Monday, June 30, 2008

John MCCain: War Criminal, Collaborator, Liar and Coward

Not everyone who served in Nam was a "baby-killer."

But Bombin' Johnnie was.

He conducted indiscriminate bombing raids on civilian population centers and infrastructure 23 times.

He got shot down on the 23 mission.

His A-4 crashed into a lake near Hanoi.

He was rescued from the wreck and from drowning by the very people he had been trying to kill.

For years he's lied about being tortured in captivity. His injuries were incurred in the plane crash and the rescue, for which there apparently wasn't much extra time for gentleness.

He was operated on to treat the injuries, without anaesthesia. But there wasn't much anaesthesia in Hanoi in 1967. They used most of it on the victims of Bombin' Johnnie and his buddies.

On the other hand, they could--and arguably should--have let him die.

Later, he collaborated with the North Vietnamese propaganda machine. Probably, he betrayed his shipmates by enumerating the ship off which he flew, his squadron, their capabilities, and their casualties. All that is documented.

Bombin' Johnnie's not a hero, folks. There was nothing remotely "honorable" or "heroic" about anything ANY American soldier, sailor, marine or airman did in Nam.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Pop-Quiz: At What "Price/Gal" Does War Become "Affordable"?

What's the "Price-at-the-Pump" that will motivate "Murkins" to approve a strike against Iran, or other oil-bearing 'adversary,' when the Busheviks inevitably launch one to prop up Bombin' Johnny's campaign. $5? $6? $7? $8...

How high does the price have to go before "No War For Oil" becomes anachronistic and idealistic? At what price do Murkins say: "Okay, fuck it. Get Me More Oil!"?

Remember the last scene of 3 Days of the Condor?

Friday, June 27, 2008

Fascism Has Arrived When Information Can Be Seized As "Contraband"


How the fuck can anyone believe there still persists even the fucking possibility for freedoms under the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments?
Seizing Laptops and Cameras Without Cause
A controversial customs practice creates a legal backlash
By Alex Kingsbury
Posted June 24, 2008

Returning from a brief vacation to Germany in February, Bill Hogan was selected for additional screening by customs officials at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. Agents searched Hogan's luggage and then popped an unexpected question: Was he carrying any digital media cards or drives in his pockets? "Then they told me that they were impounding my laptop," says Hogan, a freelance investigative reporter whose recent stories have ranged from the origins of the Iraq war to the impact of money in presidential politics.

Shaken by the encounter, Hogan says he left the airport and examined his bags, finding that the agents had also removed and inspected the memory card from his digital camera. "It was fortunate that I didn't use that machine for work or I would have had to call up all my sources and tell them that the government had just seized their information," he said. When customs offered to return the machine nearly two weeks later, Hogan told them to ship it to his lawyer.

The extent of the program to confiscate electronics at customs points is unclear. A hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution hopes to learn more about the extent of the program and safeguards to traveler's privacy. Lawsuits have also been filed, challenging how the program selects travelers for inspection. Citing those lawsuits, Customs and Border Protection, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, refuses to say exactly how common the practice is, how many computers, portable storage drives, and BlackBerries have been inspected and confiscated, or what happens to the devices once they are seized.
Customs agents have the authority to search the contents of lap-tops, on the same theory that permits 'em to search brief-cases. A brief-case might hold some piece of physical, material contraband: jewelry, drugs, food. A lap-top holds only bits and byts. No physical danger there, only ideas, thoughts. Didn't they settle that with allegedly pornographic literature imports in the '50s? If Customs fuckers can seize, inspect, and confiscate electronic information storage gear, it makes a complete, cocked-up mockery of the citizen's liberties guaranteed by the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments.

Typical Murking reply: "Fascism? Hunh? Where? I don' see no 'fascism.' There's no li'l guy in a funny moustache...You're just making shit up, you Dirty Fucking Hippy! You jis hate the Preznint..."

I'll Know The SCUM* Are Playing Hardball W/GOPukes When...

(Another in an irregular series of Konopelli "non-Diaries" on MLW, also on WWL)

Me?

I await with bated breath and wrestless anticipation, the "New Russert," who will ask:
"Senator, McCain, when did you STOP calling your rich, blonde, young trophy wife a C*NT? Do you believe she STILL dresses like a trollop (an anachron for "whore")?


*SCUM: SoCalledUnbiasedMedia

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Bombin' Johnnie Thinks "We" Need a "Psychological Boost." Here's one:

So he thinks we should drill ANWAR and the coastal zones. It's the patriotic thing to do, and the people need symbolic guidance. It won't impprove the energy picture, but it would have 'a psychological impact' which might drive down Prices-At-The-Pump.

So, Johnnie, you feckless criminal, here's a scenario to play wit: The guy on the right, here, with the wattle fat enough to refloat the fucking Titanic, is Lee Raymond, former CEO of Exxon/Mobil and arguably one of the richest and most successful oil speculators in the world. If oil and energy are actually 'national security matters,' Raymond is one of a couple of hundred men and women who have manipulated the price of this vital national security resource for their own personal gain. That, my friends, is a hanging offense.

So, just think of the psychological impact of the following: On National Television (Faux?), we see the weeping Raymond dragged from a cell, wearing a sign that reads "OIL PROFITEER;" he's then forced to dig his own grave, then stripped to his skivvies, when he is knelt at the brink of his hole, where an un-smiling police official puts a couple of .22 cal slugs in the back of his head, and kicks the gelatinous corpse out of sight. Talk about psychological impact!

That's the way the Chinese do it...Mebbe the deterrence angle is a little weak, but it cuts hell outta recidivism...

Monday, June 23, 2008

Sound-biting The Chimp, NPR Audio- Stenography Drives Another Nail Into My Skull

Their headlines on the 11 am, MDT newscast led with the faux-earnestness of The Chimp extolling the virtues of drilling off-shore and in ANWAR as, at least implicitly, rational responses and prophylactics to the current price of petroleum products. Then they moved on.

And I am afraid I must have terrified the dogs, all the dogs in the neighborhood by the piercing shrillness of my keening for the death of the truth.

It is not a matter of anyone's "opinion" that allowing even the immediate and exhaustive exploration, drilling and exploitation of every inch of the 50 United States, their territories and tributaries, starting at noon today will NOT have ANY discernible impact on the current price of oil, will not lower the price paid at the pump--the PPATP--a single, coppery cent, not a sheckel, keine pfennig, nary a peso. NOT to have made any such reference is, in effect, becoming complicit in a lie: "catapulting the propaganda," as the Chimp let slip one day.

It would have been an act of truth--of nobility, of honor, of conscience--had the NPR news-reader rejoined the Preznint's patent falsehood with a terse remark, to the effect that oil which cannot get to market until 2020 CANNOT effect the PATP TODAY, for the love of screaming Jeezis and his pederastic acolytes!

But no, it the moment passed, unremarked. Mebbe the programmers there figger NPR listeners are sufficiently discriminating to be able to infer an implied subtext.

But I'm not so sure. These are, after all, the same people who claim to admire Scott Simon, and send in submissions to "This I Believe."

In Oil, but throughout the so-called 'energy sector,' we have a commodity whose production is easily manipulated for gain, along with a pliant, amorphous mythology of markets, and huge technological barriers to real understanding, embedded with the indices of international politics and economics at work creating and maintaining the "value" of oil. The price--and hence the ultimate cost--of USer/Western Civ reliance on petroleum has not even begun to be felt. USer economic macro-theory socializes cost, privatizes profit. That may be the immanent contradiction which finally undoes the whole wobbly, corrupt, feculent affair.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Raving Mikey Reagan (Yeah, That Reagan) Wants To Kill People

Not just anyone, of course. Not, for instance, the fascist fux who have trod the Constitution onto the shit-muck under their boots from DC to Bagdhad. Not "Shooter" Cheney, whose demise would set off celestial fireworks like the Second Going. Nope. It may surprise you to learn that Michael Reagan, adopted 'son' of the former but now deceased and rotting Gipper, wants to kill AMERICANS.

No, wait! That's wrong. I malign this fine man. Sorry.

He doesn't want to kill Americans himself. He wants someone else to do it for him (sound familiar?), while he buys the ammunition. Via Huffpost:
Right Wing Talk Host Michael Reagan Calls for Murder of Anti War Activists

On June 13, talk radio host Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former president Ronald Reagan and occasional guest anchor on Fox News, called for the murder of anti-war activists who, according to Reagan, are sending letters to U.S. soldiers arguing that the U.S. government had a role in 9/11.

Reagan told his nationally-syndicated radio audience:
"Take em out and shoot em. . . . You take em out, they are traitors to this country, and shoot them. . . . Anybody who would do that doesn't deserve to live. You shoot them. You call them traitors, that's what they are. And you shoot em dead. I'll pay for the bullets."
And no, Mikey, you poltroon, you cowardly piece of shit, you got it all wrong. "Traitors" is what you call fux who negotiate with foreign powers when they are NOT elected officials of the Country.

I want more than anything else before I die to shit in the mouth of one of your feculent family. Will it be you? Open wide...

Addendum (@ 9:15 am, MDT, posted on Digby): "If I were to say I thought it appropriate to have Cheney and Bush dig holes, strip to their skivvies, kneel down in the holes, and take two 9mm each to the pan, it would be considered excessive, I bet, and might even get stricken, and myself banned? And I don't even have a national radio broadcast...Go fuukin figger..."

Friday, June 20, 2008

Where's The Candidate?

The Dim Bosses--Pelosi, Hoyer, Rodrigues in the House, Rockefeller, and others in the Senate--have made a total sell-out deal with the Busheviks on "retro-active immunity tor the complicit telecoms which broke the law to assist the fascist fux in th ShiteHouse.

Poorman:
The bill. EFF doesn’t like it. The ACLU doesn’t like it. Greenwald has more round-up. Kagro X games it out. The Dodd is opposed; Feingold is opposed; Dodd and Feingold are opposed (we do note that the word ‘filibuster’ does not appear); while Barack Obama, #1 Democrat, is silent.

The point of telecom immunity is to protect the Bush administration - and those in Congress who enabled them - from having to answer for what they have done. There’s no other good reason for it.
if Obama seems reticent about restraining the powers of the President, is it only cuz he wants to hold onto the "get-out-of-jail" option for himself?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

St. Potato-Head? A FAIR Assessment

HERE. It's lengthy.

Shorter (un)FAIR eulogy: Russert was a sold-out hack who loyally followed the diktats of his bosses, fondly laving the prostates of the GOPricks and the GOPowerful with his calloused, working-class tongue.

They loved the appearance of toughness, and, luckily, he didn't seem to mind the taste of their shit. Perfect parasitism!

Monday, June 16, 2008

I Smell A Contest

Recently Bombin' John made an appearance at which, behind him, was a green screen.

As soon as I saw this, , I thought, Gee, Judy, why don't we have a contest? I do NOT recommend that anybody actually watch the thing.

Stephen Colbert--or one of his writers--had the same idea, issuing one the infamous "Green Screen" challenges. Many many many entrants clog and congest YouTube. Nor have bloggers been immune.

Both SadlyNo nor The Poorman were immune to temptation. This one: Is very good...

Somebody over on MLW the other day was knocking the assertion by somebody else that the blogs, but this whole new-wave vid/pod/phone culture was creating at least the conditions of possiblity for a new wave "revolution." I think that, as long as the corporate hegemons don't close down the portals, having such a reservoir of talent, much of it the equal of Thomas Nast for character assasination, might level the playing field.

Friday, June 13, 2008

I started a new blog: A Chinchilla of Hope


There I shall be recounting and chronicling as much, and as honestly, as possible my baby Lila's (and my) battle with her cancer. There's a couple of posts there now. Don't focus on any one post, please; they're an evolving body of knowledge...

There's a bunch of research that suggests writing about stuff actually contributes to measurable amelioration of cewrtain kinds of difficulties. When I usta teach writing, it was on the basis that I, at least, needed to write in order to learn what I knew and how I knew it. I approach this with the same spirit.

I'm gonna try to be as real throughout this as I can be, but I might not get everything "right." This is a pretty emotional topic for me. Feelings can obtrude.

Lila (she's a fuukin ROCK) and I (a bit less so) would both be grateful if you bent your positive thoughts and good vibes her way. She's my bright, shining light.

And if anybody knows how I can stick a chinchilla image into the flag atop the blog, I'd be appreciative of the hint...

(NB: Chinchilla sketch by KDAVIES; used without permission)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

National Press Club Grants Imprimatur To Obama Slurs

From FDL: A video has been circulating the internet showing a man, Larry Sinclair, speaking to camera making slanderous claims about Senator Barack Obama. These claims are demonstratably false, and don't bear repeating here, or in any venue. Which is why it is shocking that the National Press Club is offering a him a spot on the national stage on June 18.

Please take a moment to ask the National Press Club to check the facts before giving Larry Sinclair a bully pulpit. Also, if you have a moment please consider calling the National Press Club at 202-662-7500, and politely but firmly petition them verbally.
Follow the link to the page, and sign the petition. as i commented on with my signature:
I more than half suspect that if some beat-up ol' hippie/freak vet showed up claiming to have been bombin' John's butt-baby in the Saigon Hilton, that individual would not be able to tell us his story under the (implicit) imprimatur of the National Press Club without some serious vetting, first, would he?
Do your own thing!

Monday, June 09, 2008

Climate Restoration 'R Us

Jon Schwarz's lapidary musings at "A Tiny Revolution dot com," on the appropriate replies and strategies by citizens, collectives, communities, and other local civil authorities to answer the challenges occasioned by fierce and untrammeled, global and domestic energy consumption, and the thread along with it are worth your attention today.

My contribution:
I agree with putting gardens atop all the tall, flat-roofed buildings.

At the same time, i think we should apply a coat of white "paint"--mebbe some kind of insulating material--to every PITCHED roof in the country, and on every parking lot, every street, and any other otherwise unused horizontal surface of human manufacture to reflect light/heat and surrogate for the disappearing ice on the poles.

I also think the State (state/fed, machts nichts) should underwrite the process of installing some kind of photo-thermal or photo-voltaic collector on all that roof-space, too. This will spawn new industries in the manufacture and installation of such devices, which would offset the losses in employment in the traditional energy fields. EVERY responsible economist agrees with this assessment. Plus, making individuals CONTRIBUTORS to the community energy pool, and not just consumers from it, will i think be crucial to any even remotely successful efforts to garner BEEG public support for the changes that are coming. It is NOT inappropriate that the "state" should underwrite much of this expense, since it is no less than the commonweal which is at stake...

In any kind of disinterested calculus (the inter-planetary ethnologist, e.g.), humanity does not have the right to exterminate any and all but its own, domesticated animals in the exploitation of the planet's energy resources, but that is almost certain to happen unless there are specific infrastructural prohibitions against it. So the preservation of bio-diversity must be non-negotiable, for either moral or practical reasons, whichEVER is most persuasive.




Ps: I took down the "Lila" post. My girl objected that it (that i'd) violated her privacy, and she's right (tho not, too, sorta). Any objective observer would have recognized that the post was an act of major self-pity, as much as anything, which is embarrassing, in flagrante delicto...
still, thank you for your replies, your consolations.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

White Folk Don't Trust One Another (For Good Reaason), So Obama Scares 'Em

Obama's nomination will be cast by many whites as 'reparations' enough. People hereabouts (left-blogoville) mostly have more sense and sensibility than the 'herd,' and thus may properly excuse themselves from my characterizations, but there's this:

Nobody
ever lost an election by over-estimating the reluctance of Murkin "Whites" to put their collective fates in the hands of a black person. In view of the horrors Mary Scott recounted, (and which are surprisingly well known away from the places where they occurred--e.g., Tulsa, OK), this is, perhaps, in the meanest terms, "understandable." "We" have a LOT for which we are--or, at least, in a universal calculus, ought to be--accountable. The history of oppression, repression, and suppression by "White" Murkins of non-white people under their domain is one of unexampled, unexamined brutality. Most "White" folks, somewhere in their commerce-soaked consciences, know that it is true, and they tremble. "Slave Rebellion" is STILL the worst thing that can/could happen. If they were to be treated as they treated the victims of the regime that enabled their privilege???

Because:
There is not a person of color in the USofA who has not experienced the stinging scourge of racism--by which I do NOT intend the casual biases and bigotries. But I mean, rather, the system of abuses and excuses which was built and perpetually conspired to inflict 400 years of indignity, pain and suffering upon its victims; to which they were, for all intents an purposes, powerless to reply or seek redress. It is not the bias and bigotry that makes USer culture "racist." There is bias and bigotry everywhere cultures intersect. It is the culture which tolerates, amplifies, exploits, and reifies bias and bigotry, and which rewards it.

Conversely
--and this is the hard part--there is not a "White" person alive today in the USofA (me, e.g.), male or female--and there never has been one who EVER lived here--who has NOT benefited from racism (within the same caveat), whether they know and/or acknowledge it or not. You got a job, or didn't get a ticket, or didn't get hassled because--and only because--you are/were "white."

They don't call it 'privilege' for nothing...

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Poll-watching

I have spent the day today as an election judge in a smallish precinct where 75 Dims and about 25 Pukes showed up (out of about 450 eligible voters) to name their candidates for the NM General Election.

Based on what is, admittedly, not actually scentific data but rather is mostly anecdote, probably 35-40 percent of my fellow (NM) citizens do NOT have the mental capacity to cast a knowledgeable ballot.

That that percentage of the population which would have to relinquish their 'smart' seats on the bus to a box of fucking rocks renders the whole ideal of an informed electorate a mad, impossible delusion