“(Those)who so hated FDR’s reforms must be chugging cognac in hell celebrating today’s America. America’s unions have been neutered and taught to beg. At long last we have established a permanent underclass and deindustrialized the country in favor of low wage service industries here and dirt cheap labor from abroad. We’ve managed to harden the education and income gap into something an American oligarch can take pride in. Hell, my bank card is issued by Prescott Bush’s Union Bank and my most recent mortgage was held by J. P. Morgan’s creation. My electricity is generated by Rockefeller’s coal and energy holdings and my Exxon gasoline credit card is issued by a successor to Standard oil. The breakfast I eat comes from Archer Daniels Midland. So did my dog’s breakfast. We are the very products and property of these people and their institutions.” – Joe Bageant
By Thurman, on September 6th, 20102010-09-06T23:38:35ZF jS, Y%
I fear for my country and the world, but most of all I fear for our children.
The spineless wing (Democratic Party) of the Corpocracy that currently controls both houses of our Congress is very likely to lose control of one or both chambers of the legislature to the rabid mix of fundamentalist Christionistas and Teabagger libertarians that are taking over the openly fascist wing (Republican Party) of our one party political process.
I’ve made no bones about the fact that I, like so many others, voted for Barack Obama and the Dems back in ’08 and have been sorely disappointed in the performances all of them have given during these last two years.
It seemed like the front door of the White House hadn’t even had time to hit him in the ass before President Obama was on his knees, felating the Republican minority and compromising away everything he campaigned upon. My theory is that as soon as the door was closed, some asshole from deep within the bowels of the invisible oligarchy that owns our government pulled Barack to the side and showed him the Zapruder film or threatened his children if he didn’t play ball.
Regardless of the reasons why, the outcome is the same, we were all duped. Obama is about as much a progressive as Gandhi was an axe murderer. The man put Slick Willie to shame he was so smooth, and we bought it. We in the progressive faction of the body politic wanted so badly to see someone come in and turn shit upside down we would have probably voted for anyone who looked remotely like he or she had a snowball’s chance in Hell of getting elected. Continue reading Unholy Ugly Truth
By Thurman, on September 5th, 20102010-09-06T02:32:57ZF jS, Y%
Here’s a report from KFSN about a terrorist attack that happened in the town of Madera, California last week. I haven’t been watching the news too closely this weekend, but I suspect this is the first you’re hearing about it too. Last Thursday, someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the window of a local medical clinic.
“Upon arrival responding officers discovered that Planned Parenthood had been attacked by an unknown person with an incendiary device.” said Madera Police Chief Michael Kime.
Madera Police do not have anyone in custody but a spokesperson with Planned Parenthood says she has a good idea of who it might be.
“I believe it’s extremists who are, want to make a statement.” said public affairs director Pasty Montgomery.
The extremists in question were most likely fundamentalist Christianists, delivering a violent message of hate and intolerance to those who work in and who avail themselves of the legal services of the medical clinic, in operation for more than twenty years without prior incident. Continue reading All Terrorists Are Not Muslims
By Thurman, on August 27th, 20102010-08-28T02:59:07ZF jS, Y%
A few weeks ago my mother received the hateful little piece propaganda you’ll find at bottom of this post, in her email. I have reproduced it here verbatim, only reformatting the fonts for the sake of visual clarity, but first I have a few words for the hateful, ignorant morons in the world who keep spreading this manure.
I find it disturbing that so many otherwise decent people can so easily be duped into believing such nonsense and conned into participating in so much hate and bigotry. Yes, the 19 hijackers who flew planes into the Pentagon, World Trade Center, and who failed to reach their intended third target happened to all be Muslims. Fundamentalist Muslims under the influence of a charismatic sociopath named Osama bin Laden. Think of him as the Charlie Manson of the Middle East. They did not represent the vast majority of Muslims.
Tim McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, Eric Rudolph blew up legal abortion clinics, gay bars, and the Atlanta Olympic Games, Scott Roeder gunned down a doctor, at church, on Sunday morning. As far as I know each of them claimed at one time or another to be a Christian of one denomination or another. Do those American terrorists and murderers reflect the beliefs and actions of all American Christians? I sure hope not, but that’s the intent of the anti-Islam propaganda many God-fearing people who claim to follow Jesus Christ seem determined to spread when they send out junk like what you’ll see below. Continue reading So Much Bullshit, So Little Time
By Thurman, on August 25th, 20102010-08-25T23:59:54ZF jS, Y%
Apparently our Fourth Amendment protections against privacy violations by the government only count if we’re rich enough to afford fancy gates and tall fences, at least out west.
“Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements.”
It used to be that the general area around one’s home, the “curtilage” was considered sacrosanct – protected space to be violated only through the due process of a valid search warrant. Not so according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Continue reading No Privacy In A GPS World
By Thurman, on August 22nd, 20102010-08-22T23:07:57ZF jS, Y%
I discovered this gem of a video earlier this afternoon while watching LinkTV. I’m glad to see that there are still people out there in the world – in the US no less – who are willing to stand up against the racial profiling, religious intolerance, and general culture of ignorance that seems to be so pervasive in my country today.
There is everything wrong with supporting and participating in terrorism, but there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, an Arab, or any of the other labels we use to continually divide ourselves and maintain the ‘us and them’ mentality that causes so much strife and hurt in the world. If only we could learn to live with only one label: Human.
By Thurman, on August 22nd, 20102010-08-22T21:17:53ZF jS, Y%
Here’s an interesting post I found today at BlueNC that fits nicely with the message I’m trying to propagate here.
“…the American Dream is a religion – a civil religion, but a religion nonetheless. We have the Bill of Rights taking the spot of the Ten Commandments; we have heaven and hell in the form of wealth and poverty; and our politicians and pundits are our clergy. (Does that make the President the Pope?) Hell, we even have witch hunts of “socialists” as enemies of the religion who are, much like the original witch hunts, entirely innocent of the accusation.
The Right has twisted and usurped this civil religion so that it now resembles Dark Ages Catholicism. The overclass of the wealthiest and most powerful are using it to not only mask their own evils, but to trick the “serfs” into supporting the very people and system that prevents them from achieving their own wealth and independence. They keep the masses ignorant (Fox News & the Right’s scarily efficient propaganda machine spreading their muckraking into the mainstream; tax cuts in favor of more spending on education), which is the key to their success, just like in the Dark Ages.
Also just like the Dark Ages, it’s not about the religion, it’s about power. The religion is just a useful tool.”
By Thurman, on August 18th, 20102010-08-18T23:03:19ZF jS, Y%
The other night, while perusing the Internets I ran across a brief post on the New Yorker financial page titled Soak The Very, Very Rich written by James Surowiecki. The author points out that there are several tiers of wealth among our ruling elite, but only two tax brackets for them.
“Our system sets the top bracket at three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, with a tax rate of thirty-five per cent. (People in the second-highest bracket, starting at a hundred and seventy-two thousand dollars for individuals, pay thirty-three per cent.)”
Anyone who’s read more than a handful of my rants knows that I believe the super-rich in the US not only ought to pay much more in taxes, but that if they had any heart, soul, or conscience they’d be lining up to chip in a bigger share in appreciation of all this great nation has afforded them. After all, conventional wisdom holds that their excess wealth was only made possible by the deregulated capitalist paradise that was late twentieth century America. Continue reading To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Required
