- to make Sarah Palin go away and stop threatening to make history I don't want to see made.
It is infuriating that Clinton, her supporters and, yes, also those Obama supporters who voiced their displeasure at the sexist treatment Clinton sometimes received, and also female voters, and also females full stop, are being implicated in feminism's bastardization.
But if we inadvertently paved the way for this, then the Democratic Party mixed the concrete, painted lanes on the road, put up streetlights and called it an interstate. The role of the left in this travesty is almost too painful to contemplate just yet.
For while it may chafe to hear Rudy Giuliani and John McCain hold forth on the injustice of gender bias, what really burns is that we never heard a peep or squawk or gurgle of this nature from anyone in the Democratic Party during the entire 100 years Hillary Clinton was running for president, while she was being talked about as a pantsuited, wrinkly old crone and a harpy ex-wife and a sexless fat-thighed monster and an emasculating nag out for Tucker Carlson's balls. Only after she was good and gone did Howard Dean come out of his cave to squeak about the amount of sexist media bias Clinton faced. That may not be pretty to recall, especially in light of the Grand Old Party's Grand Old Celebration of Estrogen. But it's true. And it's also true that if there hadn't been so much stone-cold silence, so much shoulder-shrugging "What, me sexist?" inertia from the left, if there had been a little more respect (there was plenty of attention, of the derisive and annoyed sort) paid to the unsubtle clues being transmitted by 18 million voters that maybe they were interested in this whole woman-in-the-White-House thing, then the right would not have had the fuel to power this particular weapon.
Which leads us to my greatest nightmare: that because my own party has not cared enough, or was too scared, to lay its rightful claim to the language of women's rights, that Sarah Palin will reach historic heights of power, under the most egregious of auspices, by plying feminine wiles, and conforming to every outdated notion of what it means to be a woman. That she will hit her marks by clambering over the backs, the bodies, the rights of the women on whose behalf she claims to be working, and that she will do it all under the banner of feminism. How can anybody sleep?
12 September, 2008
CIA and Narco-trafficking
CIA and Heroin, Personal Story
In 1970, serving in Vietnam, I had transferred from the 199th Light Infantry Brigade based at Long Binh for extended tour of duty with the 330th Transportation Company located at Vung Tau. The US Army Airfield at Vung Tau was an advanced aircraft maintenance location, primarily, with a runway that could handle freight aircraft up the C-130. By far, however, it was mainly a service center for Helicopters needing advanced repairs, engine overhauls, rotor replacements, et cetera. Among other tasks, I worked airfield perimeter and flight line security. We had fully armed Cobra gunships for airfield protection that needed secured from possible sapper attack, particularly, as well as the more typical security needs. The period was from October of 1970 to November of 1971.
As an E-5, I had responsibility for men on the perimeter at times, at other times on the flight line. Perimeter duty in my sector was parallel to the landing and take off (main) runway. This was Vietnam approaching late stage conflict. Heroin addiction was estimated by myself and other non-commissioned officers to be about 30% of the US Forces enlisted men on this airfield. Our own company and it's platoons were about this average level of addicts as was our understanding this being the similar case of the other Army units located there.
Again and again, over this 13 month period, heroin ran out. It could not be missed when nearly a third our soldiers, a few hundreds of men, went into physical and mental symptom of withdrawal. It was not pretty. This was not the weak, comparatively speaking, heroin someone would needle. It was STRONG. It was smoked or 'snorted' up the nose. Intravenous use of this drug would have been almost instantly fatal. Tremendous quantity of the drug was consumed by these horrifically addicted men
Vung Tau could not be easily supplied with heroin on demand, without some serious interruptions, in the large quantities required to maintain the habits of hundreds of badly addicted soldiers by Viet Cong or North Vietnamese agents. The location was separated from the mainland by bracken marsh, accessed by a single causeway secured in multiple sectors with tightly controlled traffic having to pass American and Australian security checks. By sea would have been more likely, but here it is also problematic for the un-interrupted enemy supply of our soldiers with drugs. Vung Tau was highly secured by sea with armed patrol boats because of the high military value of its mission. It is a small area of land with essentially little coastline to secure. Security was tight. Interdiction would have been a near certainty, at least once in a while. It didn't happen.
The Viet Cong or North Vietnamese agents of course did not have air access to us. The CIA did.
It was nowhere near rocket science to note the (CIA airline) Air America flight that parked 1/4 mile away from every other aircraft, never came in to parking area. 3 people, armed, stayed with the aircraft, command staff car picked up 2 others. Luggage (nearly modern steamer trunks) for at least 10 (TEN) people was picked up by a 3/4 ton truck, with 2 persons riding with the baggage, 1 left guarding the aircraft. All airfield personnel were strictly instructed NEVER to approach the Air America flights. They never stayed more than several hours.
Bingo, heroin flush by that evening. Again and again. Every time the soldier's suppliers had run out of heroin, there was an Air America flight landed. Problem solved, the addicted soldiers were functional again.
After Vietnam I served with 19th Special Forces Group as an (11F40) Sergeant in Operations and Intelligence, working together with some of the best in the field, a position that eventually pointed to my later career as an Investigator in the field of Human Rights. I continued to follow the CIA in the available sources and have made some assessments, drawn some conclusions.
The covert, operational or 'black ops' sector itself of the CIA has been the source of major narco-trafficking or, there has been a highly organized rogue element within this sector where oversight is problematic. These people are in major international drug trafficking and their worldwide tracks are beginning to emerge over time, ever more circumstantially.
It had been established by the 1970s and reported on in media that the CIA had bought the loyalties of tribes in the so called 'Golden Triangle' opium producing region with cash for their crop, the most likely or closest proximity, raw base or source of the heroin in Vietnam. War zones with covert logistics for intelligence services are perfect opportunities to commercially process on large scale with no effective police oversight.
After Vietnam, and the loss of direct military backing in force for our covert agency and no longer in control of the necessary areas in the region, heroin waned and cocaine became big. One only has to look at the tracks of the graduates of the School of the Americas, and connect the dots. This is the CIA associated initial source of the leadership training that has today's Mexican Federal Police sometimes overwhelmed in pitched battles with drug lord militiamen that are now days professional commandos. Move south from there and you had Noriega, in Panama, same source of training and a CIA asset, became a major international narco-trafficker. South farther again and you have Uribe associated with right wing militias, CIA, School of the Americas training, all in the mix of Columbia, and drug trade and coca production is up there, eradication a farce. So FARC is involved too. Why wouldn't they be? It is a lucrative business.
Now the clincher. More than 90% of this years Heroin supplied to the world (90% TO THE WORLD) will come from poppies grown in Afghanistan. This is not just the Taliban folks, it is the CIA. The southwest of Afghanistan is the poppy region where the USA has taken a bit of a 'hands off' attitude and has done little to nothing to address the problem. In fact it was noted by one of our Senators in oversight hearings this is an opening we could have had towards constructive discussions with Iran: Our common interest in eradicating this crop.
Not going to happen until the CIA covert operations is brought under control. They have, or a rogue element within has been, personally enriching themselves for decades as international narco-traffickers, my assessment. All the while using our nation's 'Security' together with all of the power of the apparatus the term implies, to cover a rogue and criminal club within our ranks. C'est la vie.
Ron West
www.myspace.com/penucquemspeaks
I stand by my story (above.) It takes an narco-trafficking intelligence agent to know a narco-trafficking intelligence agent: CIA narco-traffickers and narco-trafficking right wing Columbian death squads would certainly be in the business together to provide information to the USA as follows. Update from AP Wire...
Sep 12th, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The United States expelled Venezuela's ambassador Friday as a diplomatic shoving match with leftist Latin American leaders intensified, and Washington accused two senior Venezuelan government officials of aiding drug traffickers in Colombia.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the expulsions this week of the American ambassadors to Venezuela and Bolivia. He said the United States would kick out the Venezuelan even though anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had seemingly beaten him to the punch by announcing Thursday night that he was yanking his ambassador.
"This reflects the weakness and desperation of these leaders," McCormack said of Chavez and the embattled Bolivian president, Evo Morales.
Morales began the diplomatic tit for tat by expelling the U.S. ambassador Wednesday. Chavez, who has been a political patron for Morales, followed suit Thursday.
"Clearly he's worried about his protege," McCormack said of Chavez.
Separately, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios and Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva, both high ranking Venezuelan intelligence officials. A former government minister, Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin, was also named.
Treasury said Friday the three materially assisted the narcotics trafficking activities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, describing the leftist group as a narco-terrorist organization.
At the State Department, McCormack said the sanctions had been in the works for some time and are unrelated to the diplomatic dispute.
In 1970, serving in Vietnam, I had transferred from the 199th Light Infantry Brigade based at Long Binh for extended tour of duty with the 330th Transportation Company located at Vung Tau. The US Army Airfield at Vung Tau was an advanced aircraft maintenance location, primarily, with a runway that could handle freight aircraft up the C-130. By far, however, it was mainly a service center for Helicopters needing advanced repairs, engine overhauls, rotor replacements, et cetera. Among other tasks, I worked airfield perimeter and flight line security. We had fully armed Cobra gunships for airfield protection that needed secured from possible sapper attack, particularly, as well as the more typical security needs. The period was from October of 1970 to November of 1971.
As an E-5, I had responsibility for men on the perimeter at times, at other times on the flight line. Perimeter duty in my sector was parallel to the landing and take off (main) runway. This was Vietnam approaching late stage conflict. Heroin addiction was estimated by myself and other non-commissioned officers to be about 30% of the US Forces enlisted men on this airfield. Our own company and it's platoons were about this average level of addicts as was our understanding this being the similar case of the other Army units located there.
Again and again, over this 13 month period, heroin ran out. It could not be missed when nearly a third our soldiers, a few hundreds of men, went into physical and mental symptom of withdrawal. It was not pretty. This was not the weak, comparatively speaking, heroin someone would needle. It was STRONG. It was smoked or 'snorted' up the nose. Intravenous use of this drug would have been almost instantly fatal. Tremendous quantity of the drug was consumed by these horrifically addicted men
Vung Tau could not be easily supplied with heroin on demand, without some serious interruptions, in the large quantities required to maintain the habits of hundreds of badly addicted soldiers by Viet Cong or North Vietnamese agents. The location was separated from the mainland by bracken marsh, accessed by a single causeway secured in multiple sectors with tightly controlled traffic having to pass American and Australian security checks. By sea would have been more likely, but here it is also problematic for the un-interrupted enemy supply of our soldiers with drugs. Vung Tau was highly secured by sea with armed patrol boats because of the high military value of its mission. It is a small area of land with essentially little coastline to secure. Security was tight. Interdiction would have been a near certainty, at least once in a while. It didn't happen.
The Viet Cong or North Vietnamese agents of course did not have air access to us. The CIA did.
It was nowhere near rocket science to note the (CIA airline) Air America flight that parked 1/4 mile away from every other aircraft, never came in to parking area. 3 people, armed, stayed with the aircraft, command staff car picked up 2 others. Luggage (nearly modern steamer trunks) for at least 10 (TEN) people was picked up by a 3/4 ton truck, with 2 persons riding with the baggage, 1 left guarding the aircraft. All airfield personnel were strictly instructed NEVER to approach the Air America flights. They never stayed more than several hours.
Bingo, heroin flush by that evening. Again and again. Every time the soldier's suppliers had run out of heroin, there was an Air America flight landed. Problem solved, the addicted soldiers were functional again.
After Vietnam I served with 19th Special Forces Group as an (11F40) Sergeant in Operations and Intelligence, working together with some of the best in the field, a position that eventually pointed to my later career as an Investigator in the field of Human Rights. I continued to follow the CIA in the available sources and have made some assessments, drawn some conclusions.
The covert, operational or 'black ops' sector itself of the CIA has been the source of major narco-trafficking or, there has been a highly organized rogue element within this sector where oversight is problematic. These people are in major international drug trafficking and their worldwide tracks are beginning to emerge over time, ever more circumstantially.
It had been established by the 1970s and reported on in media that the CIA had bought the loyalties of tribes in the so called 'Golden Triangle' opium producing region with cash for their crop, the most likely or closest proximity, raw base or source of the heroin in Vietnam. War zones with covert logistics for intelligence services are perfect opportunities to commercially process on large scale with no effective police oversight.
After Vietnam, and the loss of direct military backing in force for our covert agency and no longer in control of the necessary areas in the region, heroin waned and cocaine became big. One only has to look at the tracks of the graduates of the School of the Americas, and connect the dots. This is the CIA associated initial source of the leadership training that has today's Mexican Federal Police sometimes overwhelmed in pitched battles with drug lord militiamen that are now days professional commandos. Move south from there and you had Noriega, in Panama, same source of training and a CIA asset, became a major international narco-trafficker. South farther again and you have Uribe associated with right wing militias, CIA, School of the Americas training, all in the mix of Columbia, and drug trade and coca production is up there, eradication a farce. So FARC is involved too. Why wouldn't they be? It is a lucrative business.
Now the clincher. More than 90% of this years Heroin supplied to the world (90% TO THE WORLD) will come from poppies grown in Afghanistan. This is not just the Taliban folks, it is the CIA. The southwest of Afghanistan is the poppy region where the USA has taken a bit of a 'hands off' attitude and has done little to nothing to address the problem. In fact it was noted by one of our Senators in oversight hearings this is an opening we could have had towards constructive discussions with Iran: Our common interest in eradicating this crop.
Not going to happen until the CIA covert operations is brought under control. They have, or a rogue element within has been, personally enriching themselves for decades as international narco-traffickers, my assessment. All the while using our nation's 'Security' together with all of the power of the apparatus the term implies, to cover a rogue and criminal club within our ranks. C'est la vie.
Ron West
www.myspace.com/penucquemspeaks
I stand by my story (above.) It takes an narco-trafficking intelligence agent to know a narco-trafficking intelligence agent: CIA narco-traffickers and narco-trafficking right wing Columbian death squads would certainly be in the business together to provide information to the USA as follows. Update from AP Wire...
Sep 12th, 2008 | WASHINGTON -- The United States expelled Venezuela's ambassador Friday as a diplomatic shoving match with leftist Latin American leaders intensified, and Washington accused two senior Venezuelan government officials of aiding drug traffickers in Colombia.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack condemned the expulsions this week of the American ambassadors to Venezuela and Bolivia. He said the United States would kick out the Venezuelan even though anti-American Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had seemingly beaten him to the punch by announcing Thursday night that he was yanking his ambassador.
"This reflects the weakness and desperation of these leaders," McCormack said of Chavez and the embattled Bolivian president, Evo Morales.
Morales began the diplomatic tit for tat by expelling the U.S. ambassador Wednesday. Chavez, who has been a political patron for Morales, followed suit Thursday.
"Clearly he's worried about his protege," McCormack said of Chavez.
Separately, the Treasury Department announced sanctions against Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios and Henry de Jesus Rangel Silva, both high ranking Venezuelan intelligence officials. A former government minister, Ramon Emilio Rodriguez Chacin, was also named.
Treasury said Friday the three materially assisted the narcotics trafficking activities of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, describing the leftist group as a narco-terrorist organization.
At the State Department, McCormack said the sanctions had been in the works for some time and are unrelated to the diplomatic dispute.
11 September, 2008
WAR CRIMES CONFERENCE FROM ANDOVER ON STREAMING VIDEO
War Crimes Conference in Andover, MA to Live Stream On The Net
This weekend - SEPT. 13-14, 2008
Visit the Conference Web Site
A conference on plans to bring high-level American war criminals to justice will be streamed live from Andover, Mass., September 13-14.
The conference has attracted eminent national and international legal authorities who will speak about the legal grounds for seeking prosecution of top administration officials, including George Bush, who appear to be guilty of war crimes.
The URL address to view the conference live or to view it afterwards from the archives is:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/warcrimesconference
“All viewers need to do to follow the proceedings is to visit the Web address and they can watch everything,” said the conference’s convener, Lawrence Velvel, a prominent legal educator.
Viewing hours will be from 9 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time(EST) on Saturday, September 13, and from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (EST) on Sunday, September 14.
In the tradition of Justice Robert H. Jackson, America’s Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials after World War II, the Conference’s purpose is “to promote efforts to hold culpable officials accountable in courts of law,” said Velvel.
“Otherwise, the future could be threatened by additional examples of Executive lawlessness by leaders who need fear no personal consequences” for their actions, leading to “the possibility of more Viet Nams, and more Iraqs,” he added.
Attendees will hear from prominent authorities on international law, criminal prosecutions, and constitutional law who are determined to give meaning to Justice Jackson’s words: “The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”
Topics to be discussed, include:
# What international and domestic crimes were committed, which facts show crimes under which laws, and what punishments are possible.
# Which high level Executive officials — and Federal judges and legislators as well, if any — are chargeable with crimes.
# Which international tribunals, foreign tribunals and domestic tribunals (if any) can be used and how to begin cases and/or obtain prosecutions before them.
# The possibility of establishing a Chief Prosecutor’s Office such as the one at Nuremburg.
# An examination of cases already brought and their outcomes.
# Creating an umbrella Coordinating Committee with representatives from the increasing number of organizations involved in war crimes cases.
# Creating a Center to keep track of and organize compilations of relevant briefs, articles, books, opinions, and facts, etc., on war crimes and prosecutions of war criminals.
Those scheduled to address the Conference include, among others:
# Famed former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, author of the best-selling “The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder”(Vanguard).
# Phillippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre of International Courts and Tribunals at University College , London . He is the author of “Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values” (Penguin/Palgrave Macmillan), among other works.
# Jordan Paust, Professor of Law at the University of Houston and author of “Beyond The Law.”
# Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and U.S. Foreign Service official who holds a State Department Award for Heroism and who taught the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare at the Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg, N.C. She is the coauthor of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”
# Peter Weiss, Vice President of the Center For Constitutional Rights, which was recently involved with war crimes complaints filed in Germany and France against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others.
# Benjamin Davis, Associate Professor at the University of Toledo College of Law and former American Legal Counsel for the Secretariat of the International Court of Arbitration.
# David Lindorff, journalist and co-author with Barbara Olshansky of “The Case for Impeachment: Legal Arguments for Removing President George W. Bush from Office”( St. Martin ’s Press).
# Colleen Costello of Human Rights USA .
# Christopher Pyle, a professor at Mt. Holyoke and author of several book on international matters.
# Lawrence Velvel, a leader in the field of law school education reform, who has written numerous internet articles on issues relevant to the conference.
Legal authorities, media representatives, and the general public are invited to attend the conference. Attendees will receive a special hotel rate of $99 per night.
Andover is nearly equidistant from both Boston ’s Logan Airport , served by all major airlines, and the Manchester, N.H., Airport, served by Southwest Airlines and USAir. (Further Information on the conference and conference site: Jeff Demers, demers@mslaw.edu.)
SHERWOOD ROSS ASSOCIATES, Suite 403 , 102 S.W. 6th Ave. , Miami , FL 33130
sherwoodr1@yahoo.com (305)-205-8281
http://free-pr-now.com/2008/09/09/war-crimes-conference-in-andover-ma-to-live-stream-on-the-net/
PS: Please note updates: http://www.theominousparallels.blogspot.com/
This weekend - SEPT. 13-14, 2008
Visit the Conference Web Site
A conference on plans to bring high-level American war criminals to justice will be streamed live from Andover, Mass., September 13-14.
The conference has attracted eminent national and international legal authorities who will speak about the legal grounds for seeking prosecution of top administration officials, including George Bush, who appear to be guilty of war crimes.
The URL address to view the conference live or to view it afterwards from the archives is:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/warcrimesconference
“All viewers need to do to follow the proceedings is to visit the Web address and they can watch everything,” said the conference’s convener, Lawrence Velvel, a prominent legal educator.
Viewing hours will be from 9 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time(EST) on Saturday, September 13, and from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (EST) on Sunday, September 14.
In the tradition of Justice Robert H. Jackson, America’s Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trials after World War II, the Conference’s purpose is “to promote efforts to hold culpable officials accountable in courts of law,” said Velvel.
“Otherwise, the future could be threatened by additional examples of Executive lawlessness by leaders who need fear no personal consequences” for their actions, leading to “the possibility of more Viet Nams, and more Iraqs,” he added.
Attendees will hear from prominent authorities on international law, criminal prosecutions, and constitutional law who are determined to give meaning to Justice Jackson’s words: “The common sense of mankind demands that law shall not stop with the punishment of petty crimes by little people. It must also reach men who possess themselves of great power and make deliberate and concerted use of it to set in motion evils which leave no home in the world untouched.”
Topics to be discussed, include:
# What international and domestic crimes were committed, which facts show crimes under which laws, and what punishments are possible.
# Which high level Executive officials — and Federal judges and legislators as well, if any — are chargeable with crimes.
# Which international tribunals, foreign tribunals and domestic tribunals (if any) can be used and how to begin cases and/or obtain prosecutions before them.
# The possibility of establishing a Chief Prosecutor’s Office such as the one at Nuremburg.
# An examination of cases already brought and their outcomes.
# Creating an umbrella Coordinating Committee with representatives from the increasing number of organizations involved in war crimes cases.
# Creating a Center to keep track of and organize compilations of relevant briefs, articles, books, opinions, and facts, etc., on war crimes and prosecutions of war criminals.
Those scheduled to address the Conference include, among others:
# Famed former Los Angeles prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, author of the best-selling “The Prosecution of George W. Bush For Murder”(Vanguard).
# Phillippe Sands, Professor of Law and Director of the Centre of International Courts and Tribunals at University College , London . He is the author of “Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values” (Penguin/Palgrave Macmillan), among other works.
# Jordan Paust, Professor of Law at the University of Houston and author of “Beyond The Law.”
# Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and U.S. Foreign Service official who holds a State Department Award for Heroism and who taught the Geneva Conventions and the Law of Land Warfare at the Special Warfare Center at Ft. Bragg, N.C. She is the coauthor of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”
# Peter Weiss, Vice President of the Center For Constitutional Rights, which was recently involved with war crimes complaints filed in Germany and France against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others.
# Benjamin Davis, Associate Professor at the University of Toledo College of Law and former American Legal Counsel for the Secretariat of the International Court of Arbitration.
# David Lindorff, journalist and co-author with Barbara Olshansky of “The Case for Impeachment: Legal Arguments for Removing President George W. Bush from Office”( St. Martin ’s Press).
# Colleen Costello of Human Rights USA .
# Christopher Pyle, a professor at Mt. Holyoke and author of several book on international matters.
# Lawrence Velvel, a leader in the field of law school education reform, who has written numerous internet articles on issues relevant to the conference.
Legal authorities, media representatives, and the general public are invited to attend the conference. Attendees will receive a special hotel rate of $99 per night.
Andover is nearly equidistant from both Boston ’s Logan Airport , served by all major airlines, and the Manchester, N.H., Airport, served by Southwest Airlines and USAir. (Further Information on the conference and conference site: Jeff Demers, demers@mslaw.edu.)
SHERWOOD ROSS ASSOCIATES, Suite 403 , 102 S.W. 6th Ave. , Miami , FL 33130
sherwoodr1@yahoo.com (305)-205-8281
http://free-pr-now.com/2008/09/09/war-crimes-conference-in-andover-ma-to-live-stream-on-the-net/
PS: Please note updates: http://www.theominousparallels.blogspot.com/
9-11: An Intuitive Perspective
I had just come out of meditation on the morning of September 11th when I received a phone call from my boss. "Get over here...you're never going to see anything like this." I threw some pants on and dashed across the hall and into his apartment. The first image I saw on the t.v. was the jetliner smashing into the World Trade Center and exploding. I fought the tendency to focus on the physicality of the event and managed to read the aura surrounding the building as it was impacted. As the flames billowed, a huge rift appeared above the structure and all this dark energy started pouring in. The aura around New York was torn wide open. Sensitized by the meditation, my clairsentient (clear seeing) abilities were quite heightened, enabling me to perceive these things. I made sure not to identify with what I saw as I do when meditating, but rather detached and focused on my heart chakra instead. While the horror unfolded before me I could feel something trying to cord my third chakra (solar plexus) and drain energy from me. It took everything I had not to get psychically sucked into the vortex created by the burning towers. It was nearly impossible not to gaze. I found myself becoming hypnotized by the horror unfolding before me. I broke away and returned to my televisionless apartment and prepared for the work day. I vowed not to look at any mainstream media venues if I could help it. I had used this sanity preserving, avoidance technique on prior occassions such as when the Space Shuttle exploded in 1986. Avoiding the media has been one of the best strategies to help maintain a sense of a heart centered self, not to mention the fact that it enables me to thwart mind control most effectively. I managed to get through the day quite well, until later that afternoon, when we went to one of our Jewish customer's house. I'm most fond of this customer primarily because of her warmth, humor and cynical wit. When she opened the door, I read her aura to see how she was handling the tragedy. It looked very similar to the aura surrounding the World Trade Center but on a microcosmic scale. Her aura was crazy (crazy literally means: full of cracks) and all sorts of dark energy spiraled around. She looked absolutely frayed, no doubt having watched the disaster over and over again, all day long on t.v. "You heard it hear first." She told us. "Bin Laden did it." Again I detached as best I could, feeling my stomach start to tighten up and outwardly went along with what she was saying. However, I knew that whatever she heard on t.v. could not be trusted in anyway. She had many cords in her third chakra. (for those of you who do not know what cords are, they are psychic cords or strings which attach to the etheric body. Cording is very manipulative. As an example, if someone wants to have sex with you but cannot tell you outright, they will cord your second chakra which is below the navel, in hopes that you will get the message and initiate something that will gratify the passive person doing the cording. A most helpful book which will clarify things like cords, auras and chakras is The Psychic Healing Book by Amy Wallace.) On the night of 9-11, I went to bed early and could feel how the trauma was being pulsed through the atmosphere. I made sure to surround myself with bright colors and fell into a deep sleep. The next day, I woke up energized and high spirited, refusing to buy into the collective mind set that pervaded. I somehow managed to pierce through the pervading vibration of trauma, fear, hate and anger. All morning long at work I felt calm and relaxed. However, on the front page of the newspaper my boss pulled out of his bag at lunch, was the image of the plane hitting the tower. I looked at it, forgetting about the meditation technique of detaching and not identifying with what one sees. I felt nearly all of my positive energy drain out of me. My solar plexus tightened up and I began to feel nauseous. "God damned Muslims." My boss cursed. He had taken the bait like the legions of people who are not aware of how our psyches can be manipulated through the etheric body via the media. I simply went along with it, while knowing otherwise, chiming in with sarcastic comments like "Nuke em' all." I could see the dark swirls in his aura as well. I then realized that I had to be very careful about entertaining such thoughts since they were coming in through the torn aura of America and into my very own head. These negative memes were attempting to colonize my mind. Since then, I've been trying hard not to entertain violent, cynical thoughts but it has not been very easy at all. I just keep reminding myself to detach from the negativity swirling around. Please let me emphasize: detachment is not indifference. I have received many phone calls from my intuitive counseling clients asking me how they should deal with the trauma of 9-11. "Turn off your t.v.s and don't read the newspapers." I have been telling them. Some called back and told me that was the best thing they could have done as it restored some resemblance of peace and sanity into their lives. I suggest the same to you as well. Meditation has been most difficult since the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Through the chakras located in the arches of our feet we can gain much information about what is happening to the earth. Through the feet chakras, I've been sensing the 9-11 trauma being impulsed through throughout the globe to further manipulate us on a massive scale. Most U.S. citizens are probably not aware of these kind of manipulations, especially those who do not have some kind of regular spiritual practice like yoga and meditation. It is this kind of awareness that the powers that be don't want us to have. I'm convinced that the more we fixate on the plethora of horrible images provided to us, the more psychically shut down we will become. As I got into a deeper meditative state, I paid close attention to the trauma coming up through my legs and into my first chakra, the chakra of life force, survival and past lives. I detached, breathed bright red into my groin area and relaxed. I could feel fear diminshing as I did this. There is much sleight of hand involved in the propaganda that is proliferating itself through the military controlled media at the moment. I suggest paying attention to how your physical body, especially the solar plexus, responds to the images and the various forms of disinformation being fed us and begin to rely on this intuitive information instead of what is coming through the t.v. Last night as I tried to fall asleep, my guardian angels came in and offered to do some healing on my crown chakra (the chakra of wisdom). Grateful for these very wise beings's help (wise enough to have learned how to excarnate once and for all from the earth plane), they seemed to be giving me some needed protection from the dark forces at large. This made it easier to see the entities taking the opportunity of entering in through America's torn aura and the aura of individuals as well, possessing people, no doubt fueling the growing hatred towards the perpetrators of the crime whoever they may be. While I was receiving this healing, negative entities tried their best to possess me. I felt bleedthrough from parallel universes of an overtly Nazified variety, universes taking advantage of the torn, collective aura of the United States. Many negative thoughts over took me even though I was aware of the etheric manipulations at hand. I successfully detached from these entities with the help of my positive guides and slept peacefully. I only offer this intuitive perspective of 9-11 as an alternative to the highly manipulative, Corporate media blitzkrieg technique of radically impacting the collective psyche with such 'unforgettable' images of the disaster.
From a karmic point of view, what happened on 9-11 is nothing new compared to previous disasters in the past such as found in Atlantis, India during the time of the Mahabharata War, or Nazi Germany. The only difference now is how we choose to respond. We can react to what has happened and fall into the mind control traps deliberately set up for us (supporting full scale war for example or whatever else George W. decides to do) or we can respond from a place of spiritual evolvement where we can see opportunities to further understand the abuses of power both within and beyond ourselves.
There is another recently published book I recommend: Catastrophobia by Barbara Hand Clowe. I once attended a talk given by this astrologer cum Pleiadian diplomat, on how the disaster of Atlantis is still alive in our cellular bodies. As she elaborated on this, I could feel the collective trauma of the sinking of Atlantis in the audience. Ever since Barbara's insightful talk, I have been most attentive to how this trauma and others like have been manipulated by the powers that be, especially through the Hollywood apparatus. Now we have before us, an excellent opportunity to study, from an etheric/spiritual perspective, how the 9-11 trauma is being used to mind, if not body and soul control the masses. We only need to overcome our personal fears and misgivings of using such perceptive abilities that I believe we all have, in order to do so.
(2001)-Jaye Beldo
www.lavacocktail.com
A Toast to Your Psychic Health!
From a karmic point of view, what happened on 9-11 is nothing new compared to previous disasters in the past such as found in Atlantis, India during the time of the Mahabharata War, or Nazi Germany. The only difference now is how we choose to respond. We can react to what has happened and fall into the mind control traps deliberately set up for us (supporting full scale war for example or whatever else George W. decides to do) or we can respond from a place of spiritual evolvement where we can see opportunities to further understand the abuses of power both within and beyond ourselves.
There is another recently published book I recommend: Catastrophobia by Barbara Hand Clowe. I once attended a talk given by this astrologer cum Pleiadian diplomat, on how the disaster of Atlantis is still alive in our cellular bodies. As she elaborated on this, I could feel the collective trauma of the sinking of Atlantis in the audience. Ever since Barbara's insightful talk, I have been most attentive to how this trauma and others like have been manipulated by the powers that be, especially through the Hollywood apparatus. Now we have before us, an excellent opportunity to study, from an etheric/spiritual perspective, how the 9-11 trauma is being used to mind, if not body and soul control the masses. We only need to overcome our personal fears and misgivings of using such perceptive abilities that I believe we all have, in order to do so.
(2001)-Jaye Beldo
www.lavacocktail.com
A Toast to Your Psychic Health!
10 September, 2008
The Real Reasons for the Fannie Mae/Freddi Mac Takeover
The Real Reasons for the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Takeover
by Richard C. Cook
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin giants of the home mortgage industry, own or guarantee assets of $5.3 trillion, almost half of the $12 trillion housing market in the U.S. These assets have been disappearing in value due to the collapse of the housing bubble.
Fannie and Freddie are government-chartered corporations. They are shareholder-owned companies required by their charters to provide low-cost capital to the mortgage industry, supposedly to further the American dream of home ownership. In recent years, as the housing bubble inflated and the mortgage industry extended more and more credit to marginal purchasers through the use of “exotic” lending instruments, Fannie and Freddie followed suit.
Many in Congress were skeptical they were overextending themselves. So they hired lobbyists. According to a September 9 report by Allan Chernoff, CNN senior correspondent, they spent $174 million in the last ten years lobbying Congress “to ensure the political climate would remain friendly.” That averages out at $297,435 per senator and representative. No wonder Greg Palast titled one of his books, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
Under the takeover being engineered by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, the government will oversee operations through a “conservatorship.” It’s a fancy name for bankruptcy. Taxpayer money will be used to inject new capital into Fannie and Freddie’s operations, since, having lost so much on bad loans, they are broke.
How will it work? According to the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein:
“Under the deal they could not refuse, Fannie and Freddie directors and top executives will lose their jobs. Shareholders will lose their dividends, voting rights, and most of their ownership stake, while agreeing to pay dearly for the government's money and backing. Left unharmed will be holders of trillions of dollars in Fannie and Freddie debt -- or securities backed by mortgages that Fannie and Freddie have insured against default -- who will get all their money back, with interest.”
Protection of debt holders is the key, because this includes foreign governments like China, as well as sovereignty funds, mutual funds, and pension funds worldwide. If these international investment sources dry up, the U.S. could no longer finance its enormous fiscal and trade deficits. It’s the Armageddon scenario.
Thus within the overall context of the debt-based financial system run by the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the most important business entities in the U.S.—more so than Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, General Motors, GE, or IBM.
Big companies like Exxon-Mobil at least have tangible assets they use to produce real goods and services. But the financial industry—including Fannie and Freddie—have only pieces of paper that represent someone’s ability to make payments in an economy going downhill, with thousands of people losing their jobs daily.
For the last decade, the U.S. economy has been built on a foundation of housing debt as its financial engine. It’s a foundation of sand. The lunacy has been a long time coming, though the “rest of the story” is little known, even to experts.
You see, decades ago, the international financial elite which runs the Western world decided that the U.S. would no longer be allowed to maintain its status as the world’s greatest industrial democracy.
Because the planners have always worked in secrecy through such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group, sources are sketchy. But the information is there if you look.
The roots of the plan go back to post-World War I days, when the U.S. was making money hand-over-fist by collecting on loans made to the European World War I combatants. The financial elite, including the American Rockefellers, financed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. They also began to lay plans to eventually merge the U.S. with the Soviet Union in a one-world communist government.
To prepare the American mind, such non-profit groups as the Carnegie Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation sought to influence the U.S. educational system in favor of collectivist ideals rather than those based on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The blueprint for dumbing down the masses through collectivist propaganda was provided by the Tavistock Institute of Great Britain.
Necessary for the changes in store for mankind was an environment of perpetual warfare as the only way people would accept state terrorism as “normal.” In other words, there always had to be an enemy to frighten people into voluntarily giving up their rights and accepting the legitimacy of a slave society. Key to slavery was a financial system based on debt, because, after all, it was the financiers who were the architects and expected beneficiaries of the planned system.
During the 1930s and 1940s, in order to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II, the United States built an economic powerhouse that resulted in full employment and a high standard of living. But by the 1960s and 1970s, the industrial economy was being dismantled.
The 1970s was the critical decade. The financial elite, working through the OPEC nations as their instruments of change, wildly inflated the worldwide price of oil, driving the U.S. economy into stagflation. To combat the stagflation which they themselves had created, the elite, working through the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Paul Volcker, raised interest rates through the roof, causing the economy to crash.
The U.S. lost much of its producing economy during the recession of 1979-83. Since then, every period of economic growth has been a financial bubble. We had the merger-acquisition bubble of the 1980s, the dot.com bubble of the 1990s, and Alan Greenspan’s housing bubble of the 2000s.
The purpose of the housing bubble was to allow George W. Bush to fight his wars of conquest in the Middle East. According to mortgage industry insiders I have interviewed, soon after Bush became president the word went out to begin the wholesale falsification of mortgage applications so people could buy houses who had no business doing so. A push by state attorneys-general to investigate the mortgage fraud was blocked by Bush’s Treasury Department.
The bubble resulted in the tremendous inflation of housing and real estate prices that today is unraveling. Housing is still so overpriced, however, that many people can no longer afford to buy a home or can no longer get credit because financial institutions have become so reluctant to lend.
Housing inflation is what has powered the U.S. economy for the last decade. In its heyday it accounted for fifty percent of all economic growth. Take away the housing bubble, and the U.S. economy is dead in the water. That is why the government has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, there are no further bubbles waiting in the wings. When they gave up their homes to debt, the American people gave up the last thing they owned of value.
Obviously the takeover of Fannie and Freddie is a stopgap, probably to keep the economy afloat until after the November presidential election.
What comes next? I cover these and other issues in greater detail in a Special Report entitled, “Election 08: Crime Family Food Fight or Threat to Mankind?” which is available by subscription. To receive this report, contact EconomicSanity@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2008 by Richard C. Cook
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared in numerous websites and print magazines. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will soon be published. He is the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, “the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years.” His website is www.richardccook.com. Comments or requests to be added to his mailing list, or for information on his Special Report entitled “Election 08: Crime Family Food Fight or Threat to Mankind?” write EconomicSanity@gmail.com.
by Richard C. Cook
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the twin giants of the home mortgage industry, own or guarantee assets of $5.3 trillion, almost half of the $12 trillion housing market in the U.S. These assets have been disappearing in value due to the collapse of the housing bubble.
Fannie and Freddie are government-chartered corporations. They are shareholder-owned companies required by their charters to provide low-cost capital to the mortgage industry, supposedly to further the American dream of home ownership. In recent years, as the housing bubble inflated and the mortgage industry extended more and more credit to marginal purchasers through the use of “exotic” lending instruments, Fannie and Freddie followed suit.
Many in Congress were skeptical they were overextending themselves. So they hired lobbyists. According to a September 9 report by Allan Chernoff, CNN senior correspondent, they spent $174 million in the last ten years lobbying Congress “to ensure the political climate would remain friendly.” That averages out at $297,435 per senator and representative. No wonder Greg Palast titled one of his books, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
Under the takeover being engineered by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson, the government will oversee operations through a “conservatorship.” It’s a fancy name for bankruptcy. Taxpayer money will be used to inject new capital into Fannie and Freddie’s operations, since, having lost so much on bad loans, they are broke.
How will it work? According to the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein:
“Under the deal they could not refuse, Fannie and Freddie directors and top executives will lose their jobs. Shareholders will lose their dividends, voting rights, and most of their ownership stake, while agreeing to pay dearly for the government's money and backing. Left unharmed will be holders of trillions of dollars in Fannie and Freddie debt -- or securities backed by mortgages that Fannie and Freddie have insured against default -- who will get all their money back, with interest.”
Protection of debt holders is the key, because this includes foreign governments like China, as well as sovereignty funds, mutual funds, and pension funds worldwide. If these international investment sources dry up, the U.S. could no longer finance its enormous fiscal and trade deficits. It’s the Armageddon scenario.
Thus within the overall context of the debt-based financial system run by the Federal Reserve, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the most important business entities in the U.S.—more so than Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, General Motors, GE, or IBM.
Big companies like Exxon-Mobil at least have tangible assets they use to produce real goods and services. But the financial industry—including Fannie and Freddie—have only pieces of paper that represent someone’s ability to make payments in an economy going downhill, with thousands of people losing their jobs daily.
For the last decade, the U.S. economy has been built on a foundation of housing debt as its financial engine. It’s a foundation of sand. The lunacy has been a long time coming, though the “rest of the story” is little known, even to experts.
You see, decades ago, the international financial elite which runs the Western world decided that the U.S. would no longer be allowed to maintain its status as the world’s greatest industrial democracy.
Because the planners have always worked in secrecy through such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg Group, sources are sketchy. But the information is there if you look.
The roots of the plan go back to post-World War I days, when the U.S. was making money hand-over-fist by collecting on loans made to the European World War I combatants. The financial elite, including the American Rockefellers, financed the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. They also began to lay plans to eventually merge the U.S. with the Soviet Union in a one-world communist government.
To prepare the American mind, such non-profit groups as the Carnegie Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation sought to influence the U.S. educational system in favor of collectivist ideals rather than those based on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The blueprint for dumbing down the masses through collectivist propaganda was provided by the Tavistock Institute of Great Britain.
Necessary for the changes in store for mankind was an environment of perpetual warfare as the only way people would accept state terrorism as “normal.” In other words, there always had to be an enemy to frighten people into voluntarily giving up their rights and accepting the legitimacy of a slave society. Key to slavery was a financial system based on debt, because, after all, it was the financiers who were the architects and expected beneficiaries of the planned system.
During the 1930s and 1940s, in order to defeat Nazi Germany in World War II, the United States built an economic powerhouse that resulted in full employment and a high standard of living. But by the 1960s and 1970s, the industrial economy was being dismantled.
The 1970s was the critical decade. The financial elite, working through the OPEC nations as their instruments of change, wildly inflated the worldwide price of oil, driving the U.S. economy into stagflation. To combat the stagflation which they themselves had created, the elite, working through the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Paul Volcker, raised interest rates through the roof, causing the economy to crash.
The U.S. lost much of its producing economy during the recession of 1979-83. Since then, every period of economic growth has been a financial bubble. We had the merger-acquisition bubble of the 1980s, the dot.com bubble of the 1990s, and Alan Greenspan’s housing bubble of the 2000s.
The purpose of the housing bubble was to allow George W. Bush to fight his wars of conquest in the Middle East. According to mortgage industry insiders I have interviewed, soon after Bush became president the word went out to begin the wholesale falsification of mortgage applications so people could buy houses who had no business doing so. A push by state attorneys-general to investigate the mortgage fraud was blocked by Bush’s Treasury Department.
The bubble resulted in the tremendous inflation of housing and real estate prices that today is unraveling. Housing is still so overpriced, however, that many people can no longer afford to buy a home or can no longer get credit because financial institutions have become so reluctant to lend.
Housing inflation is what has powered the U.S. economy for the last decade. In its heyday it accounted for fifty percent of all economic growth. Take away the housing bubble, and the U.S. economy is dead in the water. That is why the government has taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Unfortunately, there are no further bubbles waiting in the wings. When they gave up their homes to debt, the American people gave up the last thing they owned of value.
Obviously the takeover of Fannie and Freddie is a stopgap, probably to keep the economy afloat until after the November presidential election.
What comes next? I cover these and other issues in greater detail in a Special Report entitled, “Election 08: Crime Family Food Fight or Threat to Mankind?” which is available by subscription. To receive this report, contact EconomicSanity@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2008 by Richard C. Cook
Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. federal government analyst, whose career included service with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, the Food and Drug Administration, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury Department. His articles on economics, politics, and space policy have appeared in numerous websites and print magazines. His book on monetary reform, entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform, will soon be published. He is the author of Challenger Revealed: An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age, called by one reviewer, “the most important spaceflight book of the last twenty years.” His website is www.richardccook.com. Comments or requests to be added to his mailing list, or for information on his Special Report entitled “Election 08: Crime Family Food Fight or Threat to Mankind?” write EconomicSanity@gmail.com.
09 September, 2008
John Kerry – Bob Dole Redux
Quick, somebody, put a pen in this guy’s hand! . . . It’s all over!
Check out the above Obama Interview with Keith Olbermann
This is a personality test – repeat – this is a personality test.
HA!!! “Have you thought of using more explanation points?”
Is he taking a fall like John Kerry did? The same question on everyone’s lips was, is he doing this on purpose?
God damn it! He can’t possibly really be this skinny and bland and prim! What a bore!
He’s gotta be doing it on purpose!
Check out what George Lakoff says about it here: It’s right on.
http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100705980
The Political Mind
Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
George Lakoff
In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.
As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.
But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.
This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.
Check out the above Obama Interview with Keith Olbermann
This is a personality test – repeat – this is a personality test.
HA!!! “Have you thought of using more explanation points?”
Is he taking a fall like John Kerry did? The same question on everyone’s lips was, is he doing this on purpose?
God damn it! He can’t possibly really be this skinny and bland and prim! What a bore!
He’s gotta be doing it on purpose!
Check out what George Lakoff says about it here: It’s right on.
http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100705980
The Political Mind
Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
George Lakoff
In What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank pointed out that a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests. In The Political Mind, George Lakoff explains why.
As it turns out, human beings are not the rational creatures we’ve so long imagined ourselves to be. Ideas, morals, and values do not exist somewhere outside the body, ready to be examined and put to use. Instead, they exist quite literally inside the brain—and they take physical shape there. For example, we form particular kinds of narratives in our minds just like we form specific muscle memories such as typing or dancing, and then we fit new information into those narratives. Getting that information out of one narrative type and into another—or building a whole new narrative altogether—can be as hard as learning to play the banjo. Changing your mind isn’t like changing your body—it’s the same thing.
But as long as progressive politicians and activists persist in believing that people use an objective system of reasoning to decide on their politics, the Democrats will continue to lose elections. They must wrest control of the terms of the debate from their opponents rather than accepting their frame and trying to argue within it.
This passionate, erudite, and groundbreaking book will appeal to readers of Steven Pinker and Thomas Frank. It is a fascinating read for anyone interested in how the mind works, how society works, and how they work together.
08 September, 2008
Where’s that Confounded Bridge?
Today it finally sank in.
I was standing in line at Walmart picking up a $4 prescription for a friend. Walmart has probably the busiest prescription business in town since they began offering the generic brands for four bucks.
So here I am standing in a long prescription line full of women who can’t stop talking about Sarah Palin! I almost got in a fist fight! One says she’s voting for Sarah Palin because “my husband said if he wins Obama is gonna get shot.” Another one says she’s voting for Sarah because “women have to stick together.” Oh yeah. Hearty agreement all around. (oh, and another comment I had apparently repressed till just now: "she's a mother of five! she's qualified!")
Of course, they have no idea how deep the McPalin ticket is about to stick it to them. But that’s not what’s on their minds at all.
What’s on their minds is they think Sarah Palin is a Vogue supermodel.
And it was all the more obvious as I looked at today’s internet news headlines. The Dems were fiercely trying to win votes by telling you you’re not as stupid as you look. ; )
And the message was obviously addressed to women.
True or False:
Barrack Obama: "I mean, you can't just make stuff up," Obama said of a new McCain ad that says Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." "You can't just recreate yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid."
FALSE. You can just create yourself. You can just reinvent yourself. The American people are stupid.
Hilary Clinton: "Women as well as men make their decisions after they weigh the evidence," Clinton said. "As Americans go into that voting booth, what they have to ask themselves is not so much who am I for, as who is for me? And I don't think it's an even close question that we have the ticket that is going to do the best job in restoring the American promise."
FALSE. Women vote with their eyes and always have. Men will now vote with their third leg if they never have before. Politics is all about sex appeal.
It’s all over. Head for the hills!
Now where’s that confounded Bridge?
I was standing in line at Walmart picking up a $4 prescription for a friend. Walmart has probably the busiest prescription business in town since they began offering the generic brands for four bucks.
So here I am standing in a long prescription line full of women who can’t stop talking about Sarah Palin! I almost got in a fist fight! One says she’s voting for Sarah Palin because “my husband said if he wins Obama is gonna get shot.” Another one says she’s voting for Sarah because “women have to stick together.” Oh yeah. Hearty agreement all around. (oh, and another comment I had apparently repressed till just now: "she's a mother of five! she's qualified!")
Of course, they have no idea how deep the McPalin ticket is about to stick it to them. But that’s not what’s on their minds at all.
What’s on their minds is they think Sarah Palin is a Vogue supermodel.
And it was all the more obvious as I looked at today’s internet news headlines. The Dems were fiercely trying to win votes by telling you you’re not as stupid as you look. ; )
And the message was obviously addressed to women.
True or False:
Barrack Obama: "I mean, you can't just make stuff up," Obama said of a new McCain ad that says Palin "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere." "You can't just recreate yourself. You can't just reinvent yourself. The American people aren't stupid."
FALSE. You can just create yourself. You can just reinvent yourself. The American people are stupid.
Hilary Clinton: "Women as well as men make their decisions after they weigh the evidence," Clinton said. "As Americans go into that voting booth, what they have to ask themselves is not so much who am I for, as who is for me? And I don't think it's an even close question that we have the ticket that is going to do the best job in restoring the American promise."
FALSE. Women vote with their eyes and always have. Men will now vote with their third leg if they never have before. Politics is all about sex appeal.
It’s all over. Head for the hills!
Now where’s that confounded Bridge?
MSNBC Demotes Keith Olbermann
Here it is! The fix is in! Media blackout!
I also heard today that the JeffRense blog has been sabotaged this past week.
MSNBC Demotes Keith Olbermann
by: David Bauder, The Associated Press
New York - MSNBC said Sunday it is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as co-anchors of political night coverage with David Gregory, and will use the two newsmen as commentators.
The change reflects tensions between the freewheeling, opinionated MSNBC and the impartial newsgatherers at NBC News. Throughout the primaries and summer, MSNBC argued that Olbermann and Matthews could serve as dispassionate anchors on political news nights and that viewers would accept them in that role, but things fell apart during the conventions.
Gregory, the veteran Washington hand, will anchor MSNBC's coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates and election night, said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. The change was first reported by The New York Times.
The tipping point appears to have come during the Republican convention when Olbermann, after the network aired a Sept. 11-themed video prepared by the Republicans, said that MSNBC should not have shown it.
MSNBC executives, who had publicly defended their anchors' roles while privately monitoring it throughout the political season, made the change over the weekend after discussions with Olbermann. Despite the controversy around him, Olbermann has been a hero with left-leaning viewers and keyed MSNBC's growth among coveted young viewers.
During her acceptance speech last week, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin talked about the "Washington elite" not accepting her qualifications for the job. Some delegates on the convention floor began chanting, "N-B-C, N-B-C."
Olbermann began to have difficulty keeping his opinions in check, or simply stopped trying.
He sarcastically dismissed GOP pundit Pat Buchanan on the air after Buchanan said the GOP had been enlivened by the entrance of a conservative Republican.
"Those reading US Weekly with the picture of her and her youngest daughter with the word `scandal' written across it won't be so happy," Olbermann said.
He expressed little sympathy at another point when GOP anger at rumors over the Internet about Palin were being discussed.
"We'll see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the Internet," he said. "If that's the case, Sen. Obama's probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him."
Perhaps most embarrassing, Joe Scarborough was discussing positive developments in John McCain's campaign at one point when Olbermann was heard on an offstage microphone saying: "Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?"
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," got in another nasty on-air exchange with MSNBC reporter David Shuster, and Matthews snapped at Olbermann on-air when it appeared Olbermann was criticizing him for talking too much.
All the drama made MSNBC a punch line when top NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" last week. "Is there no control?" Stewart asked him. "`Is it `Lord of the Flies?'"
A sheepish Williams said that every family has a dynamic of its own.
"But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans?" Stewart said.
Olbermann was in Denver during the Democratic national convention, but performed his co-hosting duties for the GOP convention in a New York studio. NBC President Steve Capus said the decision was not political, that Olbermann had been sent back to anchor coverage of Hurricane Gustav.
MSNBC's decision comes just before Olbermann's "Countdown" show is set to air, on Monday, Olbermann's interview with Barack Obama. That will put Olbermann in direct competition with his nemesis, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, who interviewed Obama last week and is airing a portion of it Monday in the same 8 p.m. EDT time slot.
I also heard today that the JeffRense blog has been sabotaged this past week.
MSNBC Demotes Keith Olbermann
by: David Bauder, The Associated Press
New York - MSNBC said Sunday it is replacing Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews as co-anchors of political night coverage with David Gregory, and will use the two newsmen as commentators.
The change reflects tensions between the freewheeling, opinionated MSNBC and the impartial newsgatherers at NBC News. Throughout the primaries and summer, MSNBC argued that Olbermann and Matthews could serve as dispassionate anchors on political news nights and that viewers would accept them in that role, but things fell apart during the conventions.
Gregory, the veteran Washington hand, will anchor MSNBC's coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates and election night, said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. The change was first reported by The New York Times.
The tipping point appears to have come during the Republican convention when Olbermann, after the network aired a Sept. 11-themed video prepared by the Republicans, said that MSNBC should not have shown it.
MSNBC executives, who had publicly defended their anchors' roles while privately monitoring it throughout the political season, made the change over the weekend after discussions with Olbermann. Despite the controversy around him, Olbermann has been a hero with left-leaning viewers and keyed MSNBC's growth among coveted young viewers.
During her acceptance speech last week, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin talked about the "Washington elite" not accepting her qualifications for the job. Some delegates on the convention floor began chanting, "N-B-C, N-B-C."
Olbermann began to have difficulty keeping his opinions in check, or simply stopped trying.
He sarcastically dismissed GOP pundit Pat Buchanan on the air after Buchanan said the GOP had been enlivened by the entrance of a conservative Republican.
"Those reading US Weekly with the picture of her and her youngest daughter with the word `scandal' written across it won't be so happy," Olbermann said.
He expressed little sympathy at another point when GOP anger at rumors over the Internet about Palin were being discussed.
"We'll see if people feel sorry for unfounded rumors on the Internet," he said. "If that's the case, Sen. Obama's probably standing up and cheering and waiting for people to feel sorry for him."
Perhaps most embarrassing, Joe Scarborough was discussing positive developments in John McCain's campaign at one point when Olbermann was heard on an offstage microphone saying: "Jesus, Joe, why don't you get a shovel?"
Scarborough, a former Republican congressman and host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe," got in another nasty on-air exchange with MSNBC reporter David Shuster, and Matthews snapped at Olbermann on-air when it appeared Olbermann was criticizing him for talking too much.
All the drama made MSNBC a punch line when top NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" last week. "Is there no control?" Stewart asked him. "`Is it `Lord of the Flies?'"
A sheepish Williams said that every family has a dynamic of its own.
"But does MSNBC have to be the Lohans?" Stewart said.
Olbermann was in Denver during the Democratic national convention, but performed his co-hosting duties for the GOP convention in a New York studio. NBC President Steve Capus said the decision was not political, that Olbermann had been sent back to anchor coverage of Hurricane Gustav.
MSNBC's decision comes just before Olbermann's "Countdown" show is set to air, on Monday, Olbermann's interview with Barack Obama. That will put Olbermann in direct competition with his nemesis, Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, who interviewed Obama last week and is airing a portion of it Monday in the same 8 p.m. EDT time slot.
07 September, 2008
06 September, 2008
05 September, 2008
McHajj
In honor of Ramadan, I present to you:
McHajjMcHajj:
McHajj
by
*Please note: The McHajj series you are about to read came to me directly via a series of disturbing dreams, dreams which continue to haunt me at present. These dreams, more like interminable nightmares, have resulted from life long exposure to advertising in the relentlessly predatory, capitalistic society that I'm haphazardly posited in. In order to deal with the severe psychological trauma such exposure has caused me, I have translated what my unconscious mind has directly conveyed to me into the story below. It is the only way I know how to cope with the constant trespassing into my psyche by the corporate powers which loom about in a most menacing and merciless fashion. Thank you for understanding my dilemma. BTW: I am currently starting a twelve step support group for those who may believe that they are victims of a similar kind of corporate psychological terrorism. I will provide more information in the near future...if there is one. Thank you!
Part I
Ronald McDonald saunters through the range country all alone, exiled from Playland. He comes upon the Marlboro Men, all maudlin, yet steadfast, sitting around a campfire. He tries clowning but cannot even eke one single grin. One offers him a smoke. Ronald reciprocates with Big Macs for all. They eat hamburgers and smoke, staring into the embers. Ronald lets out a conciliatory chuckle, but the others do not respond.
The next day, they mount the steeds and set out. In the course of their round-up, they encounter Joe Camel, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Colonel Saunders, California Raisins, the Hamburger Helper Hand, Charlie Tuna, Palmolive Madge, The Tidy Bowl Man, Mr. Clean and other iconomorphic cuties traversing the desert in search of greener test markets. All caravan across the wastes, drawn towards a mirage of the eternal milk pour shot. The posse grows in legion. They tour cancer wards, deforested tracts in South America, fished out oceans, tobacco farms with spent soil and carked farmers. They pass out campaign pamphlets to Jivaro Indians and work their way down to Tierra Del Fuego. A vote is to be cast for the next Messiah, since the first one (anthropos) cannot return, cannot get his sandaled foot or staff into Ogilvy's Madison Avenue door.
A vote is cast. Ronald wins. The Golden Arches of Triumph remain.
The division works its way towards Mecca. Upon reaching the ka'ba, Ronald ventures an entrance. With a grin he greets the twelfth Imam who patiently engraves upon a piece of plutonium the size and shape of a bowling ball. The Imam reads aloud what he has inscribed on Allah's favorite alloy:
In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,
Praise belongs to God, the Lord of all Being,
the all merciful, the All-compassionate
the Master of the Day of Doom.
A television in the North West corner runs a Prime Time Shi'ite Evangelist special. Oppenheimer makes a guest appearance. He quotes the Bhagavad Gita. The t.v. casts a debile numinosity, reminiscent of decaying isotopes over the interior of the ka'ba. The splendor of a thousand suns, however, lay dormant in the Imam's plutonium. Ronald offers the Imam a Big Mac, but is solemnly declined as the final filigrees are added to the stanza. Mr. McDonald shrugs his shoulders, skips over to the Southeast corner, kisses the black stone and savors its meteoric flavor. A tongue emerges from the stone. The stone tries to sing Allah's glory but Ronald begins to French kiss the stone. Allah's eyes open but he cannot recognize who is kissing him. Ronald tears his wig away and smears the make up off his face. The clown introduces himself to Allah and demands a sacrifice of every child watching Saturday morning cartoons in America. Cheers can be heard from as far away as Algiers. Outside, the Marlboro men gallop their horses around the Ka'ba, tossing cartons of cigarettes to the pilgrims, while Van Allen asteroids with angel wings hover above like Hummingbirds, forming a double helix pattern.
Joint-Chiefs-of-Staff in the War room at the Pentagon. A satellite picks up the action over in Mecca. All chiefs ponder the implications. 'Flexible Response' is briefly discussed.
While Ronald and Allah make out, the Imam carefully places the scripted ball into a missile's warhead compartment concealed directly beneath the center of the ka'ba. Ronald just laughs, fluffs his wig out and puts it back on. He fixes his make up and steps outside. It dawns on him that he forgot to takes his clown shoes off upon entering. But no one outside notices his disrespect. His secret would not be betrayed. The pilgrims fervently, ecstatically kiss the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Hamburger Helper hand, and the California Raisins. Joe Camel lets them take turns riding on his back. He circumambulates the ka'ba seven times. The Imam steps outside and climbs up the minaret and sings to the sky and all activity below stops. He holds in his hand the remote control launch button. Palmolive Madge noticed that the cuticles of the Middle Beast were hardened.
The legion works its way over the Great Wall of China and marches to the center of Tienanmen Square. All the cowboys, clowns, fuzzy little denizens of the west sit in front of a giant statue of Mao. Ronald runs his tongue over the plinth. It too tastes meteoric. Soon refugees from slave labor camps, both Tibetan and Chinese, clutching onto Mickey Mouse dolls are paraded past the icons. Ronald feels something. Yet his make-up won't betray his sorrow. The Pillsbury Doughboy deflates a little. The four fingered Hamburger Helper Hand offers to help but cannot grasp the situation. The Marlboro Men hand out cigarettes to the refugees but they are refused. All wait.
to be continued
(originally published @ http://www.konformist.com/2002/mchajj/mchajj.htm
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