Culture of Life News Guest Blog

2006-11-15T22:02:00.000-05:00

They're taking the hobbits to Isengard

2006-11-15T21:25:00.001-05:00

Jefferson Airplane- White Rabbit

2006-11-15T21:25:00.000-05:00

Jefferson Airplane- White Rabbit

2006-11-15T09:11:00.000-05:00

Tsunami

2006-11-14T09:52:00.000-05:00

METROPOLIS - Fritz Lang 2006 Promotion

2006-11-14T09:43:00.000-05:00

Titanic 1943 German Version

Alternate Reality: Jenna and Babs Become Patriotic

2006-01-06T21:39:00.000-05:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

11 American soldiers died yesterday. Bush had a fake photo-op while they died in agony. His daughters and nephews still refuse to do their obvious patriotic duties. So here is a look at the First Couple in a fantasy where they paid the same price the average American has paid for this war.

Oh, dear! Time to dust off the Jenna/Babs memorial flags on the mantle! La, la, la! I love doing this!

Hic. Yesssh. Whossse Babs? Gimme another beer, beeeyitch.

I am so terribly happy they read "Yellow Elephant" and decided to stop being wastrels and join up to fight in Iraq! The happiest day in my life was to learn they died for America! La, la, la, la! Isn't it wonderful, dying for America? Every mother should be thrilled to lose a child in Iraq.

My Carlyle shtocks shot up. Hic. Yesssh. God blesh America. Whoopee.

Well, now when that Cindy Sheehan bitch tries to camp out at my doorstep, I can yell, "I gave at the office" back at her now! Hahahaha! This is such a relief. Everyone showers me with pity and love because I sacrificed my daughters. Now I can hold my head high and laugh at those Gold Star Mothers Against the War, right, dear?

Kin ya call Condi and ashk her if I can go to the bathroom? Burp. Got to pee.

Hahaha. I'll give you permission!

But Condi walks on my back in high heelsh. I want her to be Mommy.

Where's my Adavan? And Praxil? Did you feed them to the dogs again, dear?

Hic. What dogs?

Meet Ed, Another Reader Of This Blog Who Blogs, Too

2005-12-14T14:09:00.000-05:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

It never ceases to amuse me, readers of this blog who also blog. One sees so many diverse sites this way. I really enjoy seeing into the minds and lives of my readers. So today, Ed has finally, after several emails, showed me his blog he just started. It is a window into another world if you live in the cold north, he being deep down in Dixie and all that.

From Ed Hunter's blog:

My great grandfather William A. Hunter (1842-1928) and his wife and their children settled in this area in 1879. He was here about 15 years before when he was fighting at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in the Civil War. He was shot in the knee and recuperated in the nearby town of Woodstock. After he was well enough to walk and the war was over he walked back to his home in Macon County, North Carolina, where his wife was waiting.

Within a year, he and his uncle Van Trammell (they were near the same age, most people thought they were brothers)had a heated discussion with a man who fought for the North. Van hit the man with a limb or a rifle and killed him. All evidence pointed to Van but his nephew William told the sheriff he was with him all day. Later the sheriff found out William told a lie and he too was involved in the slaying. They were wanted by the law. Van, a brother, and some sisters moved to Arkansas; William and his family moved to Texas.

Up until this point in time William went by the name of William Trammell. He was the son of Rebecca Trammell. Rebecca died before 1850 and he and his sister lived in the house of his grandparents, Jacob and Polly Trammell. He enlisted into the Confederacy with the name of William A. Trammell and also married Emaline Ray with the name William A. Trammell. But, possibly wanted for murder, he changed his name to William A. Hunter after he left.

Why did he pick the name surname Hunter? Because in 1842 his mother Rebecca Trammell sued Jason Henderson Hunter for Bastardy. Jason admitted he was the father and he was ordered to pay $100 a year in child support.

They tried to make a living in Texas but times were hard. They came back east and he looked up his friends he had made when he was recuperating from his wound in Woodstock, Georgia.

And now, about 126 years later I am here in Marietta, Ga., almost within the shadow of Kennesaw Mountain where he was wounded, and only 7 miles from his home in Woodstock.

OK. It is interesting to me, as someone who lived a fair part of my childhood in the south, that there are so many liberals down there who come from some of the hardest hard rock ribbed folk imaginable. Are we born under a blue moon? Did our mothers pick us up by accident from the hospital nursery?

All I know is, it is fun exchanging family tales. My own family has an, ahem, rocky history, too. This is why we used to say, "If you can see the smoke from someone's chimney, they are too close." Sometimes, when looking into family history, in books, they often start off with, "He was a terrible person," or "Now I will introduce a blackguard," or "Strange things happen to the Steeles during storms" (my all time favorite).

This is why we reached the West Coast in 1848. Ahem. Nothing like staying one step ahead of whoever is hunting you, right?

Anyway, thanks, Ed, for telling us about how your family discusses politics. I will argue with them once I finish cleaning ol' Betsy and I will take the dawgs along too, just in case.

And one last thing, did they nail that thar photographer, Ed? With looks like that....Well.

49 MEDIA IS HOSTING MY PICTURES

2005-09-20T08:31:00.000-04:00

The man behind the web site and his tremendously cute pup.

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

I periodically google my data to see if anyone is linking to my blog. This is part of the underground work of running a blog. Google is an uncertain platform since it uncovers only a slight skim of one's work but it can be useful, still. The other night, to my surprize, I found out about this web page: 49 Media: Camera Obscura. This site has a spider that crawls all around the web, seeking photos and media data, webcasts, etc. Then the person running the place organizes them. About a month ago, the spider snagged the picture of Richard showing him as the British Lion wih a Brit flag Tee shirt. That was a hit, evidently, with visitors to 49 Media and so it showed up in google!

I sent 49 Media an email and a cartoon:

and in a few hours, he replied with a photo of himself and his companion. In turn, it became the basis for a cartoon.

Drawing cartoons: I used to make my living doing this way back in the Ice Ages called "the Summer of Love" etc, in San Francisco and the Bay Area (housing costs caused many moves back in the vagabond days). It was a great way to make money as a student, better than waiting on tables. Then I had to get serious after leaving school. Reviving cartooning skills has been harder than I thought, expecially using a strange format, the Wacom pad. Looking up while scribbling down is hard work, I tell you! Gradually, it is getting better.

The stick figures are for quick pictures because I can do them in less than half an hour each. The more elaborate drawings can draw out for hours if I get really involved in them. Usually, I try to time it to under an hour. The photo cartoons are done in about five minutes each but seeking out photos is the time consuming part.

I usually use Yahoo photos and slideshowsto find pictures. They have a multi-level site that is easy to use if you have a high speed connection like I have. This is the only way to do heavy picture work. I used to have dial up years ago. Time crawled so much, I would play solitaire while waiting for simple downloads and pictures really messed it up.

Most blogs are text right now, if they have pictures, it is very limited. Most cartoon sites do one or fewer a day and I generally pop at least three a day onto the web. Some of them are buried within the stories. Sometimes I feel only cartoons can tell what is going on because it is so ridiculous, so stupid, stick figures are insulted by it all. Gads.

Anyway, welcome to 49 Media and let the blogs spread like molasses over a carpet! We will get everyone stuck!

Reading and looking.

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LITTLE ELMO (nome de plume) MEETS CINDY!

2005-08-30T22:37:00.000-04:00

Little Elmo, one of our visitors here, with Cindy Sheehan!

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

One of our regular visitors told us all he was going to Crawford to help out with the Peace camp there and here is his story with lots of neat pictures: Blind in Texas: (this blog is run by a vet, by the way)

Blogumentary: Camp Casey II, August 27, 2005
My alarm went off at 5am, and I leapt out of bed. After a quick shower I packed a light bag, kissed the wife and kids, and headed out of Austin toward Crawford. It took an hour and forty minutes to get to the Crawford city limit sign. Just a few miles past that on the right is Crawford Peace House...

There are many pictures, some touching, a good record of the place. For example, I didn't know about the peace maze which is laid out with stones and one can walk through it before going to the crosses which are dedicated to those who have died for this folly.

A good idea to seperate the experience of wandering about and then focusing on something important. Indeed, his description of the meetings and how things are run are very interesting. This is a well run outfit. I have run multi-day demonstrations before such as the 2 month one in front of the UN in 1989 and I am in awe with the sensible and well designed way of doing things at this camp.

I really wish I could pop in, too.

But we all can do this in the cyber-world!

This story was also carried by Wimpling Wings, another blogger who visits here and who is a great read, I visit her site daily. Just the art alone is worth many a click!

Keep you chins up, everyone! We must stick together!

Rough seas ahead.

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SPAGETTI DO-IT-YOURSELF RELIGIONS

2005-08-22T10:49:00.000-04:00

Picture from Earl Bockenfeld

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

Like myself, readers of this blog like to plumb the mysteries of space and science. Earl has a breaking news story (ahem):from his blog

This picture shows the nebula IC 8675, which as you can see is filled with Noodly structures! Not only does this image scientifically PROVE the existence of the FSM, I believe it shows His home in space." snip

The board for Beebe School District in Arkansas voted on 12 July to remove from textbooks stickers promoting an "intelligent designer" over evolution. Feedback wonders if they were influenced by an open letter to the State Board of Education in neighbouring Kansas circulated by Bobby Henderson, a "concerned citizen".

"Let us remember that there are multiple theories of intelligent design," is its crux. "I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster," Henderson affirms. "It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him."

He writes "to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories [creationism and evolution]." The full text is at Venganza.org and includes the argument that global warming correlates with the diminishing number of pirates. There is also a discussion forum and letters of endorsements from academics and leading scientists. Below is a small sample.

The Venganza url is a funny sight (site).

It is quite possible that we really could do a class action suit concerning Intelligent (sic) Design. After all, the real debate ceases to be evolution and immediately becomes "what is the Entity that created humans out of mud or spagetti or whatever junk was lying around the Creator's messy bedroom?" That seems to me to be a very pressing question and no teacher's manual should be without the long list of probable suspects and what things they used when making that disasterous creature, the ultimate Frankensteinian monster, humans.

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MAD COW NEWS HAS MY CARTOON

2005-08-17T10:32:00.000-04:00

By Elaine Meinel SupkisFrom Mad Cow News:

August 17,2005-Venice, FL.
by Daniel Hopsicker

Mohamed Atta was protected from official scrutiny as part of an officially-protected cocaine and heroin trafficking network with ties to top political figures, including Republican officials Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, and it was this fact—and not the “terrible lapses” of “weak on terror” Clinton Administration officials cited by Republican Congressman Curt Weldon—which shielded him from beingapprehended before the 9.11 attack.

Weldon alleges that Pentagon lawyers rejected the military intelligence unit’s recommendation to apprehend Atta because he was in the country legally, and therefore information on him could not be shared with law enforcement.

But the “terrible lapses” cited by Weldon do not stem from the nonsensical assertion that Atta had a green card (he did not) which rendered him immune from military investigation but were the result of an officially-protected heroin trafficking operation being conducted on planes like those of Wally Hilliard, whose Lear jet flew "milk runs" down and back to Venezuela every week for 39 weeks in a row before finally running afoul of local DEA agents not been clued-in on the 'joke.'

I am pleased to see my cartoons travel abroad. I hope to see more of this, but please remember to include the link back to my own site, for this blog is relatively unknown! This problem is mostly due to people forgetting to do this, blogging is a difficult task requiring hooking up many links and doing coding, etc.

So thanks in advance (oh, and let me know when any bloggers do link! This is how we make our internal web stronger...linking back and forth to each other!)

I do recommend Mad Cow. He does actual investigations, going literally door to door down in the swamps of Florida. His hard core research is ignored by the media because it clashes with everyone's orders from above. I really do treasure Hopsiker, he is always under attack because he steps on toes.

Right now, much of the left side of the web is bogged down in trying to debunk the Able information. They are worried that Clinton will be smeared by this. Well, Clinton will be smeared by everything just so that the rulers won't be disturbed as they try to devour us.

He is now immaterial since he is desperately trying to graft himself into the Death Machine for he tasted great living in the White House and now, unlike Eisenhower, for example, he wants to be rich. Reagan managed this by selling his services to the Japanese and rich Americans who then bankrolled his retirement which he didn't enjoy much, losing the remains of his brain pretty rapidly. But his widow lives on and she appreciates the money. The Bushes have turned their leadership into a vast money making enterprise. They don't serve America at all. And it shows. This is why all the economic data that matters are running very deeply in the red today.

Getting to the bottom of the cesspool of 9/11 is disheartening and infuriating because as one digs in the muck, one quickly discovers that this whole thing should have never happened. And that it has utterly warped our country setting us on the path of internal warfare and the country's divisions yawn.

One can only shake one's head in despair. Or fight back since we must. I recommend that we continue to struggle.

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HARASSING ANYONE AGAINST BUSH

2005-08-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

Our good friend here, Noel, isn't the only real vet from a real shooting war that the chickenhawks are harassing and trying to intimidate!

From Artic Beacon:

Don Stout looked up into the Midwestern sky one afternoon two weeks ago and saw a strange helicopter flying over his five-acre piece of land in rural Albany, Ohio.

Before he knew what happened, the 77-year-old long-time resident, law-abiding citizen and Korean War veteran had eight law enforcement officials swarm on his property, checking the place out for marijuana.

Never before having a run-in with the law, Stout said the heavy-handed looking group of law enforcement thugs “came and went without saying a word” after suspiciously looking at a large bush on his property not in the slightest bit resembling a pot plant.

“I’ve been here since 1994 and everybody’s knows me including the sheriff. I never smoked marijuana and they know it, but I think they just like terrorizing people,” said Stout in a telephone conversation from his rural home, adding he still hasn’t received an answer from anyone why law enforcement officials invaded his privacy and entered his land without a proper search warrant.

“It scared the hell out of me as eight or ten men swarmed my place. I was weeding my garden and the next thing you know, they were on my property, looked at this bush and left without saying a word. It was ridiculous, but the sheriff, the deputy sheriff and the game warden all raided my place for no reason and I am still looking for an explanation.”

Although Stout can’t pinpoint why authorities entered his property without a warrant, earlier that day he aired his strong opinions against President Bush, calling him an outright liar, on a free speech and truth-telling talk radio show on the popular WAIF AM770 local radio station.

Stout said he has been calling in regularly voicing his anti-Bush opinions, saying people in rural Ohio are finally starting to wake up to lies, deceit and treachery imposed on the American people by what he calls a “lying dog of a President.’

I have a message to all the right wingers running America: real vets from real wars aren't all that easy to scare. Nor is Cindy easily intimidated. Nor am I, for that matter.

From the Christian Science Monitor

Americans, it seems, would just as soon ignore the fact that 150,000 of our troops remain stationed in Iraq; that tens of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children have died in the crossfire; that some inadvertently have been gunned down at checkpoints where American troops - fearful, with good reason, of suicide attacks - sometimes shoot first and ask questions later; that the tens of billions of dollars we're investing there each year could handily cover health insurance for the millions of uninsured American children. And that even so, corruption in Iraq is rampant, unemployment stands near 50 percent, electricity is off more than on, and that nearly two years after the end of "major combat" reporters are still writing about the dangerous drive from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone a few miles away.

If the US government has figured out an exit plan, it's not telling us what it is. No. The message is strictly hail to the chief and let freedom ring.

You know, whenever anyone "remembers" this stupid war and posts pictures of soldiers being burned to tiny fragments, civilians being tortured or dying, children being blown up, we are attacked by our own government. We are harassed and harried. So it is no wonder only a small handful dare to stand up at this point.

But the numbers are now in our favor. The majority of Americans want to pull out now and they are 100% right but they aren't demonstrating because frankly, it is not only very dangerous, look at the guy shooting guns near Cindy while snarling at her and getting away with it! It is also useless since our media won't cover any of this except for Cindy, again, and she did us all a great favor, she is my personal hero right now, for doing it all where all those over fed, overpaid media whores are stuck, in boring Crawford, with nothing to cover except for Cindy!

Ha. So they were forced into this, thanks to her intelligent choices. Like mooing cows, they graze around her.

I remember organizing demonstrations against the Vietnam war. We yelled, we screamed, we stopped traffic and the cops and everyone attacked us with great viciousness. People who would have loved to come stayed home due to fear of arrest or death. This is why the established powers attacked even the smallest demonstrations.

Then they had to pull the student deferments because of the riots in the inner cities made drafting the poor there a lost cause. And draftees in Nam were fragging officers and rebelling, too. The very day the student deferments were pulled, my office was besieged with students begging for help.

That week, for the first time, we had an anti war demonstration of many thousands, all these students and their moms and sisters. This is what people remember. The easy days, when everyone didn't want to go including Bush and Cheney and Rummy and all the GOP leaders and many in the Pentagon today, none of them wanted to go and die in Nam and they didn't and we did the simple thing in the end: we pulled out and lost the war.

And that stopped the deaths. So simple. Of course, the natives continued to fight each other until that stopped when one side won. This is how it works in the real world. You fight until you retreat or win. If we want to fight to win, we have to complete our Nazification and simply murder all the Iraqis and complete the theft of their country.

Which was the whole point in the first place: to get the oil.

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EXPECT THE SECRET SERVICE

2005-08-14T18:19:00.000-04:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

Readers of the comments sections here know that one of our reader/commentators here, Noel, was visited by a trio of Secret Service agents. He wrote a piece about how he hoped Bush would have a fair trial and a punishment of the sort Texans love: execution. Namely, because of grave war crimes which are, to my mind, identical to the ones that allowed us to sentence Hitler's underlings to death, be applied in this case.

Of course, unlike Nazi Germany, we haven't been invaded and defeated...yet. So Bush can go on his happy, psychopathic, way.

The odd thing is, even today, at Atrios, for example, more than one poster wanted to put Bush on trial in the Hague and then apply Texan justice to him, if convicted. If the Secret Service had another 10,000 people to investigate all the people saying this, they would have to work 24/7 to keep up with the tidal wave of people here and overseas who want to see Bush and his neo-cons put on trial and punished appropriately.

Bush holds the American record for executing people in this century. Why would he be troubled by people who enthusiastically want this applied in his case? He should be rooting and tooting everyone who wants to see him put on trial and executed if found guilty. Why, we should all get the Medal of Freedom like the CIA director who snoozed before during and after 9/11 and who enabled Bush to lie about invading Iraq which is part of the charges against him, namely, the CIA winner of this Medal of Freedom is a co-conspiritor in the crime of making excuses for invading innocent countries which is what we charged the Nazis with after WWII and we hung them by the neck, a very Texan thing, don't you think?

Why is Bush shy about this matter? He and his fellow criminals should be estatic that we are all desiring a law abiding solution to the problem of greedy men seeking war profits and stealing natural resources of other people, seeing them put on trial for this since this is why the UN was created, to stop this garbage and stop illegal, nasty, thieving invasions and I do hope the Secret Service is reading this article!

Because Bush has a long history with the short arm of the law, namely, he has broken a significant number of laws and has been arrested more than once and his powerful daddy helped smooth over and cover up his considerable criminal past and why is this person who couldn't pass a Secret Service investigation if he wanted to work in the White House, be in the White House?

Indeed, the excuse of "well, I am on vacation all the time so I am not working so the SS doesn't need to investigate," well.

They should have investigated Bush before 2000. They should have uncovered the hidden and not so hidden arrest records. They could have spoken out about letting an obvious criminal take the helm in America. The fact that they worry about us bloggers talking about putting Bush on trial and then punishing him appropriately" is insulting to us real citizens who are law abiding.

Indeed, I was arrested exactly once. For jaywalking. Not cocaine dealing or drunk driving or stealing like Bush. Jaywalking. And I wasn't even charged, it was a front so the FBI could get my fingerprints. They tried to charge me with "inciting a riot" only I told the rioters to not riot so they had to drop that charge.

So there. Visit Treason Inc. for more details about Noel's chit chat with the SS. And if you want, tell them about this story. How many times I suggested that Bush be treated like his grandpa's business partners after WWII: put on trial and then hung. Texan-style. Then he can get on with his life and so can we.

More or less.

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BLUE BIRDS OF HAPPINESS

2005-08-09T15:05:00.000-04:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

One of our regular commentators here, Cosmic rays, has started her own blog, Wimpling Wings. Like myself, she was raised by a serious bird watcher. People who enjoy the company of the birds and the bees are very special people. My wonderful great godmother, Josephine Michener, was a renown bird watcher in California who started way back in the 1880s. She did one of the earliest observational studies of the California Great Condor. She also watched the birds in her wonderful yard.

Here is Cosmic ray's remininces:

From The Bird Guide by Chester A. Reed
copyright 1906, 1909

By now you've heard of the discovery in Arkansas of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker . For bird people this is revelation in the most religious sense, regardless of theology. It's existence cannot reverse the myriad tragedies being played out in our world, but it is a living memorial to countless lost treasures of nature and a reminder to hold to the good.

There is something in us that yearns for what has been lost. In dreams we find money in the sand or a toy or doll long since forgotten. I have a recurring dream of checking a mailbox I haven't been to in a while, and it's crammed with magazines and letters and even packages from years gone by. In another dream I happen upon objects I hadn't consciously thought about since childhood in some cases, and the people in these dreams are mostly those who have gone on ahead of me. I wake up feeling more whole somehow. It's sad - because the people and things are no longer here - but it says that reunion is possible, that recovery can take place.

When I was young I spent hours and hours studying my mother's bird guides. She was a member of the Audubon Society and was the president of the local chapter for a term. (Someday I should write about her bird watching friends. One lady's name was Hedwig Dilly, and she was from England. She made the most delicious spiced tea.) I remember especially - without going back to jog my memory - the Auk's egg - huge - and a hummingbird's nest - tiny. My favorites were the painted bunting, North America's technicolor specimen, and the saw whet owl, the most adorable, cuddly, sweet looking bird. The avocet was another, and I actually saw six of them in fall migration on the beach at the mouth of the Saint Joseph River.

It breaks my heart to think that people in future generations might be denied the glorious sights I've seen, and my experiences are rather small. Someone is watching out for the Ivory Bill, though. I wish there were a sanctuary for the whole world.

Bird watchers all over the world trade information about where best to see various species like some people exchange racing tips. We are very avid about this and one reason Chris and I chose our mountain was due to the birds here. We have red tail hawks, various owls, falcons, occasional eagles, kestrels, tons of song birds and of course, the crows and vultures. Ducks and blue herons as well as the common geese. There are wild turkeys on foot. And the eternal, cheeky chickadee.

I can't imagine living where there are no birds.

They lift our souls and they work for us, eating bugs, grooming the cows, moving seeds around, replanting the forests by freeing the nuts and seeds from close proximity to the overhanging mother plants. The world would be a much more desolate place if we didn't have the lovely singing, the flash of color, the mournful songs of birds.

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NOEL'S NOVELITES, RANSACKING ROVE

2005-08-08T21:51:00.000-04:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

One of our readers, Noel Adamson, has his own, fine, blog.

I was going to feature another posting of his, all are good, but today's is great.

Monday, August 08, 2005
The Rovian Speech Writing Machine v 2.0; Terrorism in Action

War is peace, hate is love, etc. Anyone who has read 1984 will recognize these words concerning the formula of achieving totalitarian control through language manipulation and terror. Perpetual war against one dreaded enemy or another and the subsequent, mostly voluntary, relinquishing of all liberty, humanitarian rights and humanity itself. While a majority of people can see this in Bush and his colleagues and followers Mike Malloy* has put together a good audio clip (15 minute MP3 about 2 megabytes)of Rovian BushSpeak with an explanatory commentary which shows very nicely how closely his canned speeches follow the formula for totalitarian control outlined in Orwell's book 1984. George Orwell worked for British intelligence and knew what he was talking about from inside experience. None of this was really new even then and Benjamin Franklin said;

"people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both"

With the slight possibility that traitor Karl Rove will be leaving his position as "Bush's brain", I have started a preliminary study for a script based on the Orwellian formula, to replace him at least as far as speech writing goes;

From Treason Incorporated, CLICK HERE

What follows are several sound clips that are really funny. Gads. What a clown, Rove is. Too bad, the press is a 3 Right Wing circus.

Listening to clips on the web is always fun. And many bloggers are fun, too. Hahaha. And I am so gloomy, talking about labor relations and Chinese diplomatic missions and the Space Shuttle.

Laugh. Or die. (Shall we tell New Hampshire this?)

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CTHULHU CREATION

2005-08-05T07:54:00.000-04:00

Verganza.org

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

One of our readers, Earl Bockenfeld, alerted us to the existence of a really great website run by Bobby Henderson. It has tons of pictures and hilarious artwork but even more, he writes funny stuff! Here is a sample:

From Venganza.org:

OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.

It is for this reason that I’m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I’m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence. What these people don’t understand is that He built the world to make us think the earth is older than it really is. For example, a scientist may perform a carbon-dating process on an artifact. He finds that approximately 75% of the Carbon-14 has decayed by electron emission to Nitrogen-14, and infers that this artifact is approximately 10,000 years old, as the half-life of Carbon-14 appears to be 5,730 years. But what our scientist does not realize is that every time he makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with His Noodly Appendage. We have numerous texts that describe in detail how this can be possible and the reasons why He does this. He is of course invisible and can pass through normal matter with ease.

I’m sure you now realize how important it is that your students are taught this alternate theory. It is absolutely imperative that they realize that observable evidence is at the discretion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Furthermore, it is disrespectful to teach our beliefs without wearing His chosen outfit, which of course is full pirate regalia. I cannot stress the importance of this, and unfortunately cannot describe in detail why this must be done as I fear this letter is already becoming too long. The concise explanation is that He becomes angry if we don’t.

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

In conclusion, thank you for taking the time to hear our views and beliefs. I hope I was able to convey the importance of teaching this theory to your students. We will of course be able to train the teachers in this alternate theory. I am eagerly awaiting your response, and hope dearly that no legal action will need to be taken. I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence.

Sincerely Yours,

Bobby Henderson, concerned citizen.

P.S. I have included an artistic drawing of Him creating a mountain, trees, and a midget. Remember, we are all His creatures.

I once went to Kansas University. Maybe we can get Bobby a job there, teaching. I know, he would be a fun professor, no? About Physics majors: I know many. Of course, my parents produced reams of such people over the years, at various universities and colleges.

A fun group of people. Seriously, fun at parties, at least to me, but then, I am very biased. It is pretty crummy that there are so few jobs for them and it is getting worse, not better, since our government and corporate entities have decided to farm out nearly all our "intelligensia" stuff. This is going to bite back, hard.

One major big time old friend, John, got the same degree and now teaches at a major technical institute....machine shop! He is fantastic at that but still....gads, it is so hard.

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USING MY CARTOONS ON YOUR BLOG

2005-08-02T17:19:00.000-04:00

By Elaine Meinel Supkis

Readers of my blog know I put up all sorts of cartoons and artwork which I created. One of the posters here claimed he created this cartoon. He even put it on his own photo service. I checked to see.

Taking someone's artwork without giving their URL is not a good idea. Claiming to be the creator is really dumb, to say the least. Especially when the cartoon bears all my artistic "fingerprints" all over it. The way I do the balloons, the things people say in my cartoons and the choices and the skill of the blending of the figures is all my style.

I happen to enjoy doing this artwork. It amuses me greatly. If any bloggers want my work and want to spread it around, I will be charmed, to say the least. All I want is credit and my URL so people come here, too. This is how we all help each other. I want this stuff passed around, a lot.

Just don't pretend to be the creator!

And feel free to use my email, I am a very gregarious person, on line. I love hearing from everyone. And seeing things grow bigger and bigger. We all want to grow together. And I can produce literally a ton of art and cartoons nearly effortlessly. I see a picture, I see the cartoon almost instantaneously.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Elaine Meinel Supkis, editor of Culture of Life News.

UPDATE: Earl's great blog. Do visit him, we had a misunderstanding. He has a really nice blog and I really recommend his page, Logan Square, Chicago. Here is a sample from his article, I am including the picture because I do believe I have played in this park when I was very young! My, oh my.

Olson Rug Co. was established in 1874. The manufacturing mill was located in Chicago at Diversey Ave. and Pulaski. During the World War II era, when raw material was scarce, people would send in their old wool rugs, rags, clothing etc. and Olson Rug would turn them into a beautiful area rugs. The family owned business was "the place" to buy rugs for many years. Alongside the factory was the renowned Olson Memorial Park. Walter E. Olson built the 22 acre park in 1935. One of the main reasons for building the park was to keep the Olson employees working and receiving paychecks during the dark days of the Depression.

The project took nearly six months to complete. About 800 tons of stone and 800 yards of soil were used for it's construction. Approximately 3,500 perennials were used along with numerous species of junipers, spruces, pines, arbor-vitaes and annuals. The park consisted of a stunning rock garden, duck pond, a 35-foot waterfall and debris from the Chicago fire.

A must read if you ever hung out in the Windy City.

NOEL WEIGHS IN ON CIA UTILITY

2005-07-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

From Noel Adamson

Tweedle Dee-Tweedle Dum and the new American Gestapo

Suddenly the the entrenched dogmatic party line Democrats all love the CIA, that most evil of U.S. fascist organizations. Responsible for murdering peasants from Chile to Angola to Vietnam and back. Responsible for smuggling billions of dollars worth of dope into this country since their inception after WW2, taking that job over from the OSS who revived the Sicilian Mafia, which had been done away with by Mousolini's Fascist government. These drugs have been distributed here amongst our own peasants notably the coke brought into the country in a joint endeavor of the CIA and the "Contra" death squads, formerly Nicaraugan dictator Samoza's brutal enforcers.

This sudden love of the CIA and it's long term extreme right agenda is of course for short term political expediency. Karl Rove and the exposure of Valerie Plame.

The Democrats have always jumped on Republican bandwagons but it has gotten worse with the decline of the Democratic Party, or the decline of the Democratic party has followed it's Republicanization. Take your pick. More workers were thrown out in the street during the Clinton administration than any Republican administration, more indigent welfare recipients lost their benefits and were thrown out in the streets and more people were moved from the streets to America's gargantuain prison system. This is the largest prison system on earth. No Democrat will address this issue any more than any Republican will address this issue. They live in the same Ivory Tower and live off the blood of the same peasants as each other.

Fuck the Democrats they are traitors just as surely as the Republicans are.

The police are just as brutal, corrupt and clueless as to actually protecting us in Los Angeles as they are in Birmingham. The federal government is just as brutal, corrupt and clueless as to actually protecting us from "terrorists" and other enemies under Democratic regimes as Republican ones. Both are willing to sit around debating inane things such as gay marriage and medical pot while planes fly into our populated areas on suicide missions that few can understand the motives for since none of the law makers and arm chair politicians would give their lives for anything. Certainly not their country or religion.

If you think the thinning veil of the Republican propaganda machine will lead to the end of the Republican fascist regime and reinstall the Democratic fascist regime revisit central America under the Readan (first Bush) regime; John Negroponte, death squads terrifying the peasants in the night dragging them off to torture, murder and display their mutilated bodies. Dead nuns, priests and suspension of even the crooked elections that were/are the usual fare there. The facade of democracy is surely about to disolve and be swept away. But not replaced by real freedom or democracy and freedom but the new SS; John Negropontes new internal American Gestapo. If you are looking to the Democrats to save us from the Republicans, forget it. Listen to Randi Rhoads if it makes you feel any better as I do. Sign John Conyers petitions as I do but don't expect democracy and freedom in your life time.
posted by noel adamson @ 4:48 PM

I have interacted with Noel for years now. He is a font of information especially Vietnam era stuff that is murky, at best.

Like so many readers and writers in the blogshpere, he is amazing and we would have never learned of his experiences if it weren't for the web! This draws together such a diverse group of people and instead of feeling isolated and even a little insane, we know we are right, instead!

And we have all the data on the web, too. I can pull up all sorts of family stuff on the web since my own family is somewhat infamous. And we can all find old information, data and stories and the history of many things just by clicking on the correct combination of words, do note that varying the order of words and adding or subtracting one or two alters the information that is scooped up.

I grew up feeling as if most of myself was missing. Finding out about myself was a real challenge. Retracing my own parent's paths was a huge undertaking. At one dedication ceremony for my dad, I kept yelling from the audience, "Hey, dad, tell them about the cave!" and my father would say, "Shut up!" and one officer sitting next to me said, "My god, you know so much." I then said, "Know any stories? Tell me!"

So he told me about how my dad came into his workplace in April, 1945, he was working for Hitler, and shot a gun in the air and announced, "Do you want to come with me or go with Uncle Stalin? The Russians will be here in an hour." Everyone jumped up and ran to my dad and surrendered. Heh. He was alone except for his driver!

Gads.

(from Noel's blog, my comment there)
Yah! Right on!

I said for years and years and years, disband the CIA and open their record vault. You should see MY files there!

You can't, of course, not even with the Freedom of Information Act. Ruppert tried, even. He couldn't.

To continue....when the students took over our embassy in Iran, they discovered paperwork by the ton detailing how nearly the entire embassy was filled with CIA operatives! Indeed, our Russian one, for example was ONLY CIA operatives. And the Russians knew this.

I used to joke, they know more about the CIA than our own Presidents. Until Bush Sr came along. Then I gloomily said, the CIA took over America. Then Putin took over Russia. Gads.

Hate them all.

But the stupid law Rove broke is one designed to stop CIA whistle blowers. It now is stopping a CIA manipulator trying to do a black ops job on America.

Fuck him!

Saturday, July 16, 2005 6:49:23 PM

GREAT POD CAST HERE

2005-07-11T20:44:00.000-04:00

From Ripley's Zen Cabin:

The Problem of Peace

Another brilliantly produced, albeit late, podcast. Ty Winnzirven investigates Operation Yellow Elephant and digs their theme song, Brit Hume joins the ranks of Tom DeLay and Bill Frist, and I lay down some righteous talk about Peace.

The Problem of Peace

Two Passages from Tao Te Ching
Presidental Radio Address – 7/9/05
The Problem of Peace | Albert Schweitzer (Nobel Lecture)

Holy Diver | Dio
FM | Steely Dan
Get Me Out of Here | Jet
Age of Loneliness | Enigma
Wannabe | Spice Girls
Say You’ll Be There | Spice Girls
Preludio (Introducao) | Bachianas Brasileiras No. 4, Heitor Villa-Lobos
Ain’t That a Kick In the Head | Dean Martin

Enjoy!

Rip -

Editor: This is a fun website, Riply plays great rock music and his changes of voice...very talented. The broadcast is clear as a bell and funny as hell. I hope you all bookmark this place and visit frequently.

I know I shall.

Again: CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE ZEN CABIN

MISSISSIPPI LEARNING

2005-06-28T11:15:00.000-04:00

Rose Aguilar, a freelance reporter from San Francisco, graciously gave me permission to guest blog her latest report in a series she is writing in her quest to understand the Red States.

From Stories in America:aIf you've been listening to the news lately, you've probably heard about Edgar Ray Killen's 60-year sentence for the killings of black Mississippian James Chaney and white New Yorkers Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. The three civil rights activists traveled from New York to Mississippi to register blacks to vote on Father's Day 1964. The Mississippians I've interviewed over the past few days say while the ruling is historic, it wasn't surprising. The question is, what's next? The Jackson Free Press tackles that question in its latest issue.

A few hours after the ruling came down, I met with 82-year-old Charles Evers, a leader in Mississippi's civil rights struggle. In 1963, his older brother, Medgar Evers, was shot and killed by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. De La Beckwith stood trial twice, but in both cases the all-white jury could not reach a verdict. De La Beckwith was finally convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1994, thirty-one years after the murder. Medgar spent his last years establishing local chapters of the NAACP throughout the Mississippi Delta and organizing boycotts of businesses that refused to allow blacks to use their restrooms. After an unsuccessful attempt to get into the University of Mississippi Law School, Medgar was appointed as the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi.

After his brother's death, Charles took that job and began black voter registration drives. Six years later, Charles was elected mayor of Fayette, Mississippi, the first black to hold elected office in the state since Reconstruction. Charles, who became a Republican during the Nixon years, also served as an advisor to a diverse group of politicians, including Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan.

Today Evers is the general manager of WMPR, a community radio station in Jackson, Mississippi. Charles hosts a radio show on Wednesday nights called, "Let's Talk," and is the author of the book, "Have No Fear: The Charles Evers Story."

Charles, an animated man with strong opinions, proudly displays a number of framed photos of himself shaking hands with a wide array of mostly Republican politicians and civil rights leaders in his office. Here are excerpts from our interview:

How do you feel about the media's coverage of the trial and the state of Mississippi in general?

Most aren't fair. They don't talk about the progress that's been made since the days of hate and destruction. We know we're not completely through, but at least give us some credit for the progress that's been made. But they don't want to do that. They still want to look back 30-40 years ago and I have a problem with that. Mississippians have come so far economically, politically, socially and racially in 40 years. It's almost unbelievable. I've been here for 82 years so I know what it was like 40 years ago. Just today we got a Mississippi born judge to sentence a white man for the killing of the civil rights workers. He got 60 years in jail. That's never happened before. He was born in Neshoba County. The jury was from Neshoba County. There were nine whites and three blacks and they voted unanimously to charge this man with manslaughter. But no one wants to show that; they want to say something negative. Forty years ago, there were no blacks elected in this state. None. And now we have the highest number of elected blacks in the country. There were no blacks in universities forty years ago. My brother was the first to even apply. Now we have them in every university in Mississippi, but no one says anything about that. That's what bothers me. Sure, terrible things have happened, but things have changed. Forty-five years ago, I couldn't marry you in Mississippi, but now you got blacks and whites marrying each other and living next door to each other. We can live anywhere in the state of Mississippi and buy a house. We couldn't do that before and now we can. So this is my message to the media: Why don't you show both sides? Then and now. I hope you're going to do that.

How do you feel about the ruling?

I'm elated. I almost shed tears knowing that they convicted an old racist. It's unbelievable. We've begun to get justice. We've begun to put fear into those whites who think they can do anything they want to a black person and get away with it. Now we got white powerful Mississippians who say, no, you can't do that anymore, and I'm proud of that.

I've been talking to a lot of people about politics and it's interesting to talk to young people. I went to the Jubilee Jam the other night and I interviewed a number of young black men who said, blacks vote Democrat. Whites vote Republican. I told them I've met a lot of whites who vote Democrat and they were shocked by that. Then I spoke to young white men and they said the same thing. They also said they have no black friends. Is that a common opinion?

I'm against an all-white anything or an all-black anything. I'm a Republican, by the way. I feel there should be blacks in every party. I believe in most of the things Republicans stand for.

Like what?

I'm against abortion. I'm for prayer in schools. I'm for economic independence. I don't believe in welfare. I think it's a joke. I believe welfare makes you lazy and unproductive. The only thing I don't agree with is the war. I think the war is wrong. I think the President is wrong on this. The main thing I believe in is freedom. I don't think the Republicans say it as much as Democrats, but I think the Democrats say one thing and do another. Most of them are white.

There are a lot of black Democrats in Congress. Clinton appointed a lot of blacks.

Clinton was our number one president. I loved Clinton, not as a Democrat, but as a person.

Did you vote for Clinton?

No I didn't. I'm a Republican. I voted for my party.

So you're a party line voter?

Not all the time. But that time I did.

How do you feel about the Senate's apology for failing to make lynching a federal crime? The majority of the people who haven't signed on are Republican.

I ripped them apart on my radio show last night. It hurts me and it hurts every Mississippian and makes us look bad. I meet with them quite often and I'll tell them they're wrong. The least they could have done was say, I'm sorry.

What was your turning point? Why did you become a Republican?

I have nothing against the Democratic party. When I became mayor, I had to run as an independent because the Democrats wouldn't allow us to run as a Democrat back in those days. But once we broke the Democrats down and took over the seat, I was a national committee member, went to Chicago and took the party away from the old Democrats. And what did they do? They ran to the Republican party. So my thinking was, once we got blacks into the Democratic party, let's do the same in the Republican party and make damn sure they don't get away with nothin'. That's why I'm with the Republican party. I want to make sure we have blacks who will stand up in each party and that's me. I don't bow to none of 'em and my folks can trust me. I will never sell out to them. I tell them what they gotta do for our folk and that's to make sure we're included; not superior, but equal.

So you're basically working to change the Republican party from within rather than criticize it from the outside.

I can do more destructive things inside than I can out there throwing rocks. So I'm in the Republican party for the same reason I was in the Democratic party: to make sure blacks are included, along with everyone else. It's not like I jumped parties. I feel like both parties are not what they used to be or should be. I'll tell them when they're wrong. I couldn't do that as a Democrat. I'm on the executive committee of the Mississippi Republican party and I will tell Senator Lott that he's wrong for not apologizing for something his great grandparents did to us. Their excuse is, well, we didn't have anything to do with it. The hell you didn't. You didn't personally, but your great grandparents did. You should apologize. I have no problem telling them that and I'm a Republican. I pay my dues so they can't kick me out.

What changes have you made within the Republican party for blacks specifically?

They got a Republican that's not gonna let them run over blacks and get behind closed doors and pass laws that he's not gonna go out and tell people about. They know that.

How do you feel about the state of the national Republican party today?

I think President Bush is way out of line and I don't think he speaks for all Republicans. He doesn't speak for me.

I read the article you wrote opposing the war in the Jackson Free Press. There weren't many Republicans who broke ranks over the war at that time. There were very few Democrats who opposed the war at that time.

I have a radio talk show on Wednesday night and that was my whole show. I'm opposed to the war. I let the President know. I let all my Senators and Congressmen know. It's wrong to kill. We had no more right to go to the war against Iraq than I have to go to war against you. Iraq did nothing to us. Iraq was not responsible for
9/11. Sure 9/11 was bad. Sure they killed thousands of us, but how many have we killed of them? How much suffering have we caused them? Two wrongs don't make a right. We are just as wrong -- and I want to be quoted on that -- for going in and destroying innocent people as they were coming over here on 9/11. 9/11 is no comparison to what we've done over there and how we've destroyed the old world with our bombs and how we spread hate and how we took Saddam. I was totally against that. When we took Saddam's sons and showed them all over the world. It's just like they used to do to us black folks. They hung us from trees and let them take pictures of us. Same damn thing.

Did you have any reservations about voting for Bush, especially given your strong opposition to the war?

It bothers me. I feel like he's not telling the truth. How can he sleep knowing that he just got hundreds of people killed or destroyed everyday? He is responsible for them being killed. He's responsible for destroying all of those beautiful buildings. That was the founding of a civilization. He destroyed them. Come on, Mr. President. How can you sleep? I'd ask him that point blank. Why don't you end this war? I pray all the time. Lord, please, let our president bring this war to an end. The United States Senate is just as guilty as Bush. They went right along with him and gave him billions to continue the war. Come on. Your gas and my gas is two or three dollars a gallon. We got poor folks, white and black, who need boxes of aspirins. I'm a veteran of two wars: World War II and the Korean War and guess what? If I need a box of aspirin today from the VA, I'd go through hell to get it. The veteran who comes home with no legs and no arms is pushed aside and can't get waited on. It's crazy. No one will say the truth. Democrats or Republicans. Reid speaks out once in a while, but they chop him up right away.

When I interview people, I bring up some of these issues, but they don't seem to care. Essentially the facts don't matter. Do you encounter that?

Oh yeah. My thing is, I don't give a damn what people think about me or what I say. To hell with what anybody thinks about me. White, black of polka dot. I'm against the war. I'm against killing. I've lost two brothers on some stupid murder by some crazy racist.

How do the Republicans respond to you when you raise these issues?

They don't really respond. They ignore me, but I'll keep saying it and they know they got one darkie that ain't gonna change. And that's me.

What do you think about the Republicans who say, we're so inclusive now. We have Condoleeza Rice and many high ranking black officials.

Bullshit. That's bullshit. We're not inclusive. The Republican party is not inclusive. The Republican party does not reach out. We're fighting for them to do that. I'll admit that President Bush did appoint Condoleeza Rice. He appointed Powell, but that wasn't enough. What about the local Republicans? Did he go around the country and campaign for blacks who were running for office? No. They're not inclusive. The Democrats aren't either. Don't get me wrong. I'm a Republican and I'm gonna stay a Republican because they need somebody like me to stay in the party and keep hammering away.

You feel like you have your issues and priorities and you want to bring them to the party. Do you ever get a response?

They won't listen to me. Others feel the same way but won't say it. What are you afraid of? I'd rather be dead and in heaven than afraid to do what I think is right. This war is wrong and I'm not afraid to say it. See the picture of me with Bush? His dad and I were very close. I don't think his father wanted him to go to war. The problem is, the Republican party hasn't done anything to make this country better and I speak as a Republican. I think they're creating so much division among the country. Any time the country is split 50/50, the leader is wrong. What about the other 50 percent? We need a change. I hope the next president unifies the country.

How did you feel about the 2004 election and all the mudslinging? It was pretty ugly.

First of all, I knew that a Democrat was not going to win. I knew that. You know why? This is a racist country. Anybody who runs for President in this country and comes out as strong as they were about helping the poor folks and black folks is not going to win. It's that simple. Not in America. Two people will never be President in my lifetime. A woman and a black. They can run Mrs. Clinton if they want to. She'll be beaten. America is still a bigoted country. Mark my words. I guarantee I won't live to see it. I would love to, but it won't happen. I told Colin Powell, don't you be a fool. You want to be embarrassed? Run.

Don't you think a black candidate would get a lot more blacks out to vote?

Yeah, but we can't elect a president. If Democrats want to win, talk them into electing a black man for vice president.

Voter turnout is so low all over the country. How do you encourage blacks to vote?

I usually take Medgar and Martin and say, do you care what they fought for? If you don't vote, you show disrespect for them. That's what I say. I don't know if it does any good or not. The least I can do is show Medgar I still care. And Martin. They all were my friends and we all fought for the same thing. Some of the youngsters say, my vote doesn't count. If your vote doesn't count, how do you think you got where you are? Somebody voted for you. I came back the other night from Washington and guess what? A young black man flew me back here. He's a pilot on Delta Airlines. We're flying planes. We couldn't even get on a plane forty years ago. When Megdar was killed, I came back from Chicago and couldn't go inside the airport in Jackson, Mississippi. I had to wait outside for my bag. Now we have blacks flying on Delta. We got blacks running airports. We can't forget that. We gotta keep saying that. That's why I hope reporters like you will say that. Show both sides. The negative and the positive. Today was a historical thing. Can you imagine? A white judge born in Neshoba county gave another white man 60 years for killing a black and two whites. Can you believe that? They'll say a little bit about it. Then it's all over. Now if you came in here and shot me, oh god, every damn press in the country would be here. White woman shoots black man! NBC. CBS. CNN. All of 'em. You couldn't get rid of 'em, cause it involves some nigger.

In terms of the media, a lot conservative radio shows have been talking about Senator Byrd and his beginnings with the KKK. How do you feel about that?

That was the thing to do then. I'm not justifying it, don't get me wrong, but that was the popular thing to do to get what you wanted. In order to get elected, you had to talk about niggers. If you vote for Charles Evers, he goin' take your daughter and marry her. We gotta forgive white people, but never forget.

What other issues are important to you? What have Republicans done well in the past four years?

Have they done anything? Our gasoline is three times what it was a few years ago. Unemployment is about four times what it was a few years ago. Hatred is getting worse for both blacks and whites. The Christians are trying to take over everything. We have a mess going and we need to straighten up our act.

One of the major differences between the Republicans and the Democrats I've met is this: Republicans emphasize personalize responsibility. They say, we don't like social programs. Everyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Democrats say people need help.

I partially agree with that. Partially. Give us a chance to pull ourselves up. I don't like a lot of social programs either because it makes you non-productive. Speaking as a black person, welfare is the worst thing that's ever happened to us. My dad always told us, and I'll never forget this, before I get commodities, I'll kill all of you and then kill myself. I was totally against them giving me commodities like meal, sugar and flour. I always want to be able to work and take care of y'all. That's my job. I don't want you ever asking me about welfare. Welfare makes you dependent upon someone to take care of you. Republicans say, no, we're not giving you nothin'. I like that. My problem is, don't block me. Republicans say, go do it yourself and I say, give me a chance to do it for myself.

That's the main point, right? Go to any poor neighborhood, black or white. You'll find old books, run down buildings and teachers who have to buy their own school supplies. So at that point, where's the hope? Especially if they come from a broken family that's not emotionally available.

My whole thing is if Bush wants to leave no child behind, then prove it. What you're afraid to do Mr. Bush, is to go to the poorest neighborhoods in all the states and find out what district needs the most. And don't worry about the affluent neighborhood. We need to bring up those communities that need it the most. It ain't gotta be black folks. There are a lot of poor white folks now.

Why is it that people tend to not identify with those basic economic interests? They identify with conservative social issues like gay marriage and abortion, but not issues like education and poverty.

They're not popular issues. We need to take responsibility and educate people. That's why black folks don't like me. I always say it's our responsibility to make safe neighborhoods. It's our job to get them cleaned up.

I notice one of the few Democrats on your wall is Robert F. Kennedy.

I was with Bobby the night he was killed. If any Kennedy ran for president, I'd vote for him. The Kennedy's and the Rockefeller's, before anybody else gave a damn about black folks, they did what they could. I took Bobby Kennedy through the delta and he cried like a baby. He said, I didn't know anybody could live like this. He said he just didn't know any colored folks. We were colored back then. He just didn't know.

After having this conversation with you, it's clear that you're a Republican to change the party from within, but the media makes you sound like you're a hardcore black loyal Republican from Mississippi.

They don't know a thing about me. I am a black Republican by choice and I do it to make sure the Republicans straighten up.

But that should be included in the story.

They won't do that. Go down to the Republican headquarters. They ain't got a single black working there. Not one. I've been giving them hell about that. I gotta keep hammering away. I'm on the executive committee and I keep repeating, what about a black? It's getting pretty lonely here with all you white folks. I'm the only darkie here. I can say darkie and I can say nigger. I can say what I want about my own folks. And they look at me real funny. They whisper, Charles you're right. And I say, tell the chairman that.

Sounds like you enjoy the challenge.

I love the life I live. The Lord blessed me to be independent. I am independent.
posted by Rose Aguilar.

&heart &heart &heart

From the editor: back when the Democrats in the South rose up after the Civil War and began the long push to eliminate minority civil rights, some prominent blacks told their own people to quietly go along with this, it wasn't going to be bad, to work with the racists. Meanwhile, lynchings and riots burning down whole communities wracked the south and the KKK got stronger and stronger and they passed more and more laws creating Jim Crow and they worked hard to prevent blacks from voting and there were fewer and fewer blacks with any power at all. This process is happening all over again. Mr. Evers is fooling himself if he thinks he is infiltrating the party. They are cynically using him until they can ditch him once and for all. He, like Powell and the others, are an intermediate step in this process.

BATTLEPANDA Lumps of Labor

2005-06-14T07:19:00.000-04:00

I am pleased to introduce Angelica, aka, Battlepanda. I am pleased to meet a fellow blogger who is a woman and who is interested in economics. Yesterday, she posted this at her blog:

Taking the Lumps of Labor: Why Adam Smith was right and the Adam Smithians are wrong
Mark Kleiman calls it the 'TGIF problem' People are living longer, but extending the retirement age to help Social Security is a non-starter because people really, really don't want to be working any longer than they have to. Majikthise declares the problem to be intractable, and advocates raising the salary cap to solve the so-called crisis. I agree with her, but Mark has raised an unsettling puzzle that extend beyond our current policy woes:

What does make me unhappy is that, in what is by some measures the richest nation in the history of the planet, most people don't really enjoy the activity that occupies about a third of their waking hours.

By now, we have surely reached the stage of development where Keynes predicted that we can work two, three hours a day "to satisfy old Adam", then take the rest of the time "to live wisely, and agreeably, and well." But it seems old Adam has the last laugh. Our current work-and-spend paradigm accords more closely with his observations of human nature than it does with Keyne's macroeconomic predictions.

Some workmen, indeed, when they can earn in four days what will maintain them through the week, will be idle the other three. This, however, is by no means the case with the greater part. Workmen, on the contrary, when they are paid by the piece [or by the hour...ed], are very apt to over-work themselves, and to ruin their health and constitution in a few years.
[snip]
Excessive application during four days of the week, is frequently the real cause of the idleness of the other three, so much and so loudly complained of. Great labour, either of mind or body, continued for several days together, is in most men naturally followed by a great desire of relaxation, which, if not restrained by force or by some strong necessity, is almost irresistible. It is the call of nature, which requires to be relieved by some indulgence, sometimes of ease only, but sometimes too of dissipation and diversion.

He was talking about British soldiers set to piece-work, but he might as well be describing the American work-and-spend economy. Elsewhere in The Wealth of Nations, he opines that farmers are a superior class of men when compared with 'artificers', because the wide variety of tasks that a farmer must necessarily undertake in the course of a year and the knowledge he must accumulate to deal with all the eventualities running a farm will throw at him, as opposed to the mechanical tasks of a workman.

Not to denigrate how far economical progress have taken us, but somewhere along the lines, we, as a society, seemed to have ended up on a treadmill, where more productivity leads to greater desires, and thus never fulfillment. Now, some would argue that this is what's great about capitalism, that greed is what drives continual progress. And, psychic fulfilment aside, perhaps they would be right. If it weren't for the fact that we are also destroying our environment at an alarming rate in our neverending quest to produce more stuff, that is. But dammit. Why should we set psychic fulfilment aside? Why are we asked to set aside sane questions about where our society is going lest it gets in the way of the magic of the free market?

I feel a series coming on...Stay tuned for part two: Why is knitting yarn so expensive in America?

End

Note from the editor: I used to sell wool. Made good money doing this. Then the world market for wool collapsed when Mongolia and China and Russia flooded it with new wool production. Yet this had zero effect on the price of yarn. Hmmmm...can't wait for the yarn yarn. (ouch)

THIS OLD BRIT'S MC NAMARA

2005-06-04T13:02:00.000-04:00

In the Old Brit's book -- this is BIG. (Note: Culture of Life News isn't surprised that this isn't in American media today, natch)

*** Robert McNamara, the US defence secretary at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, yesterday described the British and American approach towards nuclear weapons as "immoral, illegal and militarily unnecessary". ***

Sounds like strong stuff, eh?

Well, Mr McNamara's a man who's been around a long time. He's a man with a lot of first hand experience in such matters. He's a man who must know what he's talking about. Apparently, he's also a man who's not scared of making a 'stand'. He says it like he sees it - and wants everyone to know it.

So, it seems there's not much for the Old Brit to add today. Except, maybe to mention that Mr McNamara said this, too:

*** "The dangers and threats surrounding the 1962 Cuban missile crisis were similar to those which exist today," he said.

" About 2,000 US strategic nuclear weapons are on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in 15 minutes." ***

I doubt any of this will be mentioned much in the US mainstream. So maybe it's time get into overdrive again - and please start passing today's Old Brit, around. Pretty, pretty please.

Click the link below for the relevant article by Richard Norton-Taylor, just now published in this morning's 'Guardian' - Saturday, 4th June.

Guardian News Story about McNamara

*A PLEA FOR ACTION FROM ONE OF OUR READERS

2005-05-21T18:41:00.000-04:00

To my Blogger Friends: Please Pick this up on your blogs! We desperately need your help to not just get the word out but to get funds rolling in here to counter the HUGE war chest of the Religious Reich! Without EVERYONE'S help they will bury us! PLEASE! Pass this on to anyone who might post it and help us out!

To Molly and Steve: This old war horse may not be able to get in there and get her hands dirty like in the old days, but I’m doing what I can! You guys are really carrying things forward and going places! I would have never dreamed that we’d have come this far this fast when Michael, LJ, Andrea and I first put MECA together! You guys have made us proud! Keep up the good work and good luck with Dobson and the other monsters!

Julie & Andrea Johnson

1/2 Kracked Kup--This Time It Just Might
Break All The Way!

I REALLY Need YOUR Help!

As I wrote this,?the Assembly Appropriations Committee had just passed?AB 19 by a 6-3 vote?”The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act” , sponsored by Equality California and authored by Assemblyman Mark Leno .? The legislation will likely not be voted on soon but instead will go into suspense and be taken up again by the Committee during the last two weeks of May or even later. This is normal since the legislation will make a rather sizable economic impact on the state... it seems the the net will be a GAIN of some $30 MILLION a year (source http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsproject )!

Then there is the crap our favorite outside agitator James Dobson is pulling! Not taking the hint for the humiliating defeat he suffered with his attempt to amend OUR California state constitution through legislative means, now that AB19 (The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act)** is pretty much a sure thing to pass into law Dear Dork Dobson is pulling the bigots favorite tactic, the “off year election initiative end-run” where the Religious Reich, banking on low voter turn out in off years and their ability to fire up the TRUE BELIEVERS (why do they always have to capitalize that when they write it? **sigh**) and turn them out in huge numbers to pass their unbelievably draconian and bigoted constitutional amendment, put forth an initiative hoping to slip it past the majority of apathetic voters. This piece of... Of... My gods, words fail me... I hesitate to call it legislation for it reads more like a Biblical pronouncement! Here’s what EQCA says about it:

"Bottomline:? This amendment would go to the fullest extremes to strip every legal protection from our families.?? From health insurance and hospital visitation, to inheritance and medical leave rights, tens of thousands of diverse California families would lose protections they now have and would be left with no legal protections.? The amendment would prohibit same-sex marriage and strip the courts, cities, and every government agency of any ability to protect California familes not headed by a husband and a wife."

I’m SICK AND TIRED of being a second class citizen! But I’m too physically broken up and ill to get out there in the trenches and do what needs to be done. I have to count on you, my friends to let the country and the world know the danger we face here in California, right here, right now, THIS WEEK! Write to your newspapers, ask them to cover the way the way the religious fanatic outsiders are trying to take away our rights! Tell your friends! Let them know that a small group of OUTSIDE AGITATORS, Religious FANATICS, are working with BIG money from organized out of state sources who are working day and night to strip us of the hard won gains we have made here! We are just WEEKS from making our marriage laws equal for EVERYONE in the state by LEGISLATIVE MEANS! That will be the VERY FIRST time that has happened ANYWHERE in the country! And the Religious Right will do ANYTHING to make sure that this does not happen. That sort of precedent is something that they absolutely cannot allow to be set! If it is, it puts the lie to all the years of propaganda they have drummed into the minds of the American people. DO NOT LET JAMES DOBSON AND THE RELIGIOUS REICH DERAIL THIS MONUMENTAL LEGISLATION WITH HIS HATE BASED INITIATIVE! PLEASE!

I'm pleading with you as a friend, as someone you know and hopefully care about and for. Contact your friends and family, ask them to write and call our California State Assemblymen and any of our Equal Marriage Organizations and pledge your support. Help us to turn the balance away from the forces of bigotry and hate!

Under normal circumstances I would never trouble you or the rest of my friends from out of state or out of the country, but these are not the "usual" circumstances at all! Dobson is bringing to bare all the power of his national organization and their international allies! I’m relying on YOU my friends to make my dream of legally marrying Andrea come true! Please, please, PLEASE don’t let me down!

Thank you.

Your friend,

Julie Johnson

juliedee@planetoutcast.net
Posted by JulieDee to The 1/2 Kracked Kup at 5/20/2005 05:39:00 PM

*YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOUDon't even consider it

2005-05-21T17:56:00.000-04:00

By Julie Weiss

How else could I be spending a beautiful May Saturday but sorting through a 56-year collection of life's possessions not my own? In the midst of liquidating an uncle's household, I write to you from unusually sunny southwest Michigan. My uncle is 91 years old and running out of money. The current month's bill for assisted living and a few sundry services is $3553.50. There's enough cash for about another 10 months expenses at the current rate. His care tab so far is about $140,000.

During his working life he was a stock boy at a corner grocery, assisted in my grandfather's fruit and vegetable brokerage, joined the Army Aircorps during WWII, worked for war contractor Remington Rand, afterwards went to work as a bus driver for the local public transportation company and then became the chauffeur for executives at a very large manufacturing company. His private sector pension for all those years of toil is $336.63 per month. His 'shoshul shecurity' is $1089.

He and my aunt were very careful with their money, as was typical for all members of that generation in my family. They bought a brand new, solid brick ranch-style house in 1957 for around $18,000., made double mortgage payments whenever they could (Both worked, she for the State of Michigan as a social worker.), kept the place in excellent repair, never wasted a dime that I know of, paid their bills immediately upon receipt, never used credit cards, paid green money cash if at all possible. You all know the type.

My aunt died in April, 2000. Her mother had left her a quantity of AT&T stock, which then split into -what? seven? - baby bells, which then issued their own stock. The lollapalooza of these spin-offs was Lucent Technologies ("We make the things that make communications work." Ah, the good old days.) With a tad of coaxing on my part, she sold all of it by January, 2000 - who says market timing doesn't work? - and despite the threat she'd always use when she was irked with my uncle, "I'll just leave my money to someone else," all the money was held jointly with him when she died. Good thing she did.

Our President (I'm in a really generous mood today) would have us believe that stock market investing is the answer to all our troubles. When I sold Lucent stock in 1998 for another aunt whose affairs I handled, I believe it was around $60.00 per share. Yesterday, a mere seven years later, it closed at $2.92. So much for widows and orphans.

Perhaps a mini review of AT&T's and Lucent's sordid recent history would be helpful. Common stock of both companies benefited from the tech bubble. Selling high, as I did, is as much dumb luck - unless you're Martha Stewart - as anything. Lucent was a growth stock and therefore inappropriate, so I got rid of it. AT&T was still paying out decent dividends, but CD investing still made sense, and CD principle isn't subject to market fluctuation.

Shortly after I sold, it was revealed to the world that Lucent was schmoozing the books. Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Lucent Technologies' auditor, wouldn't certify all Lucent's fret work. This rarely happens, because the Price Waterhouses of the world didn't get to be Big Eight/Six/Four accountants by dissing their biggest clients. So, the news had to be pretty terrible.

AT&T couldn't stand the heated competition for telecommunications services where once it had been the bench mark. But the real dirt - what probably cost investors as much as the Enron crater - was Jack Grubman, an analyst, trumpeting AT&T stock, despite troubling fundamentals, in order to win AT&T investment banking business for his firm, Salomon Smith Barney. The human interest angle to the story is that Jack Grubman's twins were under review for admission to one of New York City's elite pre-schools run by the 92nd Street Y. Jack's boss at parent company Citigroup, Sandy Weill, was on the board of the 92nd St Y pre-school. AT&T bit. The kids got in. See how winning on Wall Street works? Nothing to it! (editor's note: I once belonged to that Y. It is the Ritz of YMCAs. The founder was the same guy that started the CIA...guess why I was admitted there? Heh.)

What happens if my uncle outlives his money? Well, I can sell the house, which under Michigan law he'd be allowed to keep and still qualify for Medicaid nursing care. If I sell it, all the proceeds would have to be applied to his care before he'd qualify for Medicaid under current rules.

The place he's living now, a very pleasant and well-run facility, does not accept Medicaid for its nursing care unit, and Medicaid, in any event, does not pay for assisted living, only nursing care. So, he'd have to move, take potluck as far as availability of decent quarters and suffer a lesser quality of services. And, of course, I'd have to explain to him that the reason for the move was that I'd decided to keep the house to liquidate after his death so we'd get a bigger inheritance. Do you know how nasty old people can get over the teensiest imagined slight? And THIS, the mother of all insults: Please die, so we can get our hands on your money.

In February, The Wall Street Journal published a piece entitled "Medicaid for Millionaires" in its Review and Outlook section. Pretty provocative stuff, eh? At last the beleaguered millionaires get their Lucky Ducky moment? If we believe the twaddle in the editorial, they do. But we know better.

It's pretending to be a screed about amoral millionaires and their lawyers and financial planners.

"There's a whole "elderlaw" industry out there dedicated to the children of seniors who want to make sure that other taxpayers [ big assumption there, other taxpayers. I thought the ownership society was a place where millionaires and their children are never referred to as taxpayers], not they, pay for nursing-home care via Medicaid should mom or dad ever need it."

(snip)

"Such asset shifting may be morally questionable, but in most cases it is entirely legal." [ I'm glad they got that off their chest. Confession is good for the soul. As a rule the Wall Street journal loves asset shifting, such as selling the country off to Canadian mining companies for two cents an acre and using your tax dollars to fund Dick Cheney's deferred compensation payments from Halliburton.]

(snip)

"Medicaid "planners" often counsel well-to-do clients to save enough money to pay for a year of care at a private, high-quality nursing home, which under federal law can't kick you out if you then switch over to Medicaid." (from The Wall Street Journal, 2/24/05; Page A14)

Oh, enough of this. I have way more experienced in schlepping people into and out of nursing homes than anyone at the Wall Street Journal, apparently. The "high-quality" nursing homes have lawyers, too, and require prospective residents to file a financial statement showing that the resident or guarantor has enough ready assets to pay for three years in their high-falutin' place. So much for that clever financial planning tool.

The editorial goes on to recommend, among other things that people like my uncle be required to take out a reverse mortgage - the Chinese connection is never far away these days, is it? - if they want to keep their house, or allowing a state to claim title to a senior's assets, giving him a zero interest loan against Medicaid payments and offering tiered services: those choosing less expensive services would retain more residue for their heirs. Isn't that cool? There are some pretty substantial ice floes on Lake Michigan in the winter. Wonder what the charge would be for that?

I have only my sense of humor and plucky pioneer spirit to keep me company. The bills pile up. The government gets quirkier and quirkier. And this situation is one of the fortunate ones.

At least he has something to sell!

(Editor's note: in Medieval times, the Church and King would take the same amount from everyone if they could; the best bed, the best horse etc. So the longer you lived, the more stuff you could accumulate and the more you could retain after the others were done taking stuff. Today, it is the reverse. How interesting is that?)

Richard, One of Our Readers, Makes the Big Time Big Time!

2005-05-17T14:59:00.000-04:00

Wolcott

Empty Suit Politician Walks into Propellor
Posted by James Wolcott
Based on what I saw on MSNBC (and congrats to them for going live), I would modestly venture that Norm Coleman and the Senate committee picked on the wrong guy when they picked on George Galloway (scroll down for "This Old Brit's"'s take). His rebuttal so exfoliated Coleman's short hairs that Fox News had to step in afterwards and downplay Galloway's rousing anti-Iraq war broadside as a rhetorical gambit.

God, does Galloway make our own representatives look mushmouthed and gutless.

05.17.05 11:48AM · LINK

Ok, everyone, congratulations, Richard!

You just made the big time here! Across the pond we savages salute ya! Tipple a stout for us, buddy! You richly deserve the recognition.

We hope everyone reads your blog. It is a great window into the people who speak English like us not like W.

How THIS Old Brit Sees Things

2005-05-13T15:11:00.000-04:00

(Editor--The Republicans in America are attacking a host of people for various reasons. Blair hates Galloway for running against the war in Iraq so Galloway is being attacked by Bush allies. What a mess!)

George Galloway ...

How many times can one man be crucified? By how many different, baying mobs? In how many different ways? And, how many times can such man come back?

The story of George Galloway, ex-New Labour MP and serial thorn in Bush & Blair's sides, may well provide the answers. Though not before this extraordinary political maverick's saga reaches it's final chapter -- which remains, as yet, unwritten. Let's hope when it is, the last word goes to Galloway -- NOT to Bush nor Blair. Long may their [self-inflicted] worst nightmare continue.

In today's 'Guardian' is what's possibly the least 'agenderised' and 'fairest' article on Galloway, I've seen. Penned by media commentator, Roy Greenslade -- amongst may other things -- this genuinely honest journalist freely admits the following.

** He [ Galloway ] has regularly sued for libel and, worse still in the eyes of journalists, has always won, sometimes handsomely. I must declare an interest here: I have also lost to him in a libel action; but, unlike many who have suffered similarly, I bear him no grudge. **

Oh, that I had either the time or the journalistic ability to write as well as Greenslade. Oh, that I had just one miniscule, milli-per-cent of Greenslade's readership. No matter; nowadays there's not that much need. Thanks to the modern miracle of the web and the bite of the blog, I can bring to an even wider readership, his every relevant word. To further whet your appetite, here's another clip & paste -- this time, his opening paragraphs .

** I come not to praise George Galloway but - unlike almost the entire media - not to bury him either. There will be many who snort contemptuously when I say that Galloway is now more sinned against than sinning because he has become so unpopular with both the media and political elites that they regard him as outside the normal rules of the game.

Indeed, to defend him places the defender beyond the pale too. But the victim of what has all the hallmarks of a media feeding frenzy deserves a fair hearing, not only for his personal benefit, but for those he now represents - and in order to confront journalists with their own misguided agendas.

In quick succession since his election victory last week in Bethnal Green and Bow, Galloway has been subjected to a television mauling by Jeremy Paxman, a radio sandbagging by the MP he defeated and a raft of newspaper headlines about a set of reheated allegations which he has not only strenuously denied but which ended with him winning a major libel action.

In spite of Galloway's court victory and the accumulated evidence in his favour, the BBC saw fit to lead its news bulletins yesterday with the story of supposedly "new" accusations that he received money from Saddam Hussein's Iraq through its oil-for-food programme. Yet the only difference between the claims made against Galloway by the Daily Telegraph in April 2003 and a US Senate subcommittee this week was that they were based on (already published) documents allegedly retrieved from Iraq's oil ministry rather than its foreign ministry - and not, as wrongly claimed, that they covered different periods.

In all other essentials, the allegations made by the Senate committee are the same as those originally outlined in the Telegraph articles that resulted in Galloway being awarded £150,000 in libel damages and £1.2m in costs, though an appeal against the high court ruling in his favour is still outstanding.

During the case Galloway successfully rebutted every point in the Telegraph story that led its journalists to conclude that he had profited from Saddam's government. So it's hardly any wonder that Galloway has found himself repeating his former denials. **

To read this full, 'fair and balanced' article, which I can't recommend highly enough, click on the link at the bottom. Then, if you're genuinely interested in helping a much maligned man like Galloway, please email links to this blog, to as many friends as possible.

If certain vested interests still think they'll always have things their own way, they're wrong. When we all work together, ordinary/regular people like ourselves can give them a short, sharp shock.

So, if you're as sick of the slimy 'spinners' as "This Old Brit" is -- please pass this on. If you're sincere in your search for truth; if you're tired of our lousy leaders' lies; if you're determined to ditch both them and their dirt; if you're positively puking at all their propaganda; if your blood is boiling; if your convictions are matched by your courage -- please, act today.

Get those emails out, now! The Galloway-U.S. Senate, charade looms large. It's only days away. Please, let everyone know, in time. Forewarned is forearmed.

In anticipation, I thank you for your help. I'm sure many others do/will, too.

More Mixer

2005-05-10T21:26:00.000-04:00

I feel like the little red hen. Busy in the kitchen and I pop all the loaves of bread into my oven and then get an email telling me I left some out of the oven!

This blog is just starting off and it seems every day we spend significant time toying with the code and other invisible things and my son trying to teach mom HTML tricks and then everything goes wrong and I have to drive 30 miles to fetch him and get him to FIX THAT NOW!

Whew.

But I promise, the Guest Blog will continue! Thanks for the patience!

Mixer's Political analysis, responding to this question:

“Not to mention that the idea of the "great divide" between red and blue states is a fallacy. There was a separation of 3 million votes between winner and loser... the narrowest margin in any modern election. There are far better maps out there, that show gradations of color. Shockingly, most of the country is purple! I think the entire op-ed is a straw man just waiting to be blown down.”

I'd throw another red-blue distinction out there - one that the author doesn't touch on:

Red/blue might as well be uneducated/educated, pays least of the taxes/pays most of the taxes or contributes least to the GDP/contributes most to the GDP.

...but social conservatives tend to avoid such comparisons.

There was a laughable article written by someone after the election that proposed that the US "kick out" all of the blue states. Aside from the above bullets, the author failed to mention that 8 of the 13 original colonies fell under the "blue state" umbrella - so, it makes more sense for the "US" to "kick out" all of the "red states."

For reference, see:

Morganquitno.com

Janegalt.net
(click on the "handy table" link to see a state-by-state breakdown)
and humaneventsonline

I, for one, am getting really tired of the "Free Lunch"/"Bread and Circuses" attitude of the Right. It's no secret that I've been very concerned with our financial status of late. But, every party comes with a bill to pay eventually; I'll bet anyone here a bottle wine that the catalyst economic event that will end US supremacy is the implementation of privatized social security (as the Administration is proposing it.)

Taking a conservative estimate of the amount Bush wishes to borrow to implement privatization, he needs about $1.5 trillion (the ranges being quoted go up to $5 trillion.) Since this appears to be one of the main priorities for the Administration this year, there is a good chance that it'll be submitted in the next session. [A side note - you'll probably see the National Sales Tax as a rider to this bill, being lauded as a precursor to the replacement of the Income Tax.] If it's submitted, and enough press is generated, it'll probably pass this session to be implemented next year, or retroactive for this year.

Our government tends to spend the money first, then look for a means to pay the bill later. $1.5 trillion comes out to roughly $500 million per day in additional foreign investment we'll need to cover the tab. The world already invests $2.5 billion per day to cover our deficits and debt, which, by the way, is roughly 85% of the world's savings. The world is already pretty skittish about the US, with many of our creditors (including China) telling us to start showing some spending restraint and fiscal responsibility or the party is over. I doubt they will look kindly on us asking them to not only plop the rest of their savings into us, but also put themselves into debt to allow us to continue our standard of living. It's a good bet that us assuming the world will do it will be enough to cause the bond markets to retreat - and we can't afford to even have a small retreat, since we're "living" on those "credit cards." Once that happens, it's all downhill from there - and fast, too.

This is why I'm upset at the "Free Lunch" attitude of the Right; the Republicans have been in charge for a while now, and have managed to spend more (and grow the government larger) than any Democrat had ever dreamed: 34% in 4 years (during Clinton, it was 8%.) It doesn't matter if it was necessary that it happened, because rather than offsetting the increase with restraint someplace else, they decided to just borrow more. The Democrats may be the party of "Tax and Spend," but the Republicans are the party of "Borrow and Spend" - which is much, much worse.

I was reading an article from an analyst who was trying to imagine how the party would end, and I think he did a pretty good job of it. He referenced the turning of the earth and the domino effect of asset transfers:

Baltimore Chronicle

That's probably how it'll happen.. first Asia, then the ME, then Europe and we wake up in the morning to the world having decided we're no longer in charge. Consider what we did to Britain in 1956, if you don't think it's possible.

"If anyone is at fault then why is nobody dumping on Clinton for year after year cutting the defense budget? It should at least kept up with inflation."

Because Clinton kept his deployment level in line with the cuts - nobody was wanting in the military, pay was stable, folks had the equipment they needed, etc. Granted, he did that by working with the rest of the world to share the burden of policing. Bush over-deploys while cutting salaries, benefits and equipment - and give the big “Screw You” to the rest of the world. Yep, those Republicans sure do "take care" of the military - "take care" of it right into the ground. One of my co-workers was an inactive reservist who was activated, was sent to Iraq for a year and just recently came back for some training before going back for *another year.* He was telling me that equipment situation is so bad that soldiers are purchasing equipment - with their own money - on the black market because they can't get what they need.

"But your right about Bush's friends spending so much on his celebratory party. We all know Kerry's friends would not want to celebrate if Kerry had won. They would rather sit at home and read a book or watch TV."

I doubt Kerry would have had the taxpayers foot the bill for the rest, too. Why do you Republicans keep putting your hand in my pocket?

"Look at what Clinton put our military through in Somalia. Sending them there without armor in order to save a few bucks on the deployment and so their bodies end up getting drug through the streets by lightly armed mobs that would never have even fired a shot had American Armor been present."

Why do you folks always bring up Somalia? Yes, a mistake was made. You conveniently forget that:

a) Pres. George Bush actually did the deployment (called "Operation Restore Hope" in Dec 1992,)

and

b) that the Rangers who didn't have armor support were scheduled to be extricated a month later, which is why it was denied.

The mistake that was made was the Pentagon ordering those troops in for that rescue mission knowing full well they didn't have the support they needed; the October Raid was a mistake and shouldn't have happened. The big difference here is that the support that was denied to the troops in Somalia was heavy armor, but the support we're talking about in Iraq is both heavy armor and *body armor* - kevlar vests and such. Sending troops into combat without the basic necessities to begin with.. well, that's a mistake too, but you Republicans think it's okay this time, because it's not a Democrat that's doing it.

"The reason the military is viable at all these days is because of the dedication of the individuals that are serving combined with the high tech weaponry developed as a result of the much maligned military spending during the Reagan-Bush era..."

I'll agree with the first part of your statement - unless you've been in, you have no idea of the dedication these folks have. Most understand full well that they are meat shields protecting the rest of us from harm.

I have issues with Reagan - another fiscal liberal and social conservative - and I could argue that the money spent back then has not benefited us as much as you'd like to imagine (20 year old technology developed for a different kind of war than we're fighting these days,) but the point is that we're not supplying our troops with what they need now (and haven't for nearly two years,) and I don't care if your a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or Green - it's a disgrace, and we should all be sending that message to the White House. But, it seems that Republicans don't mind this time, since Clinton isn't involved.

"Maybe the best way to judge the affect of the different presidents on the military is to allow the vote of the military to speak for itself. I can't say which way they went but I would guess that Kerry's "I voted for funding the War in Iraq right before I voted against it" (or whatever he said) convinced those fighting for us to vote for Bush so that they didn't get hung out to dry so some politician could make a point with their lives...."

As someone who's served, I can tell you that Joe Grunt cares little about politics; Joe Grunt wants more pay and better living conditions, and rightly so. There is a myth out there, re-enforced by the career military, that the Republicans pay better and treat the military better then the Democrats. Anyone willing to do the research can discover that isn't true, but most don't. However, I have not spoken to one active duty service member that likes Bush; almost all voted for him, but because they were afraid that Kerry would pull out, which would make their sacrifice, the death and the personal loss senseless. Now that he's back in office, they are pinning their hopes on Congress to do something, and really hoping the Pentagon will pull its head out of their asses and start running Iraq like they are interested in finishing the campaign. As a side note, a couple of the folks would also like to meet Don Rumsfeld in a dark alley one night and show him exactly how they feel about the way he's running this show.

"Make some point with their lives?" That's the third time I've heard that this week - must be the new buzz-phrase from Rush (I caught him once whining about Carter and the Egypt Grain Embargo as if a 30-year old event was the cause of all the listeners woes. How can you people take him so seriously, if he has to mine the past to get some Democrat-bashing material today?) From the beginning, I've disliked Bush's handling of Iraq on many levels (the primary point is that we're the US and we don't start wars - we end them,) but I've always seen this fiasco as him "making a point with their lives." I've seen Rumsfeld denying supplies as him trying to "save face" because he didn't plan ahead and it's costing us a lot more than we had been told. I see Colin stepping down because he tried to do the right thing, but was overruled by these 4F'ers who have an "agenda" and he's no longer willing to tarnish his honor by being associated with it. But, hey, for the Republicans, it's all about their boy winning; calling them on their mistakes is just "hating America."

General Economic Welfare

Observation:

Pimco.com

This is one of those dry economics white papers that everyone hates reading. In general, it's a discussion of how the US cannot sustain it's current position in the world and offers suggestions on how to ease the transition. While I disagree with some of the author's positions (he hammers the Fed too much and he seems to think that we're rulers of the world and subject to the worlds' whim at the same time,) he's validated many of the points I've been talking about these last few months, including some of his projections and recommendations he has for government intervention. I'll post his suggestions here, for folks who don't care to read the whole thing:

-----

VII. Summary of Policy Recommendations

There is a need to immediately implement a number of important structural measures affecting the global participants. Included in this Category I list of critical adjustments to increase savings, reduce debt and improve current account deficit are:

1. Cut by 15% across the board all U.S. social spending programs.
2. Increase U.S. tax rates.
3. Increase incentives to save in U.S. - consumption taxes.
4. Devise capital controls such that capital cannot be exported out of the U.S.
5. Debt renegotiation/forgiveness by countries with cumulative high trade surplus with the U.S.
6. Change the Federal Reserve Bank objective function to include a constraint on the size of the trade deficit.
7. Prohibit sale of highly sensitive technology and defense to any and all foreign countries.
8. Revalue Chinese currency to U.S. dollar by 40 percent.
9. Targeted protective tariffs if needed.
10. Renegotiate WTO.
11. Prohibit the Fed from purchasing bonds from foreign holders of U.S. debt.

All of the above measures are of great and equal importance and need to be implemented as a package. Piecemeal implementation violates the requirement that all participants must contribute to the readjustment of the global economy.

Category I initiatives need to be followed by a second set of policy measures that we will call Category II. These initiatives are crucial to the long run political-economic stability of the U.S. economy.

1. Increase U.S. defense spending.
2. Develop incentive-based programs for youth, education and health. Take funds from programs for elderly.
3. Reduce minimum wage in U.S. by 50%.
4. Repeal regressive Prop 13 in California.
5. Tax prosperous countries that have benefited from prior IMF bailout recipient
6. Proceeds disbursed to IMF "equity" holders.
7. Tax holders of Iraqi debt for invasion "appreciation" and ultimate "occupation" appreciation value.
8. U.S. Treasury needs to extend average maturity of the debt issued.

Finally, a few additional measures are necessary to help safeguard U.S. national interests. These measures include:

1. Conflict of interest disclosure by any person providing policy advice.
2. Prohibit consulting contracts for any public official leaving office for two-year period.

Pretty radical recommendations, huh?

Now, I doubt that there is a single person reading this that will agree with every bullet he recommends. Hell, even *I* don't agree with everything he says (minimum wage reduction and increased defense spending are two notable ones) even though I think he's got the general idea right (especially slashing social programs, raising taxes and devising capital export controls.) Can you imagine the current Administration taking these steps? Can you imagine the country allowing it to happen?

“What was that one? – ‘Develop incentive-based programs for youth, education and health. Take funds from programs for elderly’"

Say what? Over my dead and rotting body! Fu*k 'em in the a*s for that one!!”

See, I don't disagree with that one. If you look at the last 50 years (especially the last 35,) you'll see that it's been going downhill steadily - financially speaking. There were big spikes during Clinton (for current account deficit,) Reagan (for budget deficit and wealth exportation) and Bush Jr. (for all the above.) Our political system allows for the election of representatives to serve at our behest in the government. In essence, we elected the people who destroyed our financial situation. Sometimes, we re-elected them. Well, I shouldn't say "we" - mostly it was those folks who are currently being catered to by the government.. the elderly. They either created the mess we're in or allowed it to happen, and I don't see a problem with them helping to try and fix it.

Now, before I get labeled as some sort of geriatrophobe (is that a word?), I'd like to say that I do believe that one of duties of society is to care for the old and infirm. However, I also think that people ought to be responsible for their actions; this happened under their stewardship, they should contribute to it's repair. I feel the same way about some of the folks with strong Republican leanings; you elect someone like Bush, then don't start crying (or try and blame the Democrats when the Republicans are doing the damage) when things start going to hell. Actually take some responsibility for once. Concessions could be given for his first term - we didn't know. But this time around, we knew better. That's why I said what I said way back in November; if the American people want to run this country into the ground, then so be it - but I'm not letting them take me with it.

You may not like what I've said here, but listen to what I'm saying. I firmly believe that our children and grandchildren are going to HATE us in the next 20-30 years; either hate us for making it happen, or hate us for letting it happen.

"As a basis for future discussions, how long do you think the lag is between some fiscal action being taken and it's affect on the economy occurring? For instance, how long did it take the cuts in the Fed rate that occurred at the start of Bush's first term to have a noticeable affect on the overall economy?"

That's a tough one. There are a lot of variables that come into play when you are talking about macroeconomic changes; that old adage about a "butterfly flapping its wings raises the price of rice in China" applies. The best economists out there just try and track the chain as far as they can and hope that they are right. But, I'll give you my general feeling towards fiscal actions and the effect on our economy.

Action comes in the form of "short term" and "long term" - bearing in mind that neither “short” nor "long" is exactly predictable. Most "short term" actions (i.e. - Fed rate adjustments, tax cuts, trade adjustments, etc,) tend to take as little as 3-4 months, up to about a year for the effect to be noticed. Much beyond a year and you can assume the action had no effect. Case in point - the anticipated effect of the tax cuts of 2001 never realized and we can assume they won't be; however, they may very well have, in conjunction with plummeting interest rates and an unanticipated willingness of the consumer base to spend till their eyes bled, helped stave off a worse recession than what we had. The problem with short term action is that it usually has unintended long-term consequences - that's one of the reasons Alan has been watching the global market *very* carefully these last couple of years; he's afraid that the tax cuts, soft dollar and low rates will further decrease the foreign investment, which would start the dominoes falling. As it stands now, we're suffering from our short-term cures with the decrease; while no longer in recession, the US certainly hasn't recovered from the recession.

"Long term" actions (i.e. - Fed rate adjustments, policy change that effect trade, permanent tax cuts; yes, they are practically the same,) generally take a little as a year on up before any effect is noticed. The big problem with long-term actions lies in the fact that as time goes on, it becomes difficult to see if economic changes one way or the other are truly being effected by that action. It's usually much easier to see what short-term effect they have; a good example is the tax cuts again - while it certainly did something to the economy in 2001, whether or not it will help in the future is uncertain. Some say that we can't afford permanent tax cuts until the savings rate increases and we pay down our debt; others say that permanent tax cuts *are* the solution to the savings rate problem and debt reduction. As a side note - I agree with the former; until the US gets it's fiscal act together, about the worst thing we can do is decrease our revenue. The second worst thing we can do is keep spending like we have, regardless of tax cuts.

The situation also comes into play; there are some "long term" actions that have an immediate impact on the economy - bond rates are a good example; bonds are long-term investments that encourage foreign capital that can have an immediate impact to the economy. If we need foreign investment, then it's used as a short-term tool for internal stability; if we don't, then it becomes a long-term tool for global stability and growth. And, sometimes the impact isn't seen at all, because the action taken is meant to stave off something - if nothing happens, it's sometimes hard to see what caused the "not happened." Currency value is a good example here; if the US decided to buy back a lot of the dollars floating around out there at the same time the EU suffered a recession and we developed a new technology the world needed - and the dollar stopped dropping in value - it'd be hard to say exactly what impact the buyback alone had. It could be that butterfly flapping its wings, after all.

So, I guess that my answer would be it depends. With your example, the markets reacted immediately to the first cut announcement - so it was instant. But, over the next few weeks, nothing. The next few cuts were met with indifference; the investment flow went into bonds versus stocks. Roughly 6 months after the first rate decrease, we see some small trends moving back into stocks. Mortgage rates fell (while there is no direct connection with the Fed rate, they do tend to follow each other with about a 2-month lag,) which boosted the housing market in 2002. Then we started talking about invading Iraq, and the Middle East pulled it's money out of the US - which caused the crash in 2002 and overrode any further rate cut benefit. From that point on, it's hard to say what effect it's had since rate cuts had become "normal" and somewhat predictable and the ME hasn't put any of its money back into the US. Layers upon layers, cause and effect.

I'll wrap up with an analogy I came up with talking to a rabid Republican co-worker who was spouting the party lines of "deficits don't matter" and "we're too strong to fail:"

The deficits are like an engine revving. When you're driving along and you have all your gears available, everything runs the way it should to get you where you're going and you have enough spare power to pass that slow bastard up ahead (surplus wealth.) However, if you lose a gear or two (deficits) your ability to get power is limited - sometimes you can do it by red-lining your engine at a lower gear, but you can't sustain it. It makes matters worse when you put cheap gas in the tank (have a heavy credit/debt commitment.) But, you have to get where you are going, so you keep red-lining the engine. There are only three outcomes to this:

1) the engine overheats and you start damaging parts of it, but you get where you're going - this time (we continue at pace, but continue to bleed our wealth dry while weakening our overall world position.)

2) you slow down and get there late (we lose our position of power and standard of living, but keep our fundamentals in place.)

or

3) the engine burns out and you stop (economic collapse and another Great Depression.)

Any way you look at it, deficits matter, and nobody is too strong to fail.

--------------

- Rod/Mixer

Mixer Has Many Things to Say

2005-04-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

Email: Elaine has asked me to throw together an article or two for her guest blog, but hasn’t given me any direction on what types of material she wants. Soo.. I’m harvesting some posts from across the web that discuss the general fields she is interested in hearing opinions about. The format is broken down by area and displayed as question/answer:

Note from editor: I am publishing this in parcels, not all at once, an embarrassment of riches.

Deficts

"In rereading the other thread I noticed you talking about the trade deficit. Isn't the trade deficit more a matter of consumerism than national economic policy?"

There is an aspect of consumerism to trading in general, yes. Nobody is interested in buying what they don't want or need. If we want or need something that someone else has, then we trade them something they want or need for it.

Balancing trade internationally goes beyond simple consumerism, though. Since the amount of wealth present or generated by a nation is a finite value, increasing or decreasing wealth becomes a matter of economic policy (especially since we switched to a fiat currency in '64.) Less wealth means lower standards of living, less productivity, less ability to make weapons of defense, etc. So, I suppose the overall answer to your question is no, but in simpler terms (i.e. - the microeconomics of retail trade,) then it'd be sort of/yes.

"For instance, everyone buys smaller, more efficient cars, and oil imports drop along with the trade deficit. If people make those American built cars, the deficit drops even more. If we allow oil to be extracted in Alaska, imported oil decreases and the defecit drops even more"

Well, even the best guess estimates on the reserves in Alaska will only feed autos for a few months. We're not tapping into our reserves to ensure we have enough raw material to produce the plethora of other things that we use oil for: fertilizers, plastics, medicines, etc. The stuff our civilization is founded on. We only open those reserves if we don't anticipate using much, and only for a short time.

But, your question was about modifying our import habits to decrease the deficit. Yes, we could do that. However, we won't. If we decide to lower our imports, then we will only further place ourselves into debt due to that "buyer of last resort" clause we add to most every trade agreement. We would also weaken our position with the global marketplace with a lower import demand; less people would want to buy our stuff if we didn't want to buy theirs. I'm pretty certain the rest of the world would be willing to allow us some import controls to help reign in our out-of-control spending, but we're shifting away from the fair market principle to the free market principle - and the free market does not like controls. No, decreasing imports is not the answer; we have to increase true exports (and that means bringing back the manufacturing base) while reigning in spending (we can no longer afford some of our luxuries;) if we cannot stop the bleeding of our wealth, then we must slow it down enough to make it manageable. Option #1 won't happen; too many businesses would lose profits if we eliminate the "stealth imports," and they'll fight profit loss with everything they have. Option #2 looked to be the most palatable, but we don't seem to care about fiscal responsibility anymore; with the status quo, it's "buyer of last resort" until we choke.

"While I can see that financial policies that affect the strength of the dollar would also have some impact, isn't that impact a smaller percentage of the deficit than the fact that American buy a massive amount of things from overseas? Can any government policy offset the fact that we import billions of dollars of oil each day?"

Yes, we do buy a lot of stuff from overseas. The problem is, we haven't produced the stuff we buy for some time now, and the tax codes combined with the trade unions (as they exist now) make it much more profitable for a business to import products than make them here. And, to spice up the mix, we have politically powerful industries that aren't interested in doing business differently - they want everything to remain the same. Case in point: in Germany, they are producing hybrid cars. Biogas/solar cars. No oil needed. The EU doesn't have the major oil companies that we do, so they can address their oil dependency much more rationally than we can (don't worry folks - they are still making gas-guzzlers to sell to us.) A small side note: that technology platform was a member benefit of the Kyoto Treaty, so we didn't want it; but I'll bet they'll sell it to us for a nice profit if we want it in the future. So, yes, governmental policy can and does affect our trade relations.

One last thing - this isn't a problem that's creeping up on us or a problem that we have room to maneuver in; this has been going on for some time and we're kind of out of options at this point, so don't be surprised if you write your congressman and get no answer. All each of us can do at this point is try and prepare for the future.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: Often times, in the "comments" section of quite a few blogs, I read interesting and rather long replies and I know from my own experience, these are not mere cut and pasties or reguritation of some ideology but people really trying to figure things out.

I hope Culture of Life News gets thoughtful comments. It truly pleases me. Jokes are nice, too, by the way. There is room for both here!

How THIS Old Brit Sees.....

2005-04-28T12:53:00.000-04:00

Far-Eastern Feuding ...

The Chinese have been showing Japan exactly what they think of it's 'revisionist' history recently. Hundreds of thousands have regularly been demonstrating in the streets. As it's all gone on, what's not been happening is as noteworthy as what has. Everything's taken place without a single sighting of a solitary, Tianamman-square-type tank to keep 'order'. Hmm?

It's true the Japanese have, in the past, inflicted terrible things on their oriental neighbours [and others] -- but 'revision of history' has long been the norm in China, too. Often, by more subtle yet equally effective, sins of omission.

Witness what Briton, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC's Beijing, resident correspondent, recently reported -- in an intelligent and fair & balanced way. Incidentally, he's more than well read in Chinese history, and has much first hand experience in life in modern China, where he lives with his family. Interestingly, his wife is Japanese and they have two young children. Hopefully, they'll ensure we soon have at least a couple more enlightened adults amongst us. Half British, half Japanese, growing up in China? Definitely, far Eastern experts of the future, I'd say.

Here's a telling extract from their father's recent BBC piece.

* Young Chinese are taught about the atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II. They are not however taught about the 17 official apologies that Japan has made to China over the last 30 years, including one from the Japanese emperor when he visited Beijing.

Nor are they told of the $30bn in aid that Japan has given to China since ties were re-established in 1972, aid that has helped build Beijing's international airport and the city's new subway system. You'll search in vain for a plaque on either acknowledging where the money came from.

Unlike Japan, in China the government really does control history.
His full article's well worth a read -- at the link down below -- here's another taster:

China's own history has been relentlessly rewritten to erase the episodes the Communist Party would rather forget. Ask any young Chinese about Mao's disastrous "great leap forward" campaign in which more than 20 million people starved to death, and you will get a blank stare.

Ask about China's unprovoked invasion of Vietnam in 1979 in which tens of thousands of Vietnamese were killed. Again, nothing.

Last week China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao declared that:
"Only a country that respects history, and takes responsibility for history, can take greater responsibilities in the international community."

He was talking about Japan, but he could just as well have been talking about China.

BBC News

TO VISIT RICHARD CLICK HERE.

Juliedee's Blog: The Half Kracked Kup

2005-04-28T12:36:00.001-04:00

Email message: OK Elaine!

Here’s my submission to your “guest page”! It’s basically the same as the one you read on my blog (and will shortly replace it) but is in the format I use for my newsletter (I have about 200 subscribers at this point and gain new ones every day!). If you wish you can chop the sig off just below my name, BUT I would like if you kept the copywrite stuff (sans the bit about “this and the stuff above” of course”).

Your new friend,

Julie

The American Religious Reich
OR
How I learned to Goose Step While Loving The Lord

I’ve been noticing a pattern in the Christian community of late. Not in the mainstream community by any means, but in the small, loud fringe community that has by their very loudness and cohesiveness come to power in recent years. Because their actions are so very reminiscent of the actions and tactics and rhetoric of Hitler and his brown shirts I call them The Religious Reich, A bit of word play on Religious Right, but frighteningly close to the truth as you will see... So, that said, let's take a look at how the Religious Reich stacks up against the Nazism these days:

Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, wrote an article about fascism which appeared in Free Inquiry magazine -- a journal of humanist thought. Dr. Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The article is "Fascism Anyone?," Lawrence Britt, Free Inquiry , Spring 2003, page 20. My comments will be in the {curly brackets} following Dr. Britt's observations.

Here follows Julie's commentary:

The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism by Dr. Lawrence Britt

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

{One certainly can't say that Nationalism is not on the rise! Flags fly EVERYWHERE!}

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

{One need look no farther than Guantanamo Bay and the so called "Patriot Act" for evidence of that.}

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

{"Islamic Terrorists"... need I say more?}

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

{While record deficit spending is building up a National Debt that our great great great grand children will still be paying off military spending is still at embarrassingly high levels. Especially when you consider that ALL other governments INCLUDING our traditional enemies have CUT their military spending by 50% or MORE! Source: Peace Action}

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homo-sexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

{The Religious Reich is fighting to overturn the gains both gays and women have made in the areas of equal employment and having their specific health needs met. Also the battle over Roe v. Wade and the fight over Equal Marriage has heated up in the last 2 yeas as well so yes, they are encouraging rampant sexism!}

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

{I have many friends in the media who are sometimes afraid to report on stories that might anger the Religious Reich. I would call that indirect control.}

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

{I don't recall a single "Green" or "Yellow" alert day in the last 2 years, do you? I DO recall a good many news stories straight from the Office of Homeland Security about this potential terrorist threat or that potential terrorist threat that never materialized though.}

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

{Just this weekend we had a GLARING example of just how the Repugnican Party has become entangled with the Religious Reich in the form of that broadcast that DeLay and Frist and other Repugnican leaders made through Dobson's Family Research Council's network that was broadcast to thousands of churches nationwide! It's nigh on impossible to tell the difference between a Republican Party Plank and a Fundamentalist Christian Minister's religious edict these days!)

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

{How many times have we seen this? From Enron to Bechtel industrial and business aristocracy are untouchable!}

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

{Just look at how the power of the unions have been gutted in the past few years. No longer does the worker have the power of a strong union to organize against the huge corporations in order to get wages that keep up with inflation and the standard of living. Worse yet the government has demonized the unions much like it did at the turn of the 20th century.}

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

{I see this every day. These "hit or missives" get forwarded to a wide variety of people. Often I get back comments calling me an "anti-Christian intellectual bigot" and an "over educated idiot" to name but a few. The disdain these people have for the educated is quite honestly frightening!}

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

{OH YEA! Even though the FBI reports that crimes have been DOWN for the last 4 years all you hear from them is "get tough on crime" talk and how "the criminal has more rights than the victim". Part of that rhetoric is the whole "get tough on drugs" nonsense that expresses itself in making it harder for those with a legitimate need for the pain killers to get the medications they so desperately need! every year hundreds of chronic pain patients take their own lives because they can no longer stand having to wait to receive the drugs that will ease their pain. Why? So some politician can say he's "tough on drugs".}

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

{Just look at all of Bush's buddies that have followed him to the White House. Look at Frist, he's got his whole family on the payroll! DeLay as well! Ditto McCain, Feinstein, and everyone else in Washington! You'd think it was some kind of public trough for politicians for God's sake!!}

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

{The last election was just about as close to fraudulent as you can get without being able to make a case! Too few voting machines in the heavily Democratic precincts while in the mostly Republican strongholds they had machines that never got used! And just who decided where the machines were sent? A Republican. Then there were the smears... GEEBUS! NO ONE knows how to run a smear campaign like a Repugnican! They practically invented it! And let's not even talk about the monkey fuck of an election before that!}

So all in all the Religious Reich and the Repugnican Party get 14 out of 14... a perfect score! If it smells like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck I don't have to see it swim to be sure it's a duck.

That's my opinion and you are welcome to it.

©2002-2005 by Julie Johnson for PlanetOutCast.Network. All rights reserved. This document may be reprinted and forwarded freely in it's entirety, BUT must include this AND the preceding notice. Please inform the author of where you have posted it. Thank you for your support!

Julie Johnson aka “The Great Spoon“

FROM THE EDITOR: We should visit all other's blogs.

Kracked Kup forum

1/2 Kracked Kup Blog

Welcome to Culture of Life News Guest Blog!

2005-04-26T21:55:00.000-04:00

The view from my front deck.

This is where guests to our blog can run extended articles or conversations. Some of the postings under various stories are long and detailed and it would be a shame to not give them proper airing. To post an article here is very simple:

Contact me at emeinel@taconic.net or post it at the comments section in the opening page of this news site and I can transfer it over to the guest blog. If a poster has trouble with HTML coding, don't let that faze you, it is a pain to do. I do it so much it is second nature so all you have to do is give me the URL and I can do all the coding. This includes pictures. If you want a picture set up, pull it into the email and it will appear usually as code ending in jpg. I can code it so it appears. If it is too big, I can shrink it, etc.

So don't be shy! Everyone is very interesting.

I really like stories from at work or school or something in the news that reminds you about something important at home. Breaking news or interesting news about energy or technology or finances is greatly appreciated! I don't watch TV so interesting stuff from there is also an addition to this news blog.

Each time I get a posting, I will put it on the main page with one paragraph describing it and a link that can be clicked. If there are any bugs in this set up, please tell me.

Thanks in advance,

Elaine Supkis, editor of Culture of Life News.