"When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then his is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader." --Plato

From MightyGirl

"Your style is played-out like a two-toned down goose,
You couldn't Converse if you had fuckin' React juice.
So hold your corner as I hold this mic up in the air,
I'm eatin' through your crew like Stven King's Langoliers."
-- Pfife of Tribe Called Quest on "Motivators"


That is so awesome and makes me laugh every time.

Who wants to bet on the first "Reality" show that will feature a death - possibly by one contestant of another?

Ratings are their god, I wouldn't put it past them.

Ah, yes. The old blog. Thought I'd dust it off and just try to write alittle bit every day or so. I am definitely intimidated by all the great blogs out there, but as I need to teach myself with song writing, I've just got to start and get some momentum, and see where it goes. It'd be nice to have a kind of diary to remind me of my life.
So. Band practice today, didn't go to Transit afterwards. We were hoping to play with a new drummer, but he couldn't make it. Mark has gotten a little better but he just doesn't have the confidence to go much further.
Ok, that's a good start. Let's see how long I keep this up.

Standing before might
brave and True
Knows no one course is right
Peace crushed by metal
In the Dirt of Failed Men's arrogant power

The Bull of fearful power
Deaf to Truth
Surrounded on all sides
It crumbles from the inside

Closed eyes and dead minds
Grasp for Power and Wealth
...When Light breaks through
Power and Wealth will not save you

-- Dedicated to Rachel Corrie, American, 23, crushed by Israeli bulldozer while peacefully protesting against demolition of Palestinian homes

Behind a burning red fog
The great Mind swims in confusion
Its blood ferments
In anger
Honor and Wisdom
Will cower

-neurosis

"Hey, Mr. President. When even the Germans don't want to fight, take the fucking hint."

- the Onion

"This tax relief is for everyone who pays income taxes. ... Ninety-two million Americans will keep this year an average of almost $1,100 of their own money."

One third of all Americans will never see a dime of that tax cut. Half of all taxpayers will get less than $100 from the Bush tax cut. Those who make more than $1 million a year will get an average cut of $92,000. That may average out to $1,100, but it ain't going to the average family. As The New Yorker recently noted, if Bill Gates walked into a soup kitchen serving 60 bums, the average worth of the people in that room would be $1 billion each. But it would still be Bill Gates and 60 bums.

- Molly Ivins on Working For Change

Here's a selection of the history items that Geov Parrish always lists at the end of his articles. I only take a few of them; the rest can be found in his articles at Working For Change

Reclaim History!
Things that happened on Jan. 30 that you never had to memorize in school:
1838: Osceola, Seminole war chief, dies under questionable circumstances while imprisoned at Fort Moultrie, South Carolina.

1933: Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler assumes office, named Chancellor of Germany, after a controversy over the counting of ballots with partially punched chads in Bavaria. Bad things follow.

1948: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the political and spiritual leader of the Indian independence movement, is assassinated in New Delhi by a Hindu fanatic.

1956: As Martin Luther King, Jr. stands at the pulpit, leading a mass meeting during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, his home is bombed. By chance, King's wife & 10-week-old baby escape unharmed. Later in the evening, a thousand angry African Americans assemble on King's lawn. When King appears on his devastated front porch, he'll tell them: "If you have weapons, take them home. ... We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence. ... We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us." King's speech lifts the nonviolent protest movement to new levels of effectiveness.

1973: James McCord and G. Gordon Liddy, of Nixon's re-election committee, found guilty of Watergate burglary and wiretap attempt.

1976: George Bush the first becomes 11th director of the CIA, four years before his first run for the Presidency and subsequent election as Reagan's VP.

1981: The Reagan Administration "de-emphasizes" the Endangered Species List "to concentrate on recovery rather than reporting new species."

The whole article is here.

I just had a troubling thought. Bill Gates and a very few other super-rich philantropists are giving oodles of money to try to help developing nations break free from the dieases that are ravaging them. This of course is wonderful, and other super-rich people should be encouraged to join the fight - Gates gave 200 million dollars, which is hardly noticeable to him. Others who are similarly rich should do the same.
But what happens when these nations start to see their population expanding and living longer? Unless their economy and society as a whole are prepared to deal with a lot more able-bodied people wanting to work, we will have a whole new breeding ground for terrorism on our hands. Especially due to the mental damage that will be present in these societies for gernerations over what they went through, they will be very vulnerable to being led down the dark path of violence and blame-shifting.
So I propose that a similar effort should be undertaken to prepare these countries with the economic and social infrastructure to handle an influx of people ready to work. There are so many advantages to starting this early, and having it ready when the changes start to take effect. Besides the clear relationship to the availablitity of decent jobs to the vulnerability of a society to terrorism, this could be a rare opportunity to develop new, expandable and scalable infrastructures that are based on the newest and most forward-thinking concepts available. Instead of taking baby steps towards true integration with the rest of the world, what if the first new buildings, for example, were built with eco-friendly energy generators, wireless internet access, and efficient but aesthetically pleasing civil engineering? What if we gave them the best, and not just the bare essentials? The rewards would pay for themselves in the long term when these societies and cultures were able to rise to being full participants in the global economy. When people have decent jobs, living conditions, and the hope that other nations see promise in them - justice and liberty are never far behind.

Below follows an unedited stream of consciousness of my watching the State of The Union, read at your own risk:
Basically, I am excited that he laid out plans for fuel cells and Aids help in africa
everything else, same old crap that won't help, and NOTHING new on iraq, or "terra" in general - He doesn't have a coherent solution, and his fly-by-night plans will cause so much more harm than good. And just watching Cheney back there gives me the creeps.

distinguished citizens, and fellow citizens.
"we have the doody"
every child...that can pay for it.
dhs - underfunded
tax relief - $300?
reforms? Holding them to account?
employ everyone...except the 8% that we don't on purpose
It's so fucking childish - one side stands the other doesn't -
Cheny is practically convulsing behind him, when he says the word "money"
$1,100 is a LIE that is not weighted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He hasn't really said anything yet
big fucking deal - that doesn't help me
401k's dont count - but he doesn't want you to know that
Spending discipline - read:cut schools, build bombs
still pushing privatizing SS...
twisting words, still pushing the privitization of everything! IT WON'T WORK
medical liability reform - tell that to the woman who had a needless masectomy
energy - sounds good...
pollution cut - IS MANDATORY! but he wont tell you
forests - cut 'em all down! That way they won't catch fire! Makes sense
1.2 bn for fuel cells - J f'n C I agree with him
He set a timelime, I dont beleive it... this is encouraging at least
WOW
ok, lets move on
back the schwill - faith-based crap
gov't paid mentors, ok i'll bite
did you see his eyes blink talking about drugs
wow - drug Treatment - ok good
too much religion, but treatment is good
partial births - party line, a falsehood that is a lie
no human cloning - fair enough
afghanistan - not as good as it sounds - pretty much a disaster there
Africa AIDS - can't believe he's talking about it, lets see what he offers
Cheny has a "fish clap"
15 bn over 5 years - is that actually more than the UN asked for?
J f'n C!
ok on to "terra"
Cheny just looks so fucking evil! like, eeee-vihl. He stares and stares at W, I can just see his forehead veins popping
what a cold motherfucker - "They're no longer a problem"
buffalo - wasn't a cell
american justice = death or prison with no chance of a lawyer
homeland security - UNDERFUNDED
ballistic missles - we don't need it, they can't stop a box-cutter
I don't want a BushCo injection
threat intervention = TIA???
violence, free peoples...get to the point
ok, the meat
regimes
blackmail - already happened - korea
hitlerism, nazism, communism... defeated by the might of america
grow up
defend the safety, however, what you want to do will Lower our safety
are they booing him? or "woo woo-ing" him?
basically, a big f- you to all other nations
iran - didnt really say anything.
korea - oppressive, yes
what about all the treaties YOU pulled out of?
ie, blackmail
we already were blackmailed
iraq
"potential" wealth?
where are the 8,000 pages that no one else has seen?
those damn aluminum tubes aren't suitable for nuke production
"intelligence"
iraq has let scientists talk without "minders"
let's see some goddamed PROOF of what you're saying
Saddam would never arm terrorists, they'd take him out first
Don't threaten me with a day of "horra"
he had enough sense not to use them last time
dictator assemblimg wrlds most dangerous weapon - YOU
attacked villages with OUR support
I don't beleive the stories you're telling - don't intimidate me
The generals don't stand - they know he's a fool
finish it off with some god nonesense, i don't share your beliefs am i not one of your "Americans"?

I haven't written here in quite a long time, really only because I've been pretty busy, and there is SO much good blogging out there that I just don't have much to add to the impressive display of research and thought going on out there. There is a kind of big-picture conspiracy idea I'm trying to work on - well, not really conspiracy, but there are clues as to the origin and goals of the current right-wing, neo-nazi imperialistic administration that are slowly falling into place in my mind, and I need to get them onto (e-)paper. I think that not quite the beginning but close to it is Prescott Bush (Bush Sr's father)'s association with and funding of the Nazis during WWII and the businesses that were spawned from that. I have an uneasy feeling that the Nixon, Reagan and the Bushes, and I am not kidding, Hitler were pawns in someone or some other group's plan for the future. That sounds crazy, I know, but when the picture becomes clearer it might not be too far off from the truth.

Everyone else is writing fantastic stuff about the current Bush and his idiocy, and I can't compare to the depth and insight, so I'll just list my favorite sites and hope that you read at least a few of them - they are ALL Must Reads!
Working For Change
This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow
Common Dreams
Xoverboard
TruthOut
Reason
Tapped
Ted Rall comics
Fanatical Apathy
The Nation

And, what the heck, a little shameless self-promotion:
I play bass in the band Lunch - come see us play live!
DJ Max Cascone - You probably got here from there, but just in case.

Well, that's all for now, I hope to write more soon.

Live For Peace.

Here's something interesting spoken by an Israeli judge on why a senior Palestinian official can't be held as prisoner of war:

"Terror is not an act of war, and therefore it doesn't fall within the rules of war."

This is what I was thinking the moment Resident Shrub called the 9/11 attacks "an act of war." That wasn't war, it was terrorism. Calling it an act of war validates it to a certain extent, and excuses the perpetrators from responsibility for their actions. The only reason we're at "war" right now is to line the pockets of the super-rich oil- and weapons barons who currently have a stranglehold over our nation's policy makers, our money, our media, and our conscience. Calling an act of terrorism an act of war reduces the vileness of the act and gives the terrorists an amount of defensibility that it doesn't deserve.

in the cd spinner today:
James Lauer - Rapid Transit a departure from his house background into more progressive styles, but still sneaking in some house tracks along the way, i like it a lot. I also like that he finally split the mix into tracks!
Max Cascone - MCIII i always feel a need to listen to a cd that I give to people the night before, as if to validate that it is worth listening to.
System of a Down - Steal This Album! A collection of songs that didn't make it onto either of their two previous albums, this album starts off a little grating (except for "innervision") but becomes pure System goodness a little over halfway through. Their beautiful songs only get more beautiful with each listen; the faster, heavier ones show their meaning after a few listens, and the melody and rhythm begin to make sense.

"This administration is set to complete what the railroad barons pushed the Grant administration to start: to take democracy and its institutions of governance from the hands of the human citizen/voters the Founders fought and died for, and give it to the very types of monopolistic corporations the Founders fought against when they led the Tea Party revolt against the East India Company in Boston Harbor in 1773.

And, in the ultimate irony, the new man in charge of economic policy as Secretary of the Treasury will be a multi-millionaire Bush campaign contributor, chairman of The Business Roundtable (an elite corps of 100 of the nation's most powerful corporate CEOs), and, himself, a railroad baron. "

The robber barons are finishing the job, read this masterful article here.

The evolution is Ours
We are drowning in an ill-conceived wave of corruption and death brought upon us by the short-sighted fascinations of old men and frightened politicians. The energy to power the light of the future is being concealed by the filth produced by the energy of the past. The evil men who push us down are clinging to their last reserve of power and wealth. Soon the truth will be revealed and a new era will begin. World peace is possible in this new vision.

go here

Wow, they actually did something about the White House's economic team! Good riddance, you bastards! Maybe O'Neill will go back to looting California's energy market, which he excelled at when was a CEO at Enron(!).
The article wastes no time in noting that, as usual, the decision to boot O'Neill and Lindsey was purely political and to create the appearance that they actually give a damn about us non-billionaires. Full article here.

update: my mistake, Secretary of the Army Thomas White was the tool who was at Enron in California. O'Neill was just the CEO of Alcoa, the largest aluminum maufacturer in the world

Where are they now?
They are gone.
I saw them run,
run to the sea.
Under the waves,
all has been said.
Can you hear them?
Their voices are free.
Free from the sun's stare
Free from the noise
of lost souls.

Their voice carries on,
On the waves.

-- Neurosis, "The Tide"

On John Kerry, 2004 Presidential hopeful gleaming in his eyes: "Kerry has a strong presence within his own party: he’s a war veteran who later became a war protestor, giving him a unique advantage of being able to play both sides of the war card. He’s a staunch advocate of many core left-wing Democratic ideals (I am happy because I got to use the word "staunch" today) and has a prior history of taking on corporate fraud- something which hopefully could be used as a 2004 campaign strategy seeing how it’s all nice and fresh from no one using it in the 2002 elections, you stupid, stupid, stupid Democrats. Stupid."

From the awesome Xoverboard.

"Hoover, Eisenhower and Goldwater were conservatives. George W. Bush is not. He's a radical right-winger applying selective liberalism in order to create an expansionist military empire centered around an oppressive police state."

Ted Rall's latest column, read it all here.