Open Thread
Ah, nuts. I've been trying to piece together the follow-up to the previous post, but it's 3:30 AM and I'm not nearly there yet, and it's making less sense to me the longer I stay awake. I'm afraid I'll need to take a little more time with this. Not that there's a shortfall of things to talk about. So please, have at it.
posted by Jeff Wells at 9/29/2006 03:26:00 AM
48 Comments:
:stadin' here on shaky ground
This ol' world is goinn down:
thanks, Jeff
Venezuela still has Habeas Corpus. Shhhh.....
Senate passed Torture bill and House passed Wiretapping bill... Destruction of Constitution Trifecta in play.
We're On The Eve of Destruction
Hello everyone
Since this is an open thread, I have a question for the cool people who write here. I just saw an actual video yesterday of the concentration camps in the usa. This was very scary and it looks like this particular one in Indiana is being prepped for gas chambers. I just do not know what to think anymore except that they are not putting money into these horror chambers for nothing.
Does anyone have any info about this? I know we are in something really bad in the last two years of the murdering neocons regime. They never get enough death. President DEATH,to quote one of Jeff's excellent posts about Katrina, that is what we are stuck with in the former usa.
I hope someboday knows the truth.
Anonymous One,I can hardly wait for the black bagings to start.Some how we are standing at the bottom of a slippery slope.And now everyone is looking for the rope,to bad there is'nt one.The mother fuckers have cast a goddamed spell on this orb,and you and I are just left here to witness the whole thing.We around this planet that even care are few,soon we will be in the same boat as the kids in "The White Rose",when they come for you,will you go screaming or will go in a body bag?The plan to turn this place on it's head is just about ready,one big galvanising event away from lock step into never neverland,later.
Anonymous said...
"The plan to turn this place on it's head is just about ready,one big galvanising event away from lock step into never neverland,later."
I guess that explains the story making the rounds of the Karl Rove "October Surprise." I can hardly wait. I'm sure it's gunna be just fab.
Wonder how many will be required to "participate" without the decency of a last meal? Let alone being told they are hero's for the cause. Good luck to them all. Even if them all includes me. :(
Lions, tigers, and bears, OH MY!
Well its just act II....the curtain call has not come. I for one will not go quietly. I know what it used to mean to have rights. I also think that alot of this is just to whip us into submission, alot of fear mongering. We used to say "No, they could never get away with that." Now we say "I cant beilieve they are getting away with that." I think this is a giant psyop to quiet the left and dissenters. Just a warning to watch where you tread. It will take a while longer to get to the camps, so there is still time. The one thing that no one here is counting on, is that 30% is NOT a majority. And thats all they have roughly, on their side as blind followers. If they had the balls (which they do) to launch another false flag, I think the majority of Americans would revolt. The simple reason being that people are beginning to question why they are surrendering liberty for so much security, when it still does not stop a major event. To convince that other 70% that the big bad world of terrorism has reached our door, you will have to have daily attacks with ied's in multiple US cities....like in Iraq.
I am sorry but nothing else is going to convince them....but put up a law or two that says you are not free to speak, or challenge the gov't and oh by the way we WILL torture you if we so deem fit, and all of a sudden alot of people become afraid. See the uber-American (martyr-esque) phrase "give me liberty or give me death" no longer applies. The administration has decided that thats too good for "detainees" or "enablers of terror". Now they want to make you suffer as much as possible, but in a "not so fast" sort of way want to make sure you around tomorrow for the same fun. This has alot of people shaking now and for good reason: Sure dying for liberty is easy....now enduring scrotal electrocution for liberty.....thats a different story....
anonymous: I saw the FEMA camp video last week and it's very worrying. I don't have much further info about it apart from there seem to be 600-800 such camps in the USA awaiting activation. It looks extremely serious to me.
Jeff and his army of sycophants
have no need for me
i am non conformist
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD MOTHERFUCKERS
It was just reported Osama was killed by a Stingray.
Story developing at teh Drudge Report
Warriors
The important thing to remember is that just because some asshole points a gun at you, it doesn’t mean that he’s your lord and master. Fuck him! Who does he think he is, making unreasonable demands and shit? If you’re going to die anyway, wouldn’t you rather it were on your own terms? Do you want your last moments to be spent groveling in a puddle of piss with your wrists duct taped together behind your back and a broomstick jammed up your ass, or would you rather spit in Death’s face on your own two feet? Everybody dies, and if it looks like it’s gonna happen, make sure you do it right. Don’t go out like a sniveling punk. Have some fucking dignity.
Spit in their face and curse them.
OSAMA ON ICE
NOW PLAYING at MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
Is Organite effective against Zyclon-B?
If they gas us all, though, who's going to make the French Fries?
Maybe Cheney will watch over the Waterless Shower proceedings whilst donning a Parka.
Disney has two more children's theme rides to be unveiled in 2007. They are titled Fallujah and Jihad, respectively.
They should be a gas!!
First the U.S. economy crashes next year after the elections then the camps are activated to deal with those who are starting to get the bleak picture who are organizing and out in the street, the microwave weapons are ready for them, the Secretary of the Air Force has already stated they need to be tested on U.S. citizens pronto - - the U.S. is completely bankrupt (morally and financially), trillions were admitted stolen from the Pentagon right before they knocked down the towers(and elsewhere HUD etc.) syphoned off for black ops to defeat democratically elected government and murder progressive fair human beings worldwide in our name and also sent to Israel by their dual "citizens" running "our" government, not to mention the S&L looting etc. that Bush Sr. and his cronies pulled off - - Bush and co. are not worried b/c they are psychopaths and have contingency plans for everyone with the camps and biowarfare (check out the history on West Nile . . .) the 30% of born again Christian brown shirts will fall right in to sell everyone else out as they have been doing right along, praising their historically phoney Jesus all the way during the mass murder . . . intelligent people are looking for escape routes out of the coming hell that is just about to pop open in the land of the . . . what a joke . . . a country run by right wing closet homosexuals and "dual citizen" traitors . . . (check out right winger Congressman Tom Foley's notes of man love for the young male intern http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001627.php -- he represents the right wing "patriotic" clowns taking orders from the fascists - - thoroughly corrupted and blackmailable cretins . . . Wayne Madsen on his site has nice info on Bush Jr.s attendance in the 70s of a born again group to change his closet homosexual ways, resulting in his supposed finding of Jesus etc . . . . check out Mehlman, Rove and the rest . . . ) . . . it is over here except for the final curtain call and it will be very ugly indeed, as the televised MSM yesterday cheers the complete shredding of all our final rights under the constitution . . . in the end you get what you deserve, a horrifying idea when applied to the people of the U.S.A. - - sold out, greedy, and stupid beyond belief . . . but among the most "religious" folks on the planet . . .
I don't know about you all.....but my family and I have our cyanide capsules in place, and ready.
At least Starroute can claim she was the Optimist amongst us....and did her best to temper the tempestuous. Maybe they will spare her from the showers, and let her hold the door for us, instead.
Original source URL:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Carpenter1102.htm
We Don¹t Need Them
by Joe Carpenter
www.dissidentvoice.org
November 2, 2005
³But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no reason to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves, like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose, they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely, sooner or later, it must occur to them to do it? And yet . . .²
€ -- George Orwell, 1984
I¹ve never understood the idea of speaking truth to power. The truth, surely, is that in almost all countries of the world, political and economic systems are designed to benefit only the rich and powerful, at the expense of those with less money and power. This is how the world works, and I see no reason to think that the powerful don¹t already understand that. After all, they designed it; they maintain it.
They steal our money, sacrifice our children in their wars, send the poorest and most victimized among us off to jail for petty mistakes, and crush those of us who might present a real threat to the arrangement. They know we don¹t like it. They don¹t care. They don¹t need to care. They also control most of our avenues of dissent. It¹s a very simple, very elegant design.
Meanwhile, we get angry and toddle off to tell the truth to the powerful. We have been telling them the truth for centuries. We travel to their great palaces by the hundreds of thousands, to express our anger and despair. We shout and sing and stomp and whine. We threaten. We plead. Sometimes we¹re beaten up, or sent to jail. It¹s a tradition of great courage and personal sacrifice, no doubt.
We go to tell them to stop using our money and our children and our energy and intelligence to further rob and rape and murder us. We tell them to be more respectful and compassionate. We¹re like angry but terrorized children, anxiously scolding our stern, all-powerful parents. And, in the end, we look to the Democrats or to some congressional panel or to the Supreme Court and demand that they come to our aid. As my friend Harry puts it: ³We¹re left in the terrible position of trying to decide which elite group will be less likely to prey on us.²
Well, the government and their pals are not going to stop using and abusing us. They¹re not going to stop preying on us. They cannot stop! Republican or Democrat, they are rich and powerful precisely because they prey on us. They are rich because they rob us. They¹re robbing us right this minute. They are powerful because they dominate every aspect of our lives, because they¹ve taken control of all the major social, political, economic, and communication systems in the world. These systems were designed to increase their wealth and power by taking both from all the rest of us.
But, we are not children, and they are not our parents. We¹re not little people and they are not big people. We¹re not insignificant and they are not significant. In fact, we do not need them.
They are very few and we, here in the US alone, are roughly 300 million. We don¹t need to rush out to tell the few that they are abusing the many. They already know that. We need to stand upright and walk out to tell the many that they are being slowly devoured by the few, for -- incredibly, they do not know. We need to look to our next door neighbors, and to their next door neighbors and to the folks all along the block. We need to tell the truth to each other -- for we are the answer.
While hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators gathered in Washington, DC, back in September, hundreds of millions of American citizens went about their business without even a vague awareness of the protests. The media to which most of them attend barely mention such things -- obviously. And, most Americans don¹t live in the DC area, so they didn¹t see a thing.
Most Americans live in my neighborhood, or in your neighborhood. Most Americans eat breakfast right next to you in the local café. Most Americans get their car fixed at the same garage as you and I do. Most Americans visit my library, my bookstore, my grocery store, my local park -- or yours.
But the rich and powerful have convinced us that we cannot -- we must not -- communicate with the people we can see and hear and touch, right here, right now. They have convinced us that we need to travel to some government office to persuade elected officials and bureaucrats to change our world for us. The government and media drone on, endlessly, hypnotically, and convince us that if we just elect the right leaders, they¹ll talk to our next door neighbor for us.
Government programs, they promise us, will fix that gaping hole in the pavement right out beyond your driveway. Government will help poor Mrs. Wilson, languishing in the old, dilapidated house right across the street. Government will settle your dispute with that family right down the block. Government will take care of your neighbors who can¹t escape the hurricane:
³It¹s OK, just hop in the SUV and go, we¹ll take care of everything!² Government will help; government will heal; government will bring us together.
That¹s not going to happen, of course. The elites are too busy dividing us, setting us against each other, exacerbating every animosity, every misgiving, every anxiety, however slight. They insinuate themselves into every new crack and crevice and offer convoluted, expensive legislation and bureaucracies to bring us back together again. ³There oughta be a law,² says the old complaint. Well, there will be, to be sure -- but it will just make things worse.
We¹re all looking in the wrong place for reason and compassion and justice. It¹s not anywhere to be found in Washington, DC. It¹s not in governments or state houses. It¹s not there in that prestigious gathering of experts and big brains.
It¹s right here. It¹s wherever you are, and it¹s right next door and it¹s everywhere along your street and all around your neighborhood. It¹s in the cars that pass you on the roadways and in the shops where you buy your dog or cat food. There¹s no need to travel a thousand or even a hundred miles. It¹s not necessary to make the climb up to the penthouse. Our hope, our possibility -- our only hope, our only possibility, lies in the ordinary people who compose our world, who are the very stuff of our lives.
Want to change the world? Tell the truth to the plumber. Begin with the lady who hands you the stamps at the post office. Talk with the checkout people at the grocery store. Chat with the waiter at your favorite café. Speak with the cops who sit down at the next table. Gab for a few minutes with the guy who changes your oil or with the elementary school teacher with whom you¹ve been discussing your child¹s future. Lean out of your window while stopped at the light and tell the truck driver some truth he¹s certain to recall and ponder.
Feel the need to march? Gather a bunch of folks and wander about your neighborhoods with signs and leaflets. When people walk by, stop and gab with them. When that huge guy with the Hemi-powered Ram pulls alongside and tells you to ³love it or leave it,² ask him to stay and talk. Smile, offer your hand, make nice. He¹s one of us. He¹d make a wonderful ally. When a carload of high school jocks slows to offer some single-fingered communication, hand them some cold colas and tell them about the probability of a draft. They¹re our people, too. Convince yourself that this is so, then convince them.
Get together with like-minded people and think of simple, brief, meaningful ways to communicate with the folks all around you. Think about little things, easy things, immediate things. Think about what you can do together, and what you might accomplish alone. Think about your real day-to-day life, and how many opportunities there are to educate and enlighten, every day. Blab and babble and blunder and tell the truth, one ordinary person at a time. We¹re all ordinary people, and we are our only hope. Tell the truth to the guy who pumps out the septic tank -- he¹s one of us! Forget about telling the government, forget about the hot shots.
To the extent that we believe we need them, exactly to that extent will we continue our dependence upon ruthless, murderous plunderers, people entirely opposed to our needs and deepest longings. As long as we believe we need them, exactly that long will we live life on our knees, begging -- as Mickey Z. says -- for crumbs from their table.
The depth of our apparent need is the measure of their height above us. The nightmare of our poverty is our dream that they have a right to take our money. The illusion of our impotence is the chimera of their monstrous strength. We shall be slaves as long as we¹re convinced that we have masters, and not one moment longer.
Time to wake up, time to grow up. We¹re not children. We do not need to ask permission to live like sane, reasonable, thoughtful, compassionate human beings. We do not need to beg or bow or kneel. We do not need to look to government or to experts or to the rich and famous. Whatever we need, we can get it ourselves. Whatever we want to stop -- we can stop it ourselves. Whatever must be done, we can do it ourselves. We do not need them; we need each other.
All else is distraction and delusion.
Joe Carpenter is a guy living in Southern Oregon who has traveled extensively and kept his eyes open. He can be reached at: joecarpenter@charter.net.
Blogs:
cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/
Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/
for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/
Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/
Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Original source URL:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Carpenter1102.htm
We Don¹t Need Them
by Joe Carpenter
www.dissidentvoice.org
November 2, 2005
³But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no reason to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves, like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose, they could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely, sooner or later, it must occur to them to do it? And yet . . .²
€ -- George Orwell, 1984
I¹ve never understood the idea of speaking truth to power. The truth, surely, is that in almost all countries of the world, political and economic systems are designed to benefit only the rich and powerful, at the expense of those with less money and power. This is how the world works, and I see no reason to think that the powerful don¹t already understand that. After all, they designed it; they maintain it.
They steal our money, sacrifice our children in their wars, send the poorest and most victimized among us off to jail for petty mistakes, and crush those of us who might present a real threat to the arrangement. They know we don¹t like it. They don¹t care. They don¹t need to care. They also control most of our avenues of dissent. It¹s a very simple, very elegant design.
Meanwhile, we get angry and toddle off to tell the truth to the powerful. We have been telling them the truth for centuries. We travel to their great palaces by the hundreds of thousands, to express our anger and despair. We shout and sing and stomp and whine. We threaten. We plead. Sometimes we¹re beaten up, or sent to jail. It¹s a tradition of great courage and personal sacrifice, no doubt.
We go to tell them to stop using our money and our children and our energy and intelligence to further rob and rape and murder us. We tell them to be more respectful and compassionate. We¹re like angry but terrorized children, anxiously scolding our stern, all-powerful parents. And, in the end, we look to the Democrats or to some congressional panel or to the Supreme Court and demand that they come to our aid. As my friend Harry puts it: ³We¹re left in the terrible position of trying to decide which elite group will be less likely to prey on us.²
Well, the government and their pals are not going to stop using and abusing us. They¹re not going to stop preying on us. They cannot stop! Republican or Democrat, they are rich and powerful precisely because they prey on us. They are rich because they rob us. They¹re robbing us right this minute. They are powerful because they dominate every aspect of our lives, because they¹ve taken control of all the major social, political, economic, and communication systems in the world. These systems were designed to increase their wealth and power by taking both from all the rest of us.
But, we are not children, and they are not our parents. We¹re not little people and they are not big people. We¹re not insignificant and they are not significant. In fact, we do not need them.
They are very few and we, here in the US alone, are roughly 300 million. We don¹t need to rush out to tell the few that they are abusing the many. They already know that. We need to stand upright and walk out to tell the many that they are being slowly devoured by the few, for -- incredibly, they do not know. We need to look to our next door neighbors, and to their next door neighbors and to the folks all along the block. We need to tell the truth to each other -- for we are the answer.
While hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators gathered in Washington, DC, back in September, hundreds of millions of American citizens went about their business without even a vague awareness of the protests. The media to which most of them attend barely mention such things -- obviously. And, most Americans don¹t live in the DC area, so they didn¹t see a thing.
Most Americans live in my neighborhood, or in your neighborhood. Most Americans eat breakfast right next to you in the local café. Most Americans get their car fixed at the same garage as you and I do. Most Americans visit my library, my bookstore, my grocery store, my local park -- or yours.
But the rich and powerful have convinced us that we cannot -- we must not -- communicate with the people we can see and hear and touch, right here, right now. They have convinced us that we need to travel to some government office to persuade elected officials and bureaucrats to change our world for us. The government and media drone on, endlessly, hypnotically, and convince us that if we just elect the right leaders, they¹ll talk to our next door neighbor for us.
Government programs, they promise us, will fix that gaping hole in the pavement right out beyond your driveway. Government will help poor Mrs. Wilson, languishing in the old, dilapidated house right across the street. Government will settle your dispute with that family right down the block. Government will take care of your neighbors who can¹t escape the hurricane:
³It¹s OK, just hop in the SUV and go, we¹ll take care of everything!² Government will help; government will heal; government will bring us together.
That¹s not going to happen, of course. The elites are too busy dividing us, setting us against each other, exacerbating every animosity, every misgiving, every anxiety, however slight. They insinuate themselves into every new crack and crevice and offer convoluted, expensive legislation and bureaucracies to bring us back together again. ³There oughta be a law,² says the old complaint. Well, there will be, to be sure -- but it will just make things worse.
We¹re all looking in the wrong place for reason and compassion and justice. It¹s not anywhere to be found in Washington, DC. It¹s not in governments or state houses. It¹s not there in that prestigious gathering of experts and big brains.
It¹s right here. It¹s wherever you are, and it¹s right next door and it¹s everywhere along your street and all around your neighborhood. It¹s in the cars that pass you on the roadways and in the shops where you buy your dog or cat food. There¹s no need to travel a thousand or even a hundred miles. It¹s not necessary to make the climb up to the penthouse. Our hope, our possibility -- our only hope, our only possibility, lies in the ordinary people who compose our world, who are the very stuff of our lives.
Want to change the world? Tell the truth to the plumber. Begin with the lady who hands you the stamps at the post office. Talk with the checkout people at the grocery store. Chat with the waiter at your favorite café. Speak with the cops who sit down at the next table. Gab for a few minutes with the guy who changes your oil or with the elementary school teacher with whom you¹ve been discussing your child¹s future. Lean out of your window while stopped at the light and tell the truck driver some truth he¹s certain to recall and ponder.
Feel the need to march? Gather a bunch of folks and wander about your neighborhoods with signs and leaflets. When people walk by, stop and gab with them. When that huge guy with the Hemi-powered Ram pulls alongside and tells you to ³love it or leave it,² ask him to stay and talk. Smile, offer your hand, make nice. He¹s one of us. He¹d make a wonderful ally. When a carload of high school jocks slows to offer some single-fingered communication, hand them some cold colas and tell them about the probability of a draft. They¹re our people, too. Convince yourself that this is so, then convince them.
Get together with like-minded people and think of simple, brief, meaningful ways to communicate with the folks all around you. Think about little things, easy things, immediate things. Think about what you can do together, and what you might accomplish alone. Think about your real day-to-day life, and how many opportunities there are to educate and enlighten, every day. Blab and babble and blunder and tell the truth, one ordinary person at a time. We¹re all ordinary people, and we are our only hope. Tell the truth to the guy who pumps out the septic tank -- he¹s one of us! Forget about telling the government, forget about the hot shots.
To the extent that we believe we need them, exactly to that extent will we continue our dependence upon ruthless, murderous plunderers, people entirely opposed to our needs and deepest longings. As long as we believe we need them, exactly that long will we live life on our knees, begging -- as Mickey Z. says -- for crumbs from their table.
The depth of our apparent need is the measure of their height above us. The nightmare of our poverty is our dream that they have a right to take our money. The illusion of our impotence is the chimera of their monstrous strength. We shall be slaves as long as we¹re convinced that we have masters, and not one moment longer.
Time to wake up, time to grow up. We¹re not children. We do not need to ask permission to live like sane, reasonable, thoughtful, compassionate human beings. We do not need to beg or bow or kneel. We do not need to look to government or to experts or to the rich and famous. Whatever we need, we can get it ourselves. Whatever we want to stop -- we can stop it ourselves. Whatever must be done, we can do it ourselves. We do not need them; we need each other.
All else is distraction and delusion.
Joe Carpenter is a guy living in Southern Oregon who has traveled extensively and kept his eyes open. He can be reached at: joecarpenter@charter.net.
Blogs:
cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/
Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/
for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/
Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/
Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel Pinchbeck's Wet Dream:
or
Abu Ghraib Dates Mid-America
or
"Any Ideas About Why We're Fucked Up As a Species?"
or
Hole Wide Open...Eyes Wide Shut
or
Be A Hole & See The Real You
or
Wet Dream Of A Suicide Bomber
"I just got back from sex camp (my nickname for the annual retreat I co-produce at a rural camp facility), and I've got sexual objectification on my mind. It was six days of classes, special events, parties, and rituals. One of the events is called the Garden of Carnal Delights, and it takes place in a series of connected rooms. Each one has a different erotic theme, and the Objectification Room is the most controversial of them all.
Five single beds are lined up in the middle of the small space and a large purple opaque curtain hangs from the ceiling dividing the beds in half, so that when people (called objects) lie on them, only the bottom halves of their bodies are visible to spectators.
The majority of the objects are women, though there have been a few men, and some of the participants don't offer their genitals up for play (one guy offered his mouth for oral service and wore a hood to mask his identity). Objects sign up in advance and fill out a form indicating their sexual limits. The limitations are then posted on a sign hanging from the curtain above each bed under the headings Yes and No. "Yes: vaginal penetration only," "No: fisting," "Yes: spanking, anal penetration with toys," and "No: playing with my pussy" are just a few. Once the objects (identified on the sign by number) are placed behind the curtain the Garden opens to attendees.
Participants are free to sexually use any of the objects as long as they follow the rules. Safe sex is mandatory, and there is no verbal communication between object and user—the exchanges are completely anonymous. There are monitors on either side of the curtain just to make sure everyone behaves. If an object needs to get the attention of the monitor, he or she rings a bell.
The Garden was created by Vlad and Cindy, a married couple who live on the Upper West Side and are active in the BDSM scene. "We came up with the Objectification Room because we saw this dirty French movie that had this scene in it that really turned us on," says Cindy. "We would watch it over and over. The scene had people divided at their midsections on beds, and people would sexually use people regardless of who they were or what they looked like. It was a hot idea for us." The couple believed that other people would be turned on by this fantasy, and that it might be something folks would get off on. They built it, and people came.
Now in its third year, the Objectification Room has gained popularity, and people sign up well in advance to play the role of an object. Vlad and Cindy teach a class about the Garden for newcomers, and it helps that attendees from previous events know what to expect. Based on participants' feedback, the objectification fantasy touches a nerve in a lot of folks. "When people thank us, it's very sincere, and you can see that it meant a lot to them to be able to explore this," says Cindy. Vlad adds, "One guy came up to me at breakfast the next day and said his experience was amazing. He said he got laid four times. Judging by the way he looked, I'd guess that's probably more sex than he's had all year."
The concept of giving people permission and space to treat others as objects for their sexual gratification sounds like a feminist's worst nightmare. But to hear the creators describe it, it sounds like a space for people to have sexual experiences regardless of physical appearance: it strips away the judgments we all make about one another, letting us exist in a space where there's no flirting, small talk, seduction, or even eye contact.
One woman, who has been an object two years in a row, says the experience is transformative. "I like being used and I like not knowing what's going to happen. It's about the challenge and pushing myself to do whatever they wanted. I like being scared, although I know I am safe. The curtain allows freedom for the other person and allows me the freedom to not have to look at them while they are there." She got a note from someone who used her, sent via one of the moderators who knew her identity. The writer thanked her for allowing him or her to experience things he or she had never done before. "The first time I was an object, it was spiritual. I didn't expect that. I had risen up, endured for others, sustained the humiliation of being probed and used."
A bi male attendee who had sex with an object said at first he was hesitant, "I was raised a feminist. I am guided by consent in sex. I host orgies. I talk to people about negotiating limits. Here, the limits were printed on a page to read. There were no opportunities to seek clarification." In the end, he liked the experience, but found that it made him vulnerable: "I know how glory holes operate, and this was something like that, so that became my first framework of reference. . . . I like anonymous sex, though I have experienced it either in private or in a group setting. Here, I was kind of . . . exposed as liking it."
Another object, who did it for the first time, told me, "I've had a long-standing fantasy about being a hole. I'm a submissive and part of my kink is being used. I like the idea of having no say. . . . I've felt like that before, being a hole there for someone's use, but it's been as part of a larger relationship and there was trust, and it's always been a huge turn-on for me. I think that's what made me think I'd like it on a larger scale and in a more anonymous way." As it turned out, it wasn't what she expected. "The experience was very interesting. Not a sexual turn-on at all, which was a surprise. I don't get off on being a dirty little whore; I get off on being someone's dirty little whore, if that makes sense. I don't think I realized that before this experience."
"This year more than ever, I realized how much it was a form of edge play," reveals Vlad. "Edge play" is a BDSM term usually used to describe activities that are considered especially risky, like cutting, piercing, or playing with guns. "This was not about intricate techniques or complicated accoutrements. It was mental edge play. I know this because there were lots of people who signed up to be an object then backed out at the last minute. It was like they were standing on the edge of the cliff, but they just couldn't jump."
Drudge last night played it with a "Gloves Off" headline and an eerie shot of Bush Imperator looking satisfied.
Ditto above: spit in their faces if they point a gun at you because you believed in liberty and freedom. Die on your feet, not on your knees, like an American--no, like a human being, imbued with dignity by the Creator who loves you.
Their house is built on sand, not rock, and will fall. Let your name be recorded as one who stood against them.
Anyone here remember the book "Fail Safe?" In it, a Jewish Army intelligence officer is interrogating captured Germans. He ruminates on what would have happened if the Jews had resisted, if the first ten or hundred houses the Gestapo raided had answered the door with gunfire. He thinks to himself that it wouldn't have taken that many martyrs to make such a resistance effective, and the Holocaust might never have happened, at least on the scale it did.
Or consider the final, valiant defense of the Warsaw ghetto: a noble exercise in human resistance. Or, for that matter, Bastogne: U.S. troops cut off, surrounded, hungry and frozen, and Gen. McAuliffe tells the Germans "nuts" when they demand surrender.
Everyone dies. Few of us get to choose the how or the why. Edmund Campion chose to be drawn and quartered rather than renounce his faith:
"Tortured again on October 31 (1581), he was indicted at Westminster on a charge of having conspired, along with others, at Rome and Reims to raise a sedition in the realm and dethrone the Queen. On November 20 a verdict of guilt was returned before Lord Chief Justice Wray; in response Campion declared, "If our religion do make traitors we are worthy to be condemned; but otherwise are and have been true subjects as ever the queen had." More important than this, was his assessment of the persecution Catholics were suffering:
"In condemning us, you condemn your own ancestors, you condemn all the ancient Bishops and Kings, you condemn all that was once the glory of England..."
He received the sentence of the traitor's death, and, after spending his last days in prayer, was led with two companions to Tyburn and hanged, drawn and quartered on December 1, 1581.
When the time comes, you will know what to do.
Was that Art Holeflaffer starting us off? ("That was no crazed sterno-bum...)
This one was good:
...I think the majority of Americans would revolt. The simple reason being that people are beginning to question why they are surrendering liberty for so much security.
Except that it should read more like:
...people are beginning to question why they are surrendering so much liberty for so little security.
Finally,
Shrub, that was a stupid fucking comment about starroute. You're annoyed by optimism? What do you suppose you sound like from the other side? Do you imagine that you are either motivating anyone to do something about the mess we're in, or in any way not helping along the agenda of hopelessless with your constant whining defeatism?
Yeah, be a realist, if that's what you call it, but what are you doing about anything, aside from moaning about how shitty every fucking thing is? What's there to discuss when you're so convinced that we're all going to die; why bother talking about events and ideas at all? What do you add to the discussion with this locked-down mindset? And who's helping whom swallow the bitter pill?
Sorry about the antagonism, pal, but that was a stupid fucking comment. Cheers.
SHOCK AND AWE was the game plan against the US not IRAQ. WTC, PENTAGON, planes explosions, and future false flag NEOcon/zionist yada yada.
the october surprise will allow martial law which will help quell the riots after they steal a 3rd election, and institute DRAFT required for the upcoming long war or attack on Iran. SECURING THE REALM battle plan. They need all torture laws and wiretapping to use against dissenters not the 6 slurpee jockeys the have at GITMO. 5 years of war for about 100
wanna-be terrorists, 1/2 of them are not even guilty. soooo if we all give up our rights the might be ale to convict or coerce half of them. Big Deal.
What I cant figure out is how everyone will CONSUME all the corporations products while locked in the camps. Will they have vending machines in the white boxcars and labor camps? Or wil they have corporate sponsored caps names "now entering DUPONT leisure camp"?Whats all this crap about UN troops stationed/training in the south of USA? Anybody see Meatballs those looked like fun camps and they had sleep overs too.
see you all at camp.
i would suggest optimism is the true 'real'ism..
Camps? Worked for IG Farben and Krups--cheap labor source, and you don't have to worry about unions.
Seriously, though, the figure I saw was around $380 million to Halliburton for camp construction. That's not a lot of money, about the same price as a hospital (St. Anthony's, a medium-sized hospital in Lakewood, Colorado, is costing $440 million: only 386 beds, with 100 critical care). So do yourself a favor and lose the paranoia.
Fear is what they WANT you to feel. Fear is used to control you. When you're afraid, when your limbic system is "on," you can't think rationally. They feed on fear. It's why an animated cadaver like Robert Novak hates Jon Stewart. Demons hate to be laughed at.
Spit in their faces. Laugh at them. They're more afraid of the people laughing at them than you can possibly imagine, as per Orwell and Chomsky. Manufacturing consent works only so far. Their efforts to vilify large swaths of defiant, skeptical, wise-cracking Americans have backfired.
You might even call it blowback.
...people are beginning to question why they are surrendering so much liberty for so little security.
Well said IC....
I too have wondered who, pray-tell, will buy the consumables when the greatest consumer nation the world has ever seen, if this ol' ship goes down?
Wow, it's frightening when the Optimists get mean and angry. It's so unbecoming.
You need to loosen up, IC. You're taking yourself way too seriously.
I will contend that I have done as much to change the course of events as you have.....and that is nothing, when it's all said and done.
The difference between you and me is that when I spill my guts here, that's what it is...literally. You get to see my most hidden and dark thoughts. I'm not afraid to go there. It doesn't give me panic attacks. For me, it's testing the waters of the Worse Case, so if the Worse Case manifests, I am somewhat psychologically ready for it, if that's possible.
It doesn't mean that I give up in my personal life.....it just means that I'm not going to fool myself that certain things are possible...when, on the whole, they're not.
Also, why do you see my words as a threat? Why not see them as a challenge...perhaps that's the intent. Believe it, or not, I've quite an open mind, so if you are unraveled this easily by me, what makes you think you can hold up to the throngs of humanity in the quest for The Holy Grail?
I said it before, and I will say it again. Words, especially on the Internet, won't get the job done. It would take much more than that......but under the current system, what it would take would land you at Guantanamo.....and, no, that doesn't necessarily imply violence.
Can I just say that I love all your comments, and I wish we were all at a beautiful castle somewhere toasting with the finest champagne, as the boat goes down. I cannot imagine better company. See you there. A Votre Sante (To Your Health) - From a French Irish Lass
Where the hell is Richard? The camp seems to be artificially dividing....as it invariably does...into the Pessimists and the Optimists. I don't like it that way....but it appears to be the way of things. We need some more Pessimists to keep the boat balanced.
shrub -
Optimist? I've been expecting this since 1959 -- with only brief moments when I hoped we might be able to turn aside from it. The extent of my optimism is to believe that we still have a chance to get through it and out the other side -- and that if we don't, somebody else will.
Even that degree of hope has been hard won. If I've been fascinated by history for most of my life, it's been out of an obsessive need to find the times that were most like this one and learn how they arose and how they were resolved.
Sometimes they go easy -- the horrific reign of Bloody Mary was followed by the glories of the Elizabethan Age. Sometimes they end only through the decay and collapse of the empires that spawn them.
I don't know which is more likely to be the case here -- but I do know that unless it can be resolved through people power, I don't want to play. I've had it with elites -- whether cadres of dedicated revolutionaries or dissidents within the power structure determining that their own profits depend on asserting a measure of sanity. Fuck 'em all. All they ever do is screw things up.
The trouble with people power, of course, is that most people are assholes most of the time. It takes a real crisis to get them past that. During disasters, large numbers of people behave with generosity, grace, and courage. It doesn't last, but at least we can see it's possible. Even 9/11 briefly triggered that sort of grace -- until it got hijacked.
America's leaders have failed us. Either the people decide to switch over into disaster mode and take matters into their own hands or they don't -- and we should know either way fairly soon. If they don't, the best we can hope for is that the rest of the world manages to route around us and keep us contained while we rot in our own shit.
Is that optimistic enough for you, shrub?
My good rubbery Shrubbery,
I was merely repulsed by the oafishness of your words toward starroute; I can assure you I'm no more unhinged than I was yesterday at this time. Yeah, gut-spilling is all fine and good--I like to vent my spleen when I find the proper receptacle--but the very real question of what can be done is still left unanswered.
You claim that it's all over and that words won't melt steel, and yet your presence here belies your professed fatalism. You are drawn to the news of the weird as surely as I am and for probably not too dissimilar reasons. Jeff doesn't only tell us how we're being made to assume new variations on the old ankle-grabbing position; he also delves into the arcana of the imagineering and he does it for the same reason that you read it. Who really knows--maybe there is, among the myriad possibilities of this amazing and expanding universe, a future where we escape the onslaught of the dark lords.
I've been talking to architects a lot recently who are so into this business of remaking the earth that I'm always blathering about, and I'll tell you what's even wavier than their outlandish designs: it's the unbridled, unwarranted enthusiasm that their vision engenders in the smashed, hashed, and dashed humanoids who wash up on the beach.
If we are to survive, it'll be either through a freak accident (the way Arthur and Ford get picked up in the vacuum of space after the Vogons eject them) or through an act of inspired imagination, since the current "channels" hold neither salvation nor even simple reform. "Live free or die trying" means to never say never, dude, 'cuz tomorrow never knows (even if we're so jaded that we think we do.)
Found this. Most of the executive orders listed here were signed into law by Prez Kennedy, for whatever thats worth.....http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps1.htm
Well, we should be safe from terrorists now. Why? Because if "they hate us for our freedom", there's no longer a reason for them to hate us.
Why all the pessimism?!?!?
This is just the beginning. There are people on this planet that have dealt with this tyranny bullshit for millenia. And we're gonna cash in our chips at the first hurdle? I've dealt with rape and torture already. Fear ain't new to me. Grow up. Pass the ammo. Keep moving. We'll sleep when we're dead. Out.
--TBDP
I cant help but think about the wide swinging pendulum and what can be expected in it's return to the opposite direction from which it's been shoved forcefully relative to how penetrating it seems to be imbedding into this side's airspace. Will the left eat the people it now sees as it's sell outs? Representatives who enjoy days in congress and senate when the vote comes up for their pay and retirement income increases, but who have other interests, passions, or personal obligations on days when minmum wage votes come up for their constituencies. I just got an email from my daughter the other day. It was a forward and at the end it urged those receiving it to pass it on. It said congress members of one term get 15,000 a month for the rest of their lives when they retire. I dont know how accurate or truthful that might be, but it is after all a FWD on the internet. Guess if true that provides another grain of proof money is worthless and virtual. They get more money to add to what they dont need while other people's retirements are cancelled by phoney bankcruptcies that furnish CEO's and board members with tidy bonuses for deliberately bringing the company to insolvency and cinematic ruin, then they run for office! Ha!. It's been about stealing stuff that ain't your's from the start and people that dont want to live like that are mowed into the culvert by meatplows whose drivers want you to wish you were them,(and compliment them on their station and success as they drive by on their way to more plowing in never ending noble causes). Be interesting to see how the wallpaper changes as we hurry down the halls of Prospero's Books passed all the sigels and icons familiar and reminding, (and intent on stimulation for one last dying screw), of how we feed off each other not through our gluttony or even our fear per se' but by our willingness to parade sloth and envy before our co-inhabitants with hope they will marvel at our inability.
Sorry about this long C&P, but it's come to this: I'm quoting Molly Ivins. Read it and cringe.
Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)
By Molly Ivins
With a smug stroke of his pen, President Bush is set to wipe out a safeguard against illegal imprisonment that has endured as a cornerstone of legal justice since the Magna Carta.
Austin, Texas - Oh dear. I'm sure he didn't mean it. In Illinois' Sixth Congressional District, long represented by Henry Hyde, Republican candidate Peter Roskam accused his Democratic opponent, Tammy Duckworth, of planning to "cut and run" on Iraq.
Duckworth is a former Army major and chopper pilot who lost both legs in Iraq after her helicopter got hit by an RPG. "I just could not believe he would say that to me," said Duckworth, who walks on artificial legs and uses a cane. Every election cycle produces some wincers, but how do you apologize for that one?
The legislative equivalent of that remark is the detainee bill now being passed by Congress. Beloveds, this is so much worse than even that pathetic deal reached last Thursday between the White House and Republican Sens. John Warner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham. The White House has since reinserted a number of "technical fixes" that were the point of the putative "compromise." It leaves the president with the power to decide who is an enemy combatant.
This bill is not a national security issue-this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.
Death by torture by Americans was first reported in 2003 in a New York Times article by Carlotta Gall. The military had announced the prisoner died of a heart attack, but when Gall saw the death certificate, written in English and issued by the military, it said the cause of death was homicide. The "heart attack" came after he had been beaten so often on this legs that they had "basically been pulpified," according to the coroner.
The story of why and how it took the Times so long to print this information is in the current edition of the Columbia Journalism Review. The press in general has been late and slow in reporting torture, so very few Americans have any idea how far it has spread. As is often true in hierarchical, top-down institutions, the orders get passed on in what I call the downward communications exaggeration spiral.
For example, on a newspaper, a top editor may remark casually, "Let's give the new mayor a chance to see what he can do before we start attacking him."
This gets passed on as "Don't touch the mayor unless he really screws up."
And it ultimately arrives at the reporter level as "We can't say anything negative about the mayor."
The version of the detainee bill now in the Senate not only undoes much of the McCain-Warner-Graham work, but it is actually much worse than the administration's first proposal. In one change, the original compromise language said a suspect had the right to "examine and respond to" all evidence used against him. The three senators said the clause was necessary to avoid secret trials. The bill has now dropped the word "examine" and left only "respond to."
In another change, a clause said that evidence obtained outside the United States could be admitted in court even if it had been gathered without a search warrant. But the bill now drops the words "outside the United States," which means prosecutors can ignore American legal standards on warrants.
The bill also expands the definition of an unlawful enemy combatant to cover anyone who has "has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." Quick, define "purposefully and materially." One person has already been charged with aiding terrorists because he sold a satellite TV package that includes the Hezbollah network.
The bill simply removes a suspect's right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.
As Vladimir Bukovsky, the Soviet dissident, wrote, an intelligence service free to torture soon "degenerates into a playground for sadists." But not unbridled sadism-you will be relieved that the compromise took out the words permitting interrogation involving "severe pain" and substituted "serious pain," which is defined as "bodily injury that involves extreme physical pain."
In July 2003, George Bush said in a speech: "The United States is committed to worldwide elimination of torture, and we are leading this fight by example. Freedom from torture is an inalienable human right. Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes, whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit."
Fellow citizens, this bill throws out legal and moral restraints as the president deems it necessary-these are fundamental principles of basic decency, as well as law.
I'd like those supporting this evil bill to spare me one affliction: Do not, please, pretend to be shocked by the consequences of this legislation. And do not pretend to be shocked when the world begins comparing us to the Nazis."
The ripples of fear spread across this loathsome pond:
In Case I Disappear
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t |
Friday 29 September 2006
I have been told a thousand times at least, in the years I have spent reporting on the astonishing and repugnant abuses, lies and failures of the Bush administration, to watch my back. "Be careful," people always tell me. "These people are capable of anything. Stay off small planes, make sure you aren't being followed." A running joke between my mother and me is that she has a "safe room" set up for me in her cabin in the woods, in the event I have to flee because of something I wrote or said.
I always laughed and shook my head whenever I heard this stuff. Extreme paranoia wrapped in the tinfoil of conspiracy, I thought. This is still America, and these Bush fools will soon pass into history, I thought. I am a citizen, and the First Amendment hasn't yet been red-lined, I thought.
Matters are different now.
It seems, perhaps, that the people who warned me were not so paranoid. It seems, perhaps, that I was not paranoid enough. Legislation passed by the Republican House and Senate, legislation now marching up to the Republican White House for signature, has shattered a number of bedrock legal protections for suspects, prisoners, and pretty much anyone else George W. Bush deems to be an enemy.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092906J.shtml
Powerful words at the end of the WR Pitt article
"In case I disappear, remember this. America is an idea, a dream, and that is all. We have borders and armies and citizens and commerce and industry, but all this merely makes us like every other nation on this Earth. What separates us is the idea, the simple idea, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our organizing principles. We can think as we please, speak as we please, write as we please, worship as we please, go where we please. We are protected from the kinds of tyranny that inspired our creation as a nation in the first place.
That was the idea. That was the dream. It may all be over now, but once upon a time, it existed. No good idea ever truly dies. The dream was here, and so was I, and so were you."
Wow.
I was merely repulsed by the oafishness of your words toward starroute
After Starroute's last post, I now officially change the name in the post that predicated IC's Rabid Dog-Like, yet Chivalrous response to Iridescent Cuttlefish, instead of Starroute.
Don't you love it when Cynics flog fellow Cynics. It keeps you on your toes....you must admit.
I'm not sure I would take you up on that castle bit, Irish Lass. I'm afraid IC would physically assault me if I looked at Starroute's ass the wrong way....as if there's a right way.
So Shrub, if you have this fukitol attitude, then why bother shopping at Whole Foods? Why go through the trouble of buying organics? Shouldnt a fatalist shop at Walmart since it doesnt matter?
I was wondering if anyone has heard anything substantive about China using Falun Gong practioners imprisioned as live organ unconsenting donors?
Shrub, Shrub:
C'mon, Big Guy--this isn't some bitchfesting flame war. You can ogle starroute to your heart's content without offending my chivalrous sensibilities, although I'm not sure how her husband would take it (he does have all those Law & Order DVDs, you know.) I wasn't angry with you--I like your cynicism. It's just your defeatism that bothers me, just as my ridiculous optimism irks you. But it's not as cut and dried as all that, either. You know that you would prefer the outcome I predict to the one you see written on all the walls, so what is the barrier to at least trying something different from writing words on the air?
I just got an inspired comment from our friend Miraculix (11:17 AM) who, when writing about his reaction to my insane schemes (the birth of a "virtual" Be-In, and the whole rebuilding-the-earth-through-intuitive/intelligent design movement) , pontificated thusly, "As far as moving away from dystopian porn by consciously initiating a collective thought process, I say what have we got to lose?" What, indeed? Foolish, doomed, pathetically quixotic--it might be all of these, but what's it going to hurt, and how is the taste of cyanide any better? As long as we're going to rage against the machine and the dying of the light, why not pull out all the stops and see what really is in the bag of tricks we call our neural network?
So Shrub, if you have this fukitol attitude, then why bother shopping at Whole Foods? Why go through the trouble of buying organics? Shouldnt a fatalist shop at Walmart since it doesnt matter?
Enjoying some niceties here and there doesn't change the inevitable outcome. I don't have to unecessarily flog myself until the whole thing comes crashing down. What if it happens in the next generation?
I try to be as personally responsible as is capable under the current paradigm....my beef is with the aggregate of human behavior...and the direction it's headed....and the prospects for a reversal of that direction.
That doesn't preclude me from eating healthy and exercising. I still believe in a quality of life....I'm just damned mad that so many others don't....and I'm going to be flushed down the toilet with them...if it happens in my lifetime.
By the way, you guys have to remember....and I shouldn't have to remind you...that I firmly believe in poignant satire. A number of my posts are satirical. Not all, mind you, but a substantial number.
Atem knows which ones are....and which ones aren't....and if you pay close enough attention...you will one day, as well.
I agree, IC, there certainly is nothing to lose, but I'm still at a loss as to what, specifically, is being proposed. It seems rather vague and ambiguous to me thus far.
About William Pitt -- that guy is a slimy asshole. I've had dealings with on Democratic Underground and anybody throwing around the term "gatekeeper" could easily start with that site and, by proxy, him.
Which, ultimately, reveals his little "Should I disappear.." melodrama for what it is -- self-important posturing.
Sorry, but that needed to be said.
Hello everyone,
I am thankful that so many people wrote and are aware of the concentration camps. The more people who know the better. It is important to get the word out about his as much as possible. I had also considered what someone said:"who would make the french fries?" "who would consume the products and spend the fake money?"
I think that would be a problem for these fascists. They don't do any work, never have and never will, just like their leader, the so called installed prez or REZ.
How they would actually implement this plan is a mystery as well. There are supposedly railroad cars with shackles inside stationed at several camps, including one in Oregon and some in southern california. I guess they would take people that way, just like the nazis.
Another thing that was truly frightening to me was that I had read that a former agent of one of the letter agencies had said that they would send helicopters and pick up people at around 4 a.m. and put them in either a red category which was the worst or a blue one which was a lesser charge. Anyway it was words to that effect. Then I actually see in that video one or two signs that actually say RED ZONE. Seeing that with my own eyes was extremely disturbing.
Anyway, this is the best site on the web for communication. It has helped me to cope with this realization. I hope more people will comment and give any information because we need all the help we can get now. I never thought as a us citizen that I would EVER have to deal with anything like this in my lifetime. I am still hoping it is not going to come to pass, but with each new draconian law that is pushed through the rubber stamp congress, I get less and less hope that we can get these despicable neocons arrested and prosecuted and out of positions of power.
We must all stay vigilant and keep learning so that we can fight them when the time comes.
The home of the infamous european toxic clan, psycho urban fraggers that pawn the virtual return to castle wolfenstein enemy territory battlefields.
Just Pub, a dumb return to castle wolfenstein enemy territory comic strip by feuersturm.
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