Theory of a Dead Man
Got to be an important person to be in here, honey,
Got to have done some evil deed. - Bob Dylan
An even more discouraging spectacle than George Bush's long-expected bullhorning the death sentence of Saddam Hussein is that of America's putative opposition party making a bandwagon of his tumbrel. Howard Dean hailed it as a "great verdict," adding that Hussein "is a war criminal and he's getting what he deserves." Whether that's Dean's own mind or the oversoul of the Democratic National Committee talking, it's sad to see the loss to America of a leader who could voice courageous uncertainty by saying, two weeks before Bush's "Mission Accomplished," that "We've gotten rid of [Saddam], and I suppose that's a good thing." Where'd that guy go?
And now, over Karl Rove's final 72 hours, comes word that the Republicans are "surging," just in time and against all reason. Now, it could be that late national polls showing the GOP drawing to a near-dead heat with Democrats within the margin of error actually reflect national opinion. The state of American opinion and the machinaries of its management are such that it's not inconceivable. Citizens are cheated not only on election day, but on every day of their lives by a military-entertainment complex that many have become strangers to their own best interests. One of the finest moments of Borat, and one of the reasons why Borat matters, is his address to the rodeo crowd before he butchers the national anthem. "We support your War of Terror," he declares, to thunderous applause, and elicits more with appeals to support the troops and "kill every single terrorist." And when he shouts "May George W Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child of Iraq" no change registers in their response, except for a few more delighted war whoops. (A poor quality clip, seemingly shot in a theatre over the weekend, can be viewed here.) It's only at his "desecration" of the Star Spangled Banner, in which he extolls Kazakhstan's potassium industry as the finest in Central Asia, that the spell breaks, and the audience realizes it's been had.
Saddam, like a pawn brought to self-awareness, regards the timing of his death sentence to be a political expedience to Washington, just as was his capture, overthrow, support and installation. American voters do not even have a piece on the board, though they've been taught all their lives they're the kings. What happens on Tuesday night is not as important to the United States as what happens on Wednesday morning. That it's likely to be nothing is the world's problem.
posted by Jeff Wells at 11/06/2006 11:06:00 AM
122 Comments:
Recently heard a joke about politicians: The etymology of the word "politicians" is "poly" meaning many, and "ticks" meaning parasites.
As far as the upcoming execution of Saddam, it ranks low in the box office draw of polidrama. That is unless there's a jail break or some other twist or novelty offered. It seems anticlimactic when compared to previous hits such as JFK, Waco, Ruby Ridge. and, my favorite, Oklahoma! Even the preparation "trailer" Borat, while duly invigorating American audiences to their cultural revulsion of all things Middle Eastern, will not help enough to bring in needed "revenue" and support. Saddam's end seems a sad footnote rather than a block buster.
The trial, for all its theatrics, is finally over, and the result is as we all expected. There was never a chance that Saddam would be found anything but guilty. And I, frankly, do not have much sympathy for the man. I do, however, oppose the death sentence in any and all circumstances. Saddam ought to spend the last of his days in a cell.
Fisk does an excellent job showing how the findinmg of guilty extends to the governemnts of the west. His actions were sanctioned, perhaps even ordered by his allies in the west. He was our man in Arabia and his guilt is our guilt.
Great, insightful commentary as always Jeff. This for all your writing.
Somehow, I feel that the Saddam red herring is what will be used to "explain" the Republican's late surge (ie. ballot tampering). Pure speculation of course. It will be really fascinating to see how the "we are monitoring Nicaragua blah blah blah" talking heads deal with what is facing them come Nov. 8th.
Banana Republick-my-a***
Wednesday will tell.
Just a small point of order.
I think the nothing that 'happens' on Wednesday morning may be due to election controversey as well as the results being spread out over the next couple of weeks. This of course would be the smart way to do it, with upsets trickling in one at a time rather than all being blatantly obvious at once it is much less likely any sort of unified outcry will occur.
After that, I think the other nothing will happen.
I'm not going to shed any tears for Saddam. He did get what he deserved (although it sounds like they're not even done crafting the verdict -- obviously, this is all politics).
Still, there's no chance that this verdict will re-elect any republicans. The verdict has been a foregone conclusion since day one. This is too little, too late. At most it will provide cover for some blatant electoral fraud, but it in no way makes up for almost 3,000 dead troops on Bush's watch.
I agree that Dean should've called shenanigans on the timing, but most of America is still united in hating Saddam. I hate to say it, but it's almost a non-issue. We have to be vigilant about stolen elections either way.
Personally, I'm still unconvinced its the real Saddam they've got.
Saddam had lots of body doubles. And like the famous fake bin Laden tapes, the nose is overly wide for the real McCoy (Saddam). The body double's teeth are horrible as well, unlike Saddam's straight pearly whites.
It has been known for years, by both the Iraqi people and intelligence agencies, that Saddam Hussein utilized at least 5 doubles to hide his whereabouts during his rule of Iraq. George Bush and US occupation forces, themselves, were "fooled" when they thought that they had "bombed" and killed Saddam Hussein in March of this year. After a massive missile attack and bombing of a building where Saddam Hussein was, according to US intelligence sources located, George Bush claimed the Iraqi leader was blown up. A few days later the Qatar based Aljazeera news service broadcast a video showing Saddam alive and well. This incident totally fooled and embarrassed the Bush Administration.
Falih Abdul Jabbar, a sociologist and researcher at London University in England, says the Iraqi public had long known Saddam employed look-alikes. He says the public had become adept at detecting which Saddam -- the real one or a stand-in -- came to official ceremonies.
Falih Abdul Jabbar said, "People noticed that when the other guy, or 'the second Saddam,' was there, they could detect this very easily by looking at the bodyguards, who seemed careless, sometimes even laughing. They wouldn't do that in the presence of the real Saddam."
He continued, "Another observation by the public was that Saddam was very well-known among the Iraqis to be a camera-monger. He loved the camera and to be in close-up shots. And they notice that when the other guy, his 'spare part,' was his replacemnet, the cameras would take faraway shots, rather than zoom in. They would then deduce this was not the real Saddam."
In an effort to learn more about Saddam's use of doubles, the German public television station ZDF asked a forensic specialist to make a scientific study of some 30 films of the Iraqi leader. The expert, Dieter Buhmann of the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Saarland University in Homburg/Saar, found that the pictures reveal there are as many as three Saddam doubles who regularly took Saddam's place.
Buhmann says he found the doubles by looking for pairs of pictures in which Saddam's pose was essentially the same. Using a computer graphic program, the scientist marked each picture to highlight such features as the length and width of the head, the size of the eyelids and nostrils, and the forms of the ears and chin. By then overlaying the two pictures, he was able to calculate how closely the features matched, indicating whether the person in the pictures was the same man or not.
La Voz de Aztlan has conducted an independent analysis of the many pictures of the real Saddam, his doubles, and of the one that US occupation forces say is that of the captured Iraqi leader. We invite you to see and conclude for yourselves whether the American public, and that of the world, is being scammed by the "mother of all hoaxes". See for yourselves and believe your own eyes! The analysis is below :
http://www.aztlan.net/saddamcapturehoax.htm
And what about those stories of Russians flying out the real one, stashing him away?
Another interesting backup on that was that it was reported in Christopher Story's The New Underworld Order: Triumph of Criminalism and the Global Hegemony of Masonic Intelligence (available from amazon.com.uk), that the Russians were helping to organize the Iraqi "insurgency." Makes sense if they had Saddam as an ace in the hole. Nationally, it only makes sense that Russia helps out the Iraqi "insurgency" (defense against the U.S. preemptive criminal invasion), since the U.S. within a month of 9-11 had signed 'defensive' alliances with all states around the 'soft underbelly' of Russia.
Then of course the U.S. mercenaries and the U.S. special operations teams are being terrorists on the side hoping to enflame religious hatred among Iraqis anyway and the insurgency so it will be easier to divide and conquer them.
Third, the U.K. terrorist team, caught in false flagger operations replete with fake beards and a huge stash of explosives and other equipment, were broken out of a Iraqi jail with a U.K. tank to keep them from talking assuredly, after the U.K. team fired on and killed Iraqi policemen in their failed attempt to avoid capture.
Fourth, the U.K. is profiting by selling the Iraqis arms as well:
Revealed: Britain's arms deal with Iraq
posted by: sabretooth on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 02:40 AM
Weapons
BRITAIN has sanctioned the sale of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of military equipment to Iraq for the first time in more than a decade, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. The government has rubber-stamped special export licences for weaponry, including sub-machine guns, pistols, riot shields and smoke grenades in the past few weeks alone as ministers admit the threat of continuing civil unrest is seriously hampering reconstruction efforts. The revelation last night provoked outrage from politicians and pressure groups, who warned that weapons flooding into the country could end up in the hands of resistance fighters, further destabilising the situation.
[from website that seems to have ceased to exist: http://www.global-elite.org/]
If that is what they want, then that is why it IS being done.
And of course they will both sit on the oil to keep the prices up, build their bases and ship it selectively off to subisidize Israel narcostate:
ZIONISTS TO GET PLUNDERED IRAQI OIL
The United States has asked "Israel" to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister's Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a "bonus" the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.
"U.S. checking possibility of pumping oil from northern Iraq to Haifa, via Jordan"
By Amiram Cohen
Ha'aretz
Monday, August 25, 2003
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=332835
Sure is nice I guess. Israel provides nothing, gets an oil perk of stolen oil.
The U.S. has no right to judge someone anyway. All they did was invade Iraq. That's a criminal action, against a U.N. member (Iraq).
Besides Saddam and Rumsfeld and the Bush/Reagan era were all palsy-walsy back in the 1980s. And Bush Senior and Saddam were operating multi billion dollar extortion scheme. Bush wanted the billions back that Saddam had stashed:
According to a 1995 deposition by Reagan national security aide Howard Teicher, CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates was part of a secret operation in the 1980s to funnel sophisticated military equipment to Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein via Carlos Cardoen, a Chilean arms dealer with close ties to the murderous General Pinochet. “Under CIA director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, the CIA authorized, approved and assisted Cardoen in the manufacture and sale of cluster bombs and other munitions to Iraq,” Teicher wrote in the affidavit submitted as part of an arms-smuggling case in federal court.[123]
Some of those weapons passed through Customs disguised as agricultural loans funded by the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL, which was connected to the CIA’s BCCI: “Bank of Crooks and Criminals International”), and approved by the Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corporation.[124*]
Of course, not all these technological transfers were so open. Iraqi arms dealer Ishan Barbouti, who, with the help of Richard Secord (of Iran-Contra fame) and Wackenhut Security (an FBI/CIA/DoD proprietary), was secretly siphoning off huge quantities of cyanide from Product Ingredient Technologies, a food flavoring plant in Florida, which was subsequently shipped to Iraq to be used in Hussein’s chemical weapons production (Cyanide is a necessary ingredient in the development of nerve gas). Barbouti was also friends with Hussein’s brother-in-law—Hussein Kamil, who directed the flow of over $2 billion in BNL commercial loans to various high-profile Iraqi weapons projects.” Many of the biologicals sold to Iraq had the blessing of both President Bush and Secretary of State James Baker—both oil men. It is rumored that both men made a substantial amount of money from these deals, as did much of the U.S. military-industrial establishment.[*]
...
Court records uncovered by Sherman Skolnick also reveal that Bush and Hussein engaged in private oil deals involving the splitting of $250 billion worth of oil profit kickbacks.[*] As Skolnick reports:
“The records demonstrate private transactions involving $250 billion in oil money kickbacks from the entire Gulf region paid to Saddam Hussein.
The Federal Reserve Board wanted Congressman [Henry] Gonzales (D-TX) to agree to never use these records in any of his congressional reports.
He was only allowed to look at the records.
But the Congressman refused to sign the secrecy oath that the Fed demanded.
“Following the May 19 hearing I told the attorneys that I had heard what the records were about. I spelled out these huge private transactions between Bush and Saddam.... One of the lawyers said, “Well, that’s true. I want you to know that what is involved here are non-bank records that the ‘Justice’ Department [doesn’t want released].”...
“Saddam got kickbacks to the tune of $250 billion arranged by George Bush and oil companies such as Penzoil which are connected to Bush [one of the heads of Penzoil]....”[*]
According to Skolnick, the “Justice” Department used an investigation of a Court of Appeals Judge in order to blackmail the judge not to release the information.
Representative Gonzales’ investigation was sabotaged by people on his own committee.
After BCCI’s records were seized by the Reagan/Bush “Justice” Department, Gonzales tried, via congressional subpoena, to acquire them.
Judge Brian Duff, who has connections with the Federal Reserve, impounded the records and chased Gonazles’ attorney out of court.
As Skolnick writes:
“On the Senate side the investigation is also being hampered. On June 13 the Wall Street Journal pointed out that [hampering] Senator John Kerry (D-MS) who is investigating [i.e., orchestrating the limited hangout for Bush/Clinton] BCCI became chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee which received large contributions from BCCI.”[*]
[Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Skull and Bones...The "Kerry Commission" on BCCI was just as corrupt as the Kean Commission on 9-11.]
http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_world_class_criminal.html
Thus, the late Skolnick said with court documents and government lawyers confirming the private Saddam/Bush Senior billions of transactions. Skolnick additionally went on to say that he was the only press attending that court hearing--about Saddam and Bush Senior like Middle East mafioso shaking down the little statelets around the Persian gulf for millions upon millions of protection money, or they would turn on the (military attack) heat.
Bush Senior suspected (rightly) that Saddam was getting more than he was arranged to for the deals. They're probabaly still attempting to find the stashed billions in differnt global accounts. Google up Skolnick on that for more, if you are curious on what Saddam may actually own in the U.S. for instance.
Cheney and Powell vigorously defended Saddam when he gassed the Kurds, because no one is really sure what went on there anyway:
September 20, 2003
Colin Powell in Iraq
Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
By KURT NIMMO
The Bushites love to visit the mass graves in Halabja. That's where about 7,000 Kurds died after a chemical weapons attack. "I can't tell you that Saddam Hussein was a murderous tyrant -- you know that," said Colin Powell with prosaic certainty. "What I can tell you is that what happen here in 1988 is never going to happen again."
No, probably not. But what Powell didn't bother to mention is the fact the US State Department "instructed its diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame," according Joost R. Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch, which has extensively investigated the Halabja incident. "The result of this stunning act of sophistry was that the international community failed to muster the will to condemn Iraq strongly for an act as heinous as the terrorist strike on the World Trade Center."
Photo ops with disentombed corpses aside, Powell also didn't bother to mention that people connected to the US government at the time of the Halabja massacre believe Iran, not Iraq, committed the atrocity. "We cannot say with any certainty that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds," insisted Stephen C. Pelletiere a few months ago in the New York Times. "I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair."
Then of course the huge lie of the invasion as well (WMD), so the whole 'trial' is of course just a sophistry, a postmodern 'throwing to the lions' with the hopes that it entertains.
Just wanted to say that I don't think it was ever really established that they had Saddam in the first place; and wanted to recap the lies for what it is worth about the whole mess.
It's more that the interpretation of the narrative justifying these pro-Bush events has been skewed. The narrative itself fails to even exist at all. It's just a TV generated dreamworld or nightmare as the case may be without any link to what is going on.
but it in no way makes up for almost 3,000 dead troops on Bush's watch.
Interesting. I don't quite view it from that perspective. I view it from the perspective of over 600,000 murdered Iraqis, and many millions more suffering, not to mention the Afghanis of which I have not seen Official, or Unofficial, statistics.
but most of America is still united in hating Saddam.
Not me. I didn't hate Saddam. I never met the guy....so how could I hate him? Was I supposed to take the MSM's word for it?
At best, I was indifferent about him.....I mean, with so many people to hate in this world, why should I hate him?
Of course, this does not mean I loved him, or even liked him. He was always a foil....so why play into "their" agenda by hating him? Keep the knee-jerk, solicited emotionalism out of it and see it for what it is.
The only message the execution of Saddam should send to the world is, "Don't ally yourselves with the US. In the end, America will discard you like a used tampon."
" Saddam was seen by U.S. intelligence services as a bulwark of anti-communism and they used him as their instrument for more than 40 years, according to former U.S. intelligence diplomats and intelligence officials…his first contacts with U.S. officials date back to 1959, when he was part of a CIA-authorized six-man squad tasked with assassinating then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim…
Saddam, while only in his early 20s, became a part of a U.S. plot to get rid of Qasim…
The assassination was set for Oct. 7, 1959, but it was completely botched…Saddam, whose calf had been grazed by a fellow would-be assassin, escaped to Tikrit, thanks to CIA and Egyptian intelligence agents…
Saddam then crossed into Syria and was transferred by Egyptian intelligence agents to Beirut, according to Darwish and former senior CIA officials. While Saddam was in Beirut, the CIA paid for Saddam’s apartment and put him through a brief training course, former CIA officials said. The agency then helped him get to Cairo, they said…
In Cairo, Saddam was installed in an apartment in the upper class neighborhood of Dukki and spent his time playing dominos in the Indiana Café, watched over by CIA and Egyptian intelligence operatives…during this time Saddam was making frequent visits to the American Embassy…
In February 1963 Qasim was killed in a Baath Party coup…the agency quickly moved into action. Noting that the Baath Party was hunting down Iraq’s communist, the CIA provided the submachine gun-toting Iraqi National Guardsmen with lists of suspected communists who were then jailed, interrogated, and summarily gunned down…the mass killings, presided over by Saddam, took place at Qasr al-Nehayat, literally, the Palace of the End…
The CIA/Defense Intelligence Agency relation with Saddam intensified after the start of the Iran-Iraq war in September of 1980. During the war, the CIA regularly sent a team to Saddam to deliver battlefield intelligence obtained from Saudi AWACS surveillance aircraft to aid the effectiveness of Iraq’s armed forces…the CIA and DIA provided military assistance to Saddam’s ferocious February 1988 assault on Iranian positions in the al-Fao peninsula by blinding Iranian radars for three days.
The Saddam-U.S. intelligence alliance of convenience came to an end at 2 a.m. Aug. 2, 1990, when 100,000 Iraqi troops, backed by 300 tanks, invaded its neighbor, Kuwait. America’s one-time ally had become its bitterest enemy."
Personally, he wasn't half bad. He did have a heart, afterall. How come people so easily forget that he made sure Stewart had his Corn Flakes with milk? See, no one remembers, do they? Well, I do, and I'll never forget. He was considerate enough to make sure Stewart got his Corn Flakes.....and that's more than I can say for Chummy and Reney
And....let's not forget that Detroit gave him the Key to the City.....true story.....and Saddam donated large sums to the Catholic Diocese there. Hmmmmm.......
I've got to agree with Anon. 12:47 that the actor portraying Saddam, while good dramatically, can't control his bone structure and dental differences in contrast to the real Saddam. As a portrait artist, the differences are glaring and obvious. Would you really be surprised to learn that the real Saddam was enjoying his well-earned retirement somewhere in the world enjoying the show?
Wonder how their going to pull off the execution? Ah, there's no business like show business.
Nothing can happen on Wednesday. In the last thread we discussed the possibilities for reforming the system, starting with the electoral process itself, and today Jeff reminds us of the utter uselessness of all such speculation due to the real centers of power, which have nothing to do with polling places or the machinations of Karl Rove, who is, after all, only a bureaucrat working in the Ministry of Truth.
Real power is held by those who control the national security state. When the law of that name was enacted in 1947, the rule of monied interests which had previously been more or less de facto and operationally clandestine, attained offical recognition as the supreme law of the land: exempt from the reach of the three constitutionally sanctioned branches of government, the NSS was given carte blanche to represent the ruling elites as they were directed by those same elites.
The only way that any Wednesday can ever matter is if it were to bring about the long overdue process of disclosure, accompanied by truth & reconciliation commissions, as seen in South Africa and Chile. Even then, the entrenched masters would still have tremendous resources at their disposal--all the earth's, really.
The only realistic hope we have is that the self-evolving synergism of information & awareness will make the recognition of the true nexus of power universal, at which point, the antics of ass-clowns like Bush, Rove, and Saddam will be seen as the distractions they are. So let the ass-clowns ride their sadistic unicycles in the endless cycles of "elections" and invasions and evasions, but protect your internet, as it's the only channel for the growth of awareness we have.
I view it from the perspective of over 600,000 murdered Iraqis, and many millions more suffering, not to mention the Afghanis of which I have not seen Official, or Unofficial, statistics.
Dammit, Shrub. This is America! We don't care about dead brown people!
He was always a foil....so why play into "their" agenda by hating him?
I hate him because he is one of them. And now that I've had a chance to look at the Anon 12:47's info about Saddam's body-doubles I'm beginning to be a bit worried that we've got the wrong one.
Ya know, now that I think about it, they never fully explained why Saddam was all alone in that spiderhole. Surely he had a few loyal bodyguards, military types and other cronies still at his side. Seems odd that he would be all on his own in a country he used to rule. And why stay in Iraq at all when you can hightail it to Syria?
Ack... more high weirdness to keep track of. Why is nothing ever as it seems?
According the the above post from Richard - the REAL Saddam would likely have a scarred calf from the injury he mentions - Now that the sentance has been handed down, they can just "demonstrate" that the person in custody is NOT Saddam by showing us that he has no scar (this one or some other actual proof), and darn, they will be out of luck - no hanging necessary.
Johnson, did you catch that?
Have Miller add scar to body double's calf. Smith will pull the archives and provide the physical details. In our initial analysis, we didn't consider this would be an issue, so we didn't scar him, but it's now obviously the prudent thing to do.
Oh, and if you would be so kind as to let another photo of the double in his briefs slip to the press, it would be greatly appreciated. Keep the wife silent.....we don't want her making any further comments about the size of the real Saddam's middle calf.
Being the Pro-Choice guy I am, I propose the creation of a Morning After Pill for our electoral process.
Abortion never seemed so enticing.
You Were Made For This
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
Author of the best seller Women Who Run with the Wolves
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair; and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater
Tolkien
I have a little game we can play.
It's called who said it. Following, is a quote, and you can guess to who on this blog it belongs and whether, or not, you agree with it.
I state upfront that I agree with it.
Here it is:
I want always to be intellectual honest here, and that means I haven't been able to offer much in the way of hope for the big picture. Problems of deep politics can't be redressed by merely political solutions. And I think we've reached a stage where there's not a lot we can do except see it coming, get out of the way and try to save ourselves.
Shrubaddedon said...
Shrubageddon said...
Shrubageddon said...
Shrubageddon said...
Shrubageddon said...
...arghh, shut the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know, I could despair when you say such horrible, nasty things about me.....but I know I was made for this.
Your words and your deeds are not your's....but rather, they are the words and the deeds of the Dark One who brought you here.
I will always offer you a seat at his Father's Table, even though you rebuke and torment his only begotten son.
Like a ship made of slowly aged hardwood, I will stand firm in the fury of your raging storm, and offer you safe passage when you fully realize the abomination of your former existence.
You are my brother, afflicted one, and I am your's.
God Bless, my son.
Dances With BS aka Shrubageddon:
While understanding your need to reply to that most unkind comment, beware of hubris. You remind me of that old Hollywood joke,
"Well, enough about me - so how did you like my last movie?"
Once again, you've managed to obstruct the flow of the discussion with some sophmoric banality.
Go to U Tube and view this before it's pulled:
Raymond Estaver
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Raymond+Estaver&search=Search
Recently heard a joke about politicians: The etymology of the word "politicians" is "poly" meaning many, and "ticks" meaning parasites.
God Bless Kinky Friedman.
I can't bear to take an insult
whilst jerking off.
"WASHINGTON - Federal poll watchers will be in 22 states Tuesday, safeguarding against fraud or discrimination in election districts marked by tight races, large numbers of minority voters and faulty ballot machines.
Justice Department monitors and observers are being assigned to Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which has been dogged by problems with computerized touch-screen voting machines. They will be in Bergen County, N.J., a must-win prize for both candidates in the state's Senate race.
And they will watching more than a dozen counties nationwide where polls are on American Indian reservations and in big cities dominated by black voters.
In all, the Justice Department is sending an estimated 850 poll watchers to 69 cities and counties — what officials on Monday called an unprecedented number, and twice as many during the 2002 congressional midterm elections.
The government has dispatched poll watchers to ensure fair elections since the 1965 Voting Rights Act was enacted."
There, now everyone can sleep safe & secure knowing that THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is safeguarding the election. I know that I will. With THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT on the watch there is no possible way in hell that anything shady could happen tomorrow.
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT always has your best interests at heart even when it appears that THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is run by nothing more than greedy self serving powermad lying sacks of donkey shit.
Here's another example of how THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is watching out for you, the average joe.
"Monday view: Paulson re-activates secretive support team to prevent markets meltdown Judging by their body language, the US authorities believe the roaring bull market this autumn is just a suckers' rally before the inevitable storm hits.
Hank Paulson, the market-wise Treasury Secretary who built a $700m fortune at Goldman Sachs, is re-activating the 'plunge protection team' (PPT), a shadowy body with powers to support stock index, currency, and credit futures in a crash.
Otherwise known as the working group on financial markets, it was created by Ronald Reagan to prevent a repeat of the Wall Street meltdown in October 1987."
-snip-
"The PPT was once the stuff of dark legends, its existence long denied. But ex-White House strategist George Stephanopoulos admits openly that it was used to support the markets in the Russia/LTCM crisis under Bill Clinton, and almost certainly again after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
"They have an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem," he said.
"In 1998, there was the Long Term Capital crisis, a global currency crisis. At the guidance of the Fed, all of the banks got together and propped up the currency markets. And they have plans in place to consider that if the stock markets start to fall," he said.
The only question is whether it uses taxpayer money to bail out investors directly, or merely co-ordinates action by Wall Street banks as in 1929. The level of moral hazard is subtly different."
-snip-
"So one is tempted to ask if Mr Paulson and Mr Cox know something that we do not: whether other hedge funds are in the same sinking boat as Amaranth Advisers and Vega Asset Management, keel-hauled by bets on natural gas and bonds.
Or whether currency traders with record short positions on the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc are about to learn the perils of the Carry Trade, a high-stakes game of chicken where you bet against fundamentals with high leverage to make a quick profit. Everybody knows it will blow up if the dollar goes into free fall.
They had a fright last week when US growth for the third quarter came in at just 1.6pc, and new house prices plummeted 9.7pc year-on-year in the sharpest drop since the property crash of 1981.
The dollar dived from 119.65 to 117.57 yen in a heartbeat. With $2.9trillion of derivatives now trading daily on the currency markets alone – according to the Bank for International Settlements – is this the start of the most vicious short squeeze ever seen?
The futures markets have priced in a 77pc chance of a flawless soft-landing for America's obese economy, now living 7pc of GDP beyond its means off foreign creditors. They are counting on moderating oil prices, and – a contradiction? – another year of torrid world growth. Nice if you can get it.
They have not begun to price in the risk of recession, typically entailing a drop in the S&P 500 stock index of 28pc from peak to trough. Evidently, the equity markets assume the Fed can and will rescue them by slashing rates in time, if necessary.
They should examine a recent report by the New York Fed warning that whenever the yield on 10-year Treasuries has fallen below 3-month yields for a stretch lasting over three months, it has led to each of the six recessions since 1968.
The full crunch hits 12 months later as the delayed effects of monetary tightening feed through, even if the Fed starts easing frantically in the meantime. By then it is too late. "There have been no false signals," it said.
As of last week, the yield curve was inverted by 29 basis points, was continuing to invert further, and had been negative for over three and a half months. If the Fed is right this time, the recession of 2007 is already baked into the pie. Those speculative positions may have to be unwound very fast."
See THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT knows that a sound economy is irrelevant as long as the illusion of a sound economy can be maintained by putting all the wagons in a circle around the really rich folk.
What's that?
You're not rich?
Well, we all know that this is AMERICA & if you work really hard & stop slacking off by reading blogs like this at work, then one day, you too can join the ranks of the REAL PEOPLE & leave the ranks of nobody-dom behind as you gleefully tap dance into a new day & furthermore this is the greatest country on God's green Earth & if you don't like it you can leave it & united we stand divided we fall & you're either with the president or you're with the terrorists & 911 changed everything & the Iraq turning point is just days away & yadda yadda yadda blah blah blah......
(we're sorry but the Richard/Shrub/Jules/CIA Disinfo Guy construct has fallen over backwards & started foaming at the mouth. We hope that this hasn't caused you any unease about THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT's ability to make tomorrow a bright & shiny bauble that we all can gaze at with pride & wonder. Now get out there & vote America. Californians in particular, cast away. Votes are more powerful in huge bunches.)
"Days before the election, state officials have learned that California's most widely used electronic voting machines feature a button in back that can allow someone to vote multiple times."
I saw the post below and took a chance and linked to the Utube clip.
If you wonder what is planned for the US after the borders are closed, ie. to keep Americans in, then just watch this clip. It's a focus group on catchy names for the dissolution of the last vestiges of American freedom.
Watch it. It'll knock your f***in' socks off. Really.
Anonymous said...
Go to U Tube and view this before it's pulled:
Raymond Estaver
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Raymond+Estaver&search=Search
Well Shubster...
How do "we save ourselves"... from ourselves? Or am I being too brash and presumptuous in putting it that way?
This life-raft of a world we've been floating on together is slowly sinking and you and I both know it as those murky waters of uncertainty just keep right on rising all around us.
Seeping into our all our otherwise pleasant conversations at the very same time too, I might add, untill everything is soggy and soaked in doubts. Even our intentions for having them.
We try to share what we know and beleive to be genuinely important to help belay our fears and perhaps assist us in what is to come but we know we can't turn back this rising tide with them.
Our lives have been both interesting and eventfull to say the very least but our time for being able to share what is genuinely valuable in and about them is relentlessly being washing away. They are simply "irrelevent" to the forces currently at work.
Whatever purposes we might have thought we served have obviously become somewhat changed from what we either wanted or expected from pursuing them...hmmm?
You and I are "realists" of a different sort. We know that what we wanted and expected is precisely what has brought us, all of us, to this turning point.
Even if we absolve ourselves by saying we didn't know any better we can't say the same about what we are going to do about it next and simply hope we can get away with it...hmmm?
Doing the very same thing all over again with the solitary exception of crossing our fingers and hoping against hope that what hasn't worked up till now somehow miraculously will.
Whether any of us sink or swim in those waters of uncertainty isn't going to change the basic fact that our humanity and everything that makes us human is going to get "lost" in them either way.
To be sure we need a miracle but we're unlikely to get one if we don't deserve it.
If there's any power in the universe to grant us some reprieve it certainly isn't going give us one simply so we can keep right on doing the same damned things as if nothing at all has happened.
Let's face it, that's about all anyone is basically hoping for. Some miraculous way to keep right on doing all the same stupid things that they've been doing right along.
As Sherlock Holmes put it.. when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be "The Truth"...hmmm?
Can we walk on those waters of uncertainty Shrubster? Because it's either that or we'll all drown in them one way or another.
Is it just wishfull thinking on my part or does your own intuition not point in that direction too regardless of just how crazy it sounds?
The only other options I can see are to let go of everthing we love and hold dear trying to keep our heads above those waters as we flail about in them, or we just hold on to them all the more tightly and stoically go down with the ship trying to put as brave face as we can on it.
I'm sorry about the metaphor but I can't find any other way to desribe my feel or sense of the situation. How about you?
Fondest Regards From the Fox
Here's a shot in the dark.... If Saddam is executed he becomes a martyr to many, so my money is on an assination- bets anyone?
Anonymous One,I sure hope GW's supply of Adrenochrome doesn't run out,he could get real mean.This fucken place needs and ennima-ma.
The shit head fucks in this country are going to get just what they need,another good reaming.To bad we are stuck in this mess with no place to turn.Feels like they are ready to kick the legs out from under this one folks,I hope everyone lands safely,later.
Silverfox said;
"Let's face it, that's about all anyone is basically hoping for. Some miraculous way to keep right on doing all the same stupid things that they've been doing right along."
Hope seems to be a way to defer responsibility. For me the rest of your missive also illustrates shallow properties of hope. I would despair at humans chance at changing their basic psychical expressions, however that also would be a deferal of responsibility, so I will continue to point to the relevance of the need for examination of historical and current psychical conditioning systems along with the proposal that we can create a new, more healthy psychical conditioning system.
As always, Silverfox, thank you for your calm cool demeanor and your thought provoking words.
Richard,
The Bats in The Belfry thought they had us dead to rights....but we're back, foaming mouths and convulsions in hand.
Great stuff, as always, Richard.
To add to your sentiment, Former President, Jimmy Carter, is monitoring the elections in Nicaragua.
Yo..........Jimmy Peanuts....howza about you takes care uv yur own house befores ya cleans sumuns elses.
Hey Silverfox,
The quote, believe it, or not, belongs to Jeff. Anony (which one, I'm not sure.....the one who's the Heckler, I suppose......but aren't the majority of them Hecklers, afterall....shouting insults, and ducking for cover in the Anonymity of the Crowd) spoke of how professional and constructive this blog used to be before the Shrub/Richard/Jules invasion....so, I started researching that assertion, and I came accross that quote in one of Jeff's posts from a couple of years prior. My research revealed that the comments section has remained fundamentally the same. In that post, a number of people severely criticized Jeff for his criticism of a 911 Site. Their reaction was silly and unwarranted.....just as the contemporary reaction to Shrub/Richard/Jules is silly and unwarranted.
Anyway, back to your points. You make some very salient ones. I'll let you in on a little secret. There's a part of me that likes the drama of these so-called trying times......and that's a repulsive notion...one, in which, I don't share proudly. What would I have to complain about if the ill of the world vanished? The Eloi were a pretty boring lot, you must admit....it was the Morlocks who made things interesting. Maybe Nirvana isn't all it's cracked up to be.....and, so, maybe you're right......we have what we want....constant dissatisfaction and insatiable appetites for conflict and drama.
Chiggerbit said
People who don't vote have no right to sit back and bray about how the country has gone wrong. At the least own responsibility for your politics by writing in a vote for your own name. I have no sympathy and no ear for people who do not vote.
Sorry, but when I see pure, un adulterated comedy, I feel compelled to repeat it. This statement ranks right up there with the best.....ah, what Ali G could do with a nugget like this.
"The quote, believe it, or not, belongs to Jeff. Anony (which one, I'm not sure.....the one who's the Heckler, I suppose......but aren't the majority of them Hecklers, afterall....shouting insults, and ducking for cover in the Anonymity of the Crowd) spoke of how professional and constructive this blog used to be before the Shrub/Richard/Jules invasion....so, I started researching that assertion, and I came accross that quote in one of Jeff's posts from a couple of years prior. My research revealed that the comments section has remained fundamentally the same. "
Brilliant Shrub. Truly.
I did the same thing at the time & I discovered that the anony was right, although not in the way he/she/it intended. The old comments had those long & nifty strings of blue spam posts. & while the blue spam isn't any more or less informative than some of the longwinded new age pseudo-mystical & paranoid gobble-de-gook that passes for thought here, they were asthetically pleasing to look at.
These huge chunks of black text are just downright boring.
So Shrub, on a miniscule level, i'd have to disagree with you about the old comments being similar to the new, invaded by MPD sufferers, comments section. Here's hoping that RI's new home has a multi-colored text switcheroo to liven up what has, in many respects, become a bit of a snooze-fest.
BTW, Happy Election Day Shrubby.
I'm still on the fence about who I should endorse for the PA Senate seat currently held by Dick Santorum. It's come down to a dead heat between Ben Dover & Mike Hunt, although Mike Hunt should probably get my vote in the interests of balance since we've had a Dick in office here for so long.
And Happy Election day to you, Richard.
Unlike some folks, if you don't vote you still have my ear....in fact, maybe more of it.
This is vaguely humorous and "electiony", seeing that ol Ann C. is queuing up to defend herself against serving five years in jail for committing an election felony:
Coulter hires Bush recount lawyer to defend against voter fraud "allegations"
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Coulter_hires_Bush_recount_lawyer_to_0602.html
Ann Coulter 'Lawyers Up' to Face Felony Voter Fraud Charges
Paper Reports GOP Extremist/Pundit Retains Bush Law Firm to Fight Allegations in Palm Beach
Palm Peach Post columnist, Jose Lambiet gets another scoop in the ongoing saga of Ann Coulter's apparent vote fraud felony down in Palm Beach.
Lambiet reports today that Coulter is now lawyering up to fight the charges that she knowingly registered to vote in Florida at the wrong residence (using her real estate agent's address). That, despite signing an "oath" on the registration form swearing to the truth of the information provided.
After committing what then appears to be Step One of a felony charge that could bring her a $5,000 fine and 5 years in prison (as she agreed she understood on the form when she signed it), she then went on to vote in an election last February and was told she was registered elsewhere and needed to change her address.
Instead of doing so, she hurriedly left the precinct without changing her information, and apparently went on to illegally vote at the precinct where she was fraudulently registered.
Faced with losing her right to vote in Florida, the rightwing hatemongering extremist (and Republican party superstar) who mercilessly criticized Florida voters in 2000 for their failure to follow directions at the voting booth....
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2903
According to Bush, Ann's a terrorist! Breaking the law knowledgeably while attempting to persuade people of her political opinions!
Good luck to all in the 2006 Great American Cockroach Races. I have a feeling we all lose either way
Oops. Sorry, forgot to cite it. It's at the Bradblog.
And the whole anorexically dried out concentrated hatemonger that she is is about to get another suit placed on her because in voting illegally, Ann revealed her Florida tax fraud as well:
"As well, as we reported previously, the $25,000 homestead tax deduction she claimed for her new $1.3 million crib in Palm Beach would also now seem to be in question as possibly fraudulent since, according to Florida state law, one can only take such a deduction if the property in question is one's primary residence. [And it wasn't. She has several and took it on subsidiary "homesteads", thus.]
Lambiet reports today that the Palm Beach Elections Supervisor, Arthur Anderson, who had previously given Coulter until April 30th to explain herself (she didn't respond), will now wait "a few more weeks" before beginning a procedure to revoke her voting rights and then possibly refer the case to the State Attorney for prosecution.
Then again, she's a [neocon] Republican. And this is Florida [Middle eastern FBI-linked Kwik Check money transfer terrorist capital of the world]. So "the rule of law" no longer necessarily applies in such cases.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=2903
I have a feeling we all lose either way
I'll go a step further, and say we lost when we started walking upright.....it was all downhill from there.
Richard,
You know what would be just grand? How about taking some of the shitslingers you care for on a fieldtrip to the voting booths and film the ordeal and put the footage on YouTube.
Afterall, where does it matter where they sling their shit? Might as well make the act useful....and let them sling it on the civically delusional.
That's a voting drive effort I could get behind.....way behind.
Okay boys & girls, I've finally found something to be cheerful about on this fraudulent election holyday. If the media are in cahoots with the Simulacran Republic, then pictures outside that constipated channel are worth more than the many thousands of empty words. Go feast yourselves: this one's on me.
Hey Shrub, you said:
"You know what would be just grand? How about taking some of the shitslingers you care for on a fieldtrip to the voting booths"
I hate to say this but it has already been done. A few years back the astute humanitarian that runs the institution I work at was running for the local school board. To help his cause he registered quite a few of the inmates to vote & then stuffed the ballot box with their votes. He won but was eventually forced from office when pissed off residents started bricking his home & threatening him with physical harm. I really can't understand the touchiness of some of the electorate.
Oh yeah, & then there's this little nugget to help counter chiggerbits uppity outrage over those folk who don't vote.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/opinion/04krosnick.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1162854080-wZXpDs7MjM9SqnXNeyk86w&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
"When do voters gravitate to the first name they see? Based on the more than 100 elections in Ohio that a colleague and I studied, it’s when voters know little or nothing about the candidates, or when the candidates’ party affiliations are not listed on the ballot, or when the incumbent (whom voters typically know at least somewhat) is not running for re-election. Thus, some voters apparently feel an obligation or desire to vote even when they have no basis for choosing a candidate and are drawn to the first name they read."
Yep, voting is the ticket. Abstaining is just naughty naughty naughty.
BTW, even though we share the same set of ears, you'll have my ear too Shrub.
Richard,
You'll love this one. Even those whom you think would understand election law, apparently don't even know how to vote properly.
The Governor of South Carolina, Mark Sanford, was turned away from voting because he didn't have his voter registration card.
Here's the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/11/07/sanford.votes/index.html
Citizens....lend me your ears...
It just can't get any better than that, can it.....sure it can!!!
PS: I almost forgot we shared the same ears....thanks for reminding me, my Manchurian Brother.
Oh, and Richard, don't you just love it when the fruits wear the little pins afterwards that say "I Voted?"
I'm thinking about getting one that says "You Farted" to counter it....it's probably too late for this election....but maybe I can develop one for the 2008 Election.
Well, I just got back from discharging my civic duty at my daughter's school. Funny thing happened on the way to the circus; my sunny, optimistic kindergartener just happened to be walking with her class to the main entrance of the school when I arrived in surreal discharge mode, and she asked me what I was doing there. When I said I was pretending to vote, she gave me the nod & the wink that showed me that even the littlest people know the score in the great game. So, in that spirit, let's pretend...
IC,
Thanks for the link....great read....I like that Joe Bageant guy.
Nice video there, IC.
Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends........
The soldiers are Pretenders, as well. I'm not sure if that was one of the implications of the video, but it should have been. It seems they were attempting to solicit mercy for the soldiers......and as you know, that won't work with me. The Innocent Iraqis and Afghanis come first.....afterall, they didn't volunteer to come over here and blow our loved one's heads off, did they?
Shrub, I see your Governor sans voter card & raise you a nation full of poll workers who can't operate the damn voting machines.
"Programming errors and inexperience dealing with electronic voting machines frustrated poll workers in hundreds of precincts Tuesday, delaying voters in several states and leaving some with little choice but to use paper ballots instead"
I like your button idea. I think a mass farting would probably more effectively clear out the Senate than any mass voting could.
Life becomes ‘easier’ when one accepts the fact that human life on planet Earth as we know it is at an end. The post-human phase (ie. Preschool Puberty) is upon us and there are plenty of life forms out there masquerading at ´humans.´ My revolutionary platform: mandatory euthanasia for all humans btwn the ages of 16 and 65. Spare the insects, plants, cats, various other animals, especially cows, etc. Kids and ´old people´are much more reasonable and pleasant to deal with, generally speaking.
And btw, if you don’t agree, I guess you missed the last George Carlin HBO Special.
: X
Waiting for that ´Hitler painting,´ at long last. 'All of colors' are on the palette now.
Mandatory euthanasia... yeah that seems like a wonderful plan. I'm sure that once kids turn 17 they would be more than willing to off themselves for the good of the species. All those un-euthanized 65+ people wouldn't be a cause of concern, either, considering that once your plan is implemented you would just have to wait for them to die off. Unless, of course, it's possible in your world to only be euthanized until you're 65... ie, you're only dead between ages of 16 and 65.
And I didn't see Carlin's latest special, but I'm pretty sure he didn't mean what you're talking about, since he is a rather intelligent person.
And you are a rather typically humorless and evil twit who has nothing better to do than respond to and attempt to provoke idiotic semi moron nihilists with a soft spot for kids, insects and animals. All with the bravado of an internet poster, safely hiding behind the screen. I´m sure Internet 2.0 won´t be any different. Happy fascism.
; X
Half wits, twits, nudniks & gits.
The level of dialogue on this site almost measures up to something someone would expect on a Brittany Spears fansite.
Almost.
While it may be painfully apparant that the fix has been in for a long time, the mature person realizes that 'fixing' works best on the margins.
So it remains a civic duty to vote and do jury duty out of a simple love of country.
Politicians and provocatours may try to steal the spirit of the people, yet the culture that endures forgets these parasites soon enough.
If we stop them before they are done eating their host.
out of a simple love of country
Ahhh....the proverbial Love of Country.
Tell me.....how can you really love a Country? Why would you want to love a Country?
Please see the Parralax Montage.....and I'm a bit surprized you have posited this, Sounder. Does Love of Country fit into the new Paradigm you have envisioned?
Great News!!
They have removed Barbaro's Cast and he is well on his way to recovery.
There is a God, afterall. No need to send anymore Carrots and Apples....but thanks for all the love and support you all have shown to Barbaro the past several months.
How can you not love this country after hearing such wonderful, touching stories as that?
Meanwhile, the death count (of innocent civilians) rises precipitously in Iraq.....but like the Soup Nazis we are......no Carrots and Apples for you!!!
Gentleman Jim said...
Half wits, twits, nudniks & gits.
The level of dialogue on this site almost measures up to something someone would expect on a Brittany Spears fansite.
Almost.
When you're right...you're right. One suggestion, though. Would you be so kind as to end your posts with the vaunted "peace" send-off. It's quite the rage these days.
Piece,
Shrubageddon
I stand in my back yard, large and ringed with trees. I marvel at being at a place in the universe such as this. This sentiment is not unusual and has caused many, in different settings, to also identify with community and place.
Most healthy people love their country of origin. Maybe corruption adds to the hardscrable tone of life, (or indeed, pacifies the privileged by stealing resources of the weak), still there is family, beauty in the landscape and a world of ideas to examine.
But never mind Schrub, you wouldn't, you couldn't, you don't dare consider the implications within the paradigm I describe.
Please help me!!! I'm a 13 year old screaming brat trapped inside the body of a 42 year old man!!!
Sounder, you are so right. 98.2% of us on this site are white males with back yards and high-speed internet connections and PRIVELEGE. I.e., nothing to complain about, really, as compared, say, to the black folks in my town who live on the other side of a fence which was erected in the middle of the street to keep them from driving through the white part of town. (True story.) But, apparently, some of us would prefer to pretend to still be the brats playing with their star wars figures in that very same back yard screaming "voting is for morons!!!"
I guess for some, it's more comfortable to be a prebubescent shrub who refuses to grow up and screams at others their self-righteous platitudes.
Ahem, cough cough, that's privilege. Duly chastised.
Shows what they say about casting stones and all...
Privelege? White men with fences? I wonder what Uncle Frank had to say about all that?
Trouble Every Day
Well I'm about to get sick
From watchin' my TV
Been checkin' out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend
Is anybody's guess
So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff
And chokin' in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin' 'round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin' down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn
And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
'Cause, baby, I don't need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
'N all that phony stuff on sports
'N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin' out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so
And further they assert
That any show they'll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin' hard and doin' swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can't be beat
And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie
And you'll see it all complete
So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white
Well, I seen the fires burnin'
And the local people turnin'
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight
You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won't be many live
To see it really end
'Cause the fire in the street
Ain't like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don't you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now's the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain't no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn't free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won't amount to nothin' more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor
Blow your harmonica, son!
We are all in the gutter,
but some of us are
looking at the stars
Oscar Wilde
Wow, Iridescent Cuttlefish, I never knew Frank Sinatra was such an eloquent political commentator!
Ol' Blue Eyes rocks.
98.2%?
I just want to know which one of you constitutes the .2%?
I'm sensing a little suburban race mixing here..
Was mom getting pronged by the "darkie" chauffeur while dad was unhealthily obsessing over the state of his lawn as he nursed his beer gut & heart attack & erectile dysfunction?
Shocking. Truly shocking.
As far as the fence goes, considering that a certain poster who shall remain nameless has an unnatural insight into playing with star wars dollies, I'd say that the fence wasn't built just to keep the "darkies" from " driving through the white part of town." It was also quite obviously built to keep the "darkies" from beating the living shit out of sissified suburban white boys who stand in their yards playing with dollies.
"Gonna scream it on a mountain
To every valley wide.
It's all your money they're counting
& to your face they lie.
Put on your workboots mama
& your mourning gown
12 men dead today.
They're already in the ground.
See the world that's made.
Watch it pass you by.
Work your life away.
Makes me wanna die."
Hey IC, or any others; are you familiar with Paul Levy. His work may deserve a topic heading on Jeff's discussion boards.
http://www.awakeninthedream.com/
Consciousness rules, rock on.
Saddam is being put down because he challenged American oil companies for drilling Iraqi oil from the Kuwaiti side of the border.
Most healthy people love their country of origin.
Sounder, Sounder, Sounder,
The chinks in your armor are showing.
You seem to be contradicting yourself all over the place, suddenly. You, who at other times eschews judgement, are making appeals to what you consider to be Normalcy, hence your use of terms like healthy and mature, in a manner meant ot slight those who you think are deficient in that realm.
What gives, Man??
Why don't you just say it, Sounder. Say Shrubageddon/Richard/Jules(on sabbatical) is Psychotic and Immature. The aforementioned consider it a compliment because Normalcy is not all THAT, as they say.
Looks like the Dems just might pull it out.....so much for the theory about electronic voter fraud, unless, of course, TPTB want this, which I think they do. They created and play the see-saw, and they're backing other ponies now.
True and meaningful change is on the way. The minimum wage will be raised for the first time in many years. Burger King Workers will now have a slightly higher unlivable wage.....but they better not think about declaring Bankruptcy if their Medical Bills crush them, economically, because the DLC Dems, along with the Repugnants, made sure they will be indebted for the rest of their born days. Barrak Obamma, the great promise he's tauted to be, voted for that legislation.....what a stand up guy.
Shrub.. 98.2..just the facts..high speed internet white guy.
Sounder ..maybe you should be looking over your shoulder.
http://stopspp.com/
I was wrong about Obamma voting for that legislation. At the time, I could have swore I saw a publication that indicated he had, but I just researched it again at Vote Smart, and it inidcated he voted no.
He's still a DLC Dem, though, and as such, controlled opposition.
Ah yes, a new day has dawned in America. The party that has barely mounted a whimper of protest against the Republican cornholing they've suffered under for 6 years now gets to play Mighty Mouse & sing " Here I come to save the day."
& what about that American electorate. 6 years of brick wall after brick wall falling on them before they crack an eye open & decide that it might be a good idea to move out from under those brick walls.
My spine is just quivering with optimistic anticipation.
"Spending had a strong social incentive, and the desire to be the highest spender in the neighbourhood was given moral enforcement by the system of listing all the names and their accumulating cash totals on a huge electric sign in the supermarket foyers. The higher the spender, the greater his contribution to the discounts enjoyed by others. The lowst spenders were regarded as social criminals, free-riding on the backs of others”."
J.G. Ballard
"“I’m frightened that the possibilities of a genuine dystopia may be much more appealing than any utopian project that people can come up with”."
J.G. Ballard
Rat Packer,
Different uncle, I'm afraid (although the Zappa/Sinatra connection is little-explored territory just waiting for the intrepid researcher.) The brown-eyed Frank wrote Trouble Every Day in response to the Watts Riots in 1965. I'm not sure what the blue-eyed Frank was up to at the time, but the two Franks more than likely ran in very different circles. On the other hand, connections being what they are, and the scripts being written by invisible hands as we saw last night, who knows? I say get to work on this one...
Wow, so what am to make of the latest race card trope being carted out.
I'm not sure I understand its place in the discussion.
For starters, I'm not really complaining, am I? I would call it more like perverted revelry in the farce that we call life, but certainly not complaining.
It's interesting that you have determined that I am a white man. I don't remember me describing myself as such......so you asserting it, makes you the racist.
Why couldn't I be a black man who came from an unprivileged background......or, for shame, a white man who comes from an unpriviliged background?
Do I not possess the necessary characteristics? If not, what are those stereotypical charactersistics to which you allude?
I had no interest in Star Wars as a youth. Gilligan's Island is another story.
Sounder, you are so right. 98.2% of us on this site are white males with back yards and high-speed internet connections and PRIVELEGE
For shame, Sounder.
How dare you say something like this!!
Sounder didn't jump in there and say "I didn't say that" like he did with me a while back. Hmmmm....why the inconsistency?
Come on, Sounder, there's no reason to be afraid of Mr. Big Bad Anony. If you didn't say what he said you said, then set him straight.....and you know what....I'll get your back, so no need to worry.
eat me, white boy
i'm a hairy stinky motherfucking democrat and if you don't like it you can kiss my grits.
go back to your hillside sanctuary you chumscrubber.
i second that notion
Shrubageddon said...
I, I, I,....
Shrubageddon said...
More I, I, I....
Shrubageddon said..
More about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me... ad nausem
Shrubageddon said...
Richard....
Richard said...
Shrubageddon...
thanks to the anonymous poster(s) who keep bringing it back to shrubageddon and taking everyone's attention away from the fact that the democrats are really not an opposition force, but rather, republicans in disguise.
without the hard effort of white boys on the ground like you, we wouldn't be nearly so successful in obfuscating our ruse.
may the force be with you my young luke skywalker and may my cock forever be in your ass.
And this is why it is better not to have a "name" when posting comments. Like your fake name, i.e, The Big Kahuna, or say, Shrubageddon/Richard, for example (you know, those two who carry on their private correspondence in a public forum) is real. As so well demonstrated by the above mentioned, the forum gives over to rampant egoism rather than the search and exchange of ideas (sans ego) and research.
So, why don't you share your research into the Rockefellers and the Illuminati with us again in the 50,000 character cut & paste spam fashion to which we are so accustomed.
At least you have the courtesy to bold the poignant parts....I'll give you that.
It is you who draw attention to the poster, and the poster's name, not Shrubageddon/Richard. It is you who is fixated on it, not Shrubageddon/Richard. It is you who needs to get over it and focus on the underlying point and/or message rather than focusing on the person saying it.....or is that beyond your ability due to ADD?
Just pretend you don't see the name if it bothers you that much. You are obviously quite adroit at closing your mind to a host of other things, so why is it so difficult for you to close your mind to the identity of a poster and concentrate on the words?
Just checked in to see if anything had been posted. Just saw the Shrub word so I said to myself, 'nope.'
John Conyers. Subpoena.
Thank you very much.
The tone of the discourse here is sliding over into the really annoying.
Instead of focusing on the formal structure of the Democratic Party and its usual coterie of lamers and corporate enablers, how about looking at the radical shift in the nature of power during this election cycle:
To a significant degree, the spell cast by television was broken. Karl Rove, for once, had no cards up his sleeve. Some substantial part of the electorate woke up, and though the overall turnout was up only slightly, in certain highly-motivated areas it increased dramatically. The netroots' favorite candidates scored surprising upsets, while Rahm Emanual's favorites fell on their faces.
This is not the millenium, but it is a moment of opportunity.
The rule, I think, is that everything important happens in the cracks. I recall reading years ago that the dream researchers at Princeton had found that the most interesting and anamolous effects of consciousness alteration happened not in any given state of consciousness but at the points of transition -- for example, at the moment of falling asleep or waking up.
We're in just such a transitional state, politically. The electorate is waking from its tv-induced trance -- and whether it awakens fully, or goes back to sleep, or finds a different dream to dream isn't really the point. The point is that *right now* we're in a crack between the worlds, a Hallowe'en gap at the corner of creation where strange things can slip through. And what happens *right now* -- before things get set in stone again -- will determine the future for a significant time to come.
Under those conditions, pre-emptively asserting that *nothing* is going to change, that things will be the same as they have been forever, has to be wilfull self-delusion at best and deliberate sabotage at worst.
Starroute, the angels are with you... Thank you again for the energizing words. Two steps forward and 1 3/4 steps back is still forward, after all. Patience, patience, and perseverence. (These are not words of advice to Starroute, but words addressed to would-be scoffers).
Speaking of dreams and the "cracks", have you seen Gary Lachman's articles about hypnagogic effects - about the transition between sleep and waking. He isn't an original researcher on this, but discusses other people's discoveries. Also, there's all that recent work, especially by Stephen LaBerge, on lucid dreaming. LaBerge is the one who proved to conventional psychology that lucid dreaming isn't a logical fallacy. (Amazing that supposedly well-educated psychologists could simply equate dreaming with unconsciousness and waking with non-unconsciousness, apply primitive logic, and not see the possibilities of stages of consciousness in between.)
From awakeninthedream.com:
OUR SITUATION IS DIRE, AND THERE’S NO NEED FOR PESSIMISM
by Paul Levy
Things in the world seem really grim right now. Many people feel like we are on the verge of World War III. These are clearly apocalyptic, end-times we are living in. Many people are hopelessly pessimistic about the state of human affairs, feeling like there is nothing we can do to make a difference. It feels to some like we are descending into hell. It feels to others like we are on the verge of global collapse. Something seems terribly wrong. It seems like we are creating a living nightmare for ourselves. It is as if our planet has fallen under a demon’s curse. It is crucial that we shed light on the nature of the darkness that has befallen our planet.
We need to understand the nature of the beast we are dealing with. One thing we can say for sure is that the darkness does not want us to become aware of it. To become conscious of how the darkness plays itself out in our world is the last thing the darkness wants, just like a vampire can’t stand the light of day. For to see the darkness is to take away its power over us, as it can no longer act itself out through our unconscious. Just like sunlight flooding into a room instantaneously evacuates the darkness in the room, when we shed the light of consciousness on the darkness that is both in our world and within ourselves, the power of the darkness is immediately dis-spelled.
The darkness that is appearing in the outer world is not separate from, but is co-related to, the darkness within ourselves. The darkness that is manifesting in the outside world is simultaneously triggering a resonant re-action deep inside of ourselves. To the extent we are unconscious of what the darkness is triggering inside of ourselves, it enlists us as one of its unwitting agents, as the darkness feeds on our unawareness of it.
If we become entranced by the very convincing display of outer darkness that is materializing in the world and fall prey to pessimism, we have fallen under the darkness’s spell and are then feeding, supporting and helping to create the very darkness in the world which we are reacting to pessimistically. Bewitched by our own darkness, we relate to it as if it is independent and outside of ourselves, thinking our pessimistic reaction is justified by the dark goings-on that are “objectively” happening in the outside world. In choosing to see pessimistically, we don’t realize that we are filtering our interpretation of events through a pessimistic lens which then provides us with overwhelming evidence to confirm our pessimism.
To become pessimistic about what is playing out on the world stage is to become an unwitting instrument through which the darkness further incarnates and extends itself into our world. To become caught in pessimism is to fall victim to an infinitely regressing feedback loop: we wouldn’t be so pessimistic if our world wasn’t manifesting so darkly, and our world wouldn’t be manifesting so darkly if we weren’t so pessimistic. To become fixated in the point of view of seeing things pessimistically is to unwittingly become an ally of the very darkness that is inspiring our pessimism. This is to have fallen into a self-generating, samsaric feedback loop that is self-fulfilling in nature and will undoubtedly destroy us.
Becoming pessimistic is a symptom that the darkness has insinuated itself into our very consciousness, and is manipulating our perceptions of the world so as to further propagate itself. Becoming depressed and pessimistic is what the darkness wants, as it thirsts for us to become seduced by its convincing display of seemingly overwhelming power so that we give up our own power to it as well and believe all is lost. Imagining ourselves dis-empowered, we dis-associate from our “True Self” as well as from each other, disconnecting from our individual and collective “brilliance” (which, interestingly, connotes “light”). To give up and believe there is nothing we can do is to unknowingly join forces with the darker power, becoming its secret agents, our secret being secret even to ourselves.
To be pessimistic is to be arguing for our own impotence and limitation. If we win an argument about the truth of our pessimism, the “prize” we win is that we are screwed. There is something wrong with this picture. There is clearly something flawed and even perverse about our logic if it leads to such a self-defeating result. This flaw is like a red flag that can inspire us to self-reflect and look at what we are actually doing when we invest in a pessimistic world-view. Pessimism is a symptom that we are investing in our own decline and ultimately our own suicide.
I am not saying that we should just put on a smiley-face and become “everything turns out for the best” optimists. To only identify, like some so-called “spiritual” people do, with the “celestial rainbow” point of view, believing that everything is perfect and not problematic is overly one-sided, as it is dis-associated from the part of our experience that is seemingly “damned,” “cursed,” and deeply problematic. To identify with only one side of a two-sided polarity like this is to be actively in denial of and contracting against its opposite. To only identify with the light in actuality supports and feeds the dark. Over-identifying only with the light, we marginalize the darkness, which secretly empowers it, as the darkness then becomes something of which we are afraid. We are then unwittingly investing our energy into the darkness by our one-sided identification with the light. We need to shed the light of awareness on how the darkness plays itself out both outside in the world as well as inside of ourselves, as the darkness can potentially seduce us to be either overly optimistic or pessimistic. To fall into an extreme view like this is to ultimately be part of the problem, rather than embodying the solution.
I am not spouting some new age gibberish when I am urging us to not be pessimistic. I am simply pointing out that pessimism is not only unnecessary, but is actually dangerous, as it will help to actively create a self-fulfilling prophecy that will ultimately justify our pessimism. When I am saying not to be pessimistic, I am not marginalizing the darkness and saying that everything will turn out peaches and cream. I’m not talking about pretending the darkness isn’t really dark, and trying to imagine it out of existence by mindlessly affirming that everything is really OK, that everyone will live happily ever after. From one point of view, things are genuinely fucked. It is important not to marginalize that.
Our situation is extremely dire, while at the same time there is nothing to become pessimistic about. Being able to hold this paradox is the “crux” of the matter. This involves being able to hold these seemingly contradictory opposites together as both being true simultaneously. Our apocalyptic situation is very dire, while at the same time it is (potentially) the highest blessing: If we recognize what the darkness is revealing to us, it can (potentially) wake us up. Interestingly, the inner meaning of the word “apocalypse” is something hidden being revealed.
Our universe is manifesting as a genuine “coincidentia oppositorum,” a co-incidence of opposites, an auspicious coming together of the opposites where the opposites paradoxically reveal themselves to be both opposite and united at the same time. This holistic vision makes no sense and seems like pure nonsense as long as we are rigidly clinging to only one point of view and marginalizing another part of our experience. And yet, this more inclusive vision is itself the very expansion of consciousness which transforms the nature of our situation and empowers us to become genuine agents of change in the world.
Instead of identifying with one of the opposites and projecting out the other (which is to “split”), if we recognize that both of the seemingly contradictory opposites are true simultaneously, we have re-joined ourselves and retrieved our soul. Healing our split with the outside world and within ourselves, we are an active and activating participant in the birth of consciousness into human form. Stepping into the open-ended, embodied form of our wholeness, we become an agent of healing for the universe.
Shadows are an expression that light is nearby. Shadows are never found without light, which is to say that light and shadows are inseparably united into a deeper, more all-embracing whole. Paradoxically, hidden, in-coded inside the darkness is a light which (potentially) awakens (and is inseparable from) consciousness. Not being separate from the light, the darkness itself is an unmediated expression of and indivisible from the “light of consciousness” itself. This self-luminous light of awareness is a higher-order of light which embraces, unites and transcends the duality of light vs. darkness.
How our universe will unfold from this moment on depends upon whether or not we “consciously” re-cognize what the darkness is revealing to us as it acts itself out through us. The darkness itself is the revelation of the light, as it is the light revealing itself in the hidden form of darkness.
Shedding light on the darkness within us is a form of illumination. Once we become intimately related to and engaged with our own darkness, we become fluent in its language, coming to know how it behaves and operates within ourselves. We are then able to translate this familiarity with our own darkness in such a way so as to creatively illumine the darkness in the outer world. Once enough of us have made acquaintance with the darkness that exists within us, we are then able, like sunlight melting the morning dew, to collectively dis-spell the darkness that has seemingly enveloped our planet.
Paradoxically, it is only by coming to terms with the darkness within ourselves that we are able to step out of our trance-like addiction to pessimism and become full-bodied representatives of the all-embracing light of consciousness. Uniting in collective “lucidity” (which, etymologically, refers to “light”), we reciprocally co-inspire each other as we empower ourselves to create a more grace-filled universe to co-inhabit. A radical, evolutionary idea whose time has truly come!
Shrubski (I can say that non-disparagingly since I'm half-Polish), if you aren't "white", but you are (at least part) Polish, you have a very interesting ethnic mix!
I went to court some time ago about a ticket, and they asked a routine question of everyone that showed up, "What is your race?" The idea being, I suppose, to see if there was a statistical support for the police doing racial profiling.
I had some time to ponder what to say before I was asked. I told them, "Mixed race." The questioner looked at me (since I am usually classified as "white"), and asked again, and I replied the same thing. My reasoning was that we all are mixed race, that "race" is an ill-defined and unfortunate concept, and that it's likely everyone's ancestors are from Africa.
Culturally, it's a different thing, but then we're not talking about "race" any more.
Speaking of pessimism, difficulty, and direness, etc., has anyone else ever heard of Paul Watzlawick's wry book, The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness?
Rather than do yet another beloved 50,000-word cut-and-paste, I'll give a link to a decent summary of the book that I encourage you to peek at:
http://www.doyletics.com/arj/sihnsrvw.htm
Wow, the Schizophrenia exhibited with these last several posts is out and out laughable.
We are posting to a site that discusses the pervasiveness of Pederasty and the Shadow Government and Ritual Abuse and as many more awful, yet intriguing, things as one can imagine, and Starroute and some of the others are going to criticize for saying what we just witnessed this past election is more of the same, in a general sense, and that we need to somehow cleanze ourselves of impure thoughts and look on the bright side because things are looking up.
Wow....just wow!! Does this mean Jeff shouldn't post any more of his horrifying material, which is most of the material, because it would be pessimistic to do so? Please, Jeff, don't stop posting the horrible stuff......I like it....I really do...and I would hate for some of these folks to neuter you because the subject matter is just too cynical for them to handle.
Come on, folks, get real. At least realize what site you're posting to before you tell everyone to look on the bright side. It's like serving a red wine with Mahi Mahi....not a good match.
My Polish Brother, I hear you. I forgot I mentioned I was Polish in the past. I assumed the Anonymous Heckler who continues to insult me wouldn't have cared to compile a Biography of me. Why would he/she read anything I have to say....yet he/she must have in order to determine that I'm white.
I agree with everything else you said. Race is absurd and quite the Cannard....culture is a whole other thing.
"The point is that *right now* we're in a crack between the worlds, a Hallowe'en gap at the corner of creation where strange things can slip through."
& out of that crack slips a turd.
"WASHINGTON - After years of defending his secretary of defense, President Bush on Wednesday announced Donald H. Rumfeld's resignation within hours of the Democrats' triumph in congressional elections."
All that's left now is the flushing.
"The idea originated in the 1950s as a way of disabling enemy troops without killing them.It has 2 key advantages over other substances:it can easily be delivered in an aerosol cloud, and it is quite non-toxic. The effective dose of many drugs is close to the lethal dose, which is why anaesthesia is such a hazardous business. For BZ, the effective dose is just 2 milligrammes, which is about one- thousandth the amount needed to kill. It is also very hard to detect, being odourless & invisible.
Agent Buzz was tested at several locations from 1959 to 1975 on some 2800 US soldiers, not all of whom were fully aware of what was going on. It proved to be an effective incapacitant. Physically it causes increased heart rates, pupil dilation, blurred vision, dry skin and mouth, increased temperature & flushing of the skin. The subject becomes "blind aa a bat, dry as a bone, hot as Hades, and red as a beet." More importantly, he is also "mad as a hatter."
During the first 4 hours, there is confusion and muscle spasms, followed by 4 to 8 hours of stupor. After about 12 hours, the real effects kick in, with "panoramic visual and auditory hallucinations."
The victim cannot recognize individuals and may mistake objects for people. Communication becomes impossible, although shared hallucinations may occur. In tests, 2 soldiers would share an imaginary cigarette, or play table tennis with invisible paddles. On one occasion, a subject asked for a cigarette, and when his equally stoned companion held out an invisible pack, he replied that he didn't want to take the last one.
Confusion, delusions, paranoia and memory loss are accompanied by a state of denial in which the subject refuses to accept that anything is wrong with him and may struggle to cope with strange surroundings." (sounds like the last 6 years here in Bush country)
"One soldier under the influence of BZ was described as "taking a shower in his uniform and smoking a cigar," others simply disappeared into a world of their own, watching non-existent baseball games or plucking at phantom objects in the air. These effects continued up to 3 or 4 days, although a few of the test subjects later claimed that it left them permanently changed.
BZ delivery systems included the M43 cluster bomb with 57 10lb. bomblets, and the 50 lb. M16, which parachutes down scattering 42 small BZ generators. The low concentration of BZ required for effect meant that either would have blanketed a very wide (but classified) area with an undetectable psychochemical smog."
-snip-
"Last year, the US Senate passed the Ensign Amendment (http://ensign.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=248524&), which changes the definition of chemical weapons and allows US forces to use riot control agents that were previously considered illegal. A campaigning organization called the Sunshine Project (http://www.sunshine-project.org/) has uncovered secret Pentagon research into new types of psychoactive chemical agents, which they call "calmatives." This is a military rather than a medical description, as calmatives include opiates, antidepressents and other substances-including BZ. Such chemicals would be classed as non-lethal, making them riot control agents, which could be used freely. However, for security reasons their use may not be publicised or publicly acknowledged."
Shrub, an argument against pessimism isn't an argument for ignorance of the evil which, if you had actually read the piece, you would know.
I agree with you, though, that Jeff's got to keep exploring the shadows. Don't ever stop, Jeff!
dear 3 q-bz:
the correct mnemonic poem for anticholinergic toxicity is:
red as a beet,
dry as a bone,
hot as hell and
blind as a stone.
Or some other variation thereof...
the point is that it rhymes as an aid to memory.
Check out the movie "Jacob's Ladder" starring Tim Robbins. It was about soldiers who had been exposed to BZ. And I don't mean Bobby Zimmerman a.k.a. Dylan.
BuSpar, generic busspirone, was a so-called 'battlefield anxiolytic'. It's the only (known) drug R&D'ed by DARPA to be brought to the market as a prescription drug. Supposedly non-addictive, it is perhaps most-properly classified as a psychopathy drug, since it was designed to allow soldiers to engage in hand to hand combat on the battlefield and to kill in close quarters without experiencing normal, human anxiety about it.
Only one 's' in buspirone.
shrub, shrub -
Really, now, what part of --"Paradoxically, it is only by coming to terms with the darkness within ourselves that we are able to step out of our trance-like addiction to pessimism and become full-bodied representatives of the all-embracing light of consciousness."-- don't you understand?
The first step is to recognize that you are what you hate.
The second is to accept and embrace that part of yourself.
The third is to move beyond it.
Ericswan said;
"maybe you should be looking over your shoulder."
Well yes Eric, everybody around here does that. If I take your inference correctly,you also consider that every community must be responsible for containing their local infestations (of parasites).This is a natural corollary to a new outlook element that is simply described by saying that consciousness precedes being, or that people will more likely learn to think if they are encouraged to think.
Oh yeah, -shrub you make me laugh. This schoolmarmish shit about, "Sounder, I'm surprised at you",then later "Your really showing your colors".Get a clue shrub,_wow what a lifestyle.
You may also note that many people find more interest in intelligent people they disagree with than the interest generated by dull people they happen to agree with.
So shrub when you are done with your degree program, I assume you are on the long plan,when you are done with the heavy lifting it takes to get that degree in rhetorical obfuscation, perhaps then we may meet in the world of ideas.
Till then, good luck on that universal harmony project.
Sounder, touché, mon frère!
Paix
The first step is to recognize that you are what you hate.
The second is to accept and embrace that part of yourself.
The third is to move beyond it.
Another big Wow!!
I'm sure that's highly comforting to the victims of Ritual Abuse.....for them to hear that they are Ritual Abusers as their hatred of their abusers indicates, and that they must embrace and accept that part of themselves....and then try to find some way to move beyond it.
Seriously, how you could throw this at me in such a condescending fashion as though it passes for intelligent is pure lunacy.
I have a little advice for yuu, not that you'll take it because it doesn't come from your book collection, but being critical doesn't equal hatred...and, in fact, it can mean quite the opposite.
There's no reason to look that one up and reference it...because it comes straight from the collective unconscious.
Yep, Sounder, I see you much clearer now. The facade is crumbling.
Anony speaks for Sounder....I'll keep that in mind for future reference....only certain people are allowed to speak for Sounder, and Anony is one them, apparently.
Shrub, your projecting again. I speak for myself, anony speaks for himself, you speak for yourself.
And still you are not embarrassed. You seem like that whiney barky dog who's owner beat it severly as a pup so that it always lashes out at any quick motion, friend or foe-does not matter.
No No! Let him think we're all against him.
And let him think that all "anonymous" are all the same.
And let him think that all anonymous's agree with Sounder's or starroute's approach (like descending to talking to that psychopath). Such a strategy is simultaneously a perfect example of wonderful tireless human empathy as well as an example of how the kindhearted don't learn that there are radically different rules for dealing with lifelong overdramatic-for-effect malicious only-out-for-themselves psychopaths, even if it means breaking your person moral codes to ignore the fool.)
Besides, it's much more amusing to see him fight his own phantoms.
I never talk to Shrub and I'm not here.
I'm talking to those who still attempt to do so, in friendly warning. Stop feeding the Mara. (Surprisingly all 8 definitions, if you merge them together, make an even better fuller definition--even abbreviations--of the Shrubageddon than the mere one that I had in mind.)
To Pilates Workout...thanks for the tip but I've seen Jacob's Ladder 3 or 4 times.
Not quite sure about the BZ connection to berzerker style aggression.
I know it is alluded to in a number of places such as this entry from the blog The Green Side describing suicidal attacks by insurgents in Fallujah: "We could not understand why they kept coming but they did. These "holy warriors" are taking drugs to get high before attacks...Recently, we have gotten evidence of them using another drug, BZ, that makes them high and very aggressive."
But if you compare that to what Dr. Van Sims said about BZ: "It zonked me for three days. I kept falling down and the people at the lab (Edgewood Arsenal) assigned someone to follow me around with a mattress. I woke from it after 3 days without a bruise."
If the feds want aggressive soldiers they'd need look no further than the methamphetamine that's already part of a combat soldier's standard supplies. I think it is called Amphetamine Rage.
The BZ of Jacob's Ladder seems more bullshit than reality. For example, The Green Side blog was supposedly a soldier's story from Iraq, but the soldier in question,Lt. Col. Dave Bellon, was not just any old Marine. Bellon was Intelligence Officer for the First Regimental Combat Team. And, interestingly enough, The Green Side has disappeared behind an USMC security wall.
According to CIA documents from the 70's, there were contingency plans to use BZ in the event of a major civilian insurrection. I highly doubt the feds would want a super aggressive temporarily insane civilian population on their hands.
I suspect that BZ effects would like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdTy0FUAqL4
Well Shrubster...
Sounder's simply offering an approach to a situation that you yourself, to put it quite bluntly, have yet to provide any other alternative for beyond ranting and beating your breast about it...hmmm?
That you actually happen to "like" and even "enjoy" ranting and beating your breast about it is far more germane to the issue that he's raised.
So too are are any petty and vindictive responses you feel yourself somehow compelled to make in response to it and where they happen to come from.
A step in the right direction is a step in the right direction.
Let us not be overly distracted about the style or colour of the shoes any fellow who takes it is most comfortable in wearing for the job.
People's attitudes towards one another DO create the environment in which everything takes place, including all the disgusting and filthy business you find yourself so insensed by.
But of what use is anything we do or say when we allow ourselves to succumb to the same kind of anger, hatred, and vindictiveness that motivates those we are most intent on stopping?
The desire to hurt or harm others is the desire to hurt or harm others. Period.
Simply aying.. "ah yes but they are wicked and so they deserve it" doesn't change that one iota.
The "intent" that seeks to do harm to others cannot be stopped if we cannot stop it within ourselves first and staunchly refuse to accept any rationalizations or excuses for it on anyone's part including and most especially our own.
It is from that perspective alone that any appropriate or meaningfull solutions can come.
Before you can take the high road Shrubster, you have to know where it is.
Any choice of footwear will suffice for that road, even those big shit-kicker's you're so fond of. Just be carefull not trip over them while you're about it, you never know you just might hurt yourself...hmmm? LOL
OPTIMISM, n.
The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.
OPTIMIST, n.
A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.
A pessimist applied to God for relief.
"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them."
"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something -- the mortality of the optimist."
PESSIMISM, n.
A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile.
I've got to ask this Shrub...why the fuck do you bother? Who, in their right mind, would want these folk on their side?
Some of this typed twaddle is the living embodiment of 4 other Bierce demonics...
PHILOSOPHY, n.
A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.
PLATITUDE, n.
The fundamental element and special glory of popular literature. A thought that snores in words that smoke. The wisdom of a million fools in the diction of a dullard. A fossil sentiment in artificial rock. A moral without the fable. All that is mortal of a departed truth. A demi-tasse of milk-and-mortality. The Pope's-nose of a featherless peacock. A jelly-fish withering on the shore of the sea of thought. The cackle surviving the egg. A desiccated epigram.
POLITENESS, n.
The most acceptable hypocrisy.
PRISON, n.
A place of punishments and rewards. The poet assures us that --
"Stone walls do not a prison make,"
but a combination of the stone wall, the political parasite and the moral instructor is no garden of sweets.
Looks like the Satanic Watchers Glee Club likes to dance with Mr. D in their own outre manner.
Later pal & good luck. I find that each dip in the RI comments cesspit compels me, more & more lately, to quickly shower afterwards.
Well Richard...
It is you who acerbicly and contemptuously posted those definitions without giving the Devil his due...hmmm?
And what is your own intent if not to truly sully things up in a far more direct way than any of the so-called benighted souls here you deign to look down your nose at?
Your inclination to take a shower is just like the rest of what you posted, a predillection for half-truths, half-hearted efforts, and half-assed thinking you try to pass off with bravado as if it were somehow the real thing.
Taking a shower is hardly half of what you need for your participation in it either. You need to go and soak your head!
Well Richard...
It is you who acerbicly and contemptuously posted those definitions without giving the Devil his due...hmmm?
And what is your own intent if not to truly sully things up in a far more direct way than any of the so-called benighted souls here you deign to look down your nose at?
Your inclination to take a shower is just like the rest of what you posted, a predillection for half-truths, half-hearted efforts, and half-assed thinking you try to pass off with bravado as if it were somehow the real thing.
Taking a shower is hardly half of what you need for your participation in it either. You need to go and soak your head!
Yes, Richard we all dance with Mr.D. That is a central element in the description of my understanding of the world. Its only metaphor, however I feel it is descriptive of the nature of our culpability in maintaining this disfunctional world.
You seem so typical in throwing around the D thing; huh, just like the xians.
I choose to use the D thing as an element that attempts to expand understanding. Figure it pisses off the D thing and everyone that is only creative enough to use the D thing in a pejoritive way.
So I have ideas, that I am so crazy as to believe, to be relevant to the ongoing development of the human expression. That does not make me an optimist (or a philosopher).
Anon 10:26
Funny thing about the world of ideas. Resistance to new ideas may be just the thing that provides the psychical energy for young or fresh thinking people to consider those ideas.
Ah, the dreams of having new ideas controling the resistance rather than the resistance controlling new ideas.
Anyway, schrub is like my little brother, or my evil twin, and I really do love him.
Ah silverpox, such a touchy little girly you are, you are. I suspect that Mr. Bierce's Demonics gave poor touchy little girly silverpox a swat between his/her beady little eyes.
I suggest a trip to your little yard where you can stomp your widdle feet & hold your widdle breath until widdle silverfux turns blue.
After the storm passes, I'm sure little silversux will have no trouble at all re-connecting with his/her love for God ,country, &, most importantly of all, the wind-filled bloviations of a pompous gasbag named Silverfox.
You will have to excuse me now silverdux, but I'm going to reinsert myself into the 99.999999999999999999999999999999999% of the world's population that doesn't give an infintesimal fuck about the vacuous twaddle laden ramblings of Silverfox the typing tweedler.
Oh wait wait.....hold the presses....my 2 year old just ran by with something stinky in his diaper....hmmmmmm......I suspect that the benighted Silverfox himself has paid me a personal visit this bright & sunny PA morning, depositing his/her usual heaping helping of silvercox bullshit.
I must applaud your aim this time silveryux....at least this time you deposited your excretal spewings in an a appropriate receptacle....usually you just fling your
bullshit all over the inside of my head.
Once again, many thanx.
One more thing silvercruex, that whole 'Go soak your head" thingie....is that what passes for an insult in privileged white girl suburban yardland?
Sheesh!
A bit of advice silvertux, stay in your yard. You're much much safer there. I wouldn't want that ascerbic wit of yours to cause you any unnecessary psychic boo-boos should you foolishly attempt to mix it up with anything other than the widdle squirrels & chipmunks that hover around your lawn.
I've got to ask this Shrub...why the fuck do you bother? Who, in their right mind, would want these folk on their side?
I'm not exactly sure. It is the Million Dollar question. I will say this. Jeff's posts are highly intriguing, and his mind works much like mine, so his posts get me to thinking of five million things at once, and I feel compelled to ejaculate those thoughts in the Comments section. I think it's the same mechanism for you.....and that's why I like what you have to say, and look forward to your posts.
I ignore some of the other shit here, because it is so ridiculously ambiguous and intangible, that it has no practical meaning or application.
The real question is why do the self-proclaimed Optimists feel compelled and drawn to a site that is quite the opposite? Maybe opposites really do attract. Also, what a perfect place for the Preachy Optimists to ply their trade and collect converts.....among the most destitute of souls....those of us who won't admit that our disdain for Ritual Abusers is because we are Ritual Abusers.
I'm not going to shun the self-proclaimed Optimists, but I'm certainly not going to sit still and let them run roughshod over us in admonishing and condescending fashion.
You want to preach your Optimism, go on ahead, but when you start slinging insults by using words and terms such as "healthy" and "mature" and "annoyed," I'm going to get in your face....because then you have crossed a line and called me out.
If there's something in particular in one of my posts you don't agree with, then confront the words, and leave the poster alone. I asked Sounder a question about some comments he made here, and he told me to read his blog. WTF? Answer the damn question, for Christ's Sake. In all honesty, I read his blog, and I don't get it. I guess that means I'm an idiot, but if I'm an idiot, and he can't clarify his points any further, then what the hell is the point? It's like a tree falling in the forest with no one around to witness it.
I fail to see how any radical Paradigm Shift could incorporate the construct of Love of Country. Love of fucking Country is one reason we are in the mess we are now....one of many reasons...but a reason, nonetheless...and to hear someone who talks so ethereally, as Sounder does, posit such a trope, is preposterous.
A fair, thoughtful answer Shrub. Thank You.
Now I can vacate this place for a while. Maybe the easily distracted windbags that want to censor you out of existence can work up a veritable tornado of useless meanderings amongst themselves in my absence. I'd hate to "sully up" silverbubs only forum for his soulful stenography too much.
See ya in a week or two pal.
Oh yeah, btw, have you read anything as gut bustingly hilarious as this lately:
"I choose to use the D thing as an element that attempts to expand understanding. Figure it pisses off the D thing and everyone that is only creative enough to use the D thing in a pejoritive way."
I can just about picture "the D thing" squatted in his sulphur filled & burning corner of Hell muttering to himself, "Must get sounder...must get sounder."
It is just too much for my feeble mind with its "predillection for half-truths, half-hearted efforts, and half-assed thinking "passed "off with bravado as if it were somehow the real thing" to encompass in this post.
Be seeing you Shrub.
Ach, lads, to what point this internicene strife? Here's the irony: the world we want is a universal goal (dream, delusion--whatever you might call it). It's only in where we place ourselves in the optimism/pessimism continuum that creates differences among us. These "differences" in turn cause the shit-slinging acrimony: what could be more ridiculous? This isn't a case of someone of our persuasion going to little green fascists or some such home of those who want to preserve this rotten old world; we're on the same side, fer chrissakes!
What's more, it's entirely possible to converse across the optimism gap without either the incessant & pointless hostility or the late Mr. Persson's censorship scheme, or even Silverfox's rules of civility (although not hurling insults seems to be a pretty reasonable guideline to me.) I understand the urge to invective, as I've occasionally stooped to ridiculing an opposing poster's argument, but I always cringe afterward because it's such embarrassing behavior.
The strange thing about this endless squabbling is that it crowds out any sort of discussion whatsoever. No one is going to shut up because they're told to do so; why not just address the argument instead of the person who posted it? I also don't understand the antagonism that Shrub and Richard engender. I've had many good dialogues with both of them, and yet I'm as far to the optimist end of the O/P continuum as possible. The real issue here isn't disparate views and censorship at all--it's reconciling our mutual disdain for the current model with our differing levels of hope in changing it. This is not a Rodney King moment: it's my interpretation of the problem of change and its most essential foundation, hope.
Starroute framed the problem recently as follows:
We're in just such a transitional state, politically. The electorate is waking from its tv-induced trance -- and whether it awakens fully, or goes back to sleep, or finds a different dream to dream isn't really the point. The point is that *right now* we're in a crack between the worlds, a Hallowe'en gap at the corner of creation where strange things can slip through. And what happens *right now* -- before things get set in stone again -- will determine the future for a significant time to come.
Under those conditions, pre-emptively asserting that *nothing* is going to change, that things will be the same as they have been forever, has to be wilfull self-delusion at best and deliberate sabotage at worst.
The second part of that statement, about the pre-emptive assertion of the futility of hoping for change, is a sound argument for not giving in to or spreading redundant despair, but that doesn't mean we can't talk about whether meaningful change can happen as a result of the apparent victory of the democrats in this election. While I do concede that it's possible that greater things might come out of this event (Oarwell's mention of the power of subpoena , for example), I also have to wonder just how far the Rip van Winklecrats will be allowed to dig in the nasty foundations of the State. Can they really repudiate the entire system of which they have also been a part? William Blum has noted that it really didn't matter which party controlled the White House or congress--the steady march of anti-democratic, imperialist interests has been absolutely unimpeded by changes of control of the official branches of government.
It's in the unofficial, unelected channels that the real business of policy occurs, and this is what brings us to Jeff like moths to the light of truth, regardless of our own attitudes and opinions. You hear me, Shrub? We're not attracted to each other as opposites claim to be; we all share this recognition of the unvarnished truth of how the world operates. Puzzling out what the bad guys are up to and trying out alternatives are the two main impulses here, and while conflict is to some extent inevitable, the twin purposes of Jeff's adherents are not inherently contradictory. So let's get on with it--is there any more interesting pursuit?
Richard,
Before you leave, I want to send you off with a really hearty laugh. This was posted by, guess who, Anony, on Jeff's most recent thread.
Anonymous said...
I would call you a pessimist if I didn't agree with most of what you say...
I do so love the smell of steaming, shitty hypocrisy in the morning, don't you.
Sychophants, everywhere you look......but it's getting better all the time........
Adios, my friend. I'll talk to you in a few weeks.
Sounder said
The election was fixed, for the democrats. The "company" no doubt took offence at the White House thinking that they are running the game.
Well, well, well, well....well, well, well!!
Mr Sounder, most healthy people would say that such conspiratorial thinking is outlandish and preposterous.
See, you're unhealthy just like all the rest of us.....so in the future, keep that in mind when you attempt to resort to that transparent trope.
Wombaticus Rex
Richard,
Let's keep our eye on this one from the forum. Thanks to Hugh, a keyword has raised my shackles. Big Kahuna....which was used earlier by one of the sniping Anony's. Nice thing is, they can't remain Anonymous once they start posting to the formal forum.
It's just a hunch....but I didn't expect to see that phrase twice in one day at the same blog.
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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