Category : drugs

Mind-control. MKULTRA. Brainwashing.

The above words tend to stop rational conversation in its tracks, sending it down a slippery slope of confusion, conspiracy and mockery. We like to think we’re too smart to fall for that Hollywood crap. This is the real world, and anybody who thinks mind-control is real needs to re-adjust their tin-foil hat, right?

Er…. not really.

The Elephant in the Room
Mind-control is real. It’s in the public record. The CIA has admitted that they had a super-secret program called Project MKULTRA that was focused on brainwashing people so they could become the ideal assassin. From Wikipedia:

The published evidence indicates that Project MKULTRA involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate individual mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs and other chemicals, sensory deprivation, isolation, and verbal and sexual abuse.

Project MKULTRA was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the U.S. Congress, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKULTRA files destroyed in 1973…

So let’s get this straight right up front: Mind-control experiments are in the Congressional Record. They were front-page news back in ’75 and the CIA has admitted that they tried their best to create a mind-controlled assassin program. They claim that they failed (after torturing and ruining the mental states of many unwitting “volunteers”, often grabbed from the military or prison). But the Church Committee is considered by many to be a “limited hangout”, which basically means admitting to a minor crime in order to cover up a major one.

Why was the CIA trying to create a mind-controlled assassin? It was widely believed that the Soviets were working on a similar program — and they were. But after the Cold War ended and some of Russia’s records opened it was revealed that they were not nearly as far along as the CIA was. Oops.

Warfare is used to justify a great many things, and in the context of the Cold War, the CIA’s mind-c0ntrol program seems almost justifiable. Unfortunately, despite the destruction of most of the MKULTRA records, the program appears to have been simply renamed and continued.

The Manchurian Candidate brought the mind-c0ntrol issue to the fore in 1959 via Richard Condon’s book. It was made into a movie in 1962 (and again in 2004). The plotline has the Communist Party brainwashing Americans into committing crimes, which probably only encouraged the CIA to continue its research.

Dirty Laundry
Congress has virtually no oversight over the CIA’s black-operations programs (because, by definition, they are “black”; meaning hidden and completely off-the-record) because the black-ops programs are funded by the CIA’s illegal drug-smuggling operations, thus ensuring there isn’t a line-item in a Congressional budget somewhere for “mind-control.” That doesn’t mean the program isn’t getting funded somehow, of course. Congress never authorized Project MKULTRA in the first place, of course; it still happened.

The CIA is widely thought to be behind the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 80s. Many former gang members have since revealed that they were getting their supply directly from CIA operatives. San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb wrote a serious of articles (and eventually a book, Dark Alliance) about how the CIA funded the Nicaraguan Contras using illicit funds generated by the sale of crack-c0caine (smuggled in from Nicaragua) in Los Angeles and other major U.S. cities. This was part of the Iran-Contra scandal, but it was largely obscured by the limited hangout that saw Ollie North take the fall (he later became a right-wing talk-radio host and Fox News correspondent; yes the same guy who did time for illegally selling weapons to Iran to fund the Contras got his own show on Fox News. Go figure.)

The CIA’s Mind-Controlled Assassin Program Hits the Road
Now, I’m not saying everybody in the CIA is a completely-immoral, evil genius, but like any powerful organization there are different factions. A lot of CIA folks seem to be trying their best to serve their country, but others have different motives, often because of financial ties, paranoia, political ideology or even darker agendas.

Whatever the reason, it seems that the mind-controlled assassins started popping up in the 1960s and have surfaced regularly since then. Like many MKULTRA victims, Sirhan Sirhan, the guy who supposedly shot Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, couldn’t remember the actual crime. If you do some research into RFK’s murder you’ll know that there were more bullets fired at the scene than could be loaded into Sirhan’s gun. It’s likely that there were multiple gunman and that Sirhan was not technically the assassin. The brainwashing process tends to be incredibly destructive and the mind-controlled slaves are not always the best shots. In those cases they still make excellent patsies.

“Listen, if anything happens to Yoko and me, it was not an accident.”
–John Lennon

Another likely mind-controlled assassin was Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s assassin. After Chapman shot Lennon 4 times he calmly sat down and waited. And waited. And waited until the police came and arrested him. If he had wanted to get away it would’ve been simple to blend into the NYC crowd and disappear into a subway. But killing the target is just the first part of an MKULTRA subject’s programming. The next step is to take the blame.

It’s so simple to blame everything on a lone-nut. These so called “lone-nuts” basically cleared the field of left-leaning presidential candidates and influential pro-peace figures in the 1960s. John F. Kennedy, RFK, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all supposedly killed by “lone gunman” who just happened to target the 3 leading lights of the Democratic Party during the tumultuous (but hopeful… until the gunfire) 60s. These assassinations are inherently political acts and we have to ask “who benefits?”, because somebody did.

Before They Scrub History Clean
The process seems to have improved in efficacy over the years, but it’s still incredibly destructive to the mind-controlled victim’s psyche. Look at our most recent example of an MKULTRA assassin, Jared Lee Loughner. He is a shell of a man. A cursory glance reveals him to be utterly insane. But why is he insane; what brought him to this point?

There’s so much more we need to know about Jared Loughner that I can’t be absolutely sure he’s an MKULTRA victim, but it’s looking extremely likely at this point. It’s doubtful there will ever be a thorough investigation; most likely the authorities will cover up any evidence that doesn’t fit the official story so these first few hours are essential in getting an accurate picture before it all goes down the Memory Hole.

I’ve already seen multiple news reports that suggest that Loughner was not the only assassin. Mind-controlled slaves often need their puppetmasters close at hand in case they go off the script; they also need to be triggered into going from dormant mode into kill-mode. However, the cover-up is already in full swing:

Dupnik said authorities were all but certain Loughner acted alone, saying “he’s a typical troubled individual who’s a loner.”

This is conflicted by an earlier report that authorities were seeking a second individual. There’s even a security camera photo of him.

Investigators said they were looking for an accomplice, believed to be in his 50s, who may have assisted in the attack.

Don’t let this information slip down the Memory Hole. The story is titled, “Cops hunt 2nd suspect in deadly Ariz. rampage.” It’s likely that the 50 year old gentlemen in the picture was Loughner’s controller. He waited until the time was right and then gave Loughner the pass-phrase that triggered his attack, possibly using a cell phone.

As of this writing Gabrielle Giffords is miraculously holding onto life despite having a bullet go through her brain. Even if she survives it seems unlikely she’ll ever fully recover. Please send your thoughts and prayers her way as she struggles for life; also her family must be in agony right now. I’m sure they want to see justice done. In order for that to happen we need an investigation that leaves no stone unturned. I’m extremely doubtful that the authorities will allow that to happen since the evidence is already pointing back to the CIA and most of the right-wing political elite has every motivation to paint Loughner as a lone, deranged nutcase. Certainly he was insane, but let’s look at his particular obsession:

“He was one of the last kids tocome [sic] in, and he sat down and almost immediately started laughing to himself in a way that was just kind of creepy,” a classmate, Alex Kotonias, 20, told USA Today.

“As soon as the teacher started going over the syllabus, he had this outburst out of nowhere, didn’t even raise his hand, and started asking the teacher some sort of weird questions about whether he believed in mind control.”

So the suspect was talking openly of mind control in the weeks before the shooting. Perhaps you think I’m stretching a bit, except that I’ve watched the videos on Loughner’s YouTube channel. Amazingly, 4 out of 5 of them talk about mind control! Often, the context is completely missing (as is logic and grammar, but that’s a side effect of being brainwashed); instead he just blurts it out like he did in class.

One of Loughner’s videos is all about mind control. It’s called “How To: Mind Controller“. I’m going to post it below, but don’t worry if it doesn’t make much sense to you (be worried if it does):

Okay, so clearly he’s nuts. But his obsession with mind control is telling. On some level he knows his brain is under attack. Check out his other videos for a deeper window into his damaged psyche.

The mind control video ends with Loughner claiming to be the mind controller: “I’m able to control every belief and religion by being the mind controller!” If you’ve looked at his other videos (which are mostly text-based writings) you’ll know he’s in control of two things: Jack and shit. However, from a certain point of view he has affected all of us. If you let fear and confusion and anger overtake you then you are letting Jared Lee Loughner control you. Don’t give in to fear… or the mainstream media’s storyline.

Fear is the Mind-Killer
Fear and control are big business and they are not left to amateurs. If you recall the run-up to the Iraq War you’ll know that the real masters of fear are the folks in charge; they are the government officials and spoonfed reporters who scared us into thinking war was necessary. They are the mind-controllers: the military-industrial-media complex managed to swing public opinion around from mostly against the war to a majority in favor of invading Iraq. They lied about it and they all got away with it too. The liars and cheats are mostly still in Congress or still pretending to be fair and balanced on our TVs.

Mind control is real.

It’s likely you are a victim at some point in your life. But there are different levels of mind control and fear-based propaganda is an inexpensive and non-invasive technique designed to work in aggregate on the masses. MKULTRA assassins are the other end of the spectrum; they are the focus of much work by the controllers. They are brainwashed using various techniques including drugs, torture, deprivation, isolation, hypnosis and more we can’t even know about yet. Personally, I suspect that there are implants that can be put in the subject brain (or maybe just their ear drum) so that they will literally hear voices. Who knows what the latest technology has allowed the puppetmasters to do?

Loughner tried to join to the Army a few years back. Supposedly he was rejected, but it’s also possible he was shunted into a super-secret MKULTRA program and spent the next two or three years being subjective to incredible abuse, drugs, hypnosis and the rest. Hold your hate until you can be sure that Loughner was in his right mind. I suspect that he is just as much of a victim as Representative Giffords is.

All I know for sure is that this requires more investigation but it’s not going to happen because people are too eager to accept the lone gunman theory because the alternative is too horrifying and crazy. It’s our fear that enables this trick to work again and again. Not just the fear of the government but the fear of being mocked and ridiculed for even suggesting such a thing. I felt that same fear myself while writing this post: “Will people think I’m nuts?” I’m sure some of you will, but I think you’re nuts if you’re bound and determined to overlook the evidence. MKULTRA is real. You can’t deny that. Your only escape from that reality is to believe the CIA’s assurances that the program has been discontinued. I think you’d have trouble finding a less trustworthy organization than the CIA. Disinformation is their job! And they do it well.

So don’t be surprised if, when Loughner starts to talk, he claims not to remember the shooting spree. He probably doesn’t; he was in a hypnotic trance at the time and that information (and so much more) is blocked to him. Also, don’t be surprised if you never hear about the accomplice/controller again. His picture is on this page if you doubt your own mind. Don’t worry; you’re not going crazy, you’re just waking up to a nightmare reality.

I love Wikipedia! Join us for our first episode of Electric Monkeypedia in which I quote a small passage of Wikipedia and, thereby, it becometh funny. All you have to do is read the following with a British accent:

The most distinct product of the joint is the roach, or unburnt unconsumed butt end. Roaches are typically either consumed with the aid of a roach clip which offers a narrow grip without the risk of burning one’s fingers, or are saved to be combined with other roaches and rerolled into a composite or second generation roach joint. Roaches are also sometimes finished by being smoked in a pipe, or (in rare cases) consumed by eating. This is sometimes referred to as “eating the peanut”, “popping the roach” or “Wu Tang-ing it”.

Ah, so funny. This is a real Wikipedia article, folks. I just found this today — don’t ask what I was doing — and had a laugh. It was clearly written by stoners, or by a nonsmoker who went deep undercover.

Another reason I love Wikipedia? Pictures like this:

I like how it’s simply labeled: Joint.

Man, all the tools are right there for you. Kids these days have it easy. (Get off my lawn!)

This is where you’re supposed to put the obligatory anti-drug message, where I get down on one knee and look the kids straight in the eye and tell’em all they really need to know about drugs: Kids, if you grow up and become a drug dealer, watch out for the CIA — the dirty spooks will want a cut of your profits or they’ll send in the DEA to ice you like a two bit hood. It’s even worse if you play along and sell your soul to the devil and Dick Cheney. The only smart thing to do is to become a real drug dealer by peddling expensive drugs like Prozac and Ritalin to fretful, always-absent mothers and fathers who just want their child to be “normal.” You can manipulate the political and economic systems of every last country to extract maximum profits with no hard feelings… ‘Cause it’s all legal.

There ya go kids. Remember what Uncle Vemrion told you.

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Electric Monkeypedia!

The recent spate of police brutality is no accident. It’s not a freak coincidence, it’s the way it’s always been. Would I sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist if I said that the increasing militarization of the police is a carefully shepherded phenomena designed to slowly ensnare us in a web of oppression and fear? Well, I don’t care, because them’s the facts, man!

Four Recent Outrages
You’ve probably heard about the recent tasering of a U of Florida student who tried to ask John Kerry a few questions (but didn’t seem interested in hearing an answer). The kid, Andrew Meyer, was being kind of a dick and he overreacted and basically caused that situation by freaking out (notice how the cops lept into action when he mentioned Skull and Bones). He is now famous for pleading “Don’t Taze me, Bro!” shortly before he had 50,000 volts applied to his nuts.

This kid’s annoying dorkiness doesn’t absolve the police/security folks of responsibility. The fact that they tasered a guy who was subdued and on the ground is reprehensible. If you have six cops surrounding a suspect (who should’ve been escourted out, not arrested) there is absolutely no need to taser him.

Then there’s an older video that just made it on Digg showing a police officer shooting an Air Force security officer at point blank range for no apparent reason. There was an investigation and a trial and — (surprise!) Officer Ivory Webb was cleared on all counts.

Next we have the case of the delinquent granny who was finally brought to justice. Her crime? Not watering her lawn:

Betty Perry is charged with resisting arrest and failing to maintain her landscaping, both misdemeanors.

She was arrested July 6 after failing to give her name to a police officer who visited her home.

During a struggle, Perry fell and injured her nose. She spent more than an hour in a holding cell before police released her.

I bet we all feel safer with Ms. Perry behind bars.

If you think the police can’t top that, think again. Next is the case of the wheelchair-bound schizophrenic:

Officers said they arrived to find Delafield in a wheelchair, armed with two knives and a hammer. Police said the woman was swinging the weapons at family members and police.

Within an hour of her call to 911, Delafield, a wheelchair-bound woman documented to have mental illness, was dead.

Family attorney Rick Alexander said Delafield’s death could have been prevented and that there are four things that jump out at him about the case. “One, she’s in a wheelchair. Two, she’s schizophrenic. Three, they’re using a Taser on a person that’s in a wheelchair, and then four is that they tasered her 10 times for a period of like two minutes,” Alexander said.

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

Now, I’m sure that was a difficult situation, but I fail to see why it was necessary to taser an old woman in a wheelchair. Surely a person who can’t walk can be restrained fairly easily. In fact, we know she was not a threat because the lady cop managed to shock her for a total of 160 seconds — almost 3 minutes. And now she’s dead.

A Fluke Spurt of Stupidity?
So where did I find all of these stories? Did I go to a site dedicated to monitoring police brutality like CopWatch?

No. I found them all on Digg. All on the same page!

Now, this is no doubt more than normal, but it points to a larger problem in our society: The police are out of control.

And that’s exactly the way certain people want it.

The Real Role of Cops
You see, there’s a common misconception about police. Some people (mostly white, middle class folks) think that the police are here to “protect and serve” everybody. But notice that their motto doesn’t say anything about protecting everybody, or even treating everybody equally. It’s conspicuous by its absence, in fact.

The truth is that the police are paid to protect and serve the ruling class and the ruling class mostly needs protection from the underclass.

America is a classist society, just like the U.K. or India. The rich and poor divide is sometimes as stark as the difference between slums and condos. Poor people naturally get angry and even violent when they realize that their situation is completely hopeless. No amount of hard work will get you rich when your only job skills are burger-flipping and bathroom-scrubbing. So sometimes the poor take matters into their own hands and try to steal something from the rich. That’s where the police come in. If you rob a house or steal a car you will be arrested; simple as that.

But what happens when the rich steal from the poor?

For the most part: Nothing. The elite can literally write our laws with a few well-placed campaign contributions. They can make their left illegal while they continually try to box the underclass in with obscene violations of the first amendment like free speech zones. The elite ghettoize our inner cities, offshore our jobs, make helpful drugs illegal, send our children to die in pointless wars, kill all those who stand in their way and terrorize the rest of us with servile propaganda and there’s not a goddamn thing anyone of us can do about it.

Asside from high-profile cases like Enron, the elite are completely free to run wild and reshape society to their liking. And the way they seem to like it is: The rich can do whatever they want, the poor and middle class must be monitored constantly and arrested instantly if they step out line.

The police subconsciously know this. They know that becoming a cop grants them power over others, but they seem to know not to abuse this power when it comes to rich people.

You don’t see a bunch of people in Lexuses getting pulled over on Cops. That’s not because they’re not speeding and not doing anything illegal. I bet there’s a lot of cocaine in a lot of glove compartments in a lot of Lexuses (would that be “Lexi”?). But the cops know better than to fuck with the rich. The rich have lawyers, they have friends in the force, they have resources and most important, they know politicians who can put the squeeze on the captain and get you reassigned to guarding the Taco Bell.

Poor people have none of these connections or resources.

It’s fine with the rich if you want to oppress poor folk; in fact it’s pretty much encouraged. The rich know that by giving the cops special privileges they can secure the fealty of the police. So the police are permitted to act like they own the place as long as they don’t step on the toes of the elite — the only people who outrank the cops in our society.

So the real role of cops in society is to protect the elite from the underclass, which includes the middle class, but the middle class is mostly pacified by TV, material goods and beer. The police are free to get their jollies off by knocking a few heads together as long as they don’t beat up the son of somebody powerful. The elite like how the cops are hated and feared by the poor and respected and feared by the middle class. This gives the elite free reign since the cops fear and respect the upper class, the only group of people more powerful that themselves.

The Militarization of the Police
Gang members know the police as just another gang; a more powerful one, but a gang nonetheless. But the people who control the police (the elite, if you haven’t been paying attention) are increasingly arming the police as if they were a standing army. The militarization of the police has occurred mostly over the last 50 years and is spurred by two bullshit ideological wars: The War on Drugs and the War on Terror.

The police in most major now have enough armament to invade and occupy a small country. Hell, we could’ve sent our cops to Iraq and they probably would have done a better job at containing the populace since they’re more thoroughly trained for that sort of thing than the army. That’s no accident. The cops are an army; an army of the elite. Their enemy, let there be no doubt, is you.

The plan is to make America into a fascist state: Amerika. They started slowly and carefully, and as they’ve gained strength the police have gradually been let off their leash, but the end result is inevitable: a police state.

It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. In the late 1800s and early 1900s this country was consumed by labor strife. The Socialist Party was founded to look after worker’s right and communism was gaining strength because the Robber Barons’ form of capitalism was so completely corrupt that there was no difference between the Government and Big Business (sound familiar?).

Hand of the Oligarchy
The Rockefellers basically controlled this country like it was theirs. When they had labor troubles they simply called in the police. The police busted heads and smashed the ranks of the striking workers and forced them to return to work for pitiful wages. The idea that the police can act as an arm of the Oligarchy is unfortunately not a new one. Things got better for awhile, but now we seem to headed right back to where we were a hundred years ago.

If anything the propaganda is a hundred times better now; many people think the police are there to protect everyone, but that simply isn’t the case. In many poor neighborhoods, if you call the cops they might show up four hours later. The nicer your neighborhood, the quicker the response. Many poor folks don’t even bother calling the cops. This, again, is not a new phenomenon: in fact, that’s how the Mafia got its start. The Italian and Irish Mobs began because a person of Italian or Irish descent could not expect to be treated fairly under the law. They knew that they had to take care of each other or nobody would; certainly the cops were more likely to beat you over the head with a baton than listen to your tale of woe. Like our current gang troubles the Irish Mafia was made possible by Prohibition. When a popular product is made illegal it can be extremely lucrative for those on the wrong side of the law; so much so that they can buy influence on the other side of the law and corrupt the entire system in the process.

Now the blacks are the new Irish and they have no pull with the cops, even though many black people are on the force (just like with the Irish). The difference is that the cops look after each other first, regardless of ethnicity. Once you are a cop you belong to a special club which is virtually above the law. As long as you don’t violate the Blue Code of Silence you can expect to reap the rewards of being superior to the underclass.

Tale of the Tasers
The weapons a cop receives are a totem to his power over others. Normal people are not allowed to openly carry dangerous weapons around, especially as the second amendment has been eroded. An officer’s gun identifies him as a member of a powerful group and symbolizes his social superiority and separateness from the masses.

Tasers are the new nightsticks. Cops will use a taser at the drop of a hat because it makes compliance push-button easy. It should be noted that taser are not nonlethal; they are “less lethal” which is how I would describe a knife versus a gun. In no way are tasers harmless; they’ve been responsible for hundreds of deaths in the last few years.

Between tasers, pepper spray, nightsticks and ray guns the police have all sorts of “less lethal” devices to ensure submission. Add in handguns, shotguns and the heavy artillery used by SWAT teams and you have enough firepower to conquer a major rebellion… which seems to be the plan.

The Oligarchy seems to be expecting trouble from us, the unruly populace. I can only wonder why, but perhaps they know how foul and oppressive their policies are. If so, they can’t plead ignorance to our plight; they are in fact responsible for it. The Oligarchy has no love for democracy; they clearly prefer fascism; it’s so much more convenient. Sadly, many Americans agree.

But you know, “oligarchy”, “fascism”, “democracy” and “freedom” are just big, abstract concepts. At the end of the day it all comes down to what we experience in the world. This video is but a small example of the arrogance and violent entitlement that many cops feel:

Cops see their badge as a license to take the law into their own hands. Don’t like the customer service you’ve received? Pepper-spray’em and arrest’em. If any of us did the same thing we would be in jail for a long time, but this cop got off scot free. There’s justice for you; Amerikan-style.

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.

You’ve probably seen news reports about the supposed plot to blow up JFK airport. Pretty scary stuff, right?

No, it’s bullshit.

The JFK operation, like earlier terror scares, is almost certainly a fraud perpetuated by our government in order to terrorize the populace and provide cover for the neocons who are increasingly on the run.

Bold claims, you say. Damn right. But let’s look at the facts — ALL of the facts — before we decide. The media tends to focus on the most frightening and explosive (pun intended) parts of the plot, but they seldom go deep into the details and question the government’s motives and their version of events.

Facts of Interest
Fact One: Most of the “plotters” were in their 50s and 60s. Not exactly the spry young wannabe martyrs we’re used to seeing.

Fact Two: The plotters had no experience with terror attacks. They were still in the planning phase and they had no funding necessary to pull this plot off. And frankly, these guys were incompetent… and set up.

Fact Three: “Terrorist mastermind” Russell DeFreitas was employed by the CIA.

Waitaminute! Full stop! What did you say?

Yes, Russell DeFreitas used to work for Evergreen International Aviation, which is a notorious front for the CIA. The airline was most likely involved in the extraordinary renditions you may have heard about (basically the CIA flies suspected terrorists to other countries where they can be tortured “legally”).

The CIA Angle
I think this goes without saying, but I’ll say it: The CIA doesn’t staff it’s fronts by hiring the first moron who comes in off the street. Okay, they might do that in some cases, maybe even this one, but once you’re involved with The Agency it can be hard to get out of their wicked web. Perhaps The Agency saw how gullible and easily manipulated DeFreitas was and decided to use him as a patsy without his knowledge. Or perhaps he was aware of what he was doing the whole time. Either way, the CIA angle puts a whole new spin on things, especially since the CIA is the premier terrorist organization in the world today.

Joseph Cannon makes the case that Russell DeFreitas was a drug smuggler, possibly still working for the CIA:

It is fair to presume that the CIA vets everyone connected with its ultra-sensitive air operations. I do not believe that the Agency would accidentally hire someone linked to a foreign criminal organization.

But the DeFreitas story gets even stranger.

For someone living in poverty, he did an astonishing amount of international travel. The Complaint mentions the trip he made late last year to Guyana, where he met with various shady characters.

Cannon goes on to point out that DeFreitas claimed to be selling junk in Guyana and Jamaica, but the economics just does not add up. Something is fishy here, and it smells like DeFreitas’ connections to the CIA and the way he makes his living. How could you make a living flying garage-sale junk down to third world countries? If anything, that just guarantees an even smaller return on your investment. Much more likely is that DeFreitas was involved in drug smuggling, probably under CIA protection. Those flights probably contained more than just old blenders and slightly used toasters…

The Agency is in a vastly superior position to its mules. Mules can get pinched at any time, with or without a tip from The Agency. Then, in order to get a reduced sentence said mule will cut a deal with the CIA and do exactly what they tell him to do. If he doesn’t, he spends time behind bars and The Agency simply finds another mentally deficient mule/patsy.

All things considered, this plot looks extremely sketchy. The plotters were being led by a former (current?) CIA stooge who couldn’t manage to keep his car running, yet the media is hyping this as a foiled 9/11-style plot. DeFreitas was a former jazz musician and aficionado, yet music is banned in many Islamic countries. Is this guy your standard loner/drifter or a extremist terrorist mastermind? The truth appears to be somewhere in the middle. DeFreitas’ motivation was probably money. The Agency tells him to start acting Islamic and formulate a bomb plot and he does exactly that because he expects a fat payday. Will he ever get paid? Probably not. If you sign a Faustian bargain, don’t be surprised if the Devil doesn’t stay true to his word.

Meanwhile, the neocons are saying that we should be worshiping at the feet of Dear Leader Bush because he has stopped all of these terror attacks. What they neglect to mention is that he started them, too. Already, many Republicans are clamoring for another terrorist attack to remind people of Bush’s steadfast leadership… or something.

With the neocons’ prospects looking dim, they might just get their wish.

AG Alberto Gonzales, wounded by his recent string of lies and spin before Congress, is proposing a crackdown on copyright infringement.

  • Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations. Wiretaps would be authorized for investigations of Americans who are “attempting” to infringe copyrights.
  • Allow computers to be seized more readily. Specifically, property such as a PC “intended to be used in any manner” to commit a copyright crime would be subject to forfeiture, including civil asset forfeiture. Civil asset forfeiture has become popular among police agencies in drug cases as a way to gain additional revenue, and is problematic and controversial.
  • Increase penalties for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention regulations. Currently criminal violations are currently punished by jail times of up to 10 years and fines of up to $1 million. The IPPA would add forfeiture penalties too.
  • Add penalties for “intended” copyright crimes. Currently certain copyright crimes require someone to commit the “distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of at least 10 copies” valued at over $2,500. The IPPA would insert a new prohibition: actions that were “intended to consist of” distribution.

This is typical of the neocons. The wind is blowing against them, so they’ve redoubled their efforts rather than wondering if it’s a good idea to pursue the same goals so mindlessly.

She’s a witch! Burn the witch!!
It might also be an attempt to woo Hollywood Democrats by making them an offer they can’t refuse. Many Democrats (and Republicans too, of course) take large amounts of money from the MPAA and RIAA (collectively known as the mafiaa), which is fully in support of this legislation. One gets the idea they’d be in support of a bill that called for executions on the spot for suspected pirates. Piracy is much like terrorism that respect; it’s a word used almost exclusively to demonize a certain group, which gives power to those who are able to prosecute and persecute them. Basically, it’s a 21st century witch-hunt.

Instead of burning people at the stake we need to take a look at the laws on the books and find ways to make them less draconian in an age of easy file-sharing. The ability to share/copy files is one of the greatest uses of the internet and it demands a new way of thinking about copyright and intellectual property. The endless roadblocks we get from politicians and businessmen (including legislation like the DMCA, copy-protection like DRM and lawsuits like the RIAA’s campaign against music-sharing) only serve to slow down innovation and erect huge barriers of entry that make it hard for start-ups and small businesses to make a dent in the marketplace with a new idea.

This legislation (the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 [pdf]) might backfire if it is passed. It will push more and more people to use free and open source software in order to avoid potential liability. Even having a copy of Microsoft Word is dangerous if you don’t also have a receipt proving ownership.

The War on Common Sense
Add the War on Piracy to the growing list of ideological wars we’re fighting, including the War on Terror and the War on Drugs. If it seems odd to you that we’re waging “war” against a tactic (terrorism) and an inanimate object (why don’t they put the drugs in jail?), that means that you don’t have sufficient faith in our dear leaders.

I would argue that the Big 3 Unwinnable Ideological Wars constitute an undeclared War on Common Sense. The War on Common Sense is designed to make the general populace believe that up is down, day is night, freedom is slavery and George Bush is a genius.

Please notice the tremendous power that is derived from a war, even a fake one. There’s a reason why we don’t still wage the War on Poverty (well besides the fact that the ruling elite don’t give a fuck) — there’s not an easily-demonized enemy that the ruling class can disparage in order to increase their own power and prestige. If such an enemy exists, it’s almost certainly the ruling class itself. That’s not gonna work! It’s best to have a war on somebody who can’t really fight back.

So what’s next? Well, I’d guess we’ll have a War on Illegal Immigration, which will do nothing to stop the flood of immigrants coming into the country because it won’t go after the root problem: the economic disparity between the U.S. and Mexico. Like the War on Drugs, illegal immigration is a problem caused by the policies of the wealthy elite and far from suffering from this problem the elite actually make a shitload of money from it. The CIA runs drugs to pay for their illegal black ops and a whole parasitic class of DEA agents and police officers have grown fat arresting nonviolent drug offenders in order to continue the charade.

Similarly, the corporate elite have grown even more wealthy from illegal immigration. Instead of paying their workers a fair wage they employ illegal immigrants for a fraction of the salary a naturalized citizen would earn. This simultaneously impoverishes Americans who can’t find a job and enslaves illegal immigrants to a corrupt system that gives them just enough money to get by and not a penny more… all while making the CEOs of these corporations even richer by saving money on labor costs, which is reflected in their end of the year bonus. What a great scam!

The War on Terror is a money-making scheme as well. If you doubt this, I suggest you watch Iraq for Sale, a documentary about war profiteering in Iraq. The government sends incredible amounts of money to private contractors like Blackwater and Halliburton, then some of this money is funneled back to the very people who came up with the idea of going to war in Iraq in the form of campaign contributions (you know: legalized bribery). It’s an endless loop of corruption! Legal corruption!

The War on Piracy will have to evolve to a similarly corrupt state if it wishes to become self-perpetuating. Certainly, there is some money to be made by suing college students, but that’s chickenfeed. Clearly the RIAA is getting better at extortion so they don’t even have to go to trial in most cases, but I’m guessing there’s still a lot of overhead. If they really want to make a mint they should look into what Canada is doing. Making innocent people pay for “crimes” they might or might not commit is so much more fun and profitable. The copyright tax is applied to everybody and it’s institutionalized so it will be damn near impossible to get rid of. As bad as the RIAA is, they haven’t managed to achieve something that evil… yet.

How long before people wake up to the fact that these ideological wars are always ineffective at achieving their stated goals because the real goals are hidden — and they involve profiting off the situation, not solving it. I suppose it takes a certain amount of cynicism to believe your fellow man is capable of such two-faced corruption. But that’s the way it is, folks.

Maybe we should declare a moratorium on bullshit wars.

Taking part in a televised debate can be a make-it-or-break-it moment for any presidential candidate. But what if you’re not allowed to debate at all?

A diabolical Catch-22
As many of you are aware, not all candidates are allowed to debate in a given broadcast debate. This has been a problem for years. During the last presidential election both the Libertarian and Green party candidates were actually arrested trying to get into a debate they had been explicitly banned from!

Most candidates are excluded from the debate simply because the Media (big M) deems them minor/unknown/unpopular candidates. Well, of course they’re unknown; they’re not allowed to debate on national TV!! Bit of a Catch-22, wouldn’t you say?

A most insidious and foul Catch-22, I would say. Here’s why: We supposedly live in a democracy. It’s not really a democracy, it’s a republic (that’s a story for another day), but we like to pretend that the people really have a say. The hidden reality is that the bosses of the major television stations are making decisions that define the course of our nation, and they’re doing it from private boardrooms sequestered on the 100th floor of a skyscraper, and there’s nothing any of us can do about it because they aren’t elected or accountable to anybody but the company’s shareholders — ya know… other rich people.

Why should the CEO of CNN have such power? Why should he (and it’s almost certainly a he) determine who will and won’t be the next president of the United States before the people ever get a chance to vote in a primary?

Isn’t that censorship? Isn’t that more like an oligarchy than a democracy? Why do we let them get away with it?

Well, until recently most people didn’t even know about the problem. And we didn’t have the power to make a difference anyway. But things are changing.

Social Media saves the day
Social Media has finally offered regular people like you and me a voice. Sites like Digg, while not perfect, have enabled users to vote (you know, like a democracy) on what stories they think are worthy.

Two candidates, Ron Paul and Mike Gravel, owe most of their young supporters to the users of two social media sites: Digg and Reddit. Without those two sites neither candidate had a hope in hell of cracking the oligarchy and getting significant, objective coverage by the mainstream media (MSM).

Why does the media censor and ostracize certain candidates?
The candidates that find themselves locked out of televised debates tend to have a few things in common: They tend to be unpopular or unknown (but that is not always the case). Their campaigns are usually poorly funded (maybe because it’s hard to raise funds if you get no coverage) and sometimes they have views that are contrary to the political mainstream.

But sometimes the political mainstream is very much at odds with the desires of the voting public. A perfect example is the continued prohibition of cannabis (you know: “marijuana”), an issue on which the politicians are most definitely out of step with most of America, which favors medicinal pot by an astonishing 78% margin. Net candidate Mike Gravel recently came out in support of legalizing cannabis, which he says should be for sale in liquor stores. For a mainstream, “media-approved” candidate, such a position would be political suicide. Why?

Perhaps the media has been shaping our political landscape for such a long time nobody can even remember a time when they weren’t. Perhaps there are certain forces at work behind the scenes that determine what is considered politically acceptable and what is considered “extremist.”

It’s hard not to see the media as a controlling, suppressing force when they blatantly censor certain candidates. Ron Paul’s performance in the recent Republican debate at the Reagan Library was hailed by many observers, but when it came time to review the field and do some analysis ABC News made a curious omission: Ron Paul.

He wasn’t even available as an option for viewers to vote for. He wasn’t mentioned anywhere in David Chalain’s analysis. If not for a web uprising (involving Digg and Reddit) Ron Paul would probably still be excluded. When ABC finally backed down (after deleting a storm of comments asking, “Where’s Ron?”) Ron Paul ran away with a landslide victory in the online poll. The numbers are incredible (and no doubt skewed by a reaction to the censorship). Paul clearly has a massive groundswell of public support…. but in the corporate realm he has apparently earned only hand-waving dismissal and contempt.

What are we supposed to think of this? When there are 10 candidates at a debate and viewers are only allowed to vote for 9 of them is that not censorship? Is that not electioneering by a major corporation?

And when they back down and include the suppressed candidate and he wins the poll, how do they respond? They write an article in which they find people to scratch their heads and say, “who knows how this Ron Paul got popular. Must be sumthin’ to do with them internets.” Then they conclude he has no chance of winning and that this is just an exercise in teenage rebellion (or something) and wave their hands, content that they will never have to talk about him again.

Democratic candidate Mike Gravel has experienced the exact same treatment, but on the other side of the aisle. Gravel and Paul are both painted as “extremists” within their respective parties, so we’d can conclude that Paul is a right-wing extremist and Gravel is a left-wing extremist, right?

Not quite. Both candidates are populists, espousing “common sense” positions that many average Americans hold, but which are not endorsed by many mainstream politicians. Both are opposed to the Iraq War (and always were), both question Prohibition, both are wary of a pre-emptive strike against Iran and both are suspicious of the corporate media that excludes them from debates. In short, they have a lot in common with the public they are trying to represent.

Meanwhile, the Media’s favorite Republican candidate, Rudy Giuliani, goes around saying fascist shit like this:

We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.[ Interruption by someone in the audience. ]

You have free speech so I can be heard.

Is that what most Americans believe? Wasn’t America founded by overthrowing the “lawful authority” of the British? And this “Freedom is about authority” stuff sounds like a parody of George Orwell’s 1984… but Rudy was being serious! “You have free speech so I can be heard”?!! Saturday Night Live couldn’t parody Rudy any better than he does himself.

Which candidate is really an “extremist”? Which candidate is fundamentally out-of-line with the thinking of mainstream America? Well, maybe America really does want fascism instead of freedom, but the noise on the internet would seem to indicate otherwise.

Media Control and Manipulation
It seems like ancient history now, but it was actually the recent past when the mainstream media controlled every avenue of information and expression in this country. Nowadays we can talk about these things and send our message out to a wide audience, but as recently as 12 years ago it simply was not possible for a middle class person to route around the MSM. Suddenly most people can afford machines that are more powerful than a printing press, and allow common people to talk to each other without the Media’s filter. That’s why the Media is so upset about blogging and social media — they’re so used to having an absolute stranglehold over the conversation in this country.

The Media is used to controlling:

  • what information citizens receive
  • what information citizens are allowed to share with one another on the national stage
  • discussion and framing of issues in mainstream press
  • which issues receive national coverage (and which are ignored)
  • who gets to talk about the issues in the press (and who doesn’t)
  • how political actors are portrayed (villain or hero or neutral)

Social Media smashes that control grid and puts power in the hands of the many, rather than the few. This is a recent development so the full ramifications are not yet clear, but one thing we are finding out is that the Media has been using their incredible power to highlight certain candidates and suppress others.

The media has a paternalist streak that is really out of place in this day and age. The Washington Post thinks they know best and they aren’t afraid to tell you that they already know Gravel & Paul are not going to be elected, so why don’t we just eject them from the debates already?

The Democratic debate in South Carolina featured eight candidates, while 10 crammed into the GOP debate in California last Thursday. Voters trying to sort out their presidential choices aren’t helped by debates cluttered with the likes of Mike Gravel (hint: he’s a former senator from Alaska) on the Democratic side and Ron Paul (hint: he’s a libertarian House member from Texas) among the Republicans.

Thank goodness for our dear corporate masters. If they didn’t come in any set things straight we’d have to learn somebody’s name and what they stand for. MY GOD! The very idea exhausts me.

Sarcasm aside, this sort of thing has been going on for generations. That’s why an editorial like the one above doesn’t seem odd to them; this is standard operating procedure! The Media has identified the candidates they don’t like (the ones that aren’t easily bought/co-opted) and now they’ve decided to tell you, Dear Voter, than you needn’t concern yourself with these troublesome miscreants. Big Media will make things simple for you by excluding them.

…But wait a minute. Isn’t this a democracy? Don’t the voters decide who is voted off the proverbial island?

Well, now you know better. That is not the way America works. America is run by a ruling class of oligarchs no different than the ones who control Russia. The difference is the American media freely admits that oligarchs run Russia, but they would sooner give their mansions to the poor than admit America is the same. The exact reverse scenario plays out in Russia where the Russian (government/oligarch-controlled) media is free to disparage America and mock its corrupt institutions, while speaking ill of Russia is a good way to get your broadcasting license revoked.

The awful truth is that America has long been controlled by the rich, just like most nations throughout history. They have remade American society and government to suit themselves and they have grown very comfortable on their throne.

What is an Oligarchy?
Stephen Fleischman, himself a former mainstream media man, tackles the reality of the Oligarchy in an article for Counterpunch:

My dictionary says an oligarchy is a form of government where most or all political power effectively rests with a small segment of the society. As Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, puts it, “Oligarchies are often controlled by a few powerful families whose children are raised and mentored to be heirs of the power of the oligarchy, often at some sort of expense to those governed.” Does that sound like the administration of George W. Bush?

Why, yes it does! That must be a weird coincidence. … right?

I wish I could tell you more about the Oligarchy, but it operates in secret and prefers that most citizens do not even know it exists. In fact, by using the mainstream media the Oligarchy is able to program us so that even if we are provided with irrefutable evidence of the existence of said Oligarchy, many will still deny it and disbelieve it.

You’re probably wondering “How?!”

Have you ever been called a “conspiracy theorist?” Well, it tends to end any meaningful discussion of the facts and immediately puts the onus on the accused to defend himself from the charge leveled at him. The Media has a few “magic words” like this at their disposal. It’s amazing how effective they can be. Nobody wants to be called a conspiracy theorist… but isn’t that just an ad hominem attack? It’s no different than calling someone a poopy-head.

I suspect there may be more to it than that. In a future post I’ll look into how the Oligarchy exploits its control of the media for fun and profit.

What should we do about it?
At a certain point we in the ‘net community need to stand up and say, “To hell with you guys. We’re hosting our own debate and we’ll invite everybody!” We ju
st need to set up a website with a group of people dedicated to hosting the cyber-debate; we’ll get some buzz going and then what candidate will say “no” to a chance to get his/her message out to such an elusive audience?

The media can’t be trusted to define, design and delineate the ground rules for our national debate. Candidates are having trouble getting their message across because of the media’s filter. It’s time to cut out the middle man.

Seriously.

This is not some sick joke.

It actually fucking happened. (don’t look if you don’t want to see exploded whale entrails)

Residents of Tainan learned a lesson in whale biology after the decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours.

The 56-foot-long whale had been on a truck headed for a necropsy by researchers, when gases from internal decay caused its entrails to explode in the southern city of Tainan.

Holy fucking shitty exploding whale, Batman! That’s pretty fucked up. Even weirder is the Tainan-folk’s strange obsession with the whale’s enormous cock. I guess, I shouldn’t call it a cock, because a whale’s penis is actually called “dork”, or so decades of pop culture has told me. So, the whale had an abnormally large dork.

Once moved to a nearby nature preserve, the male specimen — the largest whale ever recorded in Taiwan — drew the attention of locals because of its large penis, measured at some five feet, the Taipei Times reported.

Holy five-foot dorks, Batman! This whale had everything. Oh, how horrible it must be for him to be dead at the top of his game. I bet he didn’t think his career was going to explode — literally! He missed his chance at an amazing career as a porn star. Willy Wiggler, they’d call him. He coulda been somebody.

Or maybe he already was somebody. Maybe he had a series of underground tapes, the hottest shit around. His five-foot schlong had earned him wealth and fame and everything he ever wanted, like chum.

But it also brought him something he didn’t need — temptation. Booze, drugs, illicit sex, sperm-shooting — the works. He finally decided to end it all just as mainstream success was breaking. Oh cruel fate, how you’ve robbed us all. Robbed us of Willy Wiggler, super-sperm whale of the sea. Whale on, Willy.

Whale on.

Anna Nicole Smith murdered? Questions remain

You’ve no doubt been caught in the media’s miasma of sensationalization. Their orgy of recrminiations and fingers pointed, obliquely or not, is mostly a distraction. But there might be some truth to the whispers that she was murdered. It should not go without notice that there is a billion dollar inheritance at stake.

As usual, Rigorous Intuition is on top of things, including the frightening comparisons to Marylin Monroe. It’s dangerous to be a hot blonde…

A week before her death, Monroe spent a weekend at Lake Tahoe’s Cal-Neva Lodge as a doped-up plush-toy of owners Frank Sinatra and Sam Giancana. Later, friend Ralph Roberts said Monroe described it as a “nightmare,” and that she’d felt more like a prisoner than a guest. Photographer Billy Woodfield, who’d worked with both Monroe and Sinatra, told Wolfe that Sinatra gave him a roll of film from the weekend to develop: “In his darkroom the photographer was shocked to see that the photos were of an unconscious Marilyn Monroe being sexually abused in the presence of Sam Giancana and Sinatra. Marilyn had been drugged in order for the compromising photos to be taken.” Woodfield advised Sinatra to burn them.

Drugs, mind-control, assassination, rape and blackmail. What a wonderful world we live in. Sinatra was protected from on high, much like Johnny Fontaine in the Godfather, so this doesn’t sound too out of character for him. He wants a fine piece of ass, so all he has to do is pick one from the pages of People magazine. His goons get the drugs and the dame and the rest is a party, if that’s what you’d call it.

The death of Anna Nicole’s son, Daniel, seemed very suspicious to me (removing the heirs?). I think we have to look at the obvious suspects in this case (which the police seem reluctant to do): She made a lot of enemies for marrying J. Howard Marshall a little over a year before his death. The complex court case involving the Marshall family’s efforts to deny Anna Nicole a slice of that billion dollar payout got dirty fast. After a recent Supreme Court ruling in her favor I think it’s foolish to ignore the obvious suspects in our midst. E. Pierce Marshall is dead, but no doubt somebody else is controlling the family now. The question is “who?” and how far will they go to maintain their fortune?

David Monson is a North Dakota state legislator who’s been trying to get permission to grow hemp for about 10 years. He may finally be getting close, but first he must go through an onerous set of flaming hoops set up by the DEA.

Last month, the state Agriculture Department finished its work on rules farmers may use to grow industrial hemp, a cousin of marijuana that does not have the drug’s hallucinogenic properties. The sturdy, fibrous plant is used to make an assortment of products, ranging from paper, rope and lotions to car panels, carpet backing and animal bedding.
Applicants must provide latitude and longitude coordinates for their proposed hemp fields, furnish fingerprints and pay at least $202 in fees, including $37 to cover the cost of criminal record checks.
Johnson said the federal Drug Enforcement Administration still must give its permission before Monson, or anyone else, may grow industrial hemp.
“That is going to be a major hurdle,” Johnson said.

Yeah, the DEA are basically a bunch of assholes when it comes to common sense and hemp. They won’t give permission unless they feel cornered. Keep the pressure on; some more media coverage would be nice.

But all this obscures the larger and more potent question: Why is “marihuana” still illegal? Certainly industrial hemp should be legal since it has none of recreational ganja’s psychoactive properties. But why is cannabis in general illegal? Most people would agree that Prohibition was a titanic failure. But we’re still stuck with many of the after-effects of the prohibition mentality, including the idiotic, wasteful, racist and anti-freedom War on Drugs. The War on Drugs is a total failure and a fraud and even many former cops and DEA agents will testify to that fact.

An excellent article called Why Is Marijuana Illegal? tackles that very issue, with some surprising revelations… Or not-so-surprising. I guess it depends on how jaded you are when it comes to politics and business.

America’s first marijuana law was enacted at Jamestown Colony, Virginia in 1619. It was a law “ordering” all farmers to grow Indian hempseed. There were several other “must grow” laws over the next 200 years (you could be jailed for not growing hemp during times of shortage in Virginia between 1763 and 1767), and during most of that time, hemp was legal tender (you could even pay your taxes with hemp — try that today!) Hemp was such a critical crop for a number of purposes (including essential war requirements – rope, etc.) that the government went out of its way to encourage growth.
The United States Census of 1850 counted 8,327 hemp “plantations” (minimum 2,000-acre farm) growing cannabis hemp for cloth, canvas and even the cordage used for baling cotton.

But racism may have been the weapon that was used most effectively against hemp and cannabis. Harry J. Anslinger (who looks like a gangster/mafioso to me) led the charge against “marihuana” (the word itself is a propaganda invention designed to draw up racial fears).

Anslinger immediately drew upon the themes of racism and violence to draw national attention to the problem he wanted to create. Some of his quotes regarding marijuana…

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.”

“…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”

“Marijuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death.”

“Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

“Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing”

“You smoke a joint and you’re likely to kill your brother.”

“Marijuana is the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.”

There were a lot of lies said about pot back in the day. But it’s 2007 and we know better, so why is it still illegal? I mean, people don’t seriously believe that pot causes “insanity, criminality and death” — everyone knows it only causes the munchies and drymouth. But we still allow the government to lie to us every year and keep spending millions of dollars to send inner city youth to jail for with harsh mandatory minimum sentences? Pete Guither’s article does a great job of explaining how cannabis first became illegal, but it does not really tell us why it’s still illegal 70 years after the Marijuana Stamp Act.

Part of the answer to that question lies with the CIA. The CIA has long turned a blind eye to drug smugglers in exchange for a small cut of the profit. These illicit funds can be used to fund illicit wars around the globe. (Wonderful cycle our dear CIA is engaged in, isn’t it?) The Iran-Contra “affair” was actually a drug smuggling operation to fund an illegal war (is there an echo in here?):

On October 31, 1996, the Washington Post ran a follow up story to the San Jose Mercury News series titled “CIA, Contras and Drugs: Questions on Links Linger.” The story drew on court testimony in 1990 of Fabio Ernesto Carrasco, a pilot for a major Columbian drug smuggler named George Morales. As a witness in a drug trial, Carrasco testified that in 1984 and 1985, he piloted planes loaded with weapons for contras operating in Costa Rica. The weapons were offloaded, and then drugs stored in military bags were put on the planes which flew to the United States. “I participated in two [flights] which involved weapons and cocaine at the same time,” he told the court.

Funny how the news doesn’t do investigative reports on stuff you might actually want to know. The press could have found a lot more dirt on this scandal, but they steered clear after a limited hang-out. That’s because the whole system is set up to demonize drugs so that they will be so much more profitable. Legalization would utterly destroy the CIA’s little “fundraising” operation and it would effectively end the careers of many DEA agents, who’ve become like a parasitic wasp, sucking at our nations’ failed and painful drug policy.

It’s time to end the lies, the racism and the idiocy of the War on Drugs and declare peace. It needs to end, and there needs to be an investigation. Those who profited from the war by playing both sides should be punished according to their own rules.

The video above is Dealing with the Demon, an excellent look into the CIA’s activities in Afghanistan during the war against the Soviets. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Afghan poppy production has exploded since we “liberated” it from the Taliban. How… interesting.

Updated on 1-16-07 with new links, a video and various spelling-error fixes.

Digg this story, man.

Update 2 (Oct. 30, 2010): In the process of moving this blog over from Blogger to WordPress I imported all posts to the new platform. However, certain posts didn’t survive the process and this was one of them. I have reposted it above, but because the post didn’t transfer correctly I lost all of the comments that were posted to the original. I have a backup of the original so I was able to save them. I’ll post them below (but above WordPress’ comment system) for posterity’s sake:


14  SICK LITTLE MONKEYS SAID:

Anonymous screeched…
funny. no one’s ever just randomly offered me a marijuana cigarette like that poster warns. i must be doing something wrong ….
18 JANUARY, 2007 12:25

Vemrion screeched…
yeah, you better work on that.
this propaganda is only hurting their cause. That dime-store novel looks pretty good, and that tagline is classic: “a cheap and evil gril sets a hopped-up killer against a city.” Nice. I like how they mention that she’s “cheap.” Does this mean she’s a prostitute or a miser? So many questions, I must read it! 🙂
18 JANUARY, 2007 21:45

greg screeched…
Just wanted to thank you for the excellent article and let you know that it made the front page on Newsvine.com yesterday, 1/25 — http://rochester92.newsvine.com/_news/2007/01/25/536949-why-is-cannibis-still-illegal-in-2007
26 JANUARY, 2007 18:24

sean paul screeched…
legalize it, time to recognize it!
31 JANUARY, 2007 13:31

Anonymous screeched…
Not many things make me mad. But damnit! Legalize the bloody hemp before I kill ya! 😛
03 FEBRUARY, 2007 05:23

Anonymous screeched…
I’m not sure that the government will ever legalize marijuana. Think about it. There is no way (at least at this time) to detect how much marijuana that you had to smoke today. If you have a few drinks, a breathalizer test can be administed or a blood test and you can get a reading of how much alcohol is in your system. Thus, a police officer can determine if you are over the legal limit. With marijuana, you can test positive for it but they cannot tell if you smoked it today or a week ago. For this one reason, I don’t think that the legalization marijuana will happen any time soon.
30 JULY, 2007 12:30

freedom screeched…
Im tired of feeling like im doing something wronge for smoking pot, I think its time for us to realize that we were born FREE… not free to kill or commit true crime, but free to live our lives the way we choose, not the way the govt has choosen for us. What is it going to take to make lawmakers realize that a war on pot hurts people more than pot does. What good is it to throw a person, who has a family, in jail ruin their career and their life over a bag of pot, a bag of naturally grown plants, shouldnt cops be trying to prevent real crime. Im sure in the time it takes a cop to arrest a person for posetion, he/she could have been helping someone who truly needed help. OPEN UP YOUR EYES…FREEDOM
28 AUGUST, 2007 21:27

Anonymous screeched…
ok 1 pot does not make you do ofter druges its the persons dicishion to do otfer druges and 2 pot is better for you then tabaco so they sould make pot legal and tabaco ileagale or both legale
21 OCTOBER, 2007 19:17

snoop dogg screeched…
legalize the danm thing ho!
21 OCTOBER, 2007 19:19

Anonymous screeched…
FUCKING LEGALIZE POT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
21 OCTOBER, 2007 19:20

Anonymous screeched…
I’m very torn on the issue. But I agree with Anonymous on July 30, 2007. If you want to legalize marijuana, someone needs to invent a device to detect current levels in your system so that individuals are not driving under severe influence. This will eliminate at least one (if not the most prevalent) argument as to why marijuana is illegal.
20 NOVEMBER, 2007 17:18

Anonymous screeched…
his topic always fires me up because of how ignorant people can be. Its our decision and making it legal could help hrthe economy, eliminate the badass feel of it that makes people so it just because it is illegal. We need a strong leader who has the balls to speak out about the truth of marijuana. Legalize it now
16 JUNE, 2008 19:42

Anonymous screeched…
Using pot irresponsibly should be regulated the same as alcohol. But a Federal ban against everyone who does use the drug responsibly is wrong. I’ve smoked for years and I’m a productive, functional member of society. If I went to jail for smoking I would no longer pay taxes and more of your tax money would go into the court & correctional systems. And when I got out of prison after a harsh mandatory minimum do you think I’d be a better citizen after hanging out with murderers and rapists for the past 3 years?
No one gets high and beats their wife. No one gets high and passes out in a gutter. People get high and eat too much and annoy their friends who are not high. Just don’t get high when you have something important to do and don’t get high everyday or you’ll become a douchebag hippie. There’s no reason for the government to punish you any further. Being a douchebag hippie should be punishment enough.
20 MARCH, 2009 00:01

Please feel free to add additional comments below:

Jeepers, Ireland! Lay off the coke!

The BBC is reporting that 100% of Irish Euros were found to have traces of cocaine on them by a recent study.

Researchers used the latest forensic techniques that would detect even the tiniest fragments to study a batch of 45 used banknotes. The scientists at Dublin’s City University said they were “surprised by their findings”.

Some of the notes had such high levels of cocaine on them that it is thought they were used to snort the drug.

Others had much lower traces and may have been cross-contaminated, perhaps in the wallets or pockets of users.

Man, Ireland. Maybe it’s time to slow down, okay? I think you’ve had enough.

Since they studied with only 45 notes it’s quite possible that a percentage closer to 95% would result from a more randomized study including thousands of bills. Presumably a bank note fresh from the bank would be free of cocaine traces. … Presumably.

The study also found that higher value banknotes, such as 20 and 50 euros, were more likely to contain greater traces of the drug.

Hmm… so that means that rich people handle a lot of coke. (Presumably) Perhaps the rising cocaine usage rates in Ireland are the result of a burgeoning business class. They like to party you know, after a big sale or meeting or whatever. Lotsa 50s flyin’ around to pay for drinks and to stuff in a stripper’s outfit, I’m sure. But I’m sure this will be mostly blamed on the poor and destitute, some of whom may use coke or speed to stay awake so they can work two 8 hour shifts. I’m sure the cops will continue to hassle the lower class while the upper class gets away with everything. That’s the way it’s always been.

So put down the coke, Ireland. Chill. … Smoke a doobie if you need to calm down.

Surprise, surprise.

Haggard, seen here trying to strangle God, was one of the nation’s leading religious nutjobs. He was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (representing 30 million people) until it turned out he was having gay sex with a male hooker while snorting meth. Haggard initially claimed that he had bought the meth with no intention of using it, to which millions of meth addicts replied, “Riiiiiiight, buddy. Suuuure.”

Well, now he has been fired. And he’s even resigned from his own New Life Church in Colorado. What, do the Evangelicals have a little rule about gay sex or something?

It doesn’t matter to me that he’s as gay as a spring parade. What bothers me is that Ted Haggard has preached against homosexuality for years, saying it was a sin, and taking a firm stand against gay marriage… meanwhile he was getting his balls licked by some male prostitute named Mike Jones once a month.

Haggard’s sickening hypocrisy was actually what got the better of him. His fuck-buddy-for-hire ratted him out because he grew tired of getting Ted off one day and watching him preach about the evils of homosexuality the next.

Now Haggard has admitted, “I am a deceiver and a liar.” Well, I for one am refreshed by his honesty (about being a liar). Most religious scumbags lie continually and refuse to admit that they are deceptive sacks of shit, so it’s nice to hear Ted come to grips with his problem. (The problem: being a liar. Who gives a fuck if he’s as gay as Gore Vidal?) Of course, once you admit that you’re a liar you can never really be trusted again. So that kind of sucks for him. He went from “trusted religious leader” to “lying, drug-abusing fag” in one week. Tough week.

So, here’s a question for y’all: When are you gonna stop believing these self-righteous assholes? They continually turn out to be fuckheads and hypocrites. They always attack the same people (gays, women, minorities) in order to gain power for themselves. When are y’all gonna wake up and figure this scam out? I guess it’s as old as humanity and there’s a sucker born every minute, but I still have hope that people will figure out that their religious leaders (especially the ones at the top) are far more immoral than the people they accuse of immorality.

That doesn’t mean you can’t believe in God or have a community of believers. But you have to be aware that the most ambitious and most charismatic people are also the ones most likely to be in league with the devil, as it were. To a person driven to succeed at any cost a few lies on the way to the top are well worth the price. And maybe that’s okay in business (is it?), but that’s an extremely toxic outlook in the religious sphere. A few lies are NOT okay. In fact your whole job is to tell the truth!

I would suggest that the “sheep” in Ted’s flock learn how to read and pick up a Bible for themselves rather than letting sick men like Haggard interpret it for you. Make up your own mind about the purpose of life on Earth. Nobody knows for sure, so you can’t just abdicate your responsibilty and throw your trust in men like Ted and expect it to be okay. The only way to be sure is to cut your own path.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, I don’t think Ted “Gay Druggy” Haggard is correct about homosexuals. Although he obviously knows more about gay sex and the Bible than me, I still think my limited knowledge is sufficient to come to a better conclusion on the issue. Personally, I don’t remember Jesus saying, “Love your neighbor…unless he’s a fag.” Nope, I’m pretty sure Jesus told us to love everyone…and leave the judging to the guy upstairs.