War on spam

I've been fighting a war against spammers on this blog the last couple weeks, and I've been losing big time. Unfortunately, that means it's time to turn on word verification. I have traditionally kept it easy to post here on EMP, even letting anonymous users comment, but now the spammers have left me with no choice but to mandate word verification (CAPTCHAs) and that users be logged in. This sucks and I wish I didn't have to do it, but I've been getting hundreds of spam comments every day and that cannot be good for your experience, my sanity or this blog's page rank.

Let me know if you think this new policy really sucks. Unfortunately, you'll have to log in to Blogger/Google and pass a little visual test to do it.

12/18 Update: Okay, the spammers just made me look like a fool by spamming this very post. The word verification thing seems not to have affected them at all. It looks like I will have to crank up things even further. For the time being, comments are subject to moderation before they get posted. I will post your comment -- no matter how stupid and offensive -- as long as it's not fucking spam.

I guess I should take it as a compliment that they feel this blog is worth targeting so intensely, but it's really messing up the comment sections. I'm so tired of ugg boots and ed hardy spamming my blog! Talk about the wrong blog to peddle your douchey wares... Fuck off and die in a fire, spammers!!

The rest of you: Can you still post comments? Feel free to leave a test post and let me know if the hoops you have to jump through (log in, CAPTCHAS, moderation) are too onerous. I know it's a pain and I'm sorry, but it seems to be necessary at this point. I will try to stay on top of things and approve legit comments quickly.

Media Priorities

Ah, the wisdom of Twitter. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but it's amazing what you can fit in 140 characters... such as a complete evisceration of the mainstream media (MSM) because of their utter, obsequious hypocrisy and the biased, treasonous way they frame and focus on issues. Here it is, from Chuck Olsen:

"If the corporate media had been as diligent about watchdogging the president as... Rev. Wright, it's likely we wouldn't have invaded Iraq."

Boom. Pretty much says it all doesn't it?

Here's where he originally found that quote.

The corporate media chooses -- seemingly as one -- what to make a big deal out of. And what to blackout.

The Corporate Media (especially the TV news stations who were caught red-handed) have been feeding us Pentagon-approved talking points through the supposedly-independent retired generals who show up for interviews about the war. Strange that they never invite peaceniks on the air, isn't it? Well, war is big business. You can't expect truth and fairness when the bottom line is at stake.

Quite simply, the Media act as a megaphone for the positions they support and a censor for those they do not. Peace, wisdom, tranquility, free thought.... these concepts are all offensive to the corporate media. They would rather focus on strife, stupidity, distraction and obedience.

All three major cable news networks are wasting valuable air time on Senator Obama's former pastor. Why? Is the story newsworthy? Sure. Is wall-to-wall Wright coverage more important than Iraq or gas prices or the climate crisis? No way. But Reverend Wright is a scary, shouting black man and scary shouting black men equal ratings-sweet-ratings.

We expect to see this sort of race-baiting behavior from Fox News Channel, but CNN and MSNBC have, once again, similarly crossed the tabloid threshold into the very same nefarious Roger Ailes realm by beating this nothing story to death.

They're all the same. Fox News is simply the worst offender. But instead of being an embarrassment to decent journalists everywhere Fox News is seen a pioneer, a bold leader in the (fascist) future of news. Thus, the other news channels simply follow Fox's lead.

Face it folks: Our mainstream media is controlled. Totally controlled. By just five mega-corporations, all of whom have interests vastly different from the average American.

Is it too hard to imagine that these corporations embrace war, hypocrisy and distraction? Five corporations means five CEOs. These reptilian CEOs have a different agenda than the common man. They're often Republican, always rich, usually ruthless and seldom charitable. These five scumfucks control 90% of what we see, hear or read in the press and they've all profited from the war. The only thing that gives us a chance at regaining our freedom is the internet and I assure you this blog and others like it don't have ratings anywhere near that of Fox or CNN.

So when you see the Media trumpeting something, be it Paris Hilton, Rev. Wright or American Idol, just remember that they're showing you what they want you to know and they're hiding the rest. For everything they tell you they're obscuring another ten useful facts with their incessant bullshit.

The media doesn't investigate, they serve the rich; they afflict the afflicted and comfort the comfortable. They are traitors, liars, demons and filth. I consider Big Media's tacit embrace of the Iraq War before and after the fact to be nothing less than treason.

One former participant, NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard, has called the effort "psyops on steroids." As Barstow reports, "Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as 'message force multipliers' or 'surrogates' who could be counted on to deliver administration 'themes and messages' to millions of Americans 'in the form of their own opinions.' … Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war."

If there's any justice in this world they will all burn in the hell they've created. I say we give them all a one-way ticket to Baghdad. Sleep in the bed you've made, Fuckers!

It's Not a Compound

This is some fucked up shit right here:



"It's not a compound."
"It's a ranch. It's our home."
"We're the most free women in the whole world!"

I'm gonna have nightmares.

Indict the Media

If I could indict the Media, I would. They need to be brought up on charges. From lying to protect power, shying away from truth, manipulating elections, to corroding our minds with pointless trash, Big Media has a lot of answer for.

But don't take it from me. Take it from John Hockenberry, former Dateline NBC reporter. Here's a few nuggets:

Entertainment programs often took on issues that would never fly on Dateline. On a Thursday night, ER could do a story line on the medically uninsured, but a night later, such a "downer policy story" was a much harder sell. In the time I was at NBC, you were more likely to hear federal agriculture policy discussed on The West Wing, or even on Jon Stewart, than you were to see it reported in any depth on Dateline.

Yeah, hard news sure is a "downer", but you know what? Life sucks, get a fucking helmet. Put it on the goddamn news, NBC!

Hockenberry tackles GE's acquisition of NBC next, and the bizarre consequences of a company like GE trying to make news the same way it makes lightbulbs or turbines. Six Sigma is a form of quality control popular in the manufacturing sector:

While Six Sigma's goal-oriented blather and obsession with measuring everything was jarring, it was also weirdly familiar, inasmuch as it was strikingly reminiscent of my college Maoism I class. Mao seemed to be a good model for Jack Welch and his Six Sigma foot soldiers; Six Sigma's "Champions" and "Black Belts" were Mao's "Cadres" and "Squad Leaders."

Finding such comparisons was how I kept from slipping into a coma during dozens of NBC employee training sessions where we were told not to march in political demonstrations of any kind, not to take gifts from anyone, and not to give gifts to anyone. At mandatory, hours-long "ethics training" meetings we would watch in-house videos that brought all the drama and depth of a driver's-education film to stories of smiling, swaggering employees (bad) who bought cases of wine for business associates on their expense accounts, while the thoughtful, cautious employees (good) never picked up a check, but volunteered to stay at the Red Roof Inn in pursuit of "shareholder value."

To me, the term "shareholder value" sounded like Mao's "right path," although this was not something I shared at the employee reëducation meetings. As funny as it seemed to me, the idea that GE was a multinational corporate front for Maoism was not a very widespread or popular view around NBC. It was best if any theory that didn't come straight from the NBC employee manual (a Talmudic tome that largely contained rules for using the GE credit card, most of which boiled down to "Don't") remained private.

I did, however, point out to the corporate-integrity people unhelpful details about how NBC News was covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that our GE parent company stood to benefit from as a major defense contractor. I wondered aloud, in the presence of an integrity "team leader," how we were to reconcile this larger-scale conflict with the admonitions about free dinners. "You make an interesting point I had not thought of before," he told me. "But I don't know how GE being a defense contractor is really relevant to the way we do our jobs here at NBC news." Integrity, I guess, doesn't scale.

No, I guess it doesn't. That might be inconvenient. It might even be considered a defect.

Those "reëducation meetings" were for people like Hockenberry. Occasionally a reporter grows a brain or a spine and those "defects" have to be dealt with. Usually, the best way is to drum him out of the company using boredom and inanity. Chairman Mao would've simply had him shot, but murder is expensive and doesn't enhance shareholder value. Ah, how humanity has evolved!

Next, Hockenberry cleverly tries to use the octopus to strangle itself, but probably only managed to get a negative mark on his next performance evaluation.

But GE had long done business with the bin Ladens. In a misguided attempt at corporate synergy, I called GE headquarters in Fairfield, CT, from my hotel room in Riyadh. I inquired at the highest level to see whether, in the interest of bringing out all aspects of an important story for the American people, GE corporate officers might try to persuade the bin Ladens to speak with Dateline while we were in the kingdom. I didn't really know what to expect, but within a few hours I received a call in my hotel room from a senior corporate communications officer who would only read a statement over the phone. It said something to the effect that GE had an important, long-standing, and valuable business relationship with the Bin Laden Group and saw no connection between that relationship and what Dateline was trying to do in Saudi Arabia. He wished us well. We spoke with no bin Laden family member on that trip.

While, there's no proof that this stunt helped get Hockenberry fired, it probably didn't help.

So what's a guy who likes emerging media and a hard-hitting story supposed to do? Stay the fuck away from the MSM, that's what. So that's what he did.

Conspiracy for World Domination Confirmed by David Rockefeller

I would like to sincerely thank David Rockefeller, chairman of every internationalist organization you can think of, for coming out and admiting that there is a global conspiracy to unite the world under a one world government.

It gets annoying, you know, constantly explaining this to people, only to receive blank stares or mockery in response. I've long wished the Establishment (or "Illuminati" if you prefer) would just come out and admit it. It's not like we're in a position to do anything about it anyway. Well David Rockefeller (or D-Rock, as his friends in the international finanace 'hood call him) has finally cleared the air:

"For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." - From Rockefeller's "Memoirs", (p.405).

Uh, yes, that is the charge, Rockie, and what's more we charge you with using any and every means at your disposal to accomplish this, including bribery, murder, lying, fraud, coups, mind-control, and, ironically, belligerent nationalism.

He continues with an even more revealing passage:

"The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions owes much to Populism. 'Populists' believe in conspiracies, and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as the head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of 'conspirator in chief' from some of these people.

"Populists and isolationists ignore the tangible benefits that have resulted from our active international role during the past half-century. Not only was the very real threat posed by Soviet Communism overcome, but there have been fundamental improvements in societies around the world, particularly in the United States, as a result of global trade, improved communications, and the heightened interaction of people from different cultures. Populists rarely mention these positive consequences, nor can they cogently explain how they would have sustained American economic growth and the expansion of our political power without them."

You will notice that he does not deny it. If anything he has confirmed that their is a "secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, [who] control the world's economy". What more is there to say?

Just this: Certainly we all appreciate the many benefits of modern capitalism and the technological goodies we've gotten our hands on. But at what cost? Politically, economically and ecologically it's a loser for those of us who aren't moguls. Who is going to control the one-world government he so fervently desires? If past performance is any indication of future performance, we can expect these internationalists to keep all the power to themselves. Democracy is simply "incompatible" with his smooth, orderly, one-world utopia.

The scary thing here is the idea, now realized before our eyes, that not all people who want to conquer the world are madmen. Some of them, clearly, know exactly what they're doing; they plan decades ahead, carefully lay the groundwork and, with considerable patience, skill and cunning, achieve their goals through whatever methods required.

The whole affair is amazingly complex, but then again, so is collecting stamps, memorizing Tolkein or learning to program in C++. I suppose when you're the billionaire son of a billionaire you need to have a hobby to keep occupied.

Quotes worth thinking about

I just saw these quotes online today. I believe they warrant some thought:

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of Human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

-- Colonial America sympathesizer William Pitt, British House of Commons, November 18, 1783

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

-- Samuel Adams

"Doctors have been caught using poisons, and those who falsely assume the name of philosopher have occasionally been detected in the gravest crimes. Let us give up eating, it often makes us ill; let us never go inside houses, for sometimes they collapse on their occupants; let never a sword be forged for a soldier, since it might be used by a robber."

-- ancient Roman educator Marcus Fabius Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, II, xvi

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.

Feds Train Clergy To "Quell Dissent" During Martial Law

A shocking KSLA news report has confirmed the story we first broke last year, that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to "quell dissent" and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law. Economic Collapse? Another mass-casualty, false-flag attack? [/digg]

This is incredibly disturbing. Here's the news clip for those who doubt:




Am I cynical to believe that something terrible will happen either right before or right after the elections (before inauguration)?

If it does, we've gotta stick together, organize and resist. This can't happen to America. It's like a nightmare you can't wake up from.

When paranoid people die mysteriously

RigInt has scared me shitless once again with the terrifying story of what happens when you cross the wrong (ultraconservative, rich, powerful) people.

Writer/filmmaker Theresa Duncan mysteriously "killed herself" earlier this month. I've rarely seen a person who looks less like a candidate for suicide. She was madly in love with her boyfriend, ran a successful blog and was dedicated to social justice and progressive causes. Nevertheless:

Later that day, Theresa's boyfriend of 12 years, Jeremy Blake, discovered her body in their East Village apartment, an evident suicide. ("A bottle of pills and alcohol were found near Duncan's body [and] she left a suicide note saying that she was at peace with her decision and loved Blake and her family deeply.") A week later, a man was seen walking into the ocean at Rockaway Park, and not walking out. Blake's wallet and clothing, and his suicide note, were found beneath the boardwalk.

Blake's suicide, while suspicious, could be a response to Duncan's. However, I find Theresa's supposed suicide totally unconvincing. This was murder.

Am I paranoid? I suppose most people reading this will probably think I am. In turn, I think they're fucking sheep. Paranoia is a natural defense mechanism and it's kept us alive this long as a species.

I guess I'm just pissed after reading some of the comments here and here. Are people so numb and stupid that they don't see something suspicious when two deeply paranoid people die mysteriously within a few days of each other, shortly after posting paranoid rants about MKULTRA like this one?

Paranoia is meant to keep you alive, people! If you're suicidal, you're not very paranoid, are you? The emotions are pretty much mutually exclusive.

Maybe this is hitting too close to home for me, so let me make this abso-fucking-lutely clear: I am a paranoid nut, but I am as far away from suicide as I could possibly get! I intend to live to be 120 years old, and nothing's going to stop me. If you find me dead mysteriously one day, and there's a suicide note and thirteen people saying I was depressed: It's a lie! I was fucking murdered!

Just wanted to make that crystal clear.

Anyway, there are a lot signs pointing back to Jim Cownie, a powerful Des Moines businessman that Theresa recently attacked on her blog as the source of harassment she and Blake were receiving. Interestingly, a man named Frank Cownie is the mayor of Des Moines. What a coincidence.

This is not the first strange thing to happen in Des Moines. Kidnapped child Johnny Gosch hailed from there. That wouldn't be so odd if Jim Cownie hadn't spoken of molesting children to achieve total obedience, like is required for Project MKULTRA to work:

To add the final dessert topping to this apocalyptic art world sundae, Mr. Wit says that normally dour Cownie frequently made jokes about child molestation as a "training" tool.

And of course, the Church of Scientology is involved. Since cults are already masters of mind-control it only makes sense that the CIA would turn to them for clues.

Much of the harassment of me and Mr. Wit was also conducted by the Church Of Scientology in L. A., who Cownie also no doubt also "does business with." U.S. Intelligence "black ops" and "psy ops" have long relied on (or just outright invented) religious cults (including the Manson Family--Charles Manson received 150 hours of in-prison Scientology "auditing"), biker gangs, and the like in Federal Counterintelligence prorgrams in order to disrupt the counterculture since the 1960s. Read more about the CIA and cults here and couch jumping, Katie kidnapping mind controlled [sic] movie star Tom Crusie's meeting with Scooter Libby and State Department head Richard Armitage here.

Here I am quoting a dead woman's blog to prove my point that paranoia is not a mental illness. Paranoia keeps you alive, it lets you see the awful truth that the sheep can't see. The price is heavy, but it's not a curse. Instead, "Paranoia seems to us an absolute patriotic duty at the moment."

Damn right, Theresa. May you and Jeremy rest in peace.

Let's Innoculate Kids Against Authority-Obedience Using Milgram's Study

I've been arguing over at Slashdot that Milgram's Obedience Experiment was not really unethical and that we should have everybody subjected to that experiment once when they are young so that they understand the consequences of blindly following authority figures' orders. A new study explores the same ground as Milgram in a new virtual-reality study based on similar parameters.

I suggest that the institution of a Kobayashi Maru-style test for young adults would be greatly beneficial to society as a whole. It would show kids, viscerally, that there are serious consequences to blindly following authority; a valuable lesson. Based on Milgram's results we can conclude that around 60% of the takers would fail it by shocking the person to death. That it is a test/fake does little to calm the strormy state of the soul after such a failure. And it shouldn't. The idea of taking responsibility for your actions is the root of our democracy.... or what's left of it. And I suppose that's the reason why we will never see this initiation ritual instituted; the values of our forefathers have long since been lost to the savage mockery of time and trickery.

Some people would oppose this idea with every fiber of their being because they rely on the stupidity, gullibility, and weakness of the human race to make up the bulk of their followers. That's all the more reason to implement it.

So what do ya think? Should we give everybody the ol' Milgram?

...

"Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who just started playing on my stereo. I shit you not.

Teen McDonald's Worker Strip-Searched at Behest of Fake Cop (w/ video)

A young McDonald's employee humiliated, forced to strip and then to perform a sexual act in the back office, during her work day.

This is one fucked up story. I'm not going to try and regurgitate it since I won't do it justice. Just check it out and try not to think of Milgram's experiment concerning obediance to authority.

Update 10.2.07: The poor (obedient) girl has managed to swing a 6 million dollar payday out of this episode. I guess she won't have to work at McDonald's anymore.

John Dean on Authoritarians and their Followers in the Neoconservative Movement

Great interview of John Dean. Scary stuff:



Olbermann and Dean go over the dramatic shift in neoconservativism towards authoritarianism. Dean says that approximately 23 percent of the population is ready to follow any strong, authoritarian leader right over the cliff. Logic, reality and American values don't enter into it; certain people are followers. According to Dean, the vast majority of those people are of a conservative mindset, and their loyalty is absolute, even to the point of betraying everything they stand for if Dear Leader demands it.

Also hinted at is the vested interest of the current government in ratcheting up the fear level by playing up nonexistant terrorism threats. There's a definite political advantage to keeping people afraid and it seems clear that the Bush/Cheney cabal have exploited this fact to strengthen their hold on power.

Watch the whole video for more. It's about 10 minutes and touches on a lot of interesting subjects.