Collusion for Tyranny: The Media is just as guilty as Bush

Kucinich has introduced the Articles of Impeachment against Bush

...and the Media hasn't said shit.

"Liberal Media" my ass! The Media is fucking fascist, end of story. They are utterly controlled by the same corporate interests that control both major political parties. That's why Dennis Kucinich is a pariah in his own party -- he actually looks out for the Constitution and the rights of We The People. Such dedication to Liberty is considered treason in the bowels of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

A few mainstream outlets picked up the story and managed to spend an approximate average of less than 200 words describing the measure. They couldn't even be bothered to list more than a few of the 35 articles of impeachment.

I've seen better reporting in a fucking high school newspaper.

I don't blame the beat reporters; if their editors said "give me 2,000 words" they would have. As is, they probably had to fight to get 200.

But it's disgusting. I mean, jeeze, it's only the impeachment of the goddamn President of the United States of America. They all managed to mention that it's not politically feasible. Well I wonder why that is, you jackasses! It's because you won't cover it! If you did, everything would change, no matter how shitty and biased your coverage. Mr. 25% Approval Rating would not find many advocates in the populace, even if he would in the dominant press. And then you'd look pretty stupid, wouldn't you, defending the murdering megalomaniac who launched an illegal war. Those of us who still remember the impeachment of Bill Clinton know that it takes very little to whip the Media into a frothing frenzy of obsessive, inane coverage. Surely you could do the same for Bush. But you won't.

Because you're traitors.

Yeah, that's right. I said it. And it's true. This president is the most evil, diabolical man ever elected and you, the supposed Fourth Estate, won't criticize him in a voice above a whisper. It's fucking pathetic.

Look at Kucinich's 35 articles of impeachment. There's a lot of red meat here:

#1: Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq

#2 Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression

#3 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War

#4 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States

#14: Misprision of a felony, misuse and exposure of classified information and cover up (Plame outing)

#15: Providing immunity from prosecution for criminal conduct for contractors in Iraq

#17: Illegal detention – detaining indefinitely, and without charge, American citizens and foreign captives (suspension of habeus)

#18: Torture – secretly authorizing and encouraging use of torture, as matter of official policy

#19 Rendition

#24 Spying on citizens violating 4th Amendment

#26 Announcing intent to violate laws w/signing statements, and then violating those laws.

#27 Failing to comply with congressional subpoenas, and instructing others to do so.

#29: Conspiracy to violate voting rights act of 1965, Ohio Sec of State 2004-06

#34: Obstruction into the investigation of 9/11

That's just a few of them. And this isn't wing-nut stuff, this is all stuff that has been discussed at one time or another in the mainstream press. Much of it was hushed up (the NSA spying scandal, election fraud, 9/11 obstruction) but some of it was loud and clear (torture, Plame, illegal Iraq War). Far from being left-wing lunacy, this is the last 7.5 years, distilled into 35 bullet points.

And yet the Media won't cover a congressman trying to hold Bush/Cheney accountable for their crimes.

I already told you why. But let it sink in. The Mainstream Media are the ones who made the Bush/Cheney disaster possible. They're the ones who greased the wheels, regurgitated the lies, jumped on the bandwagon and hushed up the really bad shit. Bush, without a fawning press corps, is just another partisan nutcase with a rich daddy. He wouldn't've been re-elected, let alone "elected" in the first place (another coverup there).

Let me lay it down for ya, real simple: If Bush hangs, Brian Williams should hang, too. If Cheney hangs, Tim Russert needs to swing from the same pole. If Rumsfeld goes down to the gallows, Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks need to die too. The blood of OVER ONE MILLION IRAQI INNOCENTS is on their hands.

Maybe that's why the Media is so protective of the Bush regime: They know if Bush goes down, they all go down. They've all bloodied their hands and sullied their souls together. Might as well stick together until the bitter end.

But if we don't stop them, they'll turn this nation into a fascist state and make you and I into criminals for believing in justice, peace and freedom. Somehow we've got to stop them, but I just don't know how. I'm just some random guy with a blog. What can I do? There's no one representing my interests in Washington except Dennis Kucinich.

One man, standing up against the Forces of Evil, spitting in the wind and calling for change. This doesn't look good for the underdogs.

Meanwhile, the supposed hope of mankind is cozying up to Israel, possibly attending the secret Bilderberg meeting (another media coverup) and generally doing whatever it takes to get elected. Fair enough. But Barack Obama had better watch out that he doesn't sell his soul in the process.

Maybe the whole Obama campaign is just a mirage, a hallucination by those of us who have dreamed of someone who could bring our government back from the brink of tyranny and outright fascism.

I hope I'm wrong, but it's hard to believe in anything or anybody anymore. We've been utterly betrayed by the government, the media and the elite. It just hurts too much to care anymore. The audacity of hope, indeed.

I'd feel a lot more hopeful if I knew somebody out there was fighting the good fight. I sleep a little sounder knowing Kucinich has the balls of a man twice his size, but he's only one man. We need a few hundred more like him in Congress.

Dennis Kucinich: I salute you. You are a true American patriot.

The psychics at The Onion have done it again!

The Onion has a pretty good track record of not only reporting the news before it happens, but making it funny, too. They've been eerily prescient before, but sometimes I forget just how good these guys are!

Just last month I posted a hilarious Onion TV video that featured a supposed al-Qaeda operative arguing with a 9/11 Truther. The video works on many levels, but for me it was funny because the al-Qaeda guy is so obviously spewing Bush administration talking points and desperately trying to claim credit for something clearly beyond their capabilities. He even brings a receipt for flight lessons and brags about his connections to the White House: "Me and Bush, we go out, we hang."

The idea of al-Qaeda stepping up to defend the Bush administration's version of events on 9/11 is pretty hilarious, but come on! That's just over the top, right? It was a good chuckle and then we all moved on.

Apparently somebody thought this wasn't funny enough in fiction so al-Qaeda has made it real!

Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

Just sit back and soak that in. I didn't make up that quote, amazingly.

One enemy of the U.S./Israel accusing the other of understating the first's evil is funny enough, but this treads onto satire when al-Zawahri says blaming Israel makes Muslims look stupid!

"The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it," he said.

Haha!! This is straight out of the Bush regime's racist playbook. Look at the implication: Muslims can be heroes only if they're terrorists! Only a moron or a stooge would admit such a thing about his own people. Sunni or Shi'ite, you'd think Zawahri would try to unify the sects against the Zionists, but instead he plays right into the Bush regime's hands by simultaneously defaming Muslims everywhere (as if every Muslim is just itching for a chance to blow himself up!) and sowing divisiveness amongst his people at the same time. Zawahiri is either a tactical moron or a CIA stooge.

Could he actually expect to sway Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with this argument? Ahmadinejad may be an idiot, a tool and a loudmouth, but he is not a terrorist or a dictator. He is like Putin, a strongman that the people have turned to in order to provide a hedge against U.S. imperialism.

Ahmadinejad knows, like Putin, that the 9/11 attacks were self-inflicted in order to provide a pretext for Bush's endless wars of conquest (and embarrassment). Heck, even our allies in Japan are starting to question the events of that day. In retrospect it looks like an incredible boon to an administration that has done nothing but evil with the goodwill generated worldwide in response to the tragedy.

Many people say the Bush administration is too incompetent to pull off the attacks and subsequent coverup, but I say al-Qaeda is too incompetent to do ... much of anything! Call the Bush team what you will, but they are masters at manipulation and misdirection. They managed to steal two elections and they orchestrated an incredible propaganda campaign to trick the nation into war with Iraq. I remember watching the news back in early 2003 thinking I was living in an endless Twilight Zone episode. And what happened to the treasonous military men, the lying pundits and the architects of this atrocity? Well they're mostly still around and many of them have been promoted!

People need to realize that the Bush administration isn't incompetent when it comes to stuff like Katrina: They just don't give a fuck! ... There's a difference. They look after their own, not a bunch of poor folks who don't vote Republican anyway.

Al-Qaeda is a CIA-sponsored group whose only role is to draw attention away from the real terrorists. This is common knowledge among the elite, although some still cling to a twisted sort of incompetence theory:

Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west.

Oh, I think it occurred to them alright. It was the plan all along. You think the CIA can't "take care of" a few jihadis waving around U.S.-made stinger missile launchers? The CIA doesn't just let anybody play with their toys. They can find you. After all, details about members of al-Qaeda are, by definition, in "The Database."

That raises another question: Who the fuck would name their terrorist organization after a "structured collection of records or data that is stored in a computer system"?!

I have an idea. I'm going to start an organization dedicated to the Liberation of the Great State of Minnesota from the Oppressive Federal Government of the United States of America. I'm going to name this organization..... Pants!

What do you think? "Pants" ... or "Pants!"? ... I'm not sure, does the exclamation point sell it?

Anyway, my point is that it's completely fucking ridiculous. I just made my hypothetical liberation front look clueless, stupid.... and somewhat artistic, I guess. Maybe "al-Qaeda" would make a good, Dadaist band name in Arabic, but it doesn't do shit for a supposedly committed bunch of terrorists.

Let's look at other "terrorist" organizations and what kind of names they have (I'll assign grades based soley on the clarity and effectiveness of the name, not their tactics or ideology):

• The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - localized, religious and grassroots. These guys know how to name a group. Doesn't lock them into terrorism either. B+
• The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group - very straightforward; we know right away they're into Islam, fighting and Morocco. However, isn't this a little open-ended? Most groups start with a specific cause... you know, like freeing their homeland or something. These guys just feel "combative", apparently. It should be no surprise they're affiliated with al-Qaeda. B-
• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine ( الجبهة الشعبية لتحرير فلسطين ) - very savvy name. They're playing the populism card, plus you know exactly what their goals are. A
• The Irish National Liberation Army - once again, very straightforward. You know what they want and who they represent right away. Would this front be as popular if they were named "fishsticks"? I doubt it. B
• The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord - even though these guys aren't clear about what they want, it's obvious they're into Jesus and swordplay. Kinda makes you wanna learn more about'em too, but not really. I'm giving it a better grade because it rhymes. C+
• The United Liberation Front of Asom - pretty clear what they're after here. I like the unity reference; makes you think they're a big tent liberation front. But like most Americans I didn't know where the hell Asom is (northeast India). A-

I have to give al-Qaeda a D- for their crappy name. I would give them an F, but the randomness of it is pretty funny... except for the whole killing and murder thing. But that's the rub; I just don't buy these guys as terrorist masterminds. They can't even fucking name themselves right, so why would I think they could pull off 9/11? Even if you say, "okay, maybe 'The Base' refers to a military base" it makes no sense because the modus operandi of these guys is supposedly their decentralization. There is no main headquarters. They're ostensibly a loose-knit group of cells that operate independently, yet aren't really controlled by Osama either, who is mostly a figurehead who provides funding (or did... he's probably dead). Let's face it: "al-Qaeda" probably only makes sense if you don't speak Arabic.

If you're still not convinced al-Qaeda is a joke, watch an incredible BBC documentary called The Power of Nightmares. You'll be glad you did.

As for me, I will continue to worry about the real terrorist organization plaguing this wretched earth: The Central Intelligence Agency. A look at their record exposes the deep hypocrisy of the United States government when it comes to terrorism:

• You blow up a bus in Whogivesafuckistan? You're a terrorist.
  
• You overthrow a legitimate government and replace it with a puppet government that proceeds to butcher 500,000 of its own people? You're a hero. Here's your medal.

Even The Onion can't make that level of hypocrisy funny.

20% of CEOs don't pay taxes

... their companies pick up the bill. Isn't that nice?

You may think I'm just making stuff up, but this info is from a new study (via USA Today):

A new study from The Corporate Library finds that the most common form of perk being granted to CEOs these days is something called a tax "gross-up." In plain English, it means that a company pays the taxes owed by the CEO on benefits granted by the company.

The Corporate Library, a shareholder watchdog group, found that 20% of major American companies, or 657 of nearly 3,300 examined, picked up the tab on at least one tax owed by the CEO.

"We are sure that many U.S. workers would be grateful if their employers also paid their income tax obligations," writes Paul Hodgson of The Corporate Library in the report.

You're damn right, Paul. How fucking sweet would that be?

Those poor, hard-working billionaire CEOs! We can't just hand them a billion dollars and expect them to pay their own taxes can we? Heck, no, we need a welfare program for CEOs.

What utter fascism.

What's that you say? This has nothing to do with fascism? I disagree; here's why:

The guiding fascist principle is "might makes right". Fascism is all about making things orderly, especially for those who rule. Far from being the goal, social equality is looked at as something undesirable, perhaps even unnatural. Fascists love the pyramid structure. They want a firm, unyielding power structure that's easy to understand; they need a strong leader who is completely above everyone else, like a Pharoah or a Emperor. That's why Bush is so popular with so many people who are actually adversely affected by his policies. They love being ruled with an iron fist. The opposite makes them feel afraid, whereas the pyramid structue makes them feel safe. Democracy is chaos. Fascism is order.

So it shouldn't be surprising that our business leaders organize things in a pyramidal, hierarchical fashion as well. It's not necessary to pay CEOs and other execs huge sums of money; they don't really need it, but they do want it. It's a status symbol. Their obscene paycheck makes them a god, a pharoah. It places them way beyond the reach of the rest of us. They represent the ultimate promise of capitalism: to become godlike without being born into it. And of course, if you want to emphasize your godliness, you must also emphasize the weakness of the puny, pathetic mortals who work under you. That's why perfectly rational companies gladly pay obscenely wasteful amounts of money to CEOs while simultaneously pinching pennies when it comes to regular workers.

It's no fun being a god if there's no one to worship you. But it gets funny. Search around and you'll find plenty of people defending CEO salaries and this gross-up technique. They've slurped the Kool-Aid and they think they can become CEOs one day too. It's the American Dream after all.... but what percentage of us actually becomes a CEO?

The article above focuses on 3000 major companies. There are 300 million Americans. You have a 0.001% chance of being one of their CEOs. Good luck.

Al-Qaeda denies 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Al-Qaeda demands recognition for their attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11th:


9/11 Conspiracy Theories 'Ridiculous,' Al Qaeda Says

Truer than anything you will see on FauxNews, folks.

And yes, "truer" is a word.

You doubted me. Admit it. ... Go on; admit it. ..yeah.

p.s. Sorry about the lame commercial before the video. I just think it's ironic given the content.

Economic Advice for Peasants

So apparently I have a blog or something. Wouldn't it be nice if I updated it every now and then?

Sorry for the nearly-a-month gap between updates. I've been busy, depressed, sick, busy and exhausted. And busy.

A lot has changed, but much more hasn't. I get sick of the same old shit. It's just depressing to have to contend with the fact that we've got a crew of fascists in the White House and no one seems to care, especially not Congress.

Similar to Hitler and Nazis we may have to wait for them to cause their own undoing. That seems like the way things are going: The Fed and Bush admin have completely fucked our economy to the point where I'm wondering whether I should move somewhere the hell else.

They said an emergency cut by the US Federal Reserve to its discount rate and a weekend deal for JPMorgan Chase to buy Bear Stearns at a fire-sale price had added to a sense of crisis sweeping through global financial markets.

The volatility spilled over into commodities Monday as oil prices soared to fresh highs and gold prices jumped as investors looked to safe-havens.

The fact that the government is bailing out mega-rich corporations at the expense of regular-joe taxpayers almost doesn't even register in my mind. We've got bigger fish to fry: The stability of the economy as a whole is threatened.

It's important to realize that the US dollar is a fiat currency, backed by nothing but promises. There's no gold backing, no silver; nothing. It's paper. It's backed only by the promise of the government that its citizens will continue being productive and paying their taxes. But if the economy goes even lower into the pit of doom it's falling in, then the American taxpayer will have trouble paying for much of anything. Houses are foreclosing and jobs are dwindling. There's no end in sight so we don't know whether this will be just a minor correction (read: recession) or a major depression.

It's looking more and more like a depression.

There's a lot of baggage here. The dollar has been inflated in value for years and now the cows are coming home to roost ontop of the chickens who wanted to be elsewhere but couldn't afford transport because of high gas prices.

But's the subprime mortgage mess that's really triggering this downfall. Those same loans kept the economy afloat a few years ago, but now they're acting more like a millstone. So, in order to save us from economic ruin, the Bush admin is robbing us of our own money. This money will be sent to the enormous banks who fucked us in the first place:

This week, Bernanke’s Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks’ mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

The Spitzer scandal proves once again that the most horrible thing any politician can ever do is have sex.

You can start illegal wars, violate every American's 4th amendment rights simultaneously, give away billions to rich cronies, display utter incompetence and total hypocrisy, but God help you if you have sex with somebody who's not your wife! (the solution is obvious)

Oh well. Spitzer was a hypocrite, too. He should've moved for legalized prostitution when he had the chance. But what really burns me is how we hold (or don't hold) politicians accountable. Spitzer's indiscretions are mostly a matter of concern for his wife; it's none of our fucking business (ha!). Bush's crimes are at a war-crime level or higher. Yet he is protected by the Democratic Congress as if he were one of their own.

Well, I guess he is.

The truth is that the ruling class looks after their own. Spitzer was standing in the way of economic progress so he had to go. Of course "economic progress" is just a euphemism for wealth redistribution; from the poor to the rich.

In the end, we're on our own. The rich will look after themselves/each other, but they will only think about us insofar as we are necessary to their survival. It's foolish naivety to believe otherwise, I'm afraid. They'll save their servents before us, simply because they want someone to serve them hot toddies in the underground bunkers.

So my advice is: watch the markets. If there's a run on the banks you'll want to be first in line to get your cash. Remember, only the first 10% will get their money out. Everybody else is completely fucked if the FDIC doesn't have a couple trillion laying around.

Of course what do I know? I'm just a simple peasant giving advice to other peasants on how to deal with an economic system invented by the nobles for the benefit of the nobles. There's really not much we can do.

But you might be wise to avoid listening to the mouthpieces of the nobles. Their advice is usually self-serving at best. Perhaps even scarier is the idea that the high priests of the economy have no fucking idea what's happening or how to stop it.

Sounds like a good time for a deus ex machina. Somebody must've seen this debacle coming, right? We need a white knight but all I see are charlatans, jokers and sycophants. Hoping for a miracle doesn't seem like a very good strategy, but what other choice do we have?

935 Lies in 24 months, eh? So, uh.... when do the impeachment hearings start?

So yeah, I know this isn't a big shocker to anybody with a functioning brain stem, but the Bush administration systematically lied its way into the Iraq War. A new study by the Center For Public Integrity has analyzed the public statements of administration officials in the run-up to the war and come up with 935 lies in a two-year span.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

Everybody makes mistakes. Accidents happen and people do stupid things... but 935 mistakes? No fucking way.

So Many Lies, So Little Time
This was an organized campaign of deception. It was a fraud perpetrated on the American people and, most especially, on the people of Iraq.

935 LIES! That's 1.28 lies per day for 24 months straight by my calculations.

Take a look at the chart below (click for a larger version). You can see that the lies are concentrated around the pre-war and immediate post-invasion period. The peak lying period was the February before the invasion (which began on March 19, 2003). This was no accident.


This is not just a bunch of anonymous interns leaking statements to the press. The study concentrated on just 8 top officials:

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The study can only look at public statements, so we have no way of counting the many lies whispered into the ears of journalists. It's interesting that Karl Rove was not included in this study, but he's more of a behind-the-scenes operator. Also missing are gobs of military men, mid-level staffers, the whole pundit class on TV and many more folks who are not directly connected to the administration. These 935 lies are just a drop in the bucket, but they all originate from very high-ranking officials.

The Impeachment Fantasy
So now that we've got a study in the mainstream press clearly delineating the fact that George W. Bush made at least 260 false statements in just 24 months, that means the impeachment hearings are just around the corner, right?

Wrong.

The Democrats will wag their fingers and cluck their tongues and do.... nothing. The Republicans have long since sold their souls, but it's the Democrats' betrayal that really hurts America. We need a true opposition party more than ever, but we don't have one.

If you've been reading this blog you probably know by now how Washington really works. Democracy, hearings, investigations, intelligence estimates, blah, blah, blah. It's all just for show. The real power resides behind the scenes. The oligarchy, the establishment, the powers that be -- whatever you want to call them -- have decided that there will be no impeachment hearings. So there won't be.

I don't know what else to tell you. "Write your congressperson"? Fat lotta good that will do, but it doesn't hurt to keep the pressure on.

The Oligarchs' Dilemma
Just try not get too depressed. Yes, American "democracy" makes Pakistan look like an oasis of liberty, but it's not all bad. I've got a feeling that there are some people in the establishment who want to change things. No doubt they're biding their time, waiting for things to fall into place. But we don't have much time. I don't think the Bush team plans to leave office, 'cause if they do they'll have to leave the country, too. Even the oligarchy can't stop a limited investigation into the Bush regime by any successive Democratic administration. They have to continue the illusion of democracy, even if it hurts them in the short term. And that could mean a war crimes tribunal for Bush and crew.

Cheney knows this so it's more likely that there will be another terrorist attack before or shortly after the elections (before inaugeration). Bush will declare martial law, lock down the nation, suspend the constitution and retain power "temporarily" until the emergency has passed. Of course, just like in Musharraf's Pakistan, the emergency will never pass.

If there are any oligarchs still loyal to the constitution, they will have to move quickly. There's a very small window (less than a year now) to execute their counter-coup. Bush will move to arrest the constitutional loyalists on trumped-up charges. Impeachment is the only remedy. We'll need to take to the streets and camp out in every single senator's office and demand justice.

If and when it does happen we'll have to be ready. We need to stand up for democracy, no matter what the cost. The future of America hangs in the balance.

Jeb Bush on "Truth"

Jeb Bush, the president's li'l brother, has a little warning for all of you who would doggedly pursue the truth, no matter what it may be:

The truth is useless. You have to understand this right now. You can't deposit the truth in a bank. You can't buy groceries with the truth. You can't pay rent with the truth. The truth is a useless commodity that will hang around your neck like an albatross all the way to the homeless shelter. And if you think that the million or so people in this country that are really interested in the truth about their government can support people who would tell them the truth, you got another thing coming. Because the million or so people in this country that are truly interested in the truth don't have any money.

-- Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida

It might sound like he's talking out of his ass, but I suspect he's not. He's part of an elite clique that holds power in this and many other countries, and you can bet they've studied their opposition very closely. Their opposition is a small contingent of kooks and nutcases who actually believe that the truth is important. I bet the elite looked in the NSA's gigantic spying database, crunched some numbers and figured out that they only have to worry about a million or so people, out of the 300 million US citizens in this country.

That's only 1 out of 300, but it's still a lot of people. Of course, he's right: We don't have any money. But we do have a need for truth, and despite what the Jeb Bushes of the world may tell you, that's the most important thing.

I wear the albatross of truth with pride, but I can understand why people would be reluctant to do so. The truth is dangerous, especially when powerful men like Jeb Bush are so adamantly opposed to the real truth. People learn to keep their mouths shut. Go along to get along. Join the herd.

But then I guess you can't really complain when politicians lie to you if you're not going stand up for truth. Churchill said democracy is the worst form of government, except for all of the others that have been tried. Perhaps we've gotten the government we deserve. Perhaps it was our laissez faire attitude towards truth that got us into this mess in the first place and allowed it to fester and burst in such a gooey explosion of lies and bullshit.

Maybe the million or so of us should move somewhere else. Maybe Americans would rather live in deception than stand up for the truth. I don't know. But I believe that the truth matters somehow, more than Jeb could ever know. And if Americans don't like the truth, I'm pretty sure they don't like the feeling that they've been lied to either.

Let that be a warning for Jeb and his pals. Americans don't like being played for fools... and the truth is that that is exactly what Jeb and the elite are doing.

No wonder they're no friends of the truth.

Benazir Bhutto was obviously assassinated by Musharraf

Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto is dead. She was shot by her assassin, who then blew himself up.

Bhutto's archenemy, Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, who has the most to gain from her death, tried to make it look as though he hadn't wished for such a thing:

Musharraf blamed Islamic extremists for Bhutto's death and said he would redouble his efforts to fight them.

"This is the work of those terrorists with whom we are engaged in war," he said in a nationally televised speech. "I have been saying that the nation faces the greatest threats from these terrorists. ... We will not rest until we eliminate these terrorists and root them out."

Right, right, right. "Terrorists." Gotcha. Anything bad happens, it's dem damn dirty terr'rists.

Isn't it weird how the terrorists' are so kean to assassinate a politician with no actual power who may or may not have had a shot at the presidency? Especially when the presidency is currently occupied by a secular militant Bush-crony who hated Bhutto?

Hmmm....

Meanwhile, our esteemed president was quick to blame teh terr'rists too:

In the U.S., a tense looking President Bush strongly condemned the attack "by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy."

Undermine Pakistanti democracy? You mean, like by supporting a dictator instead of demonstrators agitating for liberty? I guess that makes Bush a "murderous extremist." Even more interesting is how he already knows that it was some lone gunman ("extremist" is a great catch-all) when there hasn't been an investigation yet.

In fact, all of the neocon/fascist front have already condemned the attack, from Sarkozy to Karzai to Gordon Brown to the Pope. They were so quick with statements you have to wonder if they knew it was coming. And every single one of them has accepted Musharraf's version of events without question.

Interesting....

Of course, Americans are in the thrall of a malicious and corrupt media establishment. There will be no questioning the official version of events.

The Pakistanis at least are not so stupid:

Many chanted slogans against Musharraf, accusing him of complicity in her killing.

"We repeatedly informed the government to provide her proper security and appropriate equipment ... but they paid no heed to our requests," Malik said.

As news of her death spread, angry supporters took to the streets.

In Pakistan it's obvious. The president's most esteemed foe is dead with a bullet in her neck. Do the fucking math.

Musharraf is a military man. The military is the most powerful institution in Pakistan and their intelligence service, the ISI, is a known collaborator with the CIA (some say it's just a CIA puppet). The motive, means and opportunity are all right there. But we Americans -- you know home of the brave, land of the free -- will swallow the Musharraf propaganda like manna because our Dear Leader and his corrupt, oligarchical establishment have their fingers in this wicked little pie.

Pakistan is necessary for the perpetuation of other frauds, including the al Qaeda myth. That's why control of Pakistan cannot be allowed to return to the hands of a democrat. The secret could be revealed, and that is most certainly worth killing for.

This is not the first attempt on Bhutto's life:

Bhutto had returned to Pakistan from an eight-year exile on Oct. 18. On the same day, she narrowly escaped injury when her homecoming parade in Karachi was targeted in a suicide attack that killed more than 140 people.

That was Musharraf's first "welcome back" message. Now, he has said "goodbye."

Now here comes the lie:

Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban hated Bhutto for her close ties to the Americans and support for the war on terrorism. A local Taliban leader reportedly threatened to greet Bhutto's return to the country with suicide bombings.

That's a straight-up lie. First of all the Taliban has no claim on Pakistan; they are (ostensibly) Afghanis who are more concerned with fighting the Bush-puppet Hamad Karzai. Second, if al Qaeda truly hated Bush and the Americans they would target Musharraf, since he is Bush's closest and most powerful ally in Pakistan. Bhutto's death does nothing but strengthen his hand. The truth is that the CIA and the ISI worked together to train and create al Qaeda for bin Laden as a convenient scapegoat for anything and everything.

Now al Qaeda is getting the blame again. How convenient for a dictator like Musharraf (or Bush) to have a shadowy, ultra-evil organization to blame for everything. How convenient that al Qaeda apparently hates the same people that Bush and Musharraf do. How convenient that al Qaeda never seems to manage to kill right-wing hardliners but has amazing success with leftist pro-liberty politicians. How extremely fucking convenient.

The CIA/ISI/al-Qaeda axis is just a modern day Gestapo. They are an all-purpose assassination squad under control of the evil proto-fascist oligarchs who rule this planet.

It's time for people to wake up and see through the lies. How many more people have to die before we finally learn we're being played for fools?

UPDATE 12/28: The police charged with providing security for Bhutto left their posts shortly before the assassination.

Perhaps more shockingly, an attendee at the rally where Bhutto was killed says police charged with protecting her "abandoned their posts," leaving just a handful of Bhutto's own bodyguards protecting her.

As commenter pk_analyst points out below Bhutto was shot with an AK-47 rifle. Now the spinning, changing storylines and Big Lies come into play. In order to do a proper cover-up the authorities will have to eliminate the gun (many are saying she hit her head on some sort of lever instead of taking a bullet) and throw all the blame on mysertious al Qaeda members who may or may not even exist.

While some intelligence officials, especially within the US, were quick to finger al Qaeda militants as responsible for Bhutto's death, it remains unclear precisely who was responsible and some speculation has centered on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, its military or even forces loyal to the current president Pervez Musharraf. Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, is the garrison city that houses the Pakistani military's headquarters.

Just to be clear, "intelligence officials" almost certainly means "CIA officials." The CIA is busily spinning the press. This is misinformation, folks. You are being lied to indirectly by your government and somewhat unwittingly by the media. Just so you know.

The Stupidest Article Ever Written

Ladies and gentleman, I have just read the stupidest article ever written. It was awful. So awful I can hardly think; in fact, I think I just lost 5 IQ points... which still puts me 130 ahead of the author of the shittiest, most servile, most idiotic article ever written.

His name is John Cloud and he masquerades as a journalist for Time magazine. He has apparently managed to learn how to read and write, but I have no idea how given his feeble mental faculties.

Many of you may have already read this article, but I just found it today as I was catching up on some reading. Here I am, flipping through Time and I see a story called "The Psychology of Hypocrisy" which is about the recent Republican sex scandals, including Larry "Wide Stance" Craig, the homo-hating Senator from Idaho.

Cloud takes them to task, right? He presents an in-depth analysis of how the perverted mind of sanctimonious fucks like Larry Craig works, right?

No. The "article" is a six paragraph defense of hypocrites like Craig. Cloud claims -- with a straight face -- that poor Craig is a victim! A victim of his own "moral weakness" and not a hypocrite at all!

The real bad guys -- of course -- are the evil bloggers and their readers who have tormented poor Larry and his "friends".

For a legion of bloggers, what's so delectable about these stories is the apparent hypocrisy, the dissonance between the outwardly conservative politics of these men and their private same-sex behavior. But while these guys may be liars--Craig's "wide stance" inanity has already entered the world-historical lexicon of political b.s.--it's not clear that they are conniving hypocrites.

It's "not clear"? It's not fucking clear that they're hypocrites?! If you're deaf, dumb, blind and live on Mars it might not be clear, but if you have half a fucking brain you know they're hypocrites! Shit, even the Republicans know that, but Mr. John Cloud is far stupider than a Republican. He's a Vichy Democrat; you know the kind: The Hillary-voting kind who would let Bush attack Iran with no justification whatsoever. Republicans may be evil, but at least I can respect them; the Vichy Democrats are contemptible, spineless weasels who aren't worth a pint of warm piss.

Hypocrisy is among the most universal and well-studied of psychological phenomena, and the research suggests that Craig, Haggard and the others may be guilty not so much of moral hypocrisy as moral weakness. The distinction may sound trivial at first, but as a society, we tend to forgive the weak and shun the hypocritical.

Trivial? No, the distinction is utterly fallacious and disingenuous. It makes me think he knows he's full of shit.

John Cloud is the perfect example of a sell-out journalist hack. He afflicts the afflicted and comforts the comfortable because he's a boot-licking shill for his corporate masters and has no soul left. Real journalists do the reverse, of course, but I'm not expecting that much from Mr. Cloud. Just a lucid thought or two would impress me at this point.

Assume for a moment that Craig and Haggard actually believed what they said--that homosexuality is sin. They spent most of their lives fighting for the conservative cause. But in Craig's case, the Idaho Statesman has published allegations that there were at least three other slipups involving men, beginning in 1967. What if, like the radio host who gets fat but commits to losing weight, the moralizers were trying through their "pro-family" endeavors to expiate their lustful sins?

Let me explain this to Mr. Cloud as succinctly as possible since we might be looking at a buffer-overflow if I use to many big words: If you go around saying homosexuality is immoral and a sin while you're secretly engaging in homosexual activity then you are a hypocrite! End of story. How hard is this to understand?

I certainly agree that people should be forgiven for most moral failures, but this is not just a "slipup." Maybe Cloud "accidentally" fucks other men in the ass so he and Craig are kindred, klutzy spirits, but most of us do not have that problem (throughout the article Cloud implies homosexuality is indeed a moral failure). But it's clear that this is a pattern in Larry Craig's life, going back, at least to 1967.

Here's a thought: If you have a "moral failing" that leads you to accidentally get blowjobs from other men, maybe you shouldn't get on a stage and tell people that homosexuality is sinful behavior that only degenerates and Democrats engage in! Maybe if Larry Craig didn't want to be a hypocrite he could have, I dunno, NOT RUN FOR SENATOR????!!! Maybe he could have (just a thought here) NOT DEMONIZED HOMOSEXUALS AT EVERY FUCKING OPPORTUNITY FOR 40 YEARS!!!!!??

...Just a thought. Clearly, it's one that John Cloud didn't think of while he was standing in line at men's room outside of Larry Craig's office. Maybe this is all a closeted homosexual thing and cognitive dissonance has set in, but I kind of doubt it. I think it's more likely that John Cloud is an intellectual whore and his opinions are up for auction to the highest bidder. But even that is charitable. Worst case: the guy really is as stupid as I've been saying.

You may think they are wrong about homosexuality (I do), but that doesn't make them hypocrites.

No, John, they are hypocrites, and no amount of waffling on your part will disguise that. In fact, they are textbook hypocrites.

Hey, I know! Why don't I consult a "dictionary" (it's a book where words are defined, Mr. Cloud). Here's Merriam-Webster's definition of hypocrite:

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Hmmm.... "false appearance of virtue" ... does that sound like Mr. Larry "wide stance" Craig?

Craig never said anything like, "Homosexuality is wrong and immoral, but I am not a perfect man. Indeed, sometimes I like to head down to public bathrooms near my house and solicit gay men for sex." Nope, Larry Craig always implied that he was a paragon of (hetero) virtue. How else do you get elected Senator in a red state?

Clearly, the man has acted in contradiction to his stated beliefs. It's right there in black & white, but John Cloud is intent on casting a cloud of confusion over the matter when this is probably one of the most clear-cut, bald-faced acts of hypocrisy (that we know about) in modern politics. Only Mark Foley can hold a candle to Larry Craigs hypocrisy.

Is there anybody out there who isn't convinced that what I've described is hypocrisy? Is there anybody out there who actually agrees with John Cloud that poor Larry and Mark are victims of a cruel and fickle public?

How is it that I, a lowly, potty-mouthed, mudslinging blogger was able to tear into this article with such ease? No doubt others have already done the same; how did Cloud's piece of shit article get past his editor? Do they not have dictionaries at Time headquarters? Budget cutbacks, perhaps?

It makes me wonder if stupidity is actually valued in the mainstream press because stupid people will never investigate how the Corporate Oligarchy really works. Everybody knows what goes on in Washington... Or do we? Without better reporters than John Cloud the Clown we'll never know for sure.

So what of Mr. Cloud, then? How did this idiot manage to write the stupidest article ever written? Was it training? Nature? Nurture? Luck?

Who cares; the man is a fucking moron. What amazes me is that this guy is a journalist at a mainstream publication and they haven't canned his ass yet. How fucking stupid can you be and still keep your job? Near as I can tell John Cloud has only one person in serious contention with him for that award and his name is George.

Then again, maybe both of them were chosen for their stupidity, rather than in spite of it. I guess, in both cases, the joke is on us: The morons are in control and livin' the good life while the rest of us suffer like fools under their mindless tyrrany.

Life's not just unfair ... it's fucking stupid. Maliciously so.

St. Thomas' decision to ban Desmond Tutu from campus smacks of cowardice

The intellectual cowards over at the head office of the St. Thomas University adminstration should be ashamed. They have shown themselves to be contemptible weaklings without the guts or the will to hear viewpoints they may disagree with. And this institution is supposed to be a vanguard of academic freedom? For shame.

What am I talking about? I'm referring to St. Thomas' recent decision to withhold an invitation to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

St. Thomas never invited Tutu to speak, but declined to approve an invitation as part of the PeaceJam, an event the school has hosted for the past four years. PeaceJam officials have now arranged to have the South African archbishop and activist speak at its April event, which will be held at Metropolitan State University.

St. Thomas officials said that local Jewish leaders they consulted felt that Tutu had made remarks offensive to the Jewish people in a 2002 speech about Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

Columbia University just made St. Thomas look like a bunch of backwater bush-league pussies. Nobody likes Ahmadinejad; that's not the point. The point is the free exchange of ideas. If you don't like what somebody says you don't try to censor them, you use your freedom of speech to elucidate your opposition to said ideas. The president of Columbia, Lee Bollinger, may have been a dick to Ahmadinejad, but at least he let the motherfucker speak. St. Thomas' president, the Rev. Dennis Dease, won't even let a fellow man of the cloth on campus. What a fucking pussy.

His lame-ass excuse "Teh Joos don't like one speech he made dis one time!" is full of shit. What he means is "Some extreme-rightwing Zionist oppressor Jews don't want nobody talking shit about the way they fuck over A-rabs in Palestine." There, fixed it for you, Dease. (You can suck dees nuts)

In fact, Dease has been getting a lot of mail from Jewish groups saying, "Let this guy speak! We're not anti-free speech! Why'd you listen to those assholes?!" [[ I'm paraphrasing in case you haven't noticed ]]

So, you might be wondering what crazy-ass shit this Tutu guy was spewing that pissed off the hard-right fascist/zionist types. Well, he said the most offensive thing you can possibly say to a warmonger: "Peace is possible."

Israeli Jew, Palestinian Arab can live amicably side by side in a secure peace. And, as Cannon Ateek kept underscoring, a secure peace built on justice and equity. These two peoples are God’s chosen and beloved, looking in their face back to a common ancestor Abraham and confessing belief in the one creator God of salaam and shalom.

Oh man, that is some whack shit! Who let this guy in here?

Then he reveals his true hatred for teh Joos:

I give thanks for all that I have received as a Christian from the teachings of God’s people the Jews. When we were opposing the vicious system of apartheid, which claimed that what invested people with worth was a biological irrelevance – skin color – we turned to the Jewish Torah, which asserted that what gave people their infinite worth was the fact that they were created in the image of God.

He calls teh Joos "God's people." We're clearly dealing with a loose cannon here, folks.

Seriously, that's what the whole speech is like. He criticizes the occupation of Palestinian lands, but he clearly has problems with the Israeli government, not the Jewish people.

I with many other Nobel Peace Laureates. I, after taking counsel with the then Bishop of Jerusalem, am a member of the Board of the Shimon Peres peace center in Tel Aviv. I am a patron of the Holocaust center in Capetown. I believe that Israel has a right to secure borders, internationally recognized, in a land assured of territorial integrity and with acknowledged sovereignty as an independent country. That the Arab nations made a bad mistake in refusing to recognize the existence of sovereign and in pledging to work for her destruction. It was a short sighted policy that led to Israel’s nervousness, her high state of alert and military preparedness to guarantee her continued existence. This was understandable. What was no so understandable, what was not justifiable was what Israel did to another people to guarantee her existence. I have been very deeply distressed in all my visits to the Holy Land, how so much of what was taking place there reminded me so much of what used to happen to us Blacks in Apartheid South Africa.

This guy sees echoes of Apartheid in Israel. He was there. He expresses viewpoints not too far from middle-of-the-road Democrats in America. When did expressing disagreement with a foreign government become a censorable offense? Oh that's right; when you're a boot-licking fascist who wants to kiss the ass of future dictator George Bush. I guess Dease thinks he can become the Tsar of Education under a future King George. (Or whatever. Maybe he's just a fucking idiot, I don't know.)

The scary thing here is not the shoddy treatment of a Nobel laureate. He'll speak on another campus, one not controlled by Nazis. He'll be fine. No, the scary thing here is how incredibly fucking normal, sane and mainstream his ideas are. If this is how a Nobel laureate is treated by The Powers That Be, how are the rest of the us going to be treated when the other jackboot falls and we're under martial law? Tutu's beliefs are almost exactly in line with mainstream Democrats, Independents and even many Republicans. The main difference is that he's an archbishop, an Apatheid survivor and a international icon.

Where the fuck does that leave the rest of us?

The battle over saggy pants reveals a deepening race and class divide in America

This blog is your leading pants-related resource. Okay, so this is the first time I've blogged about pants, but dammit, with a name like Electric Monkey Pants I better have some pants turf staked out, ya heard?

The Threat
Okay, so some uptight folks are trying to introduce stringent pants regulations when we don't even have decent electronic voting regulations. I guess it's easier to legislate against somebody who can't fight back. Pretty much everybody who wears saggy pants is not in a position to pass laws, which is probably part of why they're wearing the damn saggy-ass pants in the first place.

Check out this article in the Trib:

Proposals to ban saggy pants are starting to ride up in several places. At the extreme end, wearing pants low enough to show boxers or bare buttocks in one small Louisiana town means six months in jail and a $500 fine. A crackdown also is being pushed in Atlanta. And in Trenton, getting caught with your pants down may soon result in not only a fine, but a city worker assessing where your life is headed.

"Are they employed? Do they have a high school diploma? It's a wonderful way to redirect at that point," said Trenton Councilwoman Annette Lartigue, who is drafting a law to outlaw saggy pants. "The message is clear: We don't want to see your backside."

The bare-your-britches fashion is believed to have started in prisons, where inmates aren't given belts with their baggy uniform pants to prevent hangings and beatings. By the late '80s, the trend had made it to gangster rap videos, then went on to skateboarders in the suburbs and high school hallways.

I didn't know that shit started in prison, but it makes sense: That's where our (mostly minority) youth are spending a lot of time these days because of insane, pointless drug laws and a prison-state mentality, with GW as the crooked warden.

It's worth noting that black people face harsher, less forgiving punishments from our draconian drug laws even though the percentage of white & black teens using pot is almost the same.

Shop owner Mack Murray said Trenton's proposed ordinance unfairly targets blacks.

"Are they going to go after construction workers and plumbers, because their pants sag, too?" Murray asked. "They're stereotyping us."

The American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

"In Atlanta, we see this as racial profiling," said Benetta Standly, statewide organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia. "It's going to target African-American male youths. There's a fear with people associating the way you dress with crimes being committed."

A Few Questions
There are some questions that popped into my head after reading this story. Let me try to answer them as they come:

Are these laws targeted at blacks? Almost certainly.

Are saggy pants a real problem? Fuck no, it's mostly a fear-based response by legislators who are terrified of their own kids.

Will there be more laws like this? Of course. Like I said, those wearing saggy pants are generally not in a position to legislate back.

Are these laws going after a deeper problem? Yes, but they're attacking the symptoms rather than the core issues. The real problem is that our society requires an underclass to clean our toilets, mow our enormous lawns and serve us our drinks.

The Racial Divide
If you're a rich, white person who has his or her Harvard graduation date marked on the calendar from the day you're born, you probably have no idea why someone would hang around in the 'hood all day selling drugs, listening to that "crunk" and sagging your damn pants.

Well guess what, elitists?! They don't fucking want to live in the 'hood and sell drugs to get by, but what other options do they have? Are you gonna hire'em? They're not like you, are they? They speak differently and they have weird customs like the way they sag their pants. (OMG!)

Sagging pants are a way of fighting back against the uptight culture that demands conformity even as it espouses the (vague, far-off) concept of "freedom". They look ridiculous precisely because that's the goal. If it pisses off whitebread America, it's cool. As a way of fighting against the system it's pretty feeble, but that proves my larger point that the underclass has no other options available to them.

For my part, I would encourage people not to sag too low simply because it becomes hard to run from the cops when you're sagging down to your ankles. Am I gonna create a law to fight this scourge? Fuck no; I would repeal laws, starting with our drug laws, which seem designed to permanently disenfranchise our poverty-stricken youth. The upper class can buy their kids out of jailtime, but if you're living in the 'hood you probably can't afford Johnnie Cochran.

Black people are especially fucked these days since the elite is coming down on them harder than ever while the Mexicans are coming across the border anxious to take their jobs, eager to be the new underclass. Shit, due to this competition among the disadvantaged, rich people now get to watch labor costs drop even more than they dared dream; meaning they can get their landscaping done cheaply than before ("yay, Capitalism!"). Of course, that cheap landscaping doesn't pay enough to enable the workers to buy a house and become citizens. Nope; gonna send that money back home (where things are just as stratified by race and class).

The Class Divide
Ah, race and class. Two things Americans hate to talk about, yet the problem stares us in the face every day. Who's washing those dishes in the restaurant after dinner? Who's cleaning those toilets? Instead of paying a living wage and giving the underclass a hand up so that they can join the middle class we seem to be focused on keeping them down.

Then we blame them for their position, as if it was all their fault.

The truth is that America wants an underclass. We need it. We need somebody to do the crappy jobs that nobody wants because we're unwilling to pay a fair wage to the people who break their bodies doing hard physical labor. In many ways slavery, or at least some of the ideas that fed it, carries on today in that the rich like to set up pyramids with themselves at the top. If you're gonna be on top of a pyramid, that means many, many more people have to be on the bottom, and (most important) you have to prevent them from getting up to the top.

The pyramid theory of society has been tried many times and it always fails. Weren't we trying something new in America? Weren't we trying to level the playing field and give everybody a shot? Somehow that got lost as the rich set up their system of control so that a free people became bonded by economic manipulation far beyond their control.

Political freedom means nothing if you have to work all the time just to keep food in your belly. What the underclass wants is economic freedom. It may be too late since the rich already control everything of value. What's left but revolution?

We Know Best
If sagging pants are our biggest problem we should consider ourselves lucky. Surely there's more important things to consider, but these laws against clothing point to some deeper issues. So, should we ban those baggy pants?

I'll tell you what: We can ban saggy-ass pants if those who like their pants baggy also get to pass a few rules and regulations of their own. I foresee an ordinance that requires people wearing suits to loosen those ties. After all, if you wear your tie too tight you risk cutting off the circulation to your brain, leading to an increase of shitty laws like this one.