BASTARD! Magazine

BASTARD! Magazine
Originally uploaded by Bob King.

Feel free to steal this (with attribution).

Evil is as Enron did.

Evil
Originally uploaded by Bob King.

Thanks to the Recovering Liberal
I have little left to say about this, as he's said everything I would have (and much I didn't know, or hadn't thought of.)

When it all came apart, Enron had nearly bankrupted the State of California, caused their stockholders to lose virtually all of their investments and destroyed the pensions of their employees. And what was it all for? Greed, the thing that Gordon Gecko told us was good.

As it turns out greed is not nearly as good as Gordon Gecko thought, and just as he left the scene in handcuffs at the end of “Wall Street”, so did Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling the two top guys at Enron eventually take the fall for their misdeeds. Yesterday, they were both convicted of all six counts against them. Their defense seemed to be based on their claim that they had no idea what was going on in the company that they headed. The jury didn’t buy their line of bull.

The question is, exactly how long will their sentences be? If the sentences given to former Tyco International Ltd. executives L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark H. Swartz of 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison are to be considered as a benchmark, then Lay and Skilling should be spending a great deal of time worrying about whether or not the guy with the tattoos and the pierced nipples in the next cell thinks that they’re a suitable replacement for his last bitch.

And we must never forget that all of this took place in the environment created by Reagan but brought to its Zenith by George W. Bush, a man who never saw a tax that he didn’t want cut for rich guys.

Update:

Why this matters:

John Nichols does a kick ass job of running this down. Five years later, here’s a summary of why Enron matters:

Lay and Enron paid:

$ 122,500.00 — Bush Gubernatorial Campaign
$ 50,000.00 — 1999 Inagural Party
$ 550,025.00 — 2000 Presidential Campaign
$ 400,000.00 — Republican hard and soft money funds
$1,500,000.00 — GOP soft money fund
$ 5,000.00 — Florida recount fight
$ 300,000.00 — Bush Cheney Inagural Party

...

Lay cashed in even before Bush was sworn in as president, entering into the inner circles of the new administration and using the access he had paid for to craft its agenda on the issues that mattered most to Enron.

Bush took good care of his contributor-in-chief, appointing the Enron founder as one of five members of the elite "Energy Department Transition Team," which set the stage for the Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force and administration policies designed to benefit corporations such as Enron. A report on "Bush Administration Contacts with Enron," compiled at the request of Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, by the minority staff of the Special Investigations Division of the House Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, found evidence of at least 112 contacts between Enron and White House or other Administration officials during the month prior to the corporation's very-public collapse in late 2001. At least 40 of those contacts involved top White House officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, presidential advisor Karl Rove, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey, White House personnel director Clay Johnson III, and White House energy task force director Andrew D. Lundquist.




tag: ken lay, energy policy, gas prices, politics, punishment, george w. bush, ethics, bush cronies, cronyism, corruption

Where does the Constitution guarantee the right to life?

Nearly a year ago, rob at "Sayanything" spoke predictably and thusly:

Abortion Battle Raging

By rob on July 20, 2005 at 11:07 AM

12 Comments

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The life-and-death issue of abortion tightened its angry grip on US politics, as a multimillion-dollar feud erupted over President George W. Bush's first Supreme Court pick.

"We will be on the streets ..., at the gates of hell, where innocent blood is being shed," protest group Operation Save America said as it mobilized to picket an abortion clinic and the offices of a pro-abortion group.

Several miles left on the political spectrum, The American Civil Liberties Union warned "the stakes could not be higher," arguing that Supreme Court safeguards for abortions were now at risk.

Notice that Roe vs. Wade is referred to as a "Supreme Court safeguard" rather than a constitutional safeguard. That's because the "right" to an abortion does not exist in the constitution. Rather it is a "right" created by our federal judiciary, though everybody likes to pretend that its in the constitution.

Anyway, I honestly don't see Roe getting overturned any time soon. Roberts simply does not change the SCOTUS dynamics enough for anyone to say that any meaningful change is coming.

I think Roberts is a step in the right direction (he's supposedly an originalist), but wake me up when its time to nominate a replacement for somebody like Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

This and most of the comments are typical of the reflexive sort of conservatism we have come to expect, but there shines one bright spot:

I don't begrudge a judge for their rulings, so long as their ruling is soundly based in the law. If someone can convince me that a right to abortion exists in the constitution, by all means, I'd support that decision. The majority opinions in Roe vs. Wade fail to sway me. It was a bad ruling. But that's not to say that I wouldn't be convinced by someone else's legal argument for it.

I do have a good argument that has the advantage of being refreshingly uncommon - but I have first a facile rhetorical question that serves as a lead in to the argument:

Where does the Constitution guarantee the right to life?

At the time, such a guarantee was patently absurd; death was common, infant mortality ran about, what, 40 or 50 percent? Death in childbirth was common enough to be a social constant. One cannot assure a "right" to life in the face of the disagreement of Providence and Nature. Nor is it really any more true today. We have simply altered the odds somewhat, for those that can afford it.

I dryly observe that right you have to buy is not a liberty but a luxury. To honor that concept beyond this particular breach would require some form of universally-accessable health care at a very high standard, much like that of every OTHER civilized nation that counts itself a member of the First World.

The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are all things that can only be guaranteed to the extent that we agree to not interfere with the lives and choices of other persons.

One cannot shoot Death in the face, but one can put a bullet up the nose of a nosy neighbor, and the Constitution speaks of such rights as can be defended in such a manner. The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, as well as those unenumerated under Amendment X are the rights of individuals which may be asserted and successfully defended by individual choice - even when the result of such choice is death.

"Give me Liberty, or give me Death." Patrick Henry, of course. Death, as a foreseeable consequence of constitutionally-protected action was not at all outside the scope of our Founder's actions.

Consider also the Affair of Honor between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton, the offended party, had the honor of the first shot, and reportedly chose to discharge his weapon into the air. Burr chose otherwise, and thought Hamilton a fool for having acted as he did.

The most fundimental right our consitution gives us is the right to say "no;" whether that is a refusal to kill - or the refusal to risk letting an avowed enemy live. There is the implicit recognition that people can, and indeed will choose to resist "persuasion" with force. There is no exception made for foolish choices, no distinction made between popular and unpopular outcomes - nor does it free you from the logical consequences of any choice you make.

The Constitution does not defend your right to make personal decisions nearly everyone agrees with and will gladly help you with. There's no need go guarentee what any tyrant would happily enforce; a general predictable conformity that most people are happy enough to tolerate is the hallmark of many fairly successful benevolant dictatorships. Franco's Spain, the France of DeGaulle and indeed, Castro's Cuba are all examples of rulers who managed to please enough of the people, often enough to die of old age.

For that matter, those who disagreed with our founders as to the necessity for revolution were themselves proven correct - it was indeed possible to work within the system for positive, incremental change. The Commonwealth nations that have not actually established their own Constitutions have indeed evolved into soverign states that seem to me much like the States our founders had in mind, with a very tenious and almost theoretical link to the Queen and Parlement.

Still, our founders may be forgiven for wanting to see that happy day in person - nor can the example of the United States be dismissed as unimportant in that evolution.

Our founders did not see the role of government as being a guarantor of comfort, of privilege or of safety, and I'm afraid there's nothing to indicate they considered embreos, foetuses, or even children "under the age of reason" to be exceptions to a rule that they applied to themselves.

What it does guarantee is your right to act in your own individual interest regardless of what other individuals or groups may think, and forbids the government from imposing broad penalties upon folks for acting as they will, save when those actions have consequences that affect others, and only then in very narrow and strictly tailored circumstances.

Now, my full argument involves a great deal more than the above, but it boils down to a simple question of jurisdiction. Those that must face the consequences of a choice must in justice be permitted to choose what consequences they can best accept. Should the state interfere in this matter, then it becomes incumbent on the state to accept all consequential costs and responsibilities that would otherwise be those of the individual to discharge.

This is not to say that it's outside of the realm of the state to provide a range of options that a majority of people are willing enough to provide for, in hopes that will influence choices in favor of an outcome most would prefer.

But, alas, far too many folks see The State as having the role of punishing folks for "immorality" than rewarding them for acting in ways that makes an ethical life obviously best.

The problem with the abortion debate, and the reason that it is intractable, is that the "pro life" forces are actually presuming the right to interfere with the lives of other individuals on the basis of a claimed, over-riding right they cannot actually take responsibility for, even were they were willing to do so.

Reasonable people, when given the option of supporting polices that make abortion "Legal, safe and rare" where "rare" would be an easily achievable rate of half the number of current abortions, go for the achievable.

For myself, I believe that inasmuch as we have the medical ability to make childbirth as safe an option as an abortion, and the financial wherewithal to support any child not aborted, I feel it a moral imperative to offer those as options to people who have quite reasonable concerns.

I would certainly never, ever force a rape victim to bear a pregnancy to term, much less a victim of incest. But, I do observe that embryo transplants are quite possible. If the goal is to preserve the life of the foetus - why not just offer state-supported embryonic storage and transplant as an alternative to abortion?

After all, a child that a woman cannot support NOW may well be one she'd go to the ends of the earth to have in her thirties.

Moreover, a broad sampling of preserved genetic materials is damn good insurance against a number of entirely-too-foreseeable outcomes.

But this debate is clearly not about choices, or providing alternatives. It's about imposing a consequence - pregnancy - on people who have sex outside of approved contexts and making the pregnancy itself as dangerous as possible, and then, of course, providing as little support for raising the child as possible, even when that would make perfect sense in terms of net social benefit and lowest cost to society in terms of direct spending.

The problem with this position - and many similar positions - is that no matter how desirable it would be to have everyone behave as you would have them behave, manifestly they do not.

There is another fallacious assumption involved in many assaults upon the civil liberties of individuals by currently empowered groups - and that is the right to exert power with impunity.

If I have the power to do so, and a position of athority, the reason seems to go, anyone without the same power and the authority to go with it has "no right" to complain, much less resist. Indeed, I've heard this argument from LGF-level folk repeated almost literally - an argument almost identical to the equally clueless (but thankfully rare) totalitarian Communists. It is the identical presumption; those that have the gold and or guns get to make the rules.

But it is a fallacious assumption. At best, people will only avoid the rules, and the results will be AT BEST, something like Mao's China or the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

The only way to guarentee even the apperance of widespread "good behavior" is some form or another of oppression, and our Founders were students of history and had experienced the whims of the petty, opportunistic tyrants that London saw fit to dispatch to the Colonies; quite possibly in hopes that they would meet a glorious and heroic end at the hands of "savages."

From the center of Empire, empire is often seen as a necessary and advantagious evil. But on the fringes, it's seen for what it is. Both evil, and exploitative, existing for the benifit of people both far away and with concerns that are at best irrelevant to the ambitions and desires of those "governed" by it.

Hence, our Founder's emphasis on the rights of individual and local self-determination.

Our founders - and perhaps as much as a third of the population together with them - chose to say "no." A third of the population, angry enough to take up arms, or support those who did.

Contrast this with George Bush's popularity ratings today, and count yourself blessed that so far, the First Amendment suffices for the needs of the Resistance. In essence, he's managed to alienate two thirds of the population in order to insufficiently please ONE third who wish to impose their will on those who wish to say "no."

On the other hand, we could just shrug, and mind our own business, while acting to demonstrate how well our own moral choices and lifestyle preferences work in practice.

That is precisely what Jesus advised, by the way. Good head on his shoulders, that fellow. It's wise to pay attention to what He had to say - and he had a lot to say about oppressive busybodies such as Romans and Pharasees.

Minding one's own business, while always standing ready to offer a neighbor a hand is an excellent way for both individuals and nations to behave.

In other words, we should be careful to treat each other as gentlemen and gentlewomen, keeping in mind that the halmark of gentles is the capacity to defend their honor and dignity, and the willingness to accept any consequence save dishonor.

And of course, to carry a little surprise or two for those who prove by their sudden aggressions that they do not deserve the fellowship of gentle persons.

Our cousins, the British, saw the role of the ungentle and unwashed as a fungible commodity, to settle the Americas, and later on, Austrialia.

Having sprung in part from the loins of such folk, and enduring the travails 200 odd years of that had brought them, our Founders saw a far less disruptive role for such presumptious parasites, regardless of their apparent social standing.

Fertilizer. As the logical, forseeable and predictable consequence of their own choices.

tag: abortion, choice, What Would Jesus Do, abortion debate, constitution, constitutional, rationality, reason, ethics

Ken Lay, Free Markets and "Deregulation."

"THE AL CAPONE OF ELECTRICITY
Ken Lay Will Get Away with His Real Crimes
By GREG PALAST

In the 1930s, a character named Samuel Insull created the first giant power holding companies. Insull played fast and loose with his account books, fast and loose with cash for politicians and pocketed millions by gouging electricity customers. Insull was indicted, like Lay, for crimes against his stockholders.

In 1933, President Roosevelt made Insull's power piracy a crime. FDR signed the Public Utility Holding Company Act and laws that capped the profit of electricity monopolies. The act required them to keep lights on by accounting for all maintenance expenses, barred "trading" electricity and, most important, banned donations by the power giants to politicians.

Fast-forward to January 2001. The George W. Bush administration, within 72 hours of his inauguration, issued an executive order lifting the Clinton Energy Department's effective ban on speculative trading in the California power market. The state was still in crisis, facing blackouts and 300 percent increases in power bills, the result of "deregulating" its electric system, as first suggested by Lay.

Instead of a "free" market, California's electricity bidding system became a fixed casino where Lay's operatives and a tight-knit cabal of corporate cronies jacked up prices through such tricks as "death star," "ricochet" and "kilowatt laundering."

In one instance, Enron "sold" the state 500 megawatts of electricity to go over a 15-megawatt line. Enron knew that sending that much power through those wires would have burned them to a crisp. To prevent this Enron-designed blackout, the state scrambled for other sources of electricity, which Enron and friends sold them at a big mark-up.

Now, you may think it odd that a Libertarian, Free-Market Capitalist such as I would source Greg Palast. But of course, what he's speaking of is the very opposite of free markets.

A "free market" is one where everyone is free to participate, one where consumers have choices and providers do too. The case of Enron is a case not unlike that of a small town with one butcher - who also inspects the scales for accuracy.

Who knows if HIS scales are accurate. He does. And he'll be sure to tell you so. Can you trust him?

A free market is not one that is "deregulated;" a free market is one that is regulated in order to ensure that it is fair. Not only is it fair, it's verifiably fair and secure, immune to the sorts of market manipulation Ken Lay is ultimately responsible for.

But of late, "Free Markets" have come to be equated with "Lazez-Faire" which means, in essence, no assurance against predatory or manipulative practices. If one firm "corners the market" on a commodity and can therefore choose to sell at whatever price they like, this is all well and good according to Right-wing economists of simple minds.

Whenever a powerful entity interferes with the market in order to gain it's own end, exclusive of all others - whether that end is socialistic or capitalistic, whether the ideals be purely altruistic or pure greed, the results are much the same. Competition is squeezed out, and once the market has been served by those who understand the rules of the game, why, only they can play and they become the rules comittee.

The energy market is not like the diamond trade, where it matters little in any ultimate sense if diamonds are really worth what they cost. Nobody "needs" an investment-grade diamond.

But you do need to be able to access energy at a fair price. It' s not just a personal priority - it's a major economic factor, one so critical to our nation's survival that it must be considered a national security issue if that term is to have any real meaning at all.

It is simply not permissible for corporations to be involved in creating artificial shortages in order to boost their profits, nor is collusion with government to fix prices and determine energy policy allowable. What Enron did was evil; theft and extortion on a vast scale, crippling and beggaring an entire state.

Free markets can only work if there is an assurance that those who refuse to play by the rules of the market are punished, and furthermore, that the market is well-policed so that the economic equivalent of pickpockets and armed robbers are discouraged to the greatest possible degree.

That is what a free market is. "Freedom" is not merely freedom from oppressive taxation or burdonsome regulation. It is also a markete where fraud and graft are not the defining characteristics - for these factors bring extra costs and inflate prices just the same.

These things are "the price of doing business," as if they were the same sort of thing as labor cost, or materials or admistrative overhead. But really, they are taxes. It may vary who it is that you pay it to, but the important thing is that neither you nor your customers gain any direct advantage. In the case of legitimate taxes, there are of course indirect benifits. But in the eventuality that you are in effect paying taxes to a larger competetor in order to continue to exist; there is no such reward.

It's wise to consider all such imposed costs to be the same; any price you must pay in order to do buisiness, either the business of making a living, or simply the business of living can be considered a "tax."

The only ones who get a square deal in the energy marketplace today are those with a great number of guns - and the soldiers to use them. Consider how many energy firms have stakes in private security firms!

But there are alternatives. Our current energy system is terribly wasteful and there is both money and security to be gained in raising efficiencies and turning "pollutants" into profit centers. "Greenhouse Gases" are bad for global warming - but that's because they belong in greenhouses, reducing the cost of fuel, food and transportation as a net result of an entirely new industry, one without the high overheads imposed by the corruption of the petrochemical bedfellowships.

When greed, corruption and uncertain, politically-influenced supply-chain issues threaten the petrochemical-based energy chain, it makes sense to start looking seriously at viable alternatives. Biofuels, for instance, have become increasingly attractive, especially when they can be generated with the aid of increasingly regulated CO2 emissions. What was a pure loss becomes pure profit by means of a deeply elegant solution.

Consider putting your Green where it will grow and prosper. And consider how ultimately, consumers bypass markets that have become corrupted.

It amuses me how much of this technology started out in hydroponic "grow houses" that emerged as a reaction to "the war on drugs" making it difficult and dangerous to simply let marijuana grow naturally.

Free markets, supply and demand, and of course, an environment that discourages large groups dominating the industry served us well.

But then, our vices tend to drive demand and innovation far more than any virtue.



tag: Ken Lay, enronpolicy, politics, big oil, renewable resources, oil war, opec, oil profits, war profiteering, fuel prices, speculation, greg palast, Haliburton

Rumsfeld Reveals Split Over Interrogations

Rumsfeld Reveals Split Over Interrogations

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said for the first time Wednesday that officials are at odds over whether a new Army manual should endorse different interrogation techniques for enemy insurgents than are allowed for regular prisoners of war.

The debate hinges on whether suspected terrorists or other insurgents can be treated more severely than captured members of an enemy army. There are concerns such a distinction could fly in the face of a law enacted last year, pressed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that explicitly banned cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners by U.S. troops.

"There is a debate over the difference between a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention and an unlawful combatant in a situation that is different from the situation envisioned by the Geneva Convention," Rumsfeld told the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee. "And those issues are being wrestled with at the present time."

Ok, what's to wrestle with? The answer is "no," if it traduces the Geneva Convention or international law.

Not because I'm suggesting "tying the hands of our troops," far from it. Not because I'm opposed to using psycological impact to get what we want; reserving my opinion on what we should want, which is an entirely separate discussion.

Torture, due to it's nature and the requirement for moral compromise on the part of armies and prosecutors, does far more harm than good. It is perhaps arguable that in extraordinary cases a partularly skilled use of torture may be effective - but in large part that is due to the unexpectedness of the technique.

If torture is expected, the potential targets are prepared for it, and it's effectiveness is largely lost, while the toxic side-effects continue unabated.

Rumsfeld is in a position to know the latter, and if he won't tell you, there are any number of people fresh on Civvy Street to tell you.

The Geneva Convention does not exist to protect prisoners of war, so much as it exists to protect future prisoners of war. It is a gentlman's agreement to act respectfully toward one another for reasons of clear self-interest.

In the land of tit-for-tat, it's easy for matters to esculate. Passions run high in battle, and prisoners are often a severe tactical inconvenence. They can even become a severe strain on resources. Then of course there is the strong desire to find out any tactical information the prioner has before it becomes useless.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, the paradigm is the same for both sides, regardless of what semantic games are played about the distinctions between irregular forces, insurgencies and terrorists; Prisoners of War versus "enemy combatants," we must remember that people react in broadly predictable ways, and broad experience with those ways led to the Geneva Accords in the first place.

We ignore them at our peril.

The evident lack of respect for the Geneva Conventions has always been a very stout club to use, both in terms of propaganda and in terms of international debates. Terror tactics - and the promise of torture, or even "stressful interrogations" - raises the stakes in any battlefield situation. People who would prefer death to capture can make the price of victory bitter indeed.

If you doubt me, read a few veteran's memoirs of Iwo Jima.

It is foolish in the extreme to encourage a perspective that is already well-entrenched in the culture.

No, the proper treatment of prisoners of war - which is what everone in Gitmo and all other "in country" and extraterratorial prisons are, de-facto, is to do something surprising and counter-intuitive.

When people are prepared for stress, they are not prepared to be treated respetfully. Nor are they expected to be used as examples of and witesses to a superior ethical system.

Our Dear Leader and his Glee Club make a big fat hairy deal about how this is a Clash of Cultures. Well then. Let us look at the logical implications of that.

Cultures are composed of people with shared values. And as a matter of historical and inarguable fact, a superior culture will defeat and transform an inferior one.

Take, for instance, the history of China.

Take, for instance, the history of India.

Take, for instance, the history of Greece and Rome.

Take, for instance, the histry of the Danes and the Celts, the Angles and the Saxons.

If you read those histories you will find that within one generation, perhaps two, it becomes irrelevant as to which side had the best warriers and the most successful generals.

It's the culture that works best for ordinary people, the one that pays closest attention to the everyday value of people and practical necessities. In a word, the one that concentrates on the here and now and leaves the fussing over things like Clashes of Culture and Eschatology to those content to sit in the moral eqivalant of dank and dusty caves, exploring personal rightiousness as a competitive sport.

It is again a fact of history, again, that cultures dominated by religiosity drive away those who would otherwise move the culture forward. Consider the effect of the religious wars of Europe on those countries who engaged actively, as opposed to those who considered them to be a fact of life in the field of international affairs, to be avoided at a profit.

Of course, open warfare is hardly the best arena for cultural warfare. But it's probably the only one where men (and a few testosterone-poisoned women) with no patience for complex issues and nuanced responses feel any assurance of personal achievement.

But in the end, the trick has always been to win the peace. The war is always the easy part. If you doubt this - consider how many Mongols you see in positions of power within China, compared to ethnic Han.

Or consider the values and philosophy of Greece - taken home in triumph to barbarian Rome.

How many truly Roman values do we teach our children in the better schools?

But Greek names, Aristotle, Archemedes, Pythagorous and many more - continue in large part to influence western civilization.

So who won?

Who should have won?

Who WILL win?

I think we define this as a Clash of Cultures at our peril, for the subculture that is calling for the clash has little if any evident value to a lasting civilization.

Such civilizations require a little more reward for their valued citizens than "pie in the sky by and by."

Meet Darkling

  

tag: funny, zazzle, goth, card, joke

Bush Gives Pubic Hair A Bad Name!

bushpubestrans2
Originally uploaded by Bob King.

Would you buy this bumpersticker?

Now there's a Graphic Truth!

My "Gas Prices" Cafepress offering.

I bet you could get TV if you were wearing this someplace newsworthy. Available on cool shirts and posters sized to make an impression. The smaller ones are shipped flat, shrinkwrapped to cardboard - so all you need is duck tape and a stick!

In other news, I have three stories on the spike and I'm so sick of politics I can't even think of it. It's an artistic sort of day and I'm indulging my right brain.

tag: gas prices, , propaganda, cafepress, mugs, politicswar, renewable resources, big oil, funny, saudi arabia, energy, fuel prices, energy policy

gamin

gamin
Originally uploaded by Bob King.

I'm particularly proud of this bit of work. You can get a better look at it on flickr. What do you think of it?

Tell it like the Rustman

Speaking truth to power ain't gonna win any popularity contests with those who want to be powerful.

I don't see that as a bad thing. I want leaders who reluctantly accept power in order to do what they see to be their duty, as requested and required of them by the electorate.

But the electorate must do this - if they delegate their job to power brokers and special interest groups; those who bother to show up with their divisive issues and their contempt for the "silent majority,"

We will continue to be ruled by those who have no reason to fear an accounting, much less require it of us unless we take our power back unto ourselves.

Protest. Criticism. Discussion. We must debate among ourselves about real issues and real needs; the roots of our problems and the fountains of our civilization. It is a discipline that has been sadly neglected since the late seventies, and almost entirely died out in the years since 9/11.

As a result, the people in power grow complacent, grow arrogant and start believing their own propaganda, eventually flying up their own backsides into a dream-world of self-delusion.

Of course I'm speaking of the Republican Revolution that shocked the hell out of the Democrats, and rid the Capital of a bunch of corrupt sonsabitches much like the current crop.

Who were there, and yet did not pay attention, because the people that put them there - that would be US - did not do their job of reminding them that they got the ticket to power based on the promise to be different. They promised to be transparent. They swore an oath be honest. They claimed to be honorable, decent and compassionate. And when it first became evident that they had, well, lied – we let it pass.

Power corrupts - when it can be presumed upon. We have donated our power foolishly, failing to remember that we can and should attach strings, and each of us should jerk those strings hard and often.

Like Neil.

So get off your collective assets and do something. As Randi Rhodes has said - if you don't do anything else, at least wear a t-shirt. (Neil - where's your t-shirt links?)

I'm not talking left or right here - that's a stupid, false and irrelevant distinction. You want cynicism? Here's MY cynicism; Clinton won twice because he was a better Republican candidate than George Bush the First or Bob Dole.

Clinton kept the important Republican promises. It's beyond me why lefties love him, as much as it's beyond me why Conservatives sing the praises of Bush II.

I swear to goddess, how easily people are fooled by the simple choice of team jersies.

You need to start insisting on an end to "realpolitik," the idea that it's ok to kill people to "send a message." If that's wrong in South-central LA when a Crip or a Blood authorizes a driveby, why do we see a flyby cruise missiling as being "Presidential?"

I'm a Libertarian - and a bloody-minded second-amendment thumping beweaponed and security-minded Lib with a hard core of rational paranoia.

But I believe in the non-initiation of force, so that when I do use force, there will be no question and no hesitation; I will not need to fabricate a pretext - any more than the average Iraqi taking pot-shots of opportunity needs a pretext or an ideological excuse.

They don't NEED Al-Queda to tell them what needs doing. They don't need Osama Bin-Ladin or Iranian cheerleaders. They will be glad for the help, of course, just as George Washington was glad for the help of the French Fleet that bottled up Cornwallis's army of occupation.

But we would have got 'er done. As they will - and no thanks to us, we who allowed this idiotic bait and switch to go unquestioned; we who put this IDIOT in power, you who voted for him in the primaries, we who held our noses and thought him a marginally better choice than Gore, who spoke aloud of doing all the vile and intrusive constitutional trespasses Bush did in secret.

We need leaders who honestly reflect the common values and sprit of the American people, not the fringe values, the partisan issues; we don't need or want ideologues. We want a representative government that is actually representative of OUR values.

Our common belief that "America is Great because she is Good."

Our common belief is that when a neighbor needs our help, we help them. We don't quibble over pennies or ask for promissory notes.

Our common belief is that people, on the whole, are decent folk until they prove otherwise.

Our common belief is that religion - like investments, sex and politics - is a private matter, to be indulged with some discretion with consenting adults.

Our common belief that speech is free only if we are willing to be accountable to those we may offend by it, and if the only rational response is a sock in the jaw, we should not whine about the bruises.

We have, collectively, failed to live up to those beliefs. We have failed ourselves, but we have failed our nation, our principles and even our leaders.

It is no great thing to favor a weak man with power simply because he is "electable."

IT is no great thing to favor a good, but weak man who will be ruined by the load.

It is no great thing to support a man with no principles simply because his lack makes him a more "effective campaigner."

We have allowed mediocrities, the least of several evils, the wafflers, the compromisers, the spineless and the "adaptable" to become the definition of “Politician.” Are they to blame for assuming that we expect more of them than they actually are? Is it difficult to understand why people who deserve our support prefer not to seek office?

When was the last time you voted for a candidate of principle? Indeed, when was the last time you demanded to have a choice between two or more principled candidates?

When was the last time you decided to punish someone you supported for lying to you?

I haven't. Oh, I’ve complained. I’ve whined. But when it got to be actual work… I ran out of outrage. I've been shrugging this off for thirty odd years. For most of my adult life, I've been ignoring the problem.

No more.

tag: living with war, niel young, neil young, poltics, free speech, protest, iran, iraq, lies, miserable failure, george w. bush, impeach

Niel Young speaks Truth with Power Chords

The album as blogpost:

A lot of folks are talking about Steven Colbert and Neil Young, almost interchangably, for their brutal truthtelling.

War of Distortion:
Mr. Young goes to Washington.
by Jonathan Valania

When Stephen Colbert hosted the White House
Correspondents' Association dinner-the annual D.C.
puppet show where reporters play patty-cake with the
prez-he rode the Trojan Horse of truthiness right up to
the president's table and unleashed its hidden
contents: a disinfecting dose of reality-based reality,
thinly coated with irony for easier digestion, though
impossible to swallow for those weaned on Fox News
comfort food.

Speaking truth to power at point-blank range, Colbert's
barbs essentially added up to: The emperor has no
clothes, and all of you, the fourth estate, have become
nothing more than royal dressers. No wonder Colbert's
performance was greeted with pin-drop silence and was
muzzled in the coverage of the event: It's a sad day
for the republic when the job of truth-telling falls to
the clowns.

Increasingly, rock music is stepping into the breach,
bridging the yawning chasm between what's real and
what's permitted. There was a time when I would've
thought the protest song had outlived its usefulness.
Turns out no generation gets the protest songs it
wants-it gets the protest songs it needs. What's that,
you say? Preaching to the choir? Well look around, son-
there ain't no choir.

When I think of speaking truth to power, or anti-war songs, I think of The Patriot's Dream by Gordon Lightfoot.

Lyrics courtesy Lightfoot.ca

The songs of the wars are as old as the hills
They cling like the rust on the cold steel that kills
They tell of the boys who went down to the tracks
In a patriotic manner with the cold steel on their backs

The patriot's dream is as old as the sky
It lives in the lust of a cold callous lie
Let's drink to the men who got caught by the chill
Of the patriotic fever and the cold steel that kills

The train pulled away on that glorious night
The drummer got drunk and the bugler got tight
While the boys in the back sang a song of good cheer
While riding off to glory in the spring of their years

The patriot's dream still lives on today
It makes mothers weep and it makes lovers pray
Let's drink to the men who got caught by the chill
Of the patriotic fever and the cold steel that kills

The first two verses deal with the loss, the agony and the forlorn hope of those who hear their fathers and fiancee's are missing in action, all asking "why."And then, Gordie turns with merciless precision to the author of the war to answer that question in the words of power.

Well there was an old man sitting in his mansion on the hill
And he thought of his good fortune and the time he'd yet to kill
Well he called to his wife one day, "Come sit with me awhile"
Then turning toward the sunset, he smiled a wicked smile
"Well I'd like to say I'm sorry for the sinful deeds I've done
But let me first remind you, I'm a patriotic son"
They tried to do their duty and it took 'em straight to hell
They might be in some prison, I hope they're treated well

I don't recall there being more than the one anti-war song on the album; - it's been a long long time since I've listened to it. But it's an amazing disk, and you rally need to have a copy, if only to rip copies of this song and force them upon everyone you know. Hey, and buy new; Gordie's been having health problems, he could use the money.

Other artists have made statements; Pink, with Dear Mister President and Eminem with Mosh.

But to the best of my knowledge, Niel Young has done an entirely new thing, releasing an entire album on the web as a blogpost, and selling it in direct partnership with his listeners.

So buy with that link, and use the amazon link to review it.

And it is good. It is very, very good.

"We are the silent majority now, and we haven't done a damn thing," Young told The New York Times recently. "We've stood by and watched this happen. But there's more of us than there is of them, and we have to do something. When people start talking and see they can get away with it, it's going to happen everywhere. It's going to be a landslide, it's going to be a tidal wave. This is just the tip of it."

Listen to Niel Young's truthtelling album, "Living With War."

Sometimes you can make a difference by just cranking the tunes.

tag: living with war, niel young, neil young, poltics, free speech, protest, iran, iraq, lies, miserable failure, george w. bush, impeach

A quick overview of public reactions to gas prices.

tag: gas prices, humor, anti-bush, t-shirts, tee shirts, cafepress, teeshirt polling

Sometimes politics and money do go together!

Gas Prices and CafePress

Q: What’s the buzz in the halls of CafePress today?
A: Gas Prices – but probably not for the reason you think…

The buzz actually has very little to do with how much it’s costing us to get to work (and for some of us it’s a lot), what we’re discussing is how quickly our community of Shopkeepers respond to current events with new designs. If something is hot in the news our Shopkeepers are sure to have designs expressing their thoughts before we know what’s hit us – they’re truly on the ball.

We are beginning to see the CafePress design community as an interesting barometer of public interest. Right now everyone is talking about gas prices, people are looking at gas price related merchandise, it affects each and every last one of us, and we have over 1000 gas price related items available in the marketplace (www.cafepress.com/buy/gas+prices)

Another great example of timely response to news was the hunting incident involving Dick Cheney, there are over 1200 designs, and most of them were there a week or so after the incident.

Now, I've been saying this for years. I KNOW I was saying it loudly in 2004. Did anyone listen to me? No. Well, I'm used to that. Usually I'm 2 to 4 years ahead.

So here's a chunk of the press release.

Speak Out America - Protest Rising Gas Prices!:

CafePress Leads Gas Price Protest with Promise to Send Top Selling Merchandise to US Officials and an Offer Equivalent to 1 Free Gallon of Gas

FOSTER CITY, CA May 8, 2006 - CafePress, a leader in user-designed merchandise of self-expression, issued a challenge to the American people today in the form of a gas price protest. With gas prices on the rise and Congress at a point of indecision, the independent CafePress design community began creating hundreds of new 'gas price' related products, sending a clear message that this is a topic people are passionate about. In an effort to send a send clear message from the CafePress community, the two top selling 'gas price' designs will be printed on t-shirts and sent the offices of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert, House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Additionally, CafePress is offering buyers $3.00* off all 'gas price' related orders over $20**.

I'll blog when I've got my stuff active - but I really don't care so much if you buy mine as I care about the faces of the politicians. I've thrown a search below (mainly to see if it will work) and you can see the variety of opinions out there on various energy-related keywords.

And when I do have my designs up, I'll make sure there's a very cheap option - so buy LOTS!


-Choose Your Search- Gas Prices Oil War Energy Policy Bullshit Biogas Biofuel Biodiesel Fuel Prices Anti-Bush Anti-Republican Anti-Congress Anti-Conservative

tag: cafepress, politics, gas pricesprices, speculation, fuel prices, , big oil, renewable resources, oil war, miserable failure, george w. bush, opec, oil profits, windfall profits, energy policy

Daily Kos: Updated: Rifle pointed at protesters in Florida during Bush visit

Daily Kos: Updated: Rifle pointed at protesters in Florida during Bush visit

The weapon was not fully sticking out the window in a pointed position towards any of us. It was how ever raised up and the person holding it had right hand in trigger position it was in the direction of our group. It was indeed an assault rifle and the man in the car was dressed full swat. I covered television news so I have seen these SWAT members before. I was the first in our group to see it so I want to make sure this is clear. It still was an amazing sight and scarey too! Thanks, Mary

I'm picking the least inflammatory and most expert view. It is nonetheless deeply troubling on several levels.

First: that Bush and his advisors either do not understand the psychological impact of this sort of presidential behavior - or they do, and it's a calculated display of menace.

Second; and perhaps beside the point above: that the Secret Service deems this level of security to be appropriate, given the chances of an assault upon the nation's leadership.

Come to think of it, were I in charge of the Secret Service and had the job of guarding this President, I doubt I'd be comfortable with him anywhere outside of a facility as secure as Cheyenne Mountain.

However, my visceral reaction is quite different, and it's not based on any fuzzy-minded liberalism. It's based in my NRA training and my martial arts discipline - and that to make a deadly threat is an invitation to deadly force. It is a psychological assault, and at the same time, by not immediately pulling trigger, it leaves open the opportunity for the insulted to "return fire first."

I point out also that the open window defeats the main point of having an armored vehicle in the first place.

The best way to protect the president is also the best way to protect against terrorism - to avoid policies that create large numbers of surviving enemies.

"Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate." This is one of those inconvenient facts of life that we in the Reality Based Community take for granted. The more people that you cause to hate your guts for cause, the more likely it is that some combination of profit, madness and opportunity will come together to generate an attempt on your life. This is as true of nations as it is of persons.

But nations are far more difficult to kill. That makes the symbolic targets all that more attractive - and it makes those who must stand behind or work within those symbolic targets just a little jumpier.

I am by no means suggesting that targeting the President would be a good idea with a predictably good outcome. It is not, and the only predictable outcome would be random nightmare with possible scattered patches of fallout.

But I'm something of a security paranoid and one of my personal secrets to life is not being next to people who insist on being loud, rude, stupid and offensive.


tag: dangerous president, intelligence, presidential security detail, secret service, threat assessment, Renaissance Club, May 9, 2006, weapons pointed, protesters, intimidation, protest

Desert Sky

Desert Sky
Originally uploaded by Bob King.

I took this a couple of months ago, with my phone cam. Ah, how blue and calm it seems. How well cameras lie.

Days like this make me feel like a small bug on a big plate. It makes my blue eyes hurt, and the only thing good about it was that I got a great picture, even though I was squinting - and it wasn't windy.

And the only good thing about a windy nevada day is that, at least, it's not a freezing offshore wind.

But it's full of dust and tumbleweeds.

Yeah, it's a grumpy sort of day.

tag: phonecam, photoblogging, Nevada

Media Matters - CNN's O'Brien questioned the patriotism of Vietnam vets protesting administration's actions in Iraq

Media Matters - CNN's O'Brien questioned the patriotism of Vietnam vets protesting administration's actions in Iraq:

"The two guests, Air Force veteran David Patterson and Navy veteran Joseph DuRocher, returned their medals accompanied by letters addressed to President Bush. In his letter, Patterson objected to the 'hate, torture and death' provoked by the Bush administration's foreign policy. DuRocher, who sent Bush his lieutenant's shoulder bars and Navy wings, wrote in his letter:

Until your administration, I believed it was inconceivable that the United States would ever initiate an aggressive and preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to us. Until your administration, I thought it was impossible for our nation to take hundreds of persons into custody without provable charges of any kind, and to 'disappear' them into holes like Gitmo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram. Until your administration, in my wildest legal fantasy I could not imagine a U.S. Attorney General seeking to justify torture or a President first stating his intent to veto an anti-torture law, and then adding a 'signing statement' that he intends to ignore such law as he sees fit. I do not want these things done in my name.

In introducing the segment, O'Brien immediately called into question the patriotism of Patterson's and DuRocher's actions. He asked, '[I]s it the patriotic thing to do?' "

Why, yes, Mr. O'Brian, it is.

Now, in reading the transcript, which one may find exerpted at the above link, it is possible that O'Brian was playing the devil's advocate, or practicing defensive journalism.

But O'Brian, and all his less and more conciencious collegagues need a "come to jesus moment" on this fundimental Constitutional principle; there is nothing more purely Patriotic in an American sense than questioning authority and demanding an intelligable, coherent, factual and relevant response.

They are accountable to us. And they are accountable to public debate and consensus. So when members of the "fifth estate" start speaking as if the reverse were true - it reveals a pungent whiff of rot in the edifice of our Freedoms.

tag: media matters, propaganda, social control, MSM, cnn, O'brien, american morning

Now in his own words.

TomPaine.com - My Meeting With Rumsfeld:
Ray McGovern speaks about truth, and telling it to people at the Southern Center for International Policy.

All in all, my encounter with Rumsfeld was for me a highly instructive experience. The Center’s president, Peter White, singled out Rumsfeld’s “honesty” in introducing him, and 99 percent of those attending seemed primed to agree. Indeed, their reaction brought to mind film footage of rallies in Germany during the thirties. When Rumsfeld replied to my first question about his false statements on Iraq 's WMD, the applause was automatic. “I did not lie then...,” he insisted.

This was immediately greeted with what Pravda used to describe as “stormy applause,” followed immediately by rather unseemly shouts by this otherwise well-disciplined and well-heeled group to have me summarily thrown out. At the end, as we all filed out slowly, I could make eye contact with only one person—who proceeded to berate me for being insubordinate.

Scary. No open minds there. A graphic reminder for those wishing to spread some truth around that we have our work cut out for us. We have to find imaginative ways to use truth as a lever to pry open closed minds.

Insubordinate?

I think ANFO seeded with willy-pete might be insufficient to prying open such a mind!

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. A 27-year veteran of CIA’s analyst ranks, he now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity."

QED

Media Matters - On his CNN debut, Beck misrepresented study, mocked guest, made suggestive remarks to CNN anchor:

"Summary: On the May 8 premiere of his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck devoted a segment to misrepresenting and attacking a University of California-Berkeley study for finding that children with more positive personality traits tend to develop more liberal political leanings, while children with negative personality traits more often develop conservative views. Beck also mocked one guest, author Eric Schlosser, and subjected another -- CNN Headline News anchor Erica Hill -- to a number of sexually suggestive comments."

The funny thing here is that Beck doesn't even understand how tragicomic he really is.

Following his claim that the show would not "get bogged down in liberal versus conservative," Beck proceeded to criticize a study by University of California-Berkeley professor Jack Block. The 2005 study, published in the Journal of Research In Personality, identified prominent personality traits in a group of children and then identified their political affiliations decades later, when they had reached adulthood, to determine if there was any correlation. The study concluded that certain personality traits, such as being "indecisive," "fearful," "rigid" and "inhibited," were common among children who grew up to be conservative, while other traits, including "self-reliant," "energetic" and "resilient," were common among those who grew up to be liberal. In criticizing the study, however, Beck falsely claimed that the study had identified children as liberal or conservative while also examining their personality traits, and that it had characterized the conservative children as "easily victimized" while characterizing the liberals as "vital, perceptive, fluent, and bright." In fact, the study did not even attempt to identify any of its subjects' political leanings until they were adults. Beck concluded of the study: "So, to sum it up, according to the even-handed folks at Berkeley: [Former President] Ronald Reagan, frightened, unhappy little wuss; while [liberal filmmaker] Michael Moore, son of Mother Theresa and Jesus." He then further misconstrued the study's conclusions, stating, "I really shouldn't be happy, because I'm a conservative."

"Thou hast said it."

And it's, you call yourself conservative because you are miserable - and think everyone else should be.

I have a dream. I have a dream that someday, I will LOOK across a sea of happy fiscal conservatives and no longer will it be EASY to confuse the words "conservative" and "asshole" in the minds of the just. Oh, I HAVE a DREAM!

Mom's basement is my secret HQ!: Purity Ball

Mom's basement is my secret HQ!: Purity Ball

See? I'm not the only one who finds these things disturbing.

Is Our Children Learning To Conform? - "Antisocial Behavior" statute used against UK Aspies and ADHD kids.

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Tarred with the same brush:

"Tarred with the same brush

Teenagers with behavioural problems need help, not Asbos, writes Annemarie Flanagan

Monday May 8, 2006

Nobody likes antisocial behaviour - least of all the government. With an almost religious zeal, Tony Blair has crusaded to rid the streets of offenders and bring back the notion of 'respect' to communities.

Seven years on, more than 7,000 Asbos - Anti Social Behaviour Orders - have been issued, and the former Home Office minister Hazel Blears says she is 'extremely encouraged that they continue to be used'.

But look beneath the statistics, and a different picture emerges."

The effect has been to criminalize difference.

Tarred with the same brush

Teenagers with behavioural problems need help, not Asbos, writes Annemarie Flanagan

Monday May 8, 2006

Nobody likes antisocial behaviour - least of all the government. With an almost religious zeal, Tony Blair has crusaded to rid the streets of offenders and bring back the notion of "respect" to communities.

Seven years on, more than 7,000 Asbos - Anti Social Behaviour Orders - have been issued, and the former Home Office minister Hazel Blears says she is "extremely encouraged that they continue to be used".

But look beneath the statistics, and a different picture emerges.

Article continues
The British Institute for Brain Injured Children (the BIBIC) estimates that a third of all Asbos are given to children or young people with learning difficulties, ADHD, or other behavioural problems.

Charities like the BIBIC believe those with "hidden" disabilities are easy prey. They point to cases like the teenager with Aspergers syndrome (a form of autism) who was told not to stare over his neighbours' fence, or the 14-year-old with the development age of seven, who has been given a curfew and tagged.

"Many of these children have a cognitive understanding below the legal age that an Asbo can be given, so they are in effect being set up to fail," says Vivienne Streeter, the BIBIC's family services director.

The charity launched a campaign last year entitled Ain't Misbehavin to highlight their increasing concerns.

Clearly, the United States is not the only nation in which the "bigger hammer" approach to social policy is the first, and only tool in the box.

tag: mental health, social control, adhd, add, social engineering, ethics, stupidity, stupid news, aspergers, autism