This is Real

This is how American politics works. There are two Parties who represent the same interests, mostly Corporations and Billionaires. Millionaires don't qualify. These two Parties fight like cats and dogs in public about ancillary issues that no one can agree on. These are the topics you, the American People, shred each other over daily. It's like placing one toy between two toddlers. They are distracted. Then, these two Parties go about their criminal ways serving their real constituents, which aren't you. Divide and conquer! Get the picture?

So, yesterday the whole "Nervous Nancy" and "We're disgusted" show was just that a show. Like dialogue between the Lannisters and the Starks in Game of Thrones. Emotionally compelling, sharp witted dialogue delivered to the audience is what good showmanship depends on. It was a D-Day memorial. What better time to deliver the act. Lots of emotional, patriotic, American VOTERS watching. You could think it was real... it isn't, but you get so caught up in the drama. The news comes on and rehashes the SHOW over and over reinforcing the idea, "This is real." This is a battle between good and evil. This is what matters... who sits on the Iron Throne. 

I just threw that Game of Thrones reference out there to illustrate a different point. If you're a Democrat you just associated Democrats with the Starks, the protagonists of Game of Thrones. You see the Democrats as the underdog fighting against the corporate fascist greed of the Lannister Republicans. If you're a Republican, you just associated the Republicans with the Starks, fighting against the elitist totalitarian rule of the Lannister Democrats.

You're both wrong. It's the final episode of Game of Thrones. You are Jon Snow, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are Daenerys and her dragon(s), and I am Tyrrian Lannister who just told you the unpleasant TRUTH. It's not about who sits on the Iron Throne.

The dragon had the right answer. 

Now, save the world or go on shredding each other over shit that politics cannot solve. If it could it would have years ago. 

That IS real.

I Want a Refund!

The Paris Accord: Celebrated by Douchebags Globally

Not too long ago, I took the time to read through the much lauded Paris Accord on Global Climate Change. Not just the overrated thirty-two page signatory document that is shoved in front of your face every time you Google "Paris Accord", even on Wikipedia. All 195+ pages of the actual meat of the matter took me a little over three days of reading at two to three hours a day. (Thirty percent was actual reading. The remaining seventy percent was deciphering what the hell I just read.) That's six to nine hours of my mortal life I can never get back again, and I want a refund.

I've read a lot of legal documents in my day, and never before have I read one with so many caveats, loopholes, escape clauses, and pitfalls, yet still be acclaimed as a magnificent artifact of human cooperation. This thing is worse than a gym membership agreement and a music club contract combined. The most ubiquitous statements made in this remarkable examples of legalese horseshit reads like this…


That in layman's terms says absolutely nothing except "We're going to accept your legalese horseshit statement about climate change."

PERIOD!
NO COMMITMENT TO MAKE ANY CONCRETE CHANGES WHATSOEVER.
NOTHING!

So, if Climate Change is such a grave threat to all life on planet Earth, why do politicians keep telling you it is but then acting like it's not.

Actions speak louder than words, even when written in legalese!

We're done with the bullshit… er… horseshit!

I want a refund!

The Pyramid Scheme

At first a nation is guided by the purifying fire of the revolutionary. With the heat of a crucible his fervor drives out the dross. In time the revolutionary is replaced with the mediocrity of the bureaucrat sowing the corruption and division “necessary” to administer and build the State. Brick by brick, block by block, layer by layer, the bureaucrat designs the nation to his own liking. The well recognized pyramid emerges. From the pinnacle of the pyramid the all-seeing eye peers down searching, hunting, and guarding against chaos. Protecting the bureaucracy it has built from the revolutionary and the chaos he brings. The chaos of revolution and the purity it brings.

It's a cycle. That's why it's called a “revolution”.

Can you feel the Wheel turning?

The Law of Cause and Effect

Go ahead, keep teaching your children that their lives
and those of others have no real intrinsic value and
see what happens.


Your children adopt your values, then they apply
them.

The Truth Does Not Require Lies

Now, just remember no matter how many times they lie to you they're still telling the truth.

Do you recall Climategate and then Climategate II? 

When has the truth ever required the support of lies?

CUFFS for Congress!

Now you're ready to represent us!

With the campaign season roaring into high gear, I thought it appropriate to re- re- reintroduce my campaign finance reform in three sentences, which I call the Congress Unchained From Financial Scumbags Act or CUFFS.

 1.  Only registered voters who live in a candidates district may contribute. 

2.  Each registered voter may donate a maximum of $500.00 indexed to inflation per candidate. 

3. All money not spent on the current campaign are forfeit to fund campaign finance enforcement.

Congress has spent the better part of fifty years debating Campaign Finance and has yet to produce anything as sensible, equitable, simple, and revenue neutral as that.

Put the CUFFS on Congress!

A Trifecta!

Levity for the Masses

Sad, but true.

Also sad, but true.

It's a trifecta!

Purpose in the Pyramids

A Foreigner Among Friends

The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989, and suddenly we were all aquiver over not being vaporized under a mushroom cloud of fissionable material. Our jubilation of avoiding sudden irradiation was elevated by the promise of the “Peace Dividend”. The Cold War was over and now all would share in victory, harmony, and the reduced cost of a detente military. Where would that money go? The Cure for Cancer? Colonizing Mars? Ending world hunger? Poverty? The ludicrous idea of putting it back in the pockets of the people who earned was even considered momentarily. 

While we contemplated, discussed, and contended over how we would allocate our windfall Peace Dividend, the rhythm of war drums could be heard from beyond the horizon from half a world away. At first, barely detectable but soon their constant pounding drowned out every voice, then every other sound. Louder and closer they grew. The drums now deafening, panicking, frenzying, and driving us into madness. Madness and murder… and that’s how you get a ten year discount on crude from the Emir of Kuwait at the price of peace and her elusive dividend. 

The ubiquitous peace demonstrators waving placards reading, “Stop Bush’s Illegal War!” flooded every strategic intersection in urban America. Anti-war rallies appeared in public venues throughout George W. Bush’s two terms. It looked every bit the legitimate peace movement reminiscent of the 1960’s protests. Then, on the day Barack Obama was elected to the Oval office the protests vanished like wisps of smoke. The wars went on and intensified, but the “peace protesters” never returned. The “peace protesters” exposed themselves as political agitators willing to accept war without end when it suited their political party. With a Republican in the White House today the wars overseas have become a distant sideshow to the homegrown battle of Russian election interference. The new enemy is the only enemy we can see. I can’t decide which political faction is worse, those who use the pretense of peace for their own ulterior motives or those who denounce peace as Anti-American.  

Even the Romans one of the most militaristic empires ever to scourge the planet had a goddess of peace named Eirene. They valued peace so much that they deified her. We have no such value today, but I knew Peace and I loved her. 


Since The First Gulf War, the conflict we fondly recall as "Operation Desert Storm", there has been a change in the character of American culture. That change culminated at 8:46 AM on 11 September, 2001 when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the northern facade of the World Trade Center Towers Building 1 and changing forever in the American mind the desire for peace. From that moment we would never again stop and look back at Peace, the girl of our youth whom we knew and loved.

Instead, we marched like zombies into twenty years of war and seventy more armed conflicts. Even now the embers of those conflicts still smolder and flare into current crises. This is the predictable results of putting out fires with a baseball bat. America at war became normalized, no casualty reports, no horrors, just photo ops, and an occasional hero mourned in a fifty-word blurb on page six. Peace was not openly spoken of or considered out of fear of putting American troops at risk. Imagine that, anything but uncompromising support for constant war being a threat to "our men and women in uniform". Even a football player taking a knee in silent protest became an act of betrayal deeply wounding those who proudly fight for freedom. This is the acceptable insanity, the pervasive mental sodomy of this day some twenty years march away from Peace.

  

A whole generation of Americans has grown from infants to adulthood over these last decades. Children born of and raised on war. Children who have never know a single day of peace. They do not miss what they have never known. But we... but I knew her and loved her. 


Once in a while, in moments of weakness, I still long for Peace. Meanwhile, you want for bloody conflicts, thrilling skirmishes, and epic showdowns, all employing baseball bats. All showering embers into the tinderbox of your next fucking war. All taking us further from peace. 

I still praise Eirene. You glorify the rider of a pale horse. I have become a foreigner among friends. 

Death rides a pale horse.

Three Decades and Seventy Conflicts later... check my math: 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations

Then, I'll count your tears.

Real Priorities

It's time to think clearly and set our priorities accordingly. Think Globally, Act Intelligently, Act Responsibly, Act Truthfully, Act in Liberty...

Getting Out of Line

There is a false dichotomy implanted in our minds from a very early age. There is only day or night, only wrong or right. There is only Left or Right. A noxious false dichotomy destined to rule our thoughts for the rest of our lives. 

We are told we live within a political spectrum which also ranges from Left to Right. Like the number lines affixed to our elementary school desks running from -10 to zero, then from zero to +10, this implantation is fixed in our minds from a very early age. We can't really imagine anything outside of our paradigm. We have a hard time grasping concepts outside that number line encompassing all there is: Left or Right. 

If we follow this idea to its logical conclusion there should be a world of difference between one end on the Left and the other on the Right, but is there?

The Left taken to its “extreme” places us in a Communist Dictatorship with the means of production OWNED by the State. Not a system most people want to live under.

The Right taken to its “extreme” places us in a Fascist Dictatorship with the means of production CONTROLLED by the State. Not a system most people want to live under either.

There is no appreciable difference between these two extremes of the political spectrum we are offered. Both place the electorate in the bottom layer of an authoritarian pyramid choosing between two forms of dictatorships, which are effectively the same. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Still, these are the two choices within the false dichotomy we may choose from. Both a choice towards a dictatorship with the State in control of our production, our lives, our children, our number lines, and even our very thoughts.

It's time to think differently. It is time to be free.

Follow me

It's Our Annual Pay Octuple the Price Get Nothing Sale 

We had the American RePublic...

Who wants any kind of "public" government anyway? It's trashy. Isn't a private, exclusive government more American when you think about it? Like our own privileged country club we're excluded from for millionaires and billionaires to invite their friends and family to share in the ambiance of wealth and power without all our preying eyes and babbling mouths asking inane questions like, "Where the fuck is all our money?" Barbaric! A government of the ruling elite where only the first names change every few years and the dynasty continues. That's the kind of government we're voting for, fighting for, trolling for, and dying for... mainly because we are too uneducated to recognize it.

I may have started with a poor definition of "RePublic", but you'll never figure out the difference because you haven't so far.

We had inalienable Rights...

Why should aliens have Rights anyway? They just come here and take our jobs and live off welfare. Then, because they hate our freedom so much they blow up iconic office buildings and dance in the streets when Americans die. That's why they shouldn't have inalienable Rights so we can fly over their countries and bomb the living shit out of people whenever, wherever, and for as long as we want. That's what REAL freedom is about... the freedom to drop American bombs any size, anyplace, anytime forever without repercussions. Zero blow-back as long as we can keep a muzzle on people in the press and lock up traitors who don't keep their mouths shut when we kill the innocent. Hell, it's on the other side of the planet. Who cares? Keep it out of the news and cover it up with funny classic Trump Tweets. Covfefe!

I know we've wandered a long way off the point. That's the point!

We had the American Dream...

Which other than a brief window of opportunity between 1945 and 1965 has always been more delusion than fulfilled prophesy. We had it, at least for a little while. Who really wants a goddamn white picket fence anyway? We need a border wall. A gigantic 700 foot tall white picket fence from the Gulf of Mexico (Made in China) to the Sino-Pacific Ocean (Made in China). Think of the thousands of jobs we will create painting that motherfucker every three years. That's going to be a lot of hard work in a hot, humid climate working under dangerous conditions... Yup, that sounds like a lot of work... for Mexicans. Come to think of it, if it's Mexicans doing the actual work, then we'll only need a crew of about twenty. One must be semi-fluent in English and have a valid drivers license. 

How much can we save on the Mexicans if we buy them on Amazon from China? 

Free shipping?

I know it seems like I'm way off track here, but that's how far off track our American economy has run. It's like watching a nineteen trillion dollar train wreck. You're gonna' want to see this because you'll never see another one like it. Sure, the stock market is doing great but that's with the cost of borrowing money to throw into equities at effectively zero percent. Smells like a bubble to me.

You follow me?

Thank you, Julian.

I'm a supporter of Julian Assange and his Wikileaks tell-all journalism platform. I have a hard time understanding how flag-waving Americans could not support both.
I'm a little over fifty years old now, and I lived (Thank you, Jesus!) through the Cold War. I was raised on the ideal of American freedom. Back in the day, we were told freedom was the thing that made us better than our old Cold War adversary the Soviet Union. Freedom is better than totalitarianism. No one had to explain this to me. Thomas Paine would call it "Common Sense". 

Truth is better than lies.

Throughout the Cold War, we were told the American Free Press informed us of the truth. While back in the USSR the Communist propaganda mill spun a web of lies to inject its own people with the venom of deceit. 

Truth is better than lies. 

No one ever spelled that out for me. It seemed obvious. So, you can imagine my dismay, hopefully, because you share it, when Wikileaks exposed the lies of the United States government. Lies meant to cover up murder. Not just one murder, but between eight and twelve murders of unarmed reporters mistaken for insurgents. None were armed with anything but a camera. Cameras expose the truth.  So, the group of truth telling reporters were gunned down to a man. When the Department of Defense was asked about the incident the DoD spokesman disavowed any US involvement in the incident.  That's where public knowledge of the mass shooting would have ended in a perfect cover up. After all, it's only murder if you get caught. That's the lesson I learned from Uncle Sam's. . leadership by example.

To solve a problem you must first admit there is a problem. The Department of Defense lied and innocents died. Lesson learned...

Truth is better than lies.

A few minutes after the slaughter, a van driven by a good Samaritan arrived on the scene. The driver seeing the dead and dying stopped to help. With two young girls visible in the front seat of the van an Apache opened fire as the driver and another unidentified man carry one of the wounded reporters to the side door of the van. No one was engaging the helicopter. No one fired a single round at the crew. No threat of any kind was made towards American troops. These were angels of mercy, these were good, decent men helping wounded civilians. For their humanity, they too were gunned down in the street. 

If it happened to our soldiers there would be outrage, but these aren't soldiers. These were all unarmed  civilians. Live and let live is better than shoot first and cover it up later. 

Truth is better than lies. 

Now, imagine if some foreign power invaded America, gunned down civilians, and the civilians attempting to rescue the wounded while two little American girls sat in the line of fire. How would you react? Would you want it buried beneath the velvet words of denial from the perpetrator's military spokesperson? Would you accept, "Accidents happen?" Would you believe the aggressor was doing everything in their power to minimize civilian casualties? 

What we did was arrest the man and attack the platform who exposed out lies. That's another important lesson I learned from Uncle Sam's leadership by example. Silence those who expose your propaganda mill, and rally support back home for your venom of deciet. Cover your murder in Red, White, and Blue. Heavy on the Red. 

There is no patriotism less American and more Communist dictatorship than the blind variety. Heavy on the Soviet Red. Yes, accidents happen in wars, but neither wars nor lies happen by accident. 

Truth is better than lies. 

Throughout the Cold War, we were told our right to peaceably assemble and petition for the redress of grievances allowed the American People to publicly dissent. The Soviet Union's police state crushed dissent anywhere it was found. Free expression is superior to heavy-handed repression. No one had to spell that out for me. It also seemed pretty obvious. So, you can imagine my dismay, hopefully, because you also share it, when Julian Assange became a hunted man on trumped-up rape charges after showing the American People they had cause to dissent.

Truth is better than lies.

I'm not angry so much that my government is out doing heinous things. I come to expect that as par for the course. I'm angry that while they are out wreaking havoc and making of us mercenaries for merchants they still maintain the pretense of this...

That pisses me off because it advances the woefully wrong idea that Life and Liberty are only things we offer, not take. 

Let us offer truth...

Truth is better than lies.

I'm angry and I am more than just a little confused about what IT is "We the People" stand for in the Land of the [To Be Determined]. I feel like I'm on the Right side of the Wrong war. I feel like a foreigner among friends. Friends who are okay with just going along to get along and accepting whatever they're told by our perpetual warlords in Washington. Warlords who have taught me another valuable lesson: It's alright to commit any heinous act so long as you justify it the words "...to protect our Freedoms". That's the truth.

Truth is better than lies.

I don't know about you, but this isn't what I signed up for. I hope you didn't either, but I am coming to terms with the truth. The truth is I have a long history of being wrong about what America stands for. 

Truth is better than lies.

I can empathize with Julian Assange more than most. We're both coming to terms with the truth and how little truth is valued outside rhetorical banter within political forums. The word truth is spewed within state houses, people's assemblies, politburos, legislatures, and parliaments the world over. Wherever the powerful and preeminent gather the word truth will be heard like a banging gong and a clashing cymbal amidst the rest of the sounds emanating from their maws like sweet honey with the value of vomit. 

From those whose words we honor, from the mouths of those whose commands we obey, from those whose scribbles we call the law, the truth will always be nothing more than a theoretical tool. Like God, freedom, love, justice, honor, good, virtue, and all the other things we hold sacred. Those who issue the orders will invoke these theoretical tools properly to incite men to kill other men as a means to their own ends. 

Truth is never to be actualized or applied in respect to the words, thoughts, or deeds of our rightful god-kings. Never. 

Julian Assange is coming to terms with that truth as he sits a disposable hero in the Bastille of angry god-kings now. He will be made to pay dearly for his misguided misuse of truth.

Truth is better than lies.

Julian has shown me this truth... The best prophets walk you up to the curtain between ignorance and understanding. Then, allow you to peer through. I have peered through, and I will never believe their lies again.

Thank you, Julian, for showing me the curtain.

Truth is better than lies. 

Thank you, Julian.

Post-it Notes from a BIG Country

There are distinct disadvantages to living in a big country. Doubly so for a big country isolated from the other ninety-five percent of the world’s population. We can come, or jump, to some pretty strange conclusions. Big countries allow for a lot of jumping space. We might assume that the other people on planet Earth are out of their minds for not playing ball with us, instead preferring to play a far more exhausting form of “football”. Obviously, they’re only doing this to piss us off and threatening our interests overseas. One of the conclusions we don’t come to is those “interests overseas” are really other people’s. Other people’s countries, other people’s children, other people’s families, and other people’s lives. That’s what we’re talking about when we use the phrase, “our interests overseas.” In a big country they seem so remote, it’s as if they aren’t real people like us. They are more inanimate objects, even abstracts, but certainly not real people like us. As I said, some pretty strange conclusions.

Much of our foreign policy is driven by the need to protect our interests overseas. It seems perfectly reasonable. After all, they are ours. Personal property is the cornerstone of freedom, right? Pretty strange conclusions.

It’s a big country. So big we can forget where our boundaries lay.

10 Years Later...

It's been a decade since the Credit Crisis of 2008 which gave birth to misery for millions of Americans. The terms Under water (Negative home equity), The 1% (Richest 1% of society), and The 99% (Not The 1%) took on new meanings. As a result of the financial hardships suffered by the 99% (allegedly at the hand of the 1%) the Occupy Movement was born. Occupy was supposed to remedy the conditions which caused the hardships and hold those responsible for the Crisis accountable. Let's take a look at how successful Occupy has been ten years later...

(Click the image to enlarge)

Personally, I don't believe that most of these demands would have been beneficial, desirable, or even attainable, but what I am certain of is Occupy was an epic failure. Not only did the movement fail to have one of its demands met, it also served as a pressure relief valve which channeled the much justified frustration of the American people away from productive action. The bottom line results were a massive loss of momentum for real change. Keep in mind this was the largest grass roots movement America has had in living memory and it accomplished nothing. No change for the better whatsoever. The biggest criminals in the nation laughed at the bankrupt cliche, "Crime doesn't pay." 

One of the greatest errors of the Occupy Movement was aiming for the wrong target. Wall Street is not accountable to the People. Wall Street is only accountable to equity shareholders. Angry non-shareholders hold exactly zero weight on Wall Street. The Occupation target should have been Washington, D.C., which is (or should be) accountable to the People. The laws which allowed the Credit Crisis to implode were written in Washington D.C. Were the laws written at the behest of Wall Street? I'm sure they were, but don't lose focus on who can be held accountable to the People. Occupy never had that clarity of focus and look at the results. I can't decide which Occupy was more shame or sham. 

Today, ten years later, we sit and wait while wringing our hands for the next ticking time bomb to explode knowing it's not a question of "if" but "when"? 



Author's Note: As for the demands the only one I would agree with would be number ten. I would have also demanded that those responsible be charged with fraud, which is exactly what happened. They did it in Iceland successfully. As a "Rule of Law" nation we should have done it here in the United States, but our actions will always speak louder than our words. Our actions say the only Law we have is the "New Golden Rule". 

He who has the Gold makes the Rules, even Ten Years Later.  

Hunting Objectivity

I believe that truly objective news is a mythical creature. There is always bias in reporting because the stories are composed by people. People come with their own biases, views, and perspectives. These are the hermeneutics through which we view the world and all that happens in it . Absolute neutrality can only occur serendipitously if a journalist has no opinion on the topic, which probably means they don't know enough about the subject matter to inform others. Ignorance is blissful objectivity, and makes for poor journalism.

Rather than seeking the rare Jackalope Unicorn species of objective news, I try to get a broad spectrum of reporting on the same subject from many different sources, (CNN, Fox, Reuters, Associated Press, Russia Today, India Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Beijing Times Japan Times, etc.) from as many different mediums as possible (print, radio, internet, alternative media). The more viewpoints from which you can gather information, the closer you are to truth.

A few lessons I have learned over the years:

#1. The more heart rending or emotional a story is, the further it is from truth. Many times this is sensationalism sold as journalism. Who, what, when, where, and why are the queries that must be answered.  When they offer facts, as a prima facie case for how to interpret or how you should feel about the facts is when journalism dies and propaganda begins.

#2. Never dismiss a news source as being pure propaganda. This would eliminate all news sources. Even propaganda is informative as long as you have the counter-propaganda at your disposal. You can "triangulate" the truth with enough data points (sources).

#3. Whenever the media has you myopically focused on one thing, look everywhere else. Something big is happening elsewhere and everyone else is missing it.

Good luck. You're on your own,

Michael