a message to a certain class of people in let the dead bury the dead

I will be pushing this book into forever, if only casually. Other than Mr. Sibley and couple of others in it, you're going to have to buy the book to find out what I wrote about you, most of which is my opinion, the rest fact. Your hunches are correct: the fact that some of you are going to have to buy it to find out delights me to no end, fuck you very much. I'm not naming names here. You know who you are. My book aside, I hope you do for your own sake know who you are.

"Dear asshole..." (Harassment over DC Madam articles/book)

Ed.--I've gotten some harassing comments on here over the last couple of weeks over the book and articles on this blog that are related to the DC Madam case. Apparently, I'm doing something right (or write) here. This was attempted four years ago in the same manner: a fake attempt to give the impression of a "cease and desist" notice, which cannot be done in any binding sense by posting it as a comment. In fact, you cannot currently serve someone in any way that's binding this way. It will not be acknowledged by a court of law in the United States.

Unless you also serve someone with hard copy papers in person, or through the mail, it's not going to stick, yo, so step off, bitch. This all has to be done through the legal system. Sending fake threatening comments doesn't do this, it's acting outside of it to affect the same results without revealing one's identity. This tells me they do know a little about the law, at least, maybe more than they're letting on. None of this has occurred here--there has been no serving--and that's why none of this is worth an ounce of sweat. This is one more laughable, pathetic attempt to get someone to take down information about someone else by taking down the entire blog, and that wouldn't hold up in court either, all a sorry bluff. You have to specify what lines, what statements, in an article, essay, book, etc., were libelous or slanderous, and establishing that either occurred is very difficult in American jurisprudence. I know this because I've taken paralegal courses, but really, any drooling asshole should know this. I can assure you that even repeat offenders do.

Here's what the goober wrote first, and granted that they might be from Texas since they can't spell of do addition:

 I look forward to fourth coming litigation, marathon deposition sessions of every blogger that had made a post regarding Jack Burkman and the loves of his life! Win,Lose it doesn't matter! Its going to be very expensive for all parties involved! Or, you can shut this site down as soon as possible!

Dennis G. Brewer Sr. And Associates, P.C.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 12:27:00 AM EDT 

Whoever they are, they got pissed and created a fake Google profile shortly after reading something on this blog, the wimp. This is so I don't who they are related to the case, or simply to avoid me suing their asses off for criminal harassment, which I would, and will, if I discover their sorry identity. "Forthcoming" is one word, stupid.

"I look forward to"--look forward to kissing my ass, fuck you very much. You're this law firm in Irving, Texas? Bullshit you are. Either way, you've made a serious error if I discover who you are, so keep your pointed head down. Also, you write like a spastic dork. Like? Asshole went on FOUR days later: "Matt Janovic: you fucking coward! I gave you a week to pull this site down. You are going to wish you took me seriously! Hope you have money to burn!" Right, use someone's identity, then a fake one that hides your actual identity, good move there, not obvious at all. Idiot. Clown.

I responded on March 22nd (multiple ones, I've bunched them):

Hey Dennis, where have you been, asshole? This shit has been up for over two years, shithead. You have to SERVE ME, asshole, email AND snail mail, US Post. A little law school 101, fucker. Who are you, really? This has been up for years. This is all alleged, and I have a RIGHT under the First Amendment to my opinions, asshole. ... "Dhar," who's the coward? Tell me and everyone your REAL FUCKING NAME, ASSHOLE. YOU are the coward. Blow me, fuckface.

They tried to make it seem like they wanted something specific taken down by mentioning Burkman. Could it be Mark Capansky? Possibly, maybe.

Finally, I had to kick them in their hollow head one last time, yesterday:

PS to the tard: Not only can't you spell ("fourth") you're unable to do simple mathematics: "I gave you a week to pull this site down." You posted your first harassing comment on March 13th, then followed up with the one that contained the above quote on the 17th--four days, asshole.

Are you even a real person or a Defense Dept. AI bot? Either way, you're a lying idiot and a fool to think that an anonymous threat (harassment) is going to make me pull anything, fuck you very much. … If you serve me, I GET TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Threats coming from the shadows are admissible in court unless it's me suing your ass off for harassment.

Ever heard of "prior restraint"? I have ever right to publish my book and to keep these posts up because they're my opinions, asshole.

Cowards throw around fake threats from the shadows, I post my real name at all times online with a few exceptions. Guess what? There's nothing you can do about any of this. In my opinion, most of these women who have contacted me are TELLING THE TRUTH.

"Dahr"(the sound retards make when they do the chicken-wing motion) has grown silent after all of this. I'd hide my identity too if I made as much of an ass of myself as they have. 

What I believe is at play here is that someone wants to remove primary materials I've posted on the case--this includes anything about Mr. Burkman--maybe to be able to say down the road, maybe even in court, "these materials in the book have never been published," when the emails, comments, and everything else related to the DC Madam case have been online for years without any real complaints coming from anyone identifying themselves through the legal system--not that anyone would be able to under the law, this speech is protected, I can and have successfully published, finito. None of it violates anyone's rights, nor any agreements. That aside, Palfrey is dead, estate aside. That part of the narrative is closed. Who's next? Bring it on, bitch.

Gimp of the perverse: The loves of Jack Burkman, Part I

Postscript: DUCK YOU SUCKER... 

Postscript, 3-27-2012: You have to love my typos in the original responses. The good side is that you can at least tell I can spell the words properly. "Fourth coming." Sam Eardth II? Is English their first language? Man,  I sure hope so for their--our--sake (not rice wine). I rest my case, your honor...

I told you so Part I : The American groundswell is here

If the events in Madison, Wisconsin, still unfolding as I write this, say anything, it's that you love being wrong. For years now, I've been saying that this was coming, that when the American middle-class really started feeling the love of shipping jobs overseas, the rollback of the right to collective bargaining, the obscene accumulation of wealth amidst growing poverty and millions of mortgage foreclosures, that people were going to rise up and protest.

This is the only thing that ever works in a democracy such as ours: to stand and be counted and to demand one's rights and better conditions. Nothing has been achieved for the average person in human history without demands, it's a law of politics, and therefore, part of the laws of nature. The last time I checked, the laws of physics were still holding.

The walkout of Democratic state representatives in Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital, wasn't the genuine beginning of all of this, it became real when the public came out in the tens-of-thousands. Politicians are rarely the solution in this nation and it has been the working-class who has saved the day more than a few times, even for the ones who did all the wrecking of civil society and the economy, again and again, until it was finally reined-in with the New Deal in the 1930s and the rise of labor.

No one knows where this train is heading, but the fact is, the groundswell has begun, some of its genesis is owed to Wikileaks, but more importantly, to misrule by both major political parties. Consider the walkout of the Democratic representatives in Wisconsin as, yes, an act (one-of -three, refer to your program) of political theater. When it comes down to it, they too will have to be forced by the public into pushing laws that allow for an expansion of collective bargaining and unions, generally.

I won't recount the lies emanating from the right, they're too wacky to even consider seriously.

What's been incredible about all of this is the stupidity of the Libertarian-leaning Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. By following the GOP game-plan of going after state worker unions, he also set his sights on the Policeman's Union. He might have had the Wisconsin State Police in his pocket, using them as goons to physically force Democratic lawmakers to return to create a quorum (the minimum number of reps needed to proceed on a vote on a bill). This isn't just un-American, it's illegal and obviously unconstitutional under our system of law.

Governor Walker, then, is a criminal and should be told to resign. If he doesn't resign, he should be dragged before either a grand jury, or an investigating committee. This could be done at either the state or federal level. President Obama is expected to stay out of the battle altogether and cannot be counted on as a friend of labor, let alone the average person. And where is the First Lady?

Apparently, she's no Eleanor Roosevelt and more a Nancy Reagan or a Hillary Clinton, a ghost-bouffant bourgeois who might slip and tell us all to eat cake. Somehow, I think she's smarter than that and smarter than her husband.

There are people far less intelligent: the people who have been telling me for years that this day would never come. I told you so, I really did, and you wouldn't listen because you never will. You have sold your soul for so little that it's a mockery of human life--or even tube worms that swarm around the vents at the bottom of the Atlantic...

CNN reports dumb-assed Al Qaeda salad bar/buffet plot after GOP stalls Food Safety Act for months

Is there not a better sign of the end of an Empire and a nation in serious trouble? Just don't tell the Obama-holdouts, they might get upset. Who on God's gray earth would believe this horseshit but a Republican or a Libertarian, all of them with serious emotional and intellectual issues regarding reality? "Al-Qaeda plot threatens America's salad bars and buffets." You gotta be kidding, right?

It beggars the imagination that someone without the ability to imagine would believe something a ten year old could see through or do a better job of concocting.

Just as they did under Bush II, being a venerable asset of Empire and the GOP, CNN is selling a very lame-assed scare story to boost another war criminal's sagging popularity ratings as well as providing some cover for corrupt food growers and processors who wanted the Food Modernization Act. Apparently, high school never ended and life has now become Facebook. How is this different from all the times that George W. Bush cried "WOLF!" (not CNN's Blitzer, or even Donner) with the terror alert warnings to save his own ass, for political ends? It's not at all and it's not the only example, Obama's just less obvious about it than the last clown.

Seriously: President Barack Obama is the same as George W. Bush, wake up assholes, pull your heads out of your collective-ass and stop having this.

CNN's talking-neck was barely able to read the salad bar/buffet headline it was so stupid, so nebbish, so moronic and transparently unimportant pap that was probably lifted from a surveillance log of someone simply toying with the idea of joining a terror cell...after a few bong-hits or a lift from some meth. Get real, quit insulting our intelligence with your counterintelligence, your disinformation predicated on scaring the dummies that over-populate every nation so that we hand over even more of our rights to a predatorial establishment.

Great, someone was going to "poison" salad bars and buffets across America...and somehow they weren't American food growers and producers who routinely employ illegal immigrants, who then lobby the GOP all of the time for fewer regulations on food safety. Yes, it was a smart timing to run the bogus Al-Qaeda story just hours after the GOP had stalled the Food Safety Act for months, very wise, well-timed. How long did they stall its passage? Since March of this year, nine whole months, which is roundly un-American.

Besides the GOP's tail-dragging on to poison the public, or not to poison it, these were some of the major opponents of the very reasonable bill--unless some of us prefer a little e-coli with our spinach, watermelons and potatoes (take that Dan Quayle!), and TEA:

Freedomworks

Competitive Enterprise Institute

American Mushroom Institute

National Potato Council

National Watermelon Association

Produce Marketing Association

United Fresh Produce Association

The John Birch Society

National Cattleman's Beef Association

Western Growers

American Academy of Microbiology

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund
(http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-510)

Any familiar names here? It passed the Senate on November 30th of this year anyway, but there was more stalling from the GOP.

And you Democratic incumbents: You can stop with the good cop, bad cop act. We're on to you. We know this is all just political theater and we're about to call bullshit on this whole clown show. We're not having it anymore, you're done. For a moment, I thought they were saying that Jimmy Buffett was being targeted by terrorists, which makes just as much sense and is just as credible...

Why Alex Jones will live forever

Why do you think? Nobody's ever going to assassinate this worthless piece-of-shit except maybe one of his followers, one of his audience, like George Lincoln Rockwell. Yes, there are people stupider than him: the morons that listen to his radio show and watch his clips, buy the merchandise, and frequent his opportunist advertisers.

Let's be crystal clear about this: these people are sick as well as semi-literate.

Malcolm X was real. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was real. Patrick Henry was real. All the Civil Rights workers and union organizers who were murdered by goons and corrupt cops were real. As nuts as he was, the radical Abolitionist John Brown was real. The murdered Illinois Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton was real. Even Bobby Kennedy was more real that this clown and his pack of retards, and he shares the same honor as the rest: he died for what was right. In fact, it's pretty obvious that they were so real that it was almost inevitable that they were going to die.

Alex Jones, Jeff Rense, Kurt Nimmo, Alex Constantine, and the rest of the conspiracy-mongers are not real, they're frauds, and they're selling an anti-government agenda, literally, to paranoid idiots. When people like this won't listen to you and go running to the irrational like some screaming Mullah, you know you're seeing a religion, a cult, and that makes them vaguely dangerous to the general public, but not the citadels of power. Were they a genuine threat, they would would at least be seeing some of the harassment we saw during the 1960s-70s that was unleashed on the antiwar movement generally, as well as all the other social justice groups and movements of that time. None of that is happening to Jones and company, contrary to their claims.

The whack-jobs will point to someone like Hal Turner, stupidly, being their lot in life, yet Turner unmasked himself as an FBI informant who was likely goading the same kinds of idiots into lawless action, a provocateur.

Who is Alex Jones? Really. At best, he's a craven liar and a demagogue, making money off of the whipping-up of fear and paranoia in a historical moment where it's literally yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. I will go as far as to say that much of what he says and writes is not protected speech and that his time is coming before long. It will be belated, but he's got to be taken down, and very, very hard. Quit going to his site. Quit allowing people to post links to those sites. Ignore him. Let him dry-up and blow away like he should have over a decade ago.

It's working with a certain GOP pundit with an enlarged Adam's apple...

By the way. Fucking grow-up.

An unwanted Facebook solicitation...from Art Brown

Who's Art Brown? Don't ask the Class of 2014, they don't know shit from shine-ola. This guy is an idiot, he's an anarchronism, and he was being dishonest in the missive I got below from him in my Facebook private mail (meaning that I didn't ask for it, but accepting a friend request on there is often like playing Russian roulette...). Apparently, he wrote a book I heard about--Everything I Know, I Learned From Comic Books, or some such ephemeral shit.

He's also a businessman, so he's worn the alligator on his tit and the faux-cock around his neck, choking the oxygen-supply to his already addled-brain. I can't withhold this from you any longer, but here goes, what he wrote (minus the dumb Youtube clip whose link I'm not disseminating).

[F]Art wrote:

"Friends - it's time I "came out." My whole liberal viewpoint has been wrong. I see the light. Won't you kindly share this thoughtful and enlightening video with your friends as well? Thank you. You're welcome."

I didn't ask, and you're not welcome, Art. In an historic moment when--were we paying attention at all--it was obvious that the GOP and Reaganism put us where we are today, this oaf thinks he's got some magical conclusion: Liberalism was to blame. Wow, what a stretch that must have been, caving-into decades of pressure, then finally, finally letting that distended gut hang all the way out. That's great, you have fun with that, Art. At least you won't live forever.

I responded to the mass-mail I never asked for with:

Me too Art.

For years I thought, "They want to drive the nation to revolution, they're insane!" In fact, I was both right and wrong, and left, and in-the-middle: We in fact need a revolution, and by gum, the GOP is poised to take us over the cliff, once again, as they did during the 1920s and 1930s! History? Who needs that stuff! Inconvenient facts, coming from no less than Nobel Prize winning economists that the same road will mean collapse--communist lies!

And--you know--you'll get a free Bissel brush if you vote for them. And hey, how about those stolen elections and the crushing of dissent, disenfranchisement of minorities...

hugs, Matt Janovic
PS: I know, I hallucinated all those open crimes committed by Republicans over the last eight years, I was wrong!!

Will I read his response? Sadly, yes, I get amusement out of the flailings of the ignorant. However, he votes, and I'd dissuade him and anyone who ever has the urge to vote Republican to never vote again, for the rest of their natural lives. Yes, this isn't exactly "Liberal," but I'm more practical than Art or the rest of the Lollipop Guild, along with the More-Liberal-Than-Thou Crew (not to be confused with CREW, and not really Liberals at all).

What would I have done without Art? I wouldn't have been able to write this piece about a very, very misguided little man, a great example of why we're probably doomed.

On Robert Gibbs's remarks regarding the "professional left"

With all of the calls for him to resign or to even be fired (the latter coming from Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson), you have to wonder if Shakespeare ever imagined political theater so hollow, so empty that it's not even entertaining anymore, just pathetic. Why bother? Indeed. Gibbs's remarks were to the Moonie-owned The Hill, a staunchly conservative paper, meaning a cargo cult-within-a-cargo-cult, and apparently the outgoing press secretary felt quite at home in making the statements that he did. Why wouldn't he? He's the same kind of cretin. Yet, why? Why make such stupid remarks?

The answer is simple. He and the administration that he represents aren't especially different from--say--the GOP itself and hate their base at least as much. What choice are we left with here in a roundly rightist political culture that doesn't reflect or even acknowledge the views of the majority of Americans on social issues? That's what's known as a political crisis since there really is no opposition party in American politics, only two branches of one pro-business one; one that represents an oligarchy but not the public. Yes, now the president is worried that his agenda will be endangered (a good thing in the end) and is engaging in some last minute social spending such as a paltry $3 billion for those who have or will lose their homes. Then, there's the diehard municipal/teacher/police vote that was paid for with much more and will likely ensure more Democratic votes--the primary motive for doing it at all. This kind of a mess is nothing new to American history, but it is a regression, back to the bad old days of the 1880s-90s when the "robber barons" (now we simply call them the "rich," "CEOs," and "Wall Street"). Once again, thanks Ronald Reagan, and Richard Nixon, but you couldn't have done it without those wily Democrats.

Like an atomic clock going off exactly on time, a slack-jawed denizen on Facebook hit me with: "In the real world, what better candidate that can actually be elected would you suggest?" Besides being the usual straw man argument one gets from the unfortunate few middle-class whites who bother to vote (which is why registering poor and minorities is always a good idea), this kind of a comment ignores how rigged the electoral process is and that they keep voting for people who wish to impair it over and over again once they're in office, and that's for starters. There's a point where you're just another battered wife, a dupe, a mark, a moron. There was a better candidate than Barack Obama and Gibbs worked to take him down in 2004, for the the DNC and the Kerry campaign: Howard Dean. Yes, they've beaten Dean down into submission and made him parrot their absurd talking points, but there was a time, not so long ago...

But it was the Foghorn Leghorn-like Gibbs that worked overtime putting out attack ads against Dean and his reasonably progressive agenda--too reasonable for the DNC and its biggest backers. Dean's also from Alabama and has been advising on a Southern strategy for the Obama campaign/administration for some time. These are the same people that wanted Barack Obama in office and not someone like Dean since he might actually come through for the public and not Wall Street. In addition, when Team Clinton came onboard, we got more of the same cronies from that sordid, pro-business administration, making for a curious form of non-nostalgia. Why am I one of the only people in America who knows that Hillary Clinton has served on the board of Wal-Mart and is a major shareholder, for example? Thanks to a compliant media, never mind all the high talk of the Obama administration having to confront a "combative media," most Americans don't know this. One wishes they were combative, at least for the right reasons, which would be a very real change.

Gibbs is right(ist): I'd trade the Pentagon for a Canadian-style health care system in a heartbeat. For those who think we need defense spending that's 600 times greater than the next highest spender, you're the ones who are "crazy," and if you don't live to see the tyranny you're constructing, your children certainly will. With luck, it's all going to collapse before then anway. You've been lulled into a Pavlovian call-and-response--you feel fear when the political and economic establishment rings 'dem bells. What does that make you?

Would I be satisfied with "Kucinich as president"? Damned straight I would. Fire all of them. Fire the next ones if they're the same. Fire them all, and shut them out of the political process forever, and anyone like them that doesn't serve the public interest, let alone won't listen to them. Eventually, the public will stop speaking and start acting. At that point, Mr. Gibbs will have a lot of explaining to do. Will it be too late? Who knows, but he's going to own a part of the social chaos if it does in fact unfold, and as much as any Bush II operative. That's not a stretch since the Obama administration has kept most of them onboard.

Is there really a Tea Party Movement?

No, there is not. There's a loose conglomeration of the reactionary right, conservative (whatever that means) senior citizens who have been mislead in thinking that their Medicare is going to be cut, closet racists who had no problem with eight criminal years of Bush II but don't like having a black president, tax protesters, gun rights activists, the rural and suburban unemployed, wacko evangelicals, Libertarians, disgruntled former Republicans, militia nuts, neo-Nazis, and a lot of other people I'd never invite over for a drink or a cookout anytime soon.

What the so-called "Tea Party movement" is constitutes reactionary, rightist populism. In other words, misguided, misdirected populist rage that's apparently not willing to be "co-opted" by the GOP let alone the DNC.

In some crucial sense, they're the opposite side of the coin to the progressive left, meaning the majority of the public when you look at the polls regarding social issues and the spending to combat social problems. The majority is for a leftward reformist model, not a rightward trend. Where does that leave these red-headed stepchildren of the right? As far as anyone can tell, an ineffectual demographic minority that, yes, gets it that Wall Street is the problem, yet doesn't like the idea of New Deal reforms and progressive taxation of the wealthiest.

You know: the dumb assholes who still cling to the American Dream.

There is an off-chance that some of these folks will have that "road to Damascus" conversion and actually see that their own interests are best represented in joining the antiwar and progressive left in the streets (as well as on the Internet), in joining together to stop the corporate assault on our rights, but so far it's a pipe dream. Instead, we all harp on more fringe elements of this demographic, and while that's not entirely misplaced in its importance, it's not all about the problem children, it's about the overall group that's been labelled as "Tea Party." Some have implied that many of these self-styled "Tea Baggers" could only attend many of these events by being small business owners, and indeed, there's a kernal of truth to this. But it's not the entire story, some are simply retired baby boomers.

I'm not really sure why the GOP would even want this disparate gaggle of the terminally confused, but what else do they have left as a base? Yet, as stated before, the demographic is fundamentally mistrustful of the entire political establishment and stubbornly resists being used, of being co-opted. Regardless of that, they have been used pretty effectively by both the GOP and DNC to assist in a creating a smokescreen so that bogus health reform could be passed. It doesn't surpise me that this pseudo-movement began with Texas congressional representative Ron Paul since it's as confused in its viewpoint and message as much as he is. To add to the confusion, the mainstream corporate media affixed the labels to them and let things fly, and fly they have, right out the window.

Is there really a Tea Party movement? I don't think so, and it's not going to decide any national elections anytime soon. What it will do, and has done, is to provide one more spectacle, one more distraction, from the worthwhile goals of reformists and the dreams in the hearts of American populists of every stripe. The Mesopotamian priests used the corruption of language to control the builders of the Tower of Babel--but it went bust, and no one could understand each other anymore, and the pillar that was the society of that time, the work towards real civilization, remained unfinished and the people disbursed. The show was effectively over. Funny that religion is part of the equation again, but if it's broken don't fix it when it comes to holding onto power.

Presenting: A $1,000 wise ass award and prize regarding the DC Madam...

WWW--I noticed recently that former DC Madam counselor Montgomery Blair Sibley's Why Just Her has now been scanned and is in Google books (search engine, you can now search and read the book itself, though it's partial), from a recent and casual search. But this isn't about that, it was just the trigger of my memory over the gaggle of conspiracy nuts and know-it-all wise asses who think they "know the score" on how the DC Madam died. None of them who I have debated with have even read the autopsy and toxicology reports.

In reality, they do know, but won't accept the truth because it doesn't fit into their moronic personal mythology or some notion they got into their heads when they were hanging out with other rednecks and sucking on a joint of a pipe filled with crystal meth. But enough about Alex Constantine...

Here it is: if you can prove in a court of law that the DC Madam was murdered by government operatives, as many nuts are still claiming, you get $1,000 from yours truly. You'll never do it, it will never happen. You want to know why? You don't want to know why, that's the fuckin' problem you dumb asshole. You don't want to know the truth, you don't care, and for you, the believers in her murder, this prize is for you. That's right assholes: fuck you.

The New Devil's Dictionary: Friend

Friend, n.--A word whose original meaning fell out of use during the late Industrial-technological stage of human civilization while paradoxically growing in use that has made its misuse and misapplication practically universal.

In the second half of the 20th century, human beings decided to dispense with real social-ties and the bonds of friendship and solidarity to replace them with plastic and poorly-constructed consumer artifacts with no real use value to them. Certain scholars say that this development was determinist (inevitable), but nobody knows which came first, consumer goods or the decline in solid social relationships. One thing is certain: people came before them.

Social researchers and anthropologists have yet to explain why human beings would hand over their most cherished and important values and social and familial relationships for toxic garbage, but there you go. The general meaning in post-industrial/post-consumer society has yet to be determined. You're just jealous of our wrecked internal and social landscape.

The Fall of Alex Jones (site)

WWW--In case you haven't caught this, here then is the best satire of Alex Jones and his hydra-headed media presence. They really have his number too, there will be times you'll think you were reading the pap of the man himself or erstwhile compatriots like Jeff Rense and Kurt Nimmo. Hey, now THAT'S a conspiracy of dunces!

http://fallofalexjones.com/

Some more thoughts on the word "retarded"

Now that Sarah Palin's tried very feebly--as is her wont in all endeavors--to control our language when she can't even control her own, it's time to pull our collective-heads out of our collective-asses and realize that this is just a word and that the context it's used in and the intent behind it are what's important. The word itself is unimportant, and mature adults know this and accept it for what it is. People say hurtful things, get over it, grow-up.

But we's a reactionary people--bawss--and we go off half-cocked all the time since many of us "natives" (Eurotrash) are descended from lynch mobs, though that's another fairy tale for another time. Does it have to be said that this is just a word? Yes, apparently, it does: it's just a word, folks. You can't shield yourself or your kids from everything, and sometimes, sometimes, we have be tolerant and take our licks like everyone else. That's life, and part of being a real adult. You accept that there are things that are never going to go away and that you cannot get rid of them.

When you stampede like a wild herd of mindless buffaloes (OK, that's unfair to the bison), as many of us did in the immediate aftermath of the events of September 11th, 2001, you start fucking-up all over the place. We all blew it, myself included, for various reasons. In my own case, I should have been far more defiant and opposed to the Bush II administration even in the aftermath of that event. I was not, and I was not alone, not by a long-shot. And wasn't the manipulation of language at the core of their misrule for eight very long years that the Tea Baggers (Tea Tards) seem to have missed entirely? Words like "terrorism," "weapons of mass destruction," "mushroom clouds," "attacks," "suspects," "terror alerts," and so many others, were injected with and took on new and very hollow meaning to whip-up fear in an already reactionary society and culture.

The bastards knew their marks well, and they not only rifled-through our wallets, but convinced many of us to hand over our hard won rights as Americans. This was not only stupid, it was, and still is, pathetic, and stinks of a people who probably don't deserve their liberties, if they ever did. That's not to say we can't fix what happened, but we have our work cut out for us, and that means endlessly demanding of the current administration, and probably the one after it, that there are real investigations into the crimes known or suspected of being committed by the administration of George W. Bush. We're either a nation of laws, or merely one of words, and now we seem to even want to hand over one of the last things that makes us truly unique as a nation: a historically rare and wide-ranging freedom of speech and press.

So, for an obviously corrupt and moronic woman and former politician like Sarah Palin to tell anyone what they can and cannot say is absurd and should be met with horselaughs from all corners of American society. The upside of this is that she's actually accelerating the demise of the GOP and causing incredible division in the ranks of the Tea Party (bowel) movement, a group comprised mostly of reactionary small business owners who, until very recently, were either apolitical lumps who flunked civics class, or outright ignoramuses. Instead of the Boston Tea Party, these misguided morons invoke the memory of the same kinds of idiots that gave us the Teapot Dome scandal, courtesy of the gift that keeps on giving, the GOP, a party that makes no bones about being for the big-shots and conglomerates.

Yet many of these same turds that gave us some of the mess we're in think they have the answers when they clearly don't at all. To say that these petty bourgeois fools shit where they eat would be redundant and their reactions are just that: the dysfunctional flailing of retarded children. Put that in your meth-pipe and smoke it tonight, Bubba.

Will the Menstrualcramp run...and flow?

Indiana--Now that the senate blue dog founder Evan Bayh has been outed (the public is apparently slow on the uptake, I noticed long ago) as being roundly conservative, thanks mostly to the health care battle going on in Congress and has announced he won't be running for reelection, some of the Hoosier state's progressives are looking...well, probably in the wrong place. It's a good idea in theory to nominate/draft pop singer John Mellencamp, but I really don't think he's qualified.

Not so long ago, Bayh was a "good guy."

A fellow Hoosier and friend from college put it well on Facebook: "I think he'd just sit there chain-smoking and going "HEY! HEY!" every once in a while. Maybe an occasional harmonica solo." At least he featured Edith Massey of Pink Flamingos fame in one of his videos...but he made-out with her, and let's be honest, that's just wrong.

Will the Indiana GOP (aka NSDAP) drag this part of his past into the political roundhouse theater (a barn, this is Indiana)? The world may never know. At this writ(h)ing, there's no comments on all this high-falutin' talk over whether he's going to run or even flow into a senatorial candidacy by June of this year. Ah, but the left and the right are shitting all over themselves about whether he will or won't (my take is that he won't). (F)Alternet had some really superficial and inarticulate things to say today, somehow drawing a supplement to the writer's paycheck as a result:

So, could Mellencamp perform in the U.S. Senate?

Could he be the right replacement for retiring Senator Evan Bayh, D-Indiana?

Forget the blah-blah-blah about celebrities in politics. We crossed that bridge decades ago.

The question is whether this celebrity makes the right connections with this state.

Mellencamp certainly has the home-state credibility. Few rockers have been so closely associated with a state as Mellencamp with Indiana.

Mellencamp has a history of issue-oriented political engagement that is the rival of any of the Democratic politicians who are being considered as possible Bayh replacements.

And Mellencamp has something else. He has a record of standing up for disenfranchised and disenchanted working-class families in places like his hometown of Seymour, Indiana.

In other words, he's worthy of the consideration that has led to talk of a "Draft John Mellencamp" movement. In fact, he might be just enough of an outlier to energize base votes and to make independent voters look again at the Democratic column. ("Senator Mellencamp?," Alternet, 02.17.2010)

They also mention that John's "friends with Bill Clinton," which to these eyes and ears is roundly wrong-headed on his part if it's true. If Clinton was ever a "friend" of the poor, I'm Abraham Lincoln. He's not going to run. Who would want to after the most recent generation of incumbents left such a titanic mess? Mellencamp prefers the quiet life on his property outside of Bloomington, Indiana, in Seymour. Cross your own bridges, we play euchre in Indiana, m-kay?

But where did this meme begin? Facebook, where else? It sure wasn't poor old Myspace. I have a number of friends on there nay-saying about the social networking site's influence, but this is a good example that they're not entirely correct, but they're probably used to it:

A Facebook group is looking to draft singer John Mellencamp to replace departing Democratic Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana.
It's adding fuel to the fire of speculation that he'll launch a bid.

He would join a growing number of Democrats considering a run following Bayh's surprise announcement he will not seek reelection. ("Facebook Page Fuels Mellencamp Senate Speculation," mystateline.com, 02.17.2010)

FB is a good way to get a meme going and that's a real power--so much so that Fox News panicked shortly after noticing the existence of the group and did a spot on Mellencamp being "too left." In a sense, that's pulling-the-strings of the string-pullers, a real tug-of-war to control the narrative, even if accidentally. But will he run? Should be run? I know, all this "blah-blah-blah" over celebrities running, but I was never a conformist, so that meme can go jump in a lake with everyone else, it's not fixing anything. We have covered bridges in Indiana.

And, hey, why not let Fox News have the last word since they usually insist on it?

...Speculation is swirling [around the bowl, or is it 'bowel'?] that the liberal Mellencamp may put down his guitar and run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Evan Bayh. ...

The Democratic state central committee now has until June 30 to pick someone to replace Bayh on the ballot.

U.S. Reps. Baron Hill and Brad Ellsworth are among the other names being floated. But so far, Mellencamp's name is drawing the most attention.

Mellencamp's publicist did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

("Speculation Swirls Around Potential Senate Bid by Rocker John Mellencamp," Foxnews.com, 02.17.2010)

Interestingly, and in character, the online article is significantly more toned down from the bluster and hyperbole of the TV version telecast today on Fox. But really, just because it sounds like a great idea doesn't mean that it is. Take a look at California after several years of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the GOP. At least they used the proper word in all of this, "speculation." I should add that I like his paintings, they're very good. M-kay?

"Fox preemptive strike against Mellencamp: ‘He’s way over there’," Rawstory, 02.17.2010: http://rawstory.com/2010/02/fox-preemptive-strike-mellencamp/

"Senator Mellencamp?", Alternet, 02.17.2010: http://www.alternet.org/news/145714/senator_mellencamp_grassroots_movement_swells_for_rocker_to_run_of_bayh%27s_indiana_seat

"Facebook Page Fuels Mellencamp Senate Speculation," mystateline.com, 02.17.2010: http://mystateline.com/content/fulltext/?cid=138222

The man's site: http://www.mellencamp.com/

"Speculation Swirls Around Potential Senate Bid by Rocker John Mellencamp," Foxnews.com, 02.17.2010: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/17/speculation-swirls-potential-mellencamp-senate-bid/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Fpolitics+%2528Text+-+Politics%2529

On the Tea Party crowd and the tantrum throwing right generally

In reality, they're a tiny minority who don't truly matter, but the economic elites are having their little puppet show with their silly asses before the curtain closes on their mutual dumbshow. Fuck 'em. The economic elites and elements of the poor and working poor are some of the most dysfunctional people in our society and are dragging the rest of us down, it's a fact.

This doesn't fit into the accepted identity politics and victimology, but that's all a bunch of crap anyway. It's not politically correct to say or write it, but since when have I given a fuck? The Democrats? Are they even an opposition party at all? Is there any difference between them and the Republicans anymore?

No, there's hardly any difference these days, and everyone thinks they have all the answers while our rights are being rolled back. I mean, really, it's more important to argue and split-hairs about bullshit while the Supreme Court passes a ruling enabling corporations to spend whatever they want on candidates without us even being able to find out who donated that money, I know. Being right, is being right, and wrong. And, really, quit calling yourself part of "the left" when you don't even know what the fuck it means or where it's been, quit fooling yourselves.

A very special fundraiser: Send me--Matt Janovic--to Los Angeles to tell Arianna Huffington she's full of shit!

Any assistance in prearranging the meeting-of-minds (I only promise to utter, "You're full of shit!" the rest should be history) would be greatly appreciated! This is a non-profit deal here, and if there's a story in it, you'll be reading it right here, at this location...well, not this exact location, meaning this post, but this site! Will we discuss Marxist philosophy afterward, or will I get kneed-in-the-groin? I think she's done enough of that to the American public.

But who knows? In the spirit of Gandhi, she might just have someone else kick my ass all over a parking lot. No kisses, though, no tongue, she wears brown-lipstick to hide that ass-kissing of people richer than she is. Mmm-hmm, hanging-out with billionaires, that's really going to accomplish a lot. You know, they're just the core-problem in America, these horrible people she tends to associate with...

Look, either she's a fool or a liar.

She believed that Gingrich and the GOP "would help the poor" in America with the "contract for America," which coming from a Cambridge graduate is bizarre. Had she never read about or experienced the last 80 years of our history? That's crap, and it's back-peddling. She knew they wouldn't do anything to "help" the subproletarian classes anymore than they were going to help the eroding middle-class. Why would she believe them, ever? This is the same kind of flawed-logic that kept the original progressive era from being truly progressive, giving us the Great Depression down the road, this cow-towing. At the very least, this stupid woman owes it to all of us to help clean-up the mess she and others helped create during the 1990s and get her hands dirty. She is not a member of the working-class or the general public. She runs with the rich, the privileged, the connected. Why would she "believe" them, the GOP back in the 1990s thinking they wanted to service the common good (and this is giving her far too much credit)?

The answer is a pretty simple one: she identified with them and thought she was "part of the club." Either she was fooled, partly-fooled and really just cynical, completely cynical and with them 100% (my take), or she's just incredibly confused and probably a dumbass with an Ivy League degree. My feeling is that she's just another social climber, those people who are actually worse than the rich themselves, and trust me, I've seen it in action with relatives in Chicago on a smaller scale, it's nauseating. The worst people in the world are the ones who want to be like the powerful people, the rich people. Scum.

Very little of Arianna Huffington's life speaks well of her, and now, we're supposed to believe that she was "fooled" by the Obama campaign as well. Her biography is a good work of fiction. Considering how cozy she was letting the Brothers Emanuel write on her website, and how much she helped the Obama campaign, it doesn't really matter whether her motives have been pure, misguided, or patently evil and cynical. The results--what results?--speak for themselves. This stupid woman has royally screwed-up and screwed the rest of us and should be booted-out of the progressive constellation yesterday. While millions are starving across the globe, being disenfranchised, losing their homes here in America, being slaughtered in a multi-front war, and while our rights are being rolled-back, this dumbass is sipping champagne and eating canapes with billionaires who don't want to be bothered with paying their fair share in taxes.

She's arch-conservative, she's a fraud, and she's got to change or go, and she's hardly alone. Send me to Los Angeles for one day (won't go until I'm certain I'll find her), and I'll give her exposure to a clue.

"Arianna," my one act play on Lady MacDumbo: http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2009/01/arianna-satirical-play-by-matt-janovic_31.html

Alex Jones has been backpeddling about Charlie Sheen this week by taking a vow of silence (please extend it to all utterances)...

WWW--Yesterday, syndicated conspiracy nut radio jock Alex Jones [GASP!] was making some really baseless about the also completely wacko Charlie Sheen being "innocent" when it's pretty clear that something's incredibly amiss about this recent incident with his new wife, the fact that they were both dangerously drunk, and that he was definitely wielding a knife yelling, "I'm going to kill you!" at her and had to be restrained by others. The 911 call is online and on television today, it's everywhere, and it gives a new layer of meaning to "911" once again since Jones has been fobbing the always-intoxicated Sheen as a "truther," meaning someone who thinks the WTC was felled by alien technology...

Let's not forget that Sheen has a very prolonged history of sexual and substance-addictions and has even had to come under intervention from his poor family, poor Martin Sheen, a man who I assume is very ashamed of his son right now. Jones certainly knew about Sheen's problems before becoming associated with him., something we can safely presume that he did to suck-off some of the troubled star's fame to bolster site hits and merch sales on his constellation of websites and other media. In other words, the mugs, t-shirts, poorly produced DVD documentaries, and crypto-racist posters and shirts of the current president, weren't selling briskly enough to keep the new Father Coughlin afloat in the kind of luxury he's been used to. He has a lot of mouths to feed, and besides, he's fat.

But yesterday, Jones was trying to "minimize" the damage against Sheen without much basis or luck. Not that that's anything new, but today...nothing, nada, he's moved on from the subject with nary-a-comment of explanation. There's an pretty obvious reason for this silence having to do with sticking one's foot in one's mouth: Expect Sheen to become so radioactive--as radioactive as Fatty Arbuckle or D.C. Stephenson--that Jones stops talking about the movie star almost entirely, if not altogether. Why did Jones ever want an association with Sheen? That's obvious. Charlie Sheen's famous and it props-up Jones's own absurd conservative, anti-government line that's mistaken as genuinely progressive and populist, it "mainstreams" him, a trick possibly learned from Ron Paul. He's not "mainstream," he's a far-right demagogue who's been given too much rope, but with some luck, he's going to hang himself with it before long.

So, what happened between yesterday and today? The dumbass (who has more-than-adequate resources to discover the truth) probably actually read the Colorado police reports or had someone like Kurt Nimmo hand him copies of the reports out of concern, and he stopped talking about it altogether today. Wise move, but the statements stand and were heard. Note that the facts have never stood in the way of Alex Jones and that there was never an objective truth he wasn't willing to avoid or to accuse of being part of "the conspiracy." He and Kurt Nimmo had no problem whatsoever in claiming that the DC Madam was "suicided" by imaginary government operatives when there was and is no evidence whatsoever to conclude it. Reportedly, in March of this year, Jones fired erstwhile compatriot and shill, Jeff Rense, one of the other twits peddling this hollow meme that also fosters the impression of an ubiquitous police state (something supporters of one would want out there) while at the same time reviling it, a neat trick.

The objective truth never stopped him from yelling the sky was falling in the run-up to Y2K, so to keep listening to him and thinking he has a shred of credibility because he's singing your tune is simply intellectually dishonest, a lie to oneself, that deepest-of-cuts. The late (Milton) William Cooper--author of Behold a Pale Horse--even saw Jones as a fraud and a liar, as he would have known having beheld one in the mirror the majority of his short life. A wolf knows a wolf. I have to assume that the radio show's site has the show archived from yesterday, so hit it, I'm not going to listen that crap, it's infotainment for the terminally paranoid bigot (including people with a predisposition for psychosis who smoked too much pot, took one-too-many hits of LSD).

The dead speak, again and again, accusing the living, even when they were the same kind of fraud--especially because they were the same kind of a fraud. Jones could be caught in lies and mistakes forever and his moronic crowd would keep believing, like the flock led by another man with the same last name...

Behold, the persistence of stupidity: flogging a stale horse.

Listen, at your own peril: http://www.thealexjonesshow.com/listen.html

(Milton) William Cooper disussing Jones's December 31st, 1999 Y2K sham: http://www.archive.org/details/WilliamCooperDiscussesAlexJonesY2kHoax

"Twenty lines with the President," a fictional fiction, fictionally, by Charlie Sheen:

http://chickasawpicklesmell.blogspot.com/2009/09/twenty-lines-with-president-fictional.html

Arlen Specter surprises again: Reintroduces legislation to allow 9/11 lawsuits against Saudi ruling-class to move forward

Washington D.C.--If there's anything one can say about the senator from Pennsylvania, it's that he's unpredictable and probably really does have this nation's best interests at-heart--in his own mind at least. We'll set aside the magic-bullet theory for a moment...

This week--on December 21st--Specter called on the floor of the Senate for the passage of legislation that would allow lawsuits initiated by thousands of survivors (as well as the families of those killed and insurance companies) of the terrorists attacks on September 11, 2001 to move forward, and introduced the proposed bill with bipartisan support from no less a non-man than Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), although I'm sure it's purely a political move on his part since it's not likely to pass, at least not on his watch.

That would require will and real support, something Graham and others in both major parties aren't inclined to do since there's a lot of money at stake, never mind the destabilizing effects actual justice directed at the Saudi ruling-clans would have on the world's oil supply and the global economy. The coverage in the mainstream media--once again--has been virtually non-existent.

It's not his first time, and he began this road in late 2003 with roughly the same reaction, meaning indifference if not obstructionism. On October 25th, 2007, Specter introduced the "Saudi Arabia Accountability Act" that was designed to accomplish essentially the same aims, meaning dragging the Saudi government and various institutions and charities into the light and allowing lawsuits to proceed that are currently being barred by the State Department (the executive branch) and questionable Federal Circuit Court rulings, more recently in the 2nd Circuit:

Specter (D., Pa.) said the legislation would clarify that lawsuits by U.S. citizens could go forward without a sign-off from the State Department.

A federal appeals court in Manhattan last year dismissed claims against the Saudi government, saying such litigation can proceed only if the State Department finds that the Saudis provided financial aid and other assistance to terrorist groups.
Besides clarifying the law, the bill would reinstate those lawsuits.
The Philadelphia law firm Cozen O'Connor has sued Saudi Arabia, members of the Saudi royal family, and more than a dozen Islamic charities, alleging responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. The Cozen lawsuit, on behalf of dozens of U.S. and international insurers that lost billions of dollars at ground zero, accuses the Saudi government of financing charities that in turn laundered money into al-Qaeda. ("Specter looks to revive 9/11 suits against Saudis," Philadelphia Inquirer, 12.24.2009)

This is all very new since Americans have never been allowed to sue a foreign power without the permission of the executive branch through established channels at the State Department. In other words, this is a new right that Senator Specter is proposing, an expansion of legal recourse for the American people that should have been in-place generations ago.

Granted, this is just a new submission of essentially the same legislation he's been proposing since as early as 2003, but he's not giving up, and neither should anyone concerned at getting to the bottom of what happened. The problem for the "truther" movement is that this doesn't fit the anti-government agenda or many of their theories that go in the same direction (nowhere), so we can expect a general lack-of-enthusiasm let alone any noise over this from them. They're hardly alone in the business: there are extremely powerful players in the financial and political sectors whose ties to the Saudi regime run deep. Instead, hundreds-of-thousands are running around in denial with their science fiction theories that would never stand the legal test in a court of law.

This is why the last administration did everything it could to keep these things from going anywhere, and likewise for the new one. Rather than actually protecting the American people then, what we have is a sham in the so-called war on terror, making it blatantly reminiscent of that other failed war, the war on drugs. Who's side are they on anyway? Do we really want to get to the truth at all? If not, we need to stop talking about concern over the victims and using them as a political hot-potato, now. Frankly, it was always distasteful, but this is probably another reason that Graham signed-on with Specter as a co-sponsor, to cover his and the GOP's ass for the next elections hoping everyone's forgotten their real role in all of this.

Here are a few things remarked on by Specter when he introduced a similar bill in 2007 that "truthers" (their "truth" being highly-selective) tend to ignore:

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, evidence has emerged indicating that support for al-Qaeda, Ramas, and other organizations has come from Saudi Arabia.

Testimony presented to several Congressional committees, including the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Judiciary Committee, and Intelligence committees in both houses, has indicated that Saudi Arabia is an epicenter for terrorist financing. These committees have also found the Saudi government's cooperation in investigations into the al-Qaeda terrorist network has been lackluster.

In the 108 Congress, as a member of the Governmental Affairs Committee and as a member of the Judiciary Committee, we worked to establish a basic point that anybody who knowingly contributes to a terrorist organization is an accessory before the fact to murder; so when people contribute to al-Qaeda or Hamas, knowing that both organizations employ suicide bombers, they are accessories to murder.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted in 2001, mandates that all States "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts,'' take "the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts,'' and "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts.'' There is mounting evidence that Saudi Arabia has not been compliant with this resolution.

The 9/11 Commission interviewed numerous military officers and government officials who repeatedly listed Saudi Arabia as a prime place for terrorists to set up bases and found that "Saudi Arabia's society was a place where al-Qaeda raised money directly from individuals through charities.''

The Council on Foreign Relations concluded in a 2002 report that "for years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for al-Qaeda, and for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye.''

There are indications that, since the May 12, 2003, suicide bombings in Riyadh, the Government of Saudi Arabia is making a more serious effort to combat terrorism. That said, I would like to draw attention to the following findings recanted by organizations which have studied the record of the Saudis.

In a June 2004 report entitled "Update on the Global Campaign Against Terrorist Financing,'' the Council on Foreign Relations reported that "we find it regrettable and unacceptable that since September 11, 2001, we know of not a single Saudi donor of funds to terrorist groups who have been publicly punished.''

A joint committee of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives issued a report on July 24, 2003, that quotes various U.S. Government personnel who complained that the Saudis refused to cooperate in the investigation of Osama bin Laden and his network both before and after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It should be remembered that the Saudi regime executes their own citizens publicly in Riyadh with beheadings and amputations for violations of religious laws in what is a theocratic dictatorship. Interestingly, there's no entry for the legislation for either December 21st or the 24th (the date of the Philadelphia Inquirer coverage) on his own web page, but the story is gradually getting out there. This pretty much spells-it-out in a clear and basic form that should be understandable to anyone who can read and comprehend, and Specter is hardly a radical.

Neither is Charles Schumer (D-NY). What's radical in the current political culture, however, is for this legislation to go anywhere at all. Is this about justice or agendas? Go ask Alex Jones. Go ask the Obama administration. They're against any such moves that the senator from Pennsylvania is suggesting. But Specter appears to feel that the prospects for the bill and its main-thrust are good, stating, "I think it will pass." Let's hope so since the Saudis aren't about to stand down anytime soon without sanctions. Think what you want, but government is the only answer in all of this, surely not oil companies and trusts.

"Specter looks to revive 9/11 suits against Saudis," Philadelphia Inquirer, 12.24.2009: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/homepage/20091224_Specter_looks_to_revive_9_11_suits_against_Saudis.html

Arlen Specter's Floor Statement on the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2007, introduced October 25, 2007: http://specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsRoom.ArlenSpecterSpeaks&ContentRecord_id=f6853748-1321-0e36-baae-0e4b60c0cd96&Region_id=&Issue_id=bd50d272-7e9c-9af9-72de-559d0e9aeed9

Why the conspiracy view of history?

It's an American tradition going back to right before the "revolution," or what Marx accurately described as "a slaveholder's rebellion." What was the conspiracy then? That a "papist" takeover of the colonies was coming and that the Vatican was going to install a government through dictatorship to force Catholicism on protestants, and it was commonly-held. Many believed it was real at the time.

But never mind that the conspiracy view of history has been debunked over-and-over again by academic historians throughout the world (then, bringing the predictable counter-claim that they're "part of the conspiracy"), the people who think "it's all a conspiracy" are rarely ever going to listen to reason. I won't reiterate the ones going around these days among the fringes, they don't even deserve repeating. The fact is, we know generally what's going on, and that's not to say that it's comforting.

But a friend recently made the observation that, "Everyone wants to be a victim," and therein lies the crux of this form of unthinking: it's part of the personal narrative to paint ourselves as the victim, especially when we are not. The fact is, we made the mess that is America because we tolerate the way things are. We are complacent. We are lazy. We are jaded. We are spoiled, and more-than-a-few of us are nuts. The witticism that, "Americans get the government they deserve," applies here and to our common era. For those who fight against this, I believe they're simply intellectually dishonest, possibly disturbed. Make no mistake: we know the face of tyranny when it stares at us, and often, it is us, our shadow side, our own shade, the sum-total of our own loathsomeness.

Some observations on them thar' "FEMA internement camps" (that'll learn ya'!)

WWW--Let me make this crystal clear: if you believe this meme, you're probably either gullible, crazy, or both, but you're assuredly rocketing towards crankdom, even with the mess we're in right now, and it's a big mess brought to us from many of the same people making these claims. The first time I ever heard of this stupid meme was in a poorly produced and heavily-slanted videotape from the nefarious and long ago discredited Linda Thompson, a former Indianapolis attorney who cranked-out a few documentaries on Waco that were--to put it politely--conflated alarmist crap.

There was an earlier example during Iran-Contra: "leftist" anti-intervention activists were running around with their heads cut-off when it was revealed that Oliver North had considered arresting and detaining some of them in the event of an invasion of Nicaragua. It never amounted to anything, and never would have, it was North being G. Gordon Liddy, meaning batshit crazy. The overreaction was equally nuts and added to the hyped post-Watergate paranoia infecting the body politic, and it has continued into today. Thompson continued this meme in a way that could only be of benefit to Republicans, and didn't invent it, but popularized it in a way unlike ever before, and when the Internet was primarily the domain (pun intended) of geeks and IT wackos (like elements of the Legion of Doom) who thought like herself.

According to the SPLC, Thompson is currently living in North Carolina right now, where she must feel right at home. After calling for a militia attack on the nation's capital in 1995, she was thoroughly discredited, even among her "allies"on the right and throughout the militia movement in the Midwest. Her time was up at the mic. If you live in N.C., tell her hello, photograph her, and post it online. She deserves further scrutiny for the mess she left behind, now spreading like syphilis all over the Internet, but again, she didn't invent this meme, but she exploited it and popularized it further. It never surprised me that Thompson was working out of Indianapolis at the time, and she was good for a time, very clever. But it got out of hand as it tends to. For a few minutes, she had me fooled, but I was in college at the time and young (naive). But unlike the people who still cling to this pathetic belief, I grew out of it quickly.

Working out of a strip mall next to a Dominoe's Pizza (shades of the wacko Jack T. Chick who's been making similar claims for decades along with the John Birch Society), she had created her garbage anti-government propaganda, garnering as much as $300,000 from over-credulous meth-addicts and down-on-their-luck farmers. Thompson truly was a darling of the Libertarian/militia right. In some ways she still is a kind of a "shade" or "phantasm" since her part of the meme has outlived her time in the spotlight. Just today, someone on Facebook told me with a sense of utmost certainty about (I'm paraphrasing), "FEMA camps being set-up to incarcerate American dissidents throughout the nation in time of a national emergency." Sound familiar? They might want to quit smoking dope and pull their head out of their ass, it's pointing rightwards.

Yes, there was something called CABLE SPLICER, GARDEN PLOT, COINTELPRO, and several other programs of the same kind during the chaos of the 1960s-70s, they were unconstitutional, and at least as far as we know, they were shuttered. Is this a good excuse to disengage from the political process? Who generally benefits from that? It tends to be the GOP. A takeover doesn't work as these people describe it, it comes in increments, and with them running around chasing ghosts they certainly aren't any threat to one. Great, they know hot to cut-and-paste, maybe even read.

What's interesting is that unless it fits their anti-government meme, Libertarians are generally unmotivated or silent on similar threats found in specific provisions of the Patriot Act and have yet to put up an even remotely workable or sustained fight against it at all, just more of their conspiracy theory yammering that would never stand up in a court of law or lead to the creation of any investigative commissions. When you believe this garbage, the very notion of political participation is out the window, and it's pathetic. Never mind that Libertarians (including Alex Jones in their nexus) and the militias were/are part of the far right. Never mind that they're not fighting the actual "good fight" against all of these post-9/11 attacks on our rights as groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), CREW, or the ACLU are; they just talk, write, and bloviate like the ineffectual children that they always were and are. None of what they do is ever going to reach a court of law unless it's them who has misbehaved, just look at Jones--just not if you've eaten recently.

Thompson did quite a job on some very ignorant and immature people throughout the Midwest and even the former Confederacy, and she chose her marks well. She was calculated. This kind of dysfunctional behavior is part of "the pedagogy of the oppressed," to borrow a phrase. One of the biggest problems now is that they're trying to infiltrate the antiwar movement and the progressive movement, and they're making some inroads. Additionally, they have some ties to the white hate movement, albeit indirectly in most cases. Frankly, that's good enough for me. There is a real threat, but it's not from the government, it's from the politicians who are leading us all over the cliff. There is no substitute for political participation.

Most of the politicians in Washington have strings coming out of their backs leading to Wall Street and its environs, and they're laughing all the way to the bank at the fringe populist minority, a group of oxymorons if ever there was one. The fact is, they're the minority and they're not part of the progressive movement in any real sense, but they are problematic and should be countered at every juncture and removed if necessary from these groups in a polite and legal fashion, as befits a truly progressive movement. No one said struggle was easy or that you weren't going to get your hands dirty, and these people are dragging us down a bit and muddying the waters. That's how it goes and how it's always been, and how it's always going to be. Accept that it's a part of your entire life--the struggle against unaccountable power--and you've made a very serious step towards adulthood.

A good summation of Thompson from the SPLC:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=367

Call for information on those pesky Libertarians...

WWW--Jaenelle Antas sated my appetite to remove these bastards once-and-for-all from any affiliation with the counterculture and the antiwar movement. I think this is very doable and I will be investing some more time in this area as I think the turds have been coming around trying (without any luck) to cause problems on this site and elsewhere. They should know that any attacks are going to be reported to law enforcement...

I've told Cindy Sheehan on her Facebook page that I thought she was making a mistake going on Alex Jones's radio program, and she was not only dismissive but made it personal. That's not a level-headed person. It helped me understand the problems that people have been talking and writing about regarding Sheehan over the last few years: the notoriety has gone to her head, and she's listening to the Sirens. The fringe-right has her ear when logic would dictate that they're part of the problem. She's fallen into the wrong side of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." She's got it all wrong--they're part of the enemy camp on the right and some of their rhetoric has seduced her, as has issues of convenience. I hate writing any of this about her.

Meanwhile, Sheehan falls deeper-and-deeper into a depressing irrelevancy, which was probably part of the plan of some of the people currently whispering in her ear. They didn't have to try too hard considering the target. Since at least the end of the American Civil War, provocateurs and spies of capital have done these kinds of things--there is plenty of precedent here. I'm all-but-certain she's been the victim of at least a few agent provocateurs.

Why mention Jones in a call for information about Libertarians? Because he's been closely-affiliated with them and is a "self-described" part of that other branch of the Lollipop Guild of little men and women on the far right, the lunatic fringe (the public has never supported their agenda in the polls or the voting booth). Listen to him and read him enough and this is patently clear. Jones has also had Naomi Klein ("Disaster Capitalism," a book whose premise and thesis I consider to be conflated--go back to Canada) and numerous others from the progressive movement/left on his program to woo them into neutralization, a trap, and simply to feed his ratings. Surely, this is a case of mutual masturbation if ever there was one. It doesn't hurt for the target to be overambitious and egotistical. Take your pick as to which one best describes Klein and Sheehan--or some permutation of both--but they're most assuredly blowing it by associating with these people.

You don't build bridges with people who are the fringe of the wrong side of history. Considering that they have nothing to offer in numbers should be a real indicator of their standing with the public. They're not going to change, and they're not especially significant. However, these people associating them are helping to change that a little by "mainstreaming" them a tad, not that the public is even remotely ready to buy their agenda that's barely different from that of the GOP. These juvenile clowns are also trying to make inroads through the "9/11 Truth (bowel) movement," truly a gaggle of fools if ever there was one, and that's not to say there isn't a cover-up (which doesn't automatically imply an "inside job," that's someone sneaking an arch-conservative agenda through the back door).

My own take? The Bush II administration was so corrupt and incompetent (and compromised thanks to direct-ties to the Saudi ruling-class) that they blew it. It's about oil, dummies. The rest has been a cover-up to protect them and unaccountable power in Saudi Arabia, just like at home. How often do the "truthers" talk about the Saudi connection, assuredly the "foreign state" found in the 26-27 redacted pages of the 9/11 Commission's report? That's not an invitation to a debate, incidentally, I don't do those unpaid, my time's worth something.

So here's the deal: I want information--any information--that's reasonably verifiable as in the case of the Antas story. I want intelligence on the Libertarian Party in any and every state in America, and even Canada. Mmm-hmm, I want the dirt, the bad-with-the-bad, but it must be reasonably verifiable and pertinent. We all have agendas, and mine is to remove their influence from the progressive movement and the counterculture once-and-for-all, an evil thing, I know.

This isn't about money on this side of the fence, this is about fixing our nation and our culture and moving on from the myth of the Wild West and the Frontier. It's time America grew-up. Unlike Jones and Nimmo, I'm not trying to sell coffee mugs, books, quasi-racist images of the president emblazoned on t-shirts, and heavily-edited DVDs of insane ranting about the Bohemian Grove and other examples of Libertarian non-sequitur babbling. I want dirt. This is about principles, and I don't pay sources.