"What's it all about? Where is this all headed?"

Hey, fuck if I know. Why you askin'? Because you want answers, right? The key is knowing which questions to ask. Right now, as I write this, the world economy is on the brink once again, the for the second time in under five years. Why? Because we won't change, we refuse to, we're creatures of habit. The yammerers will go on about how we need to "get back on the gold standard and eliminate the income tax," which was all disproved and thrown on the shitpile of human history, gone, over, done. I could say I believe in unicorns, but that gets as many laughs from people with a real education. Good luck on the last one in these here U-nited States.

Does that faze the terminally ignorant and insane? Of course not, and now you know why wars occur, and some very big ones are coming. "There will be wars, and rumors of wars," was perhaps the easiest prediction ever made, human beings are an incredibly stupid species, yes we are. You irrational dummies are really the death of everything, you reactionary fools on the right.

I've been talking about a collapse on this page for the last six years and have seen one coming for far longer. 2008 nearly did the job, or rather, we nearly did it on ourselves letting criminals in DC and on Wall Street to run amok with their thirty year crime wave. Finally, this shit is coming to a head: we either reform our financial and campaign systems, radically scale-back our military, and reinvest in our workforce, or forget, show's over. As horrible as I imagine things are going to get, this is fair, this is just. We should pay for our apathy, our ignorance, and our tendency to fuck everything we touch up. No touching, no more. 

South America saw the writing on the wall decades ago and has succeeded in cutting away our influence in the region, which is good, democracy and empire cannot coexist. Neither can democracy and vast, unchecked wealth and influence, power. In less than one generation, America will become a shadow of its former self, and if you think you have, you really haven't, you ain't seen nothing yet. We will become a true pariah state that no one in their right mind will do business with without major conditions. The scales are really going to fall from the eyes of Americans once they realize that all this "freedom" was only the power to buy stupid, plastic crap they never needed so some asshole can get rich and to then take the money to dismantle democratic traditions and institutions, that's where we're at, the final stages of capitalism.

Are we too far gone? I believe so. This doesn't mean there aren't things that can be done to save what's worth saving, but collapse appears to be the only way left out of what's becoming a very ugly, scary place to live. We currently incarcerate more people than Russia, China, and all the other worst human rights offender nations on this earth combined, and we enslave them in what's called "privatized prison labor." The war on terror has eroded so many rights I've lost track, maybe even the surveillance state has too, let's hope so. 

Where is the outrage? It's where knowledge would have been in the minds of an ocean of profoundly ignorant Americans, waiting to be informed and  activated. Now you know why the Republicans and Democrats are defunding education (who wants to read anyway?). Ignorant people are easily controlled. But enough about the right, Libertarians, and irrational Obama supporters who refuse to criticize him for what is wrong.with his shredding of the Constitution in the war on terror.

For similar reasons, we're going to collapse as the former Soviet Union did a little over two decades ago. It's overdue without reform. What happens in the aftermath is determined by what we do now, and then. It had better be logical, natural, disciplined, united, and constructive. The alternative is everyone killing each other. When the rich have kicked away the social contract, this becomes not only possible, it can become inevitable. Without a sense of a whole, connected polity--a society--there is no point, and all will be lost. All the luxuries many enjoy, perhaps even the ability to feed oneself adequately, the right to vote, to be safe in one's person, to be able to travel without restrictions, to be able to assemble with others for political expression--all this can vanish in the blink of an eye in the current atmosphere. 

Will some get richer from a collapse? I don't think so, this is going to be more fundamental a collapse than that, what could have occurred had there been no FDR or New Deal, and that's where we're at right now. Yes: even the rich are going to lose their asses on this one. It will at least be worth it for that one. Everyone with a patch of dirt might consider taking up gardening since that could be all that's going on in the US soon.

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.

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/

Product review: "Throwback" Pepsi™

How long ago was it since I had a real Pepsi ™ or a real Coke ™, or any other kind of soft drink for that matter? It must have been the early 1980s, but no later than 1986. When did the onslaught of HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) begin? Under Reagan ™, when else would it have begun? Well, OK, as usual, it's not as simple as that. It took successive administrations of Republicans.

For close to an entire generation American soft drinks, and many other beverages, have had this garbage pumped into it, contributing to making many in that generation sick and obese. The soft drink corporations wanted to sell us more of their fizzy-liquids and there were incentives all over the place for corn farmers to implement corn syrup production for use as an all-purpose sweetener (of bottom lines). Note the next time trade agreements between the United States and other nations occur. The recriminations over subsidized American agricultural commodities are sound.

So began one part of this trend so that King corn could thrive at the taxpayer's expense:

Previously neglected because of low yields and bad coloring, HFCS became an industrial reality in the 1960s, when a xylose isomerase enzyme was successfully used to convert glucose into fructose at levels of 42% fructose and higher (Landis 86). That breakthrough, in conjunction with the fact that corn is both planted on nearly 80 million acres (Baker) and is subsidized in the USA (Hopkins), led to a huge gain in HFCS’s popularity because HFSC soon became cheaper than actual sugar. In fact, the “use of HFCS grew rapidly, from less than three million short tons in 1980 to almost 8 million short tons in 1995” (Forristal). Furthermore, “during the late 1990s, [the] use of sugar actually declined as it was eclipsed by HFCS… [And] today Americans consume more HFCS than sugar” (Forristal). ("HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP: HISTORY, SPREAD, and CONSUMPTION," Cosmos Cluster 7, 25 July, 2009, UC Davis.edu, P.2)

The links to adult and even child diabetes and obesity are gradually coming in from academic studies and are sure to continue coming in; but just take a look around the social landscape. We've gotten fatter. The worst part of all of this is the sheer number of sources that Americans get HFCS from, but one of the most jam-packed ones is from soft drinks. The average American gets 200 calories-per-day from HFCS. No one ever accused Ronald Reagan's administration--or subsequent ones--correctly that they were against subsidies for large-scale farmers and agribusiness. Reagan was all for it. So was most of Congress during the 1980s, and selling to grain to the former Soviet Union didn't bother them either. Pork? Don't get me started.

Just a few years ago I was shopping at a local supermarket chain and lo-and-behold, in the Mexican foods section was a real find--Mexican Cokes. Who cares, right? Me! Other shoppers, other households, who remembered what soft drinks used to taste like previous to the 1980s! The truth is, the problems really began--as they often did--under Richard Nixon:

In 1973, Earl "Rusty" Butz, President Nixon's USDA chief, did away with the agricultural price supports introduced by the Roosevelt administration. These supports were intended to protect farmers' finances by limiting supply when bumper crops would have otherwise flooded the market and to avoid squeezing consumers by releasing the warehoused grain when crop yields were low and prices would naturally spike. Butz ginned up political support for the administration by encouraging farmers to plant "fencerow to fencerow" while the government provided them with subsidies to cover the difference between market prices and production costs.
Of course, growing "fencerow to fencerow" did exactly what one would expect: production exceeded demand, and prices took a dive. This didn't sit too well with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the nation's largest corn refiner.

Now, there's only so much corn one person can eat. ADM suddenly needed to figure out how to somehow stimulate sales of all that excess food. ("America's Crazed Corn Habit," Mises Institute, 12.22.2009)

Thanks again Dick! Indeed, we are "all Keynesians now," and so was Reagan! I could have told you that, and I'm not even remotely an economist.

The best part about those Mexican Cokes™ was that they were in glass-bottles, so icing them up wasn't going to be a problem, that taste was coming, and those coveted bottles didn't disappoint at all. Why? Because Mexico doesn't have the kinds of crop subsidies we do on corn, they don't put HFCS in everything for that and a variety of other reasons, they got it right. I bought-up as many of them as I could that summer, it was a real treat, and it ended quickly. The local bottler had them pulled, they're gone.

But how did throwback Pepsi™ taste to these buds? Coupled with the vintage packaging, it was like being rocketed back to better times--or at least better than now, the 1970s. I was literally taken aback at how familiar it tasted, I hadn't forgotten after decades of HFCS film on the surface of every soft drink (and the roof of my mouth), even in fruit juices! Childhood memories and images flooded into my brain after that first sip. It was truly refreshing in the best sense of the word. I could recall some blistering summer days that were punctuated with a Pepsi™ or a Coke™, and they tasted so much better back then because they were made with cane sugar rather than HFCS.

I didn't notice as much of a change with their throwback Mountain Dew™ (before there was meth...), but the Pepsi was perfect, and the throwback packaging really takes me back to another America. Not necessarily a better one, but one before the fall of America to Reaganism and a slimmer public! Oh yeah, and early in 2009 it was found that mercury is often found in trace amounts in HFCS.

http://www.pepsithrowbackhub.com/

Biased, but in a reasoned sense (better to err on the side that HFCS's bad): http://www.highfructosecornsyrup.org/

"America's Crazed Corn Habit," Mises Institute, 12.22.2009: http://mises.org/daily/3934

And they saw that it was hideously flawed: The Day God Died (a very short story with dissolves and flash-forwards)

In the beginning, there were six-packs and microwaveable meals, and they were good, or at least better than nothing at all, so quit yer bitchin'. Nobody ever got hurt--muchly--and all mimsy were the Borogroves, not even a mouse. There was something I was going to write, about some "City on a Hill," but they say the place has fallen into disrepair...you really don't want to go there, trust me on this one (worse than Detroit).

And the Lord spake far too often when there were no people around to hear it, then silence for thousands of years when there were and spake again saying, "Let there be light...oh shit. Did I pay the electric bill for last month? Oh boy. There I go again!" Yet somehow, there was light, and it too was good for a time until the bill collectors came. Six thousand years passed, somehow missing the dinosaurs and several ice ages by a mile, and then it was time to go to bed again, day-in, day-out, I tell ya'...

And they found that God's all about non-sequiturs, so he must be a Libertarian: One day in the 21st century (because you can do flash-forwards and even dissolves in allegory), a corporate executive belatedly died of a heart attack in his very posh home office in upper state New York. Like most CEOs, he was a criminal asshole and nobody cared when his time came, but you have to put these people somewhere after they're six feet under, so he made his way to the afterlife. No, the streets aren't paved in gold there either, so quit asking! "What idiot would believe such bullshit?" shrugged St. Peter. No one knew.

"I'm here to win!" said the CEO to the beleaguered bureaucrat manning the Gates of Heaven. Peter grinned.

"It appears that you have lost, schlub, but I got an idea a week ago I want to try out, so come with me." He took the CEO by the hand like fathers do with their drooling children at Wal-Mart and they ambled down the crumbling halls of a crappy Ministry in a dank, smelly corner of the afterlife. The stink of piss was everywhere, and the walls of Heaven were covered with obscene graffiti. Worst-of-all, someone had written "J.D. Salinger," which confused the executive since he'd never read a book after high school, or even that much during it.

"What's that?" said the CEO as they were looking at a hole in reality into a flat plane below. Tiny dots appeared to be moving on the surface, and it reminded the executive of his many flights over Ohio--the sprawl, with capillaries and arteries of commerce spreading out like a bubbling cancer, eating-away at the surface of the plan.

"That's limbo, also known as suburbs. No actual life takes place there."St. Peter retched while the suited Golem looked down at the scene below wishing he had a piece of the action.

"Right," said the CEO with that absolute certainty all the ladies love. They kept on further down the labyrinth of halls, endless halls, all growing darker and more disintegrated as they went. At times the walls seemed to exist merely as rapidly vibrating vapor and the CEO was able to stick his arm through them. "Nifty," he said, and shrugged.

"Keep talking kid, keep talking," said his divine escort laughing softly as old men often do.

Finally, they reached an enormous set of double-doors, bronzed and festoomed with lavishes of spirals, eyes, and flora. At the heart of the door was the design of a man who was in the center of a circle, his arms and legs endtended-out in the shape of a rightside-up Pentagram. All was silent and even the pair themselves were completely immobile. There is no movement in the presence of the divine, no action...but suddenly, there was. A deep moan pervaded the hallway and seemed to emanate from everywhere, then abruptly faded away as a sickly gurgle.

"What's that? the executive asked nervously.

"That was the death of God," St. Peter said, laughing and nodding wisely.

"What killed God?" he asked. St. Peter looked at the executive sadly.

" 'What'? You mean 'who.' Why, you did. Your very existence accomplished it."

"That doesn't make any sense to me. What do you mean? I've done everything right in life, been successful, did what I had to do to get ahead, and..."

"All fine and well, but did you ever consider the beauty of a Beethoven symphony, or the divinity in children laughing and playing in peace? Did you ever see the worth in all human beings, that every life is sacred in the end? Have you ever pondered in your life why mankind yearns for more, the loneliness, the angst that created the great works of art? Did you ever try to control your animal-impulses and be the better man? Did you ever try to improve yourself? Have you ever taken a stand in your life for what was the right thing to do for others?"

"Nope, none of those--hey, are you communist or something.?"

"Yes, I thought not, and that's why you were brought here. You see, you're lack, the temporal evidence that God created something imperfect, and therefore, was imperfect himself. Your mere proximity was enough to finish the job of an already dying deity that was in the denial stage of the grieving process. I can sleep the sleep of ages now, but first..."

Someone started hacking their way through the double-doors. With an abrupt kick, a man with wild, greasy hair and a thick-mustache crashed through. He was wearing a beautiful red robe studded with Hermetic symbols on a gold-red lame background, clutching a staff, wearing jack-boots. His eyes were both of the darkest night and the brightest day.

"Who's that? said the executive.

"That's Nietzsche, here to fix some shoddy craftsmanship."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing, you are lack, you never existed."

Nietzsche spake, "The last man has come...and where's the nearest bar anyway?"

"Can I finally sleep?" said St. Peter.

"Soon, but there's a universe to fix! We're off!"

As well all know, such an allegory is preposterous, impossible. Nothing so absurd has ever been contended by any religion at any time in human history, except at lunchtime and before bed.

Throbbing Gristle's April 25/26th, 2009 Chicago shows

“We aren’t interested in show business, so shut the fuck up.” --Genesis P. Orridge

I had the extreme pleasure of seeing both sets of the April 25th show in Chicago this year. There were several Chicago musical "luminaries" there--most incognito--but I recognized a few here-and-there, just as I had at Psychic TV's 2004 Empty Bottle gig where I literally bumped into Genesis P. Orridge on the way out the front door for a smoke.

The Logan Square Auditorium concerts were the first time that TG had ever played the windy city on what was a four city tour (major ones only) of the United States. The last time Gristle played America, that rough beast heading towards Bethlehem was...residing in the White House, but that era's finally coming to a screeching halt as many of us suspected it would. America looks-the-grimier for it, maybe we'll avert ecological catastrophe, maybe not, but besides ourselves, we'll know who to blame: industrialists, and not the kind that play concerts. Logan Square Auditorium is a pretty old room and it was becoming apparent just a few minutes into the set that the structure of the building was never going to be the same, ever again. If you loved extreme music, this was going to be your night, and I spotted people in "Coil," "Can," "Kraftwerk," and even "Popol Vuh" (the last three being "krautrock" groups) t-shirts, something I'm certain to never see again in one place.

You didn't need to be on drugs to feel your consciousness being altered at the show, it was riveting, devastating, and in a way that's beyond rare. From the first set, which was an improvised soundscape to the late Derek Jarman's "In the Shadow of the Sun" (1980) made expressly for the group to score, to the second, comprised of a mix of oldies and new material, it was very much as the accounts of TG had always said they were: they were so powerful that they will change your consciousness forever, a completely immersive and subversive experience all around. Nietzsche said that there were only two Christians: "Jesus and St. Francis." Many have said that there was only one industrial group ever, Throbbing Gristle, and I would be hard-pressed to disagree with them. There's an unmistakable feeling when one bears witness to artistic truth, and like some kind of religious experience, it's irrefutable, and likewise, immutable. The occasion was truly historic, like having the good luck of catching the Velvet Underground.

The speaker columns were possibly some of the tallest I've ever seen and with every air-molecule vibrating violently, and the sensation within the crowd was akin to what it must be like to swim in a pool of jello, you could literally feel your innards moving. Beyond that, there was the sensation of something much bigger than the people creating the music, the sounds, and the people witnessing it, something you cannot put a price tag on, nor something you can sully with money. It was a shared and communal experience.

The link below will take you to a downloadable file of the second set, enjoy (or don't). Play at as high a volume as possible. It won't be exactly the same, but it should give you a pretty good idea of what it was like. TG allowed audience members to come into the Logan Square Auditorium without any searches. Read the quote above, and it will all make sense. Public music is public. You put it out there, or you do not, because once it is out there, it's no longer entirely yours. If money is all an artist is concerned about, it's no longer about the music or connecting with people anymore, it's just more business-as-usual, over-the-counterculture, commodified and dead at your door. Downloads don't seem so evil after that, but please support your favorite artists anyway.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/zmw4ndwkozk/Throbbing%20Gristle%202009-04-26%20Chicago.rar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_8Q7mOnn-8

"You can't change the world"

WWW--Ever heard of global warming? Economic development? You know, I was hoping to change the world by lunch tomorrow, but I can't fit it into my schedule--could you do it on the way home? And get some milk too? Thanks. I can't think of a better example of a straw man argument than that one. You express outrage over the way things are and you automatically get branded Superman, the messiah, the one who's supposed to fix it all. You know: daddy. I'm not saying everyone who pulls this kind of a move is being dishonest on purpose; were it that easy.

This is all about will which the status quo at least shows, as destructive as it is. One should hardly be surprised at their contempt for the victims that don't fight back. "Can't change the world?" They never heard of it, there's no such thing. What does someone mean when they say it then? That they feel powerless and that they've given up on doing anything at all. And who said confronting power had to be unpleasant? I'm having a very entertaining ride, yes indeed, it's not boring.

It's very simple: either you've accepted the mantle of victimhood, or not. If you reject it that then means you have to make some kind of effort at thinking about your place in the scheme of things and what you might have to contribute to the struggle against unaccountable power everywhere. That's inconvenient, a cardinal sin in a consumer society, so it's all on the "complainer." That's skyhigh B.S. and a defense mechanism.

Contrary to what some say, this does not mean that the entire fate of the world rests on your shoulders, a contention that needs no further comment. In other words, this is about getting real, which is the last thing most Americanized people are capable of. When you express hope for change and the fact that citizenship is a lifetime responsibility, you're reminding someone who has given up that they've copped-out and they're being irresponsible. The world is broken-up generally into "hawks" and "doves," victims and victimizers. That's not happy wisdom, but there it is. Struggle is eternal, accept it, or it will come looking for you one day.

Why else would someone irrationally put the entire onus on you? Now you understand the meaning of the term "working stiff." Dead man walking, dead man walking, dead man walking...

Former DC Madam Montgomery Blair Sibley: "Jeane and Psychics"

WWW--Beginning this week, former DC Madam attorney Montgomery Blair Sibley has begun a blog recounting some biographical details on himself and his erstwhile client, and some of them are pretty surprising, even to these eyes:

Starting in the 1980s – when Jeane was running her “Unique Club for Men”, an in-call massage parlor disguised as a barber shop in Orlando, Florida – Jeane regularly visited the community of Cassadaga, Florida. As the website for Cassadaga states: “Through the years, many psychics have enjoyed reading in Cassadaga due to the ethereal vibrations with Spirit and clients with utmost clarity. These special

etheric vibrations emanate from the earth itself, sometimes called Ley Lines or energy Hot Spots. Known as “The Psychic Center of the World”, Cassadaga continues today as the premiere psychic community and is home to some of America’s finest psychics.”

It was a psychic there in the mid 1980s who told Jeane that her business was under investigation by the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation and she should leave town. In short order, Jeane sold the business and left Orlando for San Diego, California.("Jeane and Psychics," Amos Probos.blogspot, 04.17.2009)

This jibes with comments Jeane made to me, and a curious pen pal who came along during the proceedings through a third party email service who claimed to have been Jeane's personal astrologer. They used a pseudonym, but it wouldn't surprise me if Hazil Tomim, mentioned later in the blog post.

What's interesting is that I believe Tomim told Palfrey that the case would come out in her favor, just as the pseudonymous pen pal stated to me. Considering the issue of abatement, they could be right; Palfrey's family could very well get back most of her assets from the federal government thanks to the fact that she died before sentencing. For anyone foolish enough to believe Jeane was murdered by the federal government, there's your motive for suicide, she was adamant that they weren't getting her assets under any condition.

She meant what she said, contrary to the ravings of Alex Jones, Constantine, and Kurt Nimmo, and she said it to me and many others, including more than a few journalists. It's going to be interesting if I'll even be mentioned in Sibley's 600+ page tome on his experience of the Palfrey saga. At the very least, there will be some interesting primary material in addition to the attorney's take on his client, the government's prosecution, and whatnot.

It appears--contrary to my own earlier fears--that Mr. Sibley is going to go with the fairly obvious fact that Ms. Palfrey was guilty, to his credit. Be sure to check-out the conspiracy coffee mugs and t-shirts at Prisonplanet and Infowars, they're a hoot!

"Jeane and Psychics," Amos Probos.blogspot, 04.17.2009: http://amoprobos.blogspot.com/2009/04/jeane-and-psychics.html