Of course Dick Cheney made himself comfy

He must have felt right to home, as it were, given that Grampa Roverer was the engineer that designed the Birkenau section (gas chambers/ovens) of the three-part Concentration Camp at Auschwitz.

It was the Family Business -- immolating humans for profit.


Besides, it was Casual Friday.

Link

Massive cow manure mound burns for third month

Aha -- NOW we know where the Bush Gang gets its policies and its speeches!

Link

Osama bin Laden Attends Inaugural Ball, Evades Authorities

From one of my newly very favorite blogs, Baba Yaga:

"A seemingly nondescript woman who attended an inaugural ball at the White House yesterday has been identified through security videotapes as Osama bin Laden. Security officials are baffled as to how the embodiment of all that is evil, wearing a rhinestone tiara and Groucho Marx glasses, managed to dine and dance the night away with the country’s most powerful men and women. “I mean, you could see his chest hair for Christ’s sake!” said the outraged chief of Secret Service, Ralph Basham “And he has a f***ing beard!” Sheepish security agents reportedly mistook bin Laden for a debutante and are awaiting sentencing in military prison..."

Baba Yaga -- Tales of Gnostic Turpitude

Link

George W Bush is climbing the Ladder of Abstraction just as fast as he can

Count Alfred Korzybski, founder of the field of General Semantics described what he called the structural differential and the nature and function of abstraction in his book Science and Sanity. It doesn't matter that he wrote it in 1921. Read a line, such as this one quoted by Bobby Matherne in the Southern Cross Review:

'A civilisation that cannot burst through its current abstractions is doomed to sterility after a very limited period of progress.'

It is as relevant today as it was ahead of its time 80+ years ago. (Ok, granted, some people read Science and Sanity and find themselves saying, "For the love of God -- if you invented General Semantics, why in Hell can't you write a simple declarative sentence?" I did, the first time I tried it, but somehow, it doesn't seem very obscure at all today.)

S.I. Hayakawa--he was a brilliant semanticist and observer of symbols and their manipulation in society ("If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it. ") before he became a terrible U.S. Senator. Hayakawa developed and explained that concept as the Ladder of Abstraction in his book, Language in Action, later revised, expanded, and reissued as Language in Thought and Action

To oversimplify, the bottom of the ladder is where specific terms and ideas are located. The top of the ladder disappears into the clouds.

In positive usage, going up the ladder allows a person to use large inclusive terms which may serve to tie specifics together. It is a place where, for example, you can speak of counties and states and geographical land masses instead of being limited to houses and streets and backyards.

In negative usage (such as when words are coming out of the mouth of a politician), it's a shell game.

Here's an example:

Speaking to us from the top of the ladder, the politician says "Freedom -- I want freedom for all people."

You ask him what he means and he says, "Liberty."

You ask him again and growl and threaten, and if he comes down to our level and actually gives us an honest answer, he might say: "Save your money or die homeless -- we're giving all the Social Security money to my pals on Wall Street."

George W Bush can't say what he means because, more and more, I get the sense that what he means is that the End Times are coming and it his obligation, as God's Chosen One to use it all up.

What he means is that being poor is God's punishment for being bad.

What he means is that he was born rich and you weren't because he deserved it and you don't.

What he means is "Fuck you."

And the press doesn't push him because no one really wants to take him down to the bottom of the ladder and have to face just how fucking nuts he and his cronies are.

You'd have to be a BIG fan of William Burroughs to stand looking that crowd in the face with their masks off.

("Don't tell them about the insect conspiracy!")

Think about what it means to have a president with the same resting heart rate as a lizard.

I may not believe that Bush is part of some reptilian New World Order, nor find that David Icke has the answer to the cause of and solution for all our woes.

I only know (or think I know) that there's something seriously creepy and covert about George W. Bush, something animatronic and non-human. And that I don't believe anything he says, and I do not think that he has an answer to anything.

When you think about it, the idea of cross-bred reptilian humans isn't a whole lot more far-fetched than the theory that George Carlin calls "The Invisible Man' -- the one in the sky who loves us all so much he'll cast us into eternal fire, pain, suffering, and torture if we don't obey the rules.

I've SEEN reptiles.

Link

Russian lawmakers target Jewish groups

Russian lawmakers target Jewish groups:

"Jan. 24, 2005 | MOSCOW (AP) -- A group of nationalist Russian lawmakers called Monday for a sweeping investigation aimed at outlawing all Jewish organizations and punishing officials who support them, accusing Jews of fomenting ethnic hatred and saying they provoke anti-Semitism."

Yeah -- stop being so Jewish, you Jews -- you force us to do anti-semitic things. You stimulate our proud tradition of pogroms

This is also known as:

"Look what you're making us do, Jew."

Link

I wouldn't be so cynical if...

If ONE -- JUST ONE -- of Bush's proposals didn't involve huge amounts of taxpayers' money going into the pockets of his pals.

Of course we have a free press, don't we?

An interesting exchange on CNN during the inauguration, published in its entirety in Media Matters.

What is especially interesting is that "protesters" and "demonstrators" have become generics, and are described as if the reporters were saying, "And there are a lot of zebras over there," without any indication that they have anything on their minds other than protesting. Another success in marginalization marketing. And of course, who better to use as an example of complete oblvious whoredom in journalism than Wolf Blitzer?

During CNN's live coverage of the presidential inaugural parade on January 20, anchor Wolf Blitzer, CNN analyst Jeff Greenfield, and Harvard University researcher and lecturer Barbara Kellerman provided a running commentary on the festivities. At one point, Kellerman noted that despite frequent references to protesters, she, Blitzer, and Greenfield hadn't actually discussed what they were protesting or why:

KELLERMAN: Well, I was going to point that it's -- we're now using an oxymoron. That is, we're using the phrase "authorized demonstrators," "sanctioned protesters."

It seems to me that, again, I'm so old, I remember the days when protesters were neither sanctioned nor authorized. Moreover, I remember when we knew exactly what they were protesting. Now, it's interesting -- not once today in our use of the word "protesters" did we describe what most of the protesters are protesting against. It would appear to be the war. But it is not only the war.

So it's worth also remembering how, when we describe how things have changed, also the protests and the protesters have changed, as has our conception of them.

BLITZER: This is the motorcycle, the local Washington, DC, police. They are at the beginning of this motorcade. They're driving very slowly and they're now approaching this authorized area, where these demonstrators have gathered...

The motorcade is driving very, very slowly, Jeff.

GREENFIELD: I guess so. Whether this is to let people look at them, I don't know. I mean, I always rely on you, Wolf, to tell us the speed of the motorcades, why they're moving slowly.

BLITZER: Look at the agents walking. They're walking pretty slowly. They're not even running. They're not walking very quickly. So this is a deliberate desire to let everybody on the sides have a chance to see what's going on, so they don't just rush by.

Kellerman pointed out that CNN wasn't telling its viewers why the demonstrators were there -- and Blitzer and Greenfield responded by talking about the speed of the motorcade! Blitzer even offered that "presumably, when the president goes by, they'll make their views known." But Blitzer wasn't going to make those views known to his audience.

CNN's Judy Woodruff later chimed in, declaring "There are 40,000 people who have seats. And then you see the protesters here. You've all been talking about it."

But Blitzer hadn't been "talking about it," and neither had Greenfield; they'd been talking about the process, the logistics -- and the speed of the motorcade ... Finally, Woodruff offered: "The protest causes range from being against the war in Iraq to being against the president's policies on women's rights, abortion rights and so forth." Better than her colleagues, to be sure, but not exactly a meaningful explanation of what the protesters thought and why.

Blitzer later referred to "angry signs railing against the president" and "some angry, angry people who don't like this president, don't like his policies and they're making their views known."

... when Kellerman suggested that if the situation in Iraq continues to go poorly, the number of anti-war protesters may increase, Blitzer and Greenfield immediately replied with:

BLITZER: And if you were looking very closely -- this is a very trivial matter, but may be interesting to some of our viewers -- at the license plate of that new presidential limousine -- and I don't know if we'll get another opportunity to see it, but from what -- there it is right there. You see what that says? USA-1. I think that's what it said. That's a pretty cool license plate to have if you want to get your own license plate for your own presidential limousine.

GREENFIELD: Yes. I think one of the great things about being president, one of the reasons why CEOs envy a guy who gets paid what they make in about a week is, you got the best parking spaces in America and the coolest private plane.

If you closed your eyes for a moment while watching CNN, you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Blitzer eventually even cautioned against making "too much" of the protests -- as though CNN had paid them any serious attention at all:

BLITZER: And we don't want to make too much of the protesters, because we don't know how many there were.

Goddamn! Is this journalism at its finest or what?

Link

Right Hook, from Salon.com -- Talking about Iran is Treason

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum pummeled Seymour Hersh's report in the New Yorker about secret U.S. operations aimed at military action against Iran, deeming the article the latest perilous wave of partisan 'mutiny' in the U.S. intelligence community.

'Read Seymour Hersh's latest piece in the New Yorker with a yellow marker in hand,' he huffed. 'Can you count how many vital national security secrets -- secrets that could potentially get US personnel killed -- have been betrayed in just this one article by serving and former agents of the Central Intelligence Agency or by serving or senior and former military officers?'

Frum points to Hersh's assertions that the Bush administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify nuclear, chemical and missile sites, possibly to be targeted for commando strikes. Exactly why this particular information constitutes high treason, Frum doesn't say...

Frum stays focused on what he believes to be the handiwork of rabid partisans out to get the 'neocons' and warns that the Bush White House better deal with the problem and get all the spooks marching in lockstep before things get even more out of hand.

... the administration as a whole has done a very poor job of preserving the kind of united front that might have taught those rogue officials that when American lives are at risk, all Americans must lay aside their personal vendettas and stand together.

I didn't realize it was that bad. Perhaps coming down with both feet on Bob Novak and the people who exposed CIA analyst Valerie Plame might have sent that message.

Link

Bush to seek cuts in Medicaid, benefits

Jan. 21, 2005 | WASHINGTON -- President Bush is readying a new budget that would carve savings from Medicaid and other benefit programs, congressional aides and lobbyists say, but it is unclear if he will be able to push the plan through the Republican-run Congress ... lobbyists and lawmakers' aides, speaking on condition of anonymity, say he will focus on Medicaid, the health-care program for low-income and disabled people. Medicaid costs are split between Washington and the states.

--- well, you can't be letting poor people get medical care, can you?

After two straight record federal deficits that peaked at $412 billion last year, many Republicans are eager to constrain government spending by curbing the growth of benefits. By law such programs, which consume nearly two-thirds of the budget, grow to keep pace with inflation and ever-larger numbers of recipients.

--and of course, giving antibiotics to dying poor people is the reason the federal deficit is so high. Doesn't have anything to do with tax cuts, oil-wars, how much it costs to kill 100,000 Iraqi civilians, and Bush and his cronies stealing with both hands and Santa-sized sacks for the past four years, now, does it?

They would face the wrath of doctors -- major GOP contributors -- should Bush propose limiting the Medicare payments physicians receive. Governors of both parties are already trying to head off any effort to trim Medicaid, while farmers, veterans and other groups would be sure to combat any efforts to curtail their benefits.

So, either the GOP fights him, or they lose the 2006 elections.

And frankly, as much as I despise what they've been doing, the idea of a Democratic Party running amok without any opposition isn't the sort of socially conscientious government I had in mind.

I had something more like the GOP congressmen coming together with the citizens of D.C., and jointly dragging that sleazy smirking sonofabitch out by his heels onto Pennsylvania Avenue, tarring and feathering him and putting him on a slow train to Crawford.

You could balance the budget by charging admission to that one.

Link

Norwegians confuse Bush salute with hailing Satan

Associated Press

Jan. 21, 2005 | OSLO, Norway -- President Bush's 'Hook 'em, 'horns' salute got lost in translation in Norway, where shocked people interpreted his hand gesture during his inauguration as a salute to Satan.

That's what it means in the Nordics when you throw up the right hand with the index and pinky fingers raised, a gesture popular among heavy metal groups and their fans in the region.

'Shock greeting from Bush daughter,' a headline in the Norwegian Internet newspaper Nettavisen said above a photograph of Bush's daughter Jenna, smiling and showing the sign.

For Texans, the gesture is a sign of love for the University of Texas Longhorns, whose fans are known to shout out 'Hook 'em, 'horns!' at sporting events.

Bush, a former Texas governor, and his family made the sign to greet the Longhorn marching band as it passed during the inaugural parade through Washington during Thursday's festivities, explained Verdens Gang, Norway's largest newspaper."

--And who's to say that the University of Texas Longhorns AREN'T Satan?

U.S. to expand oil drilling in Alaska

"Hi, boys and girls -- can you say PLUNDER?"

Here's another one to file under: "So pack yer ermines, Mary, cause the whole shithouse is going up in chunks."

Jan. 21, 2005 | WASHINGTON -- Citing a need for domestic energy, the government plans to open for exploratory drilling thousands of acres on Alaska's North Slope that have been protected for decades because of migratory birds and caribou...

While most of the 22 million-acre reserve is open to oil development, its lake-pocked northeastern corner has been fenced off, dating back to the Reagan administration, because of environmental concerns ...

... the area around Lake Teshekpuk in the northeast corner of the NPRA is among the most important molting areas in the entire Arctic for wild geese. It is also used for calving and insect relief by herds of caribou.

-- See, it's like this -- the marks are coming up on the Bush administration because of Iraq and Social Security, so they're stealing with both hands just as fast as they can to get all they can and get the hell out. It just grieves them with bitter sorrow to think of leaving anything behind.

Hey, Monkey Boy -- that's OUR oil and OUR wildlife you're putting your sticky fingers on.

Link

Missing Money: Mystery in Iraq as $300 Million is Taken Abroad

Does this surprise anyone?

You can file this one under the prophetic words of William Burroughs in Nova Express:

"So pack yer ermines, Mary, cause the whole shithouse is going up in chunks."

They're running for cover already:

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 21 - Earlier this month, according to Iraqi officials, $300 million in American bills was taken out of Iraq's Central Bank, put into boxes and quietly put on a charter jet bound for Lebanon.

The money was to be used to buy tanks and other weapons from international arms dealers, the officials say, as part of an accelerated effort to assemble an armored division for the fledgling Iraqi Army. But exactly where the money went, and to whom, and for precisely what, remains a mystery, at least to Iraqis who say they have been trying to find out.

--- Oh, surely SOMEONE knows where and into whose pockets.

On Friday, the mysterious flight became an issue in this country's American-backed election campaign, when Defense Minister Hazim al-Shalaan, faced with corruption allegations, threatened to arrest a political rival.

In an interview on Al Jazeera television, Mr. Shalaan said he would order the arrest of Ahmed Chalabi, one of the country's most prominent politicians, who has publicly accused Mr. Shalaan of sending the cash out of the country. Mr. Shalaan said he would extradite Mr. Chalabi to face corruption charges of his own.

'We will arrest him and hand him over to Interpol,' Mr. Shalaan thundered on Al Jazeera. The charge against Mr. Chalabi, he said, would be 'maligning' him and his ministry. He suggested that Mr. Chalabi had made the charges to further his political ambitions.

--- So who will get voted off the island THIS week? Ok -- that's a cheap shot made just to produce a snappy line -- this doesn't resemble reality programming at all -- it's definitely more of a sitcom.
Certainly, when Ahmed Chalabi accuses anyone else of corruption, we've hit the wall of over-the-top comedy.

'Why was $300 million in cash put on an airplane?' Mr. Chalabi asked in an interview this week. 'Where did the money go? What was it used for? Who was it given to? We don't know.'

--- Right. Well why doesn't he do as O.J. Simpson did -- lead the investigation into finding the REAL culprits.

'I am sorry to say that the corruption here is worse now than in the Saddam Hussein era,' said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, the Iraqi national security adviser, who said he had not been informed of the details of the flight or the arms deal.

--Well, when the Bush crime family is involved (bonds for Hitler, even after we were at war with him, establishing Saddam Hussein's regime, establishing Colonel Noriega's regime, etc...) corruption always seems to be JOB #1.

That charge is echoed outside of Iraq as well. Isam al-Khafaji, the director of the New York-based Iraq Revenue Watch, said corruption had become an 'open secret' within the Iraqi government.

'There is no legal system to bring charges against anyone not following the rules and not abiding by the law, especially if you're a powerful politician,' Mr. Khafaji said. 'That's the tragedy of Iraq: Everyone runs their business like a private fiefdom.'

--Again, Bush and his father before him and all their cronies have run America like a private fiefdom -- why should Iraq be any different?

Mr. Shalaan did not respond to several requests for an interview, but one of his aides insisted that the arms deal was legal and that the money had been well spent.

Reached by telephone in Lebanon, the aide, Mishal Sarraf, said the arms deal had been approved by four senior members of the Iraqi government, including Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and Mr. Shalaan.

He said it had been carried out quickly because of the urgency of the guerrilla war. He said he had not realized that the deal had been done in cash.

'We don't want to hide anything,' Mr. Sarraf said.

He said the armaments themselves had been manufactured in Poland, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States. He said the money had bought armored personal carriers, tanks and even Humvees.

Mr. Sarraf refused to say who received the money, saying it was too dangerous.'They could be killed,' he said."

Oh my -- ain't "national security" a wonderful cover to hide behind?

"You there! Pay no attention to that rotting heap of human-like protoplasm behind the curtain!"

Link

Ahhh, the beauty of it, behold the art of the conspiracy theory

God, I love it --

This is no foam-flecked raving rant, but an intellectual artifact -- look at it carefully and admire the grace, the careful construction, the elegance, the economy of motion as the web-connections. are spun. Dance with its music.

Compare it against the cheap shoddily-woven outlet-store lie-fabrics purveyed by such prevaricators as Condoleeza "Do not impugn my ingerity" Rice. Lying crap where the seams show and pull apart, mental fabrications where the cloth lasts only long enough for her to make good her escape with the Nova Mob.

Compare her second-rate academic insistences with this, which I was sent only moments ago -- like a delicate and complex astrolabe made of golden filigree, enamelled points here and there highlighting the rose-cut diamonds of j'accuse.

There's no denying it any more. No one wanted to accept Wm Burrough's vision, but certainly, since the great WMD scam, no one can deny that Conspiracy Theory ranks along with Jazz and Sociopathic revenge movies as another True American Art Form.

Fuck oil painting -- our dear Dr. C Sarian dazzles in a way that only a merging between Frank Frazetta and Jackson Pollock produced and directed by Alexander Jodorowsky could match.

Read and enjoy, take delight that we do NOT have to settle for the tattered, cum-stained locker-room towel-snapping homoerotic thug ravings of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld -- we have Dr. C Sarian, the artist of the age.

Marcel Duchamp would tip his hat to this man.


Tsunami Warnings!

These tsunamis are a funny thing. They occur at a time when there is a crescendo of outcry against fascist assaults on basic human rights, providing a compelling distraction for liberals from efforts to restore due process. The epicenter of destruction was Aceh, hotbed of evolutionary resistance against Indonesia, most populous Muslim nation, one of the world's most repressive totalitarian regimes, and naturally a favored US trading partner and military ally. Do Aceh's natural gas fields have anything to do with it? Billions will be needed to rebuild
low lying coastal communities. What for? The Red Cross has requested donors not give clothing or food. They want money. Not to fund an international transport system of relief supplies to hard hit areas, but to purchase needed supplies locally. That, they say, will help victims and boost local economies.

But wait a second. Does that mean the supplies desperately needed by starving survivors are available locally, but won't be released by their owners until an infusion of American (Japanese, Spanish etc.) cash? Sandra Bullock donated $1M for relief efforts. Who gets that money anyway? Local speculators in rice and dried milk? Huge corporations that had the foresight (and wherewithal) to corner the market on essential commodities? While soft headed Hollywood actresses assuage their conscience with therapeutic check signing, Indonesian troops kick survivors away from emergency supplies, shoot relief workers and check boxes of hamburger helper for hidden arms caches. US installations in the Indian Ocean received tsunami warnings and took steps to prevent loss of life. The warnings were not passed to coastal areas of poor countries of the South Asian littoral in order not to disrupt the
tourist trade. Over 150,000 people died. So what? That is equivalent to the population of any one of hundreds of smaller Asian cities in a dozen countries. Vacationing suburbanites peered in wonder at the exposed seabed only to be engulfed by rapidly rising water, but matrist
aboriginies on Andaman read the signs, gained higher ground and were still determined, though naked as jaybirds, to loose a defiant arrow at inspecting officials in a helicopter. Their lives are the same, before, and after tsunamis came.

Run silent, run deep

Over the past four decades the US military has built a number of nuclear powered strategic force submarines that are capable of launching an array of weapons that may be armed with nuclear warheads. Including torpedoes. A nuclear detonation is powerful enough to disturb the surface of the Earth. Fault lines build up terrific potential from the pressure of tectonic plates colliding. The mission of these "boomers", as they are affectionately known by the beings who risk their lives and health to operate them, is to hide deep in the darkest depths of the oceans where they may remain undetected, because their awesome destructive power is intended as a deterrent against others who might decide to utilize their own boomers. Paradoxically, unlike most weapons systems, their use is in their not being used. Their very existance is supposed to be so terrifying that they will never have to be used. Nevertheless they are funded, constructed, manned, armed and deployed. They are out there, somewhere. Waiting.

Natural? or National?

It must be frustrating to sit at the bottom of the sea doing what you are supposed to do by NOT doing what you are supposed to do. Almost as frustrating as it must be for their commanders back stateside in plush offices decorated with images of the fire, fury and destruction of historic surface naval battles cunningly painted by skilled forgers and
framed in guilt. Disasters are the toeholds that gain authority for the masters; no one wants that big red fire truck blocking the street if there is no fire. So they make sure there is fire. And, surprize, surprize, every time fire burns, there is the military industrial complex with a big bag of marshmallows. Industry and government made a lot of hay pursuant to the Pearl Harbor attack. Industry and government made a lot of hay pursuant to the Gulf of Tonkin attack. Industry and government made a lot of hay pursuant to the Trade Tower attack. Now it would appear that industry and government are poised to make a lot of hay pursuant to the tsunami. How difficult would it be for a boomer to fire a nuclear armed torpedo at a submarine geologic fault line? All someone on board would have to do is plug in coordinates and push the button. The point is, the technology exists and all the world has to believe that couldn't have happened is the supposition that it wouldn't have happened.

That's good enough for me! Where do I sign?

Reverend Doktor C. Sarian

Mid Coast Sub Church of Paranoia
Church of the SubGenius

George (Henny W. Penny) Bush is at it again -- this time the Social Security sky is falling. Do the words "Lying S.O.B." Ring a bell?

Krugman is right -- it's the same old WMD game:

"Hurry, hurry, hurry -- no time to waste, no time to stop and think about taking an action that will affect our lives for the next hundred years. Trust me. I may be a goddamned liar, but I'm honest about it."

And -- what is this? Mirable dictu! Those gutless nutless Democrats are actually trying to peek their scared little heads out from under the covers to speak up. Or maybe not.

After all, there's always the risk of losing a little power or privilege or income doing something as rash as taking a stand for a vaguely-remembered principle or two.


Once again: If the people who earn over $80,000 a year paid the exact same percentage of income as those who earn less, there would be no crisis, no excuse for Bush to shovel a trillion dollars of our money into the pockets of his scumbag friends who are hiding in the recesses of Wall Street.

But then all those examples of misused human protoplasm who hang around Monkey Boy and his pals wouldn't be able to pretend they're so high-born they don't need to be subject to the same laws as the rest of us.

Ahhh -- as they say in Texas:

"They lie and lie and lie and use you 'till Hell won't have it."

Link

The Other Jack Johnson Story

Well, it wasn't in the first two hour part of the Ken Burns documentary, but there's a story about Jack Johnson, driven out of the USA by the fury of J. Edgar Hoover's closet-case terror. (Hoover believed interracial love was a sexual perversion -- same reason he hounded Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) There are precious few positive aspects to racial prejudice, but perhaps this side effect was one.

The story goes, as told by Leadbelly in a song (but not the version he sang for white audiences), Mr. Johnson had a pair of First Class tickets aboard the Titanic, got to the dock, and some nasty little purser refused to let him travel First Class saying, "This ship don't carry no coal."

The image of that nasty little white boy thinking about Johnson as he sank, glub, glub, glub, beneath the freezing water is quite amusing and satisfying, and I still think, wherever Johnson is, he's still laughing -- about everything, but especially about that.

Link

War is a Racket

It's time to remember the words used by Major Smedley Darlington Butler, USMC to sum up his own career of more than 30 years, a career that included two Medals of Honor.

He said: "WAR IS A RACKET"

Chapter One

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [WWI] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations

Read the rest at the link above -- General Butler went on to name names and how many dollars of profit were made. Of course, this brain-challenged administration probably isn't interested in the opinion of anyone who has actually been a warrior. But he sure has their number.

-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

...The flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers.

There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

So how much difference is there between the socipathic greed- and fear- mongers of 100 years ago and thse of today? (A sociopath may be defined as an individual who feels no guilt about the harm, death, and destruction he has caused. )

Link

Smedley Darlington Butler in Veracruz (at right)

Bush Budget Chief Predicts 50% Hike in Social Security Tax

"Social Security Tax Hike Feared"

By Alan Fram
The Associated Press
Saturday 15 January 2005

Bush official predicts 50% jump with no revamp.

Washington - Social Security taxes will have to rise by half if lawmakers don't revamp the giant program, President Bush's budget chief said Friday as the administration sought support for its overhaul plans."

On the other hand -- if the Social Security tax were made to apply to EVERYONE EQUALLY (i.e., the people who make of $80,000 a year pay THE SAME PERCENTAGE of their income as the people who earn $32,000 a year --- 6.2% if employed by someone else, 12.4% if self-employed), then we wouldn't have this problem.

Hey financially successful guys -- you made your loot from this system, maybe even from doing something like investing and/or co-ordinating the work of others -- do you have enough decency to pay your fair share so that those others can hang on?

Oh, for some semi-information well into the spin cycle, you can go here and read what people who fear the Wrath of Bushies' firing them have to say about the future of Social Security.

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Bush lies, ok? He lies. Period. And no, I'm not gonna smile when I say that, podner...

"...podner?" More like "Pod people."

(Someone has to rant on the side of fairness and justice since Dennis Miller decided there was more money to be made kissing the ass of the fear-mongering class, aka The Dark Side).



"Bush Says U.S. Must `Act Now' to Prevent Social Security Cuts"

Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said Congress must ``act now'' to create private savings accounts under Social Security or the U.S. government will be forced to slash benefits or significantly increase taxes in the future.

He lied when he said that Kerry "saw the same information I did," when he knew it wasn't true. And he's lying now -- and now WE have the same information.

The real numbers?

AFTER 2052, the payout might slide, over the following 30 years, to either 50% or 81% of the full projected COA sum.

Do we REALLY have to wonder how Bush/Cheney giving ONE TRILLION GOVERNMENT TAX DOLLARS to their pals on Wall Street is going to SAVE MONEY?

They're liars. They're thieves. They're scum. Can't someone with more credibility than me (or even Molly Ivins) come out and say it? Or does the prospect of losing those 6-figure salaries seem too terrifying to bear.

Bush and His Henchpeople: They're low-rent, white trash crooks riding high on other people's money and trying to convince us they're Aristocrats. Period.

(My wife hates it when I use that term: "White trash." I use it in limited sense -- a person who delights in his or her own ignorance and has no respect for or even resents, anyone who honors different cultural elements, in short, people of their own society who won't pledge that slavey, ass-kissing behavior they call "loyalty." "Me and my pals are all that counts."

So there are lots and lots and lots of uneducated, poor, white people who could never properly be called "trash," sinc they have a decent bit of respect for others. Real treash usually shows itself when it has lots of Money.)

Obviously, Condoleeza Rice isn't white trash.

They claim they're Christians -- total bullshit.

A Christian of the brand they claim to be is a person who has committed himself or herself to being a conduit for and a tool of God's will.
But these semi-human monsters have it the other way around.
They've decided to use Jesus as a tool for THEIR will -- their greed is more like it, greed for power, money, and authority

Is there any question about that?

And the best the reporters around the White House can say is "He's sincere in his beliefs."

Oh fuck you -- so was Attila the Hun, Tojo, Hitler, Ariel Sharon, Jesus, Yassar Arafat, Mother Teresa, Pontius Pilate, Saint Augustine, and Charles Manson.

So is "sincere" a guarantee of "good?"

"Their strategy is, we're going to scare people, cut benefits, privatize and call it a reform agenda," said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois."

Well it worked for LBJ with Gulf of Tonkin. And it worked to stampede congress and the public into bombing the crap out of the local people in Iraq.

Scare 'em, scare' em, scare' em. It's the terror, stupid.

Overhauling Retirement Is Worth Risk, Cheney Says

Doesn't anyone find it curious that these guys are always advocating things they want us to buy but for which THEY don't have to pay the price? None of them need Social Security. What they need is to pay off their pals who put them up there.

Same with everything.

Obviously, with Bush having two daughters and Cheney having one, the "No Women in Combat" statement is prelude to a draft.

None of them have to pay the price.

If they're really concerned about Social Security survivng, they might decide that people making over $80,000 a year pay THE SAME percentage of their income as those making less than $80,000 a year.

In any crime, the question is this: "Cui Bono?" "Who benefits?" Well, I dunno, the people making over $80,000 a year? The people who will get ONE TRILLION DOLLARS of tax money while schools and health care and veterans' medical benefits, infrastructure and everything else but upkeep on Air Force One and Air Force Two?

They're so smug about it they don't even try to hide it. They know they have millions of morons who love them because they, the biggies are just as hypocritical in their claims to spiritual and faith-based concerns as the humble folk. So the humble folk don't have to feel guilty about it.

But with it all spinning around and around, my favorite quote from the Social Security coverage is this one, in today's article:

"The president hasn't offered a specific plan."

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Man, they sure do have a high opinion of themselves. You know what they call themselves? Homo sapiens. Yeah.

Call them what? Homo sapiens? SAPIENS? Sapiens, my ass.

Relief Operation: Indonesia Orders Foreign Troops Providing Aid to Leave by March 26

So the wonderfully "day late, dollar short, brain-dead, courage-impaired" American Press (hey -- Bush stole the election in 2000, not in 2004, and where were you then?) is also calling the Indonesians "INGRATES!!!"

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Jan. 12 - Indonesia announced Wednesday that all foreign troops assisting in the relief operation must leave by late March...

The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and two other Navy vessels have been cruising off the coast here to provide support. American soldiers delivering the aid return to their ships at night.

Some of the large contingents of foreign troops, particularly from neighboring Singapore, have brought heavy equipment - bulldozers and backhoes - to clear smashed buildings and the debris here and in Meulaboh, a city on Sumatra's west coast that was severely damaged...

The Indonesian vice president, Jusuf Kalla, announced the deadline to Antara, the state news agency, saying that the foreign troops could stay 'no longer than three months' and that Indonesia would be better off if they left sooner.

And anyone willing to look through the mirror of the world at the USA might understand their point of view. Except the American press, government flacks first, journalists last. We have a history of getting in as good guys, and then, like ticks or scabies, implanting ourselves under their skin on a permanent basis.

In Washington, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said that the administration was 'seeking further clarification' on the timetable from Jakarta, but that the United States was committed to helping rebuild the devastated areas. 'This is a long-term effort, and the United States will be there for the long haul,' he said, 'to help people in the region get the relief they need and to reconstruct their cities and reconstruct their lives.'

Yeah, like that. As upsetting and depressing as it is, according to the old saw, to hear the words said in America, "Hi, we're your government and we're here to help you," the whole world sees us in Iraq and elsewhere and shudders at the idea of hearing the clumping of boots and the roar of engines followed by "Hi, we're American military and we're here to help you."

And we're such a bunch of babies about it. "Well, we're doing God's work. We're doing the right thing. We're trying to save lives... but, if they don't appreciate it, fuck 'em."

One of these days, our government will do something good for some people and not demand praise, fealty, ass-kissing, and obeisance in return. Just because that's the way OUR government runs doesn't mean everyone else wants to do the same.

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"'It's fair to say that THEY are afraid of the elections...

"'It's fair to say that they are afraid of the elections, they are afraid of what the outcome will be..."

Well, yeah, if by THEY you mean Bush/Rumdum/Cheney, et al. That's why they keep insisting that the insurgents (locals who want us out of their homes, Saudis who know Bush will never do anything to threaten his family fortune) are trying to derail the elections -- so they'll have a ready-made excuse.

"I had a headache. My army stayed up too late last night. Insurgents don't like us."

I gues the W is for whine.

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What's so great about "rags to riches?"

Senator Arlen Spectre (you remember, the man who came up with the "single bullet theory" in the JFK assassination, the same man who, in so many words, publicly denounced Anita Hill as a sleazy opportunistic slut for having read a best-selling novel, but mostly for daring to say unpleasant things about the sleaziest opportunistic law-slut appointed to the Supreme Court in living memory, Clarence "Uncle" Thomas) today praised Alberto Gonzales as a wonderful "rags to riches story."

Well, ok, but rags to riches certainly doesn't equate to having integrity (Dick Cheney), or being qualified for public office (Clarence Thomas), or showing the simple civility and decency we expect in normal human dealings (Donald Trump).

In fact, it means less than nothing at all.

Consider this:

Adolf Hitler was a "rags to riches story."
Josef Stalin was a "rags to riches story."
Roy Cohn, perhaps the only man in American history vile enough to approach "deserving" AIDS (no one does, not even him, but he did push the envelope) -- he, too was a wonderful "rags to riches story."
Lyndon ("Let's invent an attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to justify a war") Baines Johnson -- a "rags to riches story."
Tom DeLay.
Josef McCarthy.

Get it?

"Rags to riches story?"
Don't mean nothin'.

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Love America, hate America, liberal, conservative -- these are phony questions to hide the real and vital question:

Are the actions of the Bush administration making things (threats, economy, etc) better, or are these actions making thing worse?