Monday, June 24, 2013

Boring, Boring

     Recent news events, as has been the trend, have managed to take me away from writing about the fine and kinder and beautiful things which this existence does afford us- and which were to have been the primary focus of this blog. Worries over personal situations, as well, have tended to keep me from writing on those finer, more beautiful topics, as the need to focus on primary survival objectives has now necessitated a "crisis mode" mentality in my household. It is in such an environment that we now approach 3,000 blog pageviews, and with such a landmark, we cross into the realm of "legitimacy" so far as blogging, publishers, and what passes for journalism goes.
     Nonetheless, the fight to secure a situation where I'm allowed my personal being to flourish continues. Maybe some of my ideals are too radical for some folks, these days- perhaps, being someone who cares about Human Rights- and esp. those enshrined in the Bill of Rights- sets me apart (for sure) from the usual politico and the typical politician. But I do not care for politics. Some things just drive me out of my tree, when all I'd prefer to do (and presumably, all society might prefer me to do) is sit in the branches whittling useful moments out of my time. I would much rather shut up (to a certain extent) and work to earn a living.
    So now I find finally that, at last, the country seems to be slowly but surely waking from its lulled complacency about all these things germane to our rising  US police state, and no longer do I sound the lone raving paranoid. While I can't help but express displeasure at the powers that be- whomever and whenever they are, at least I'm being true to my "Christian anarchist" Tolstoyan principles. (That's not my definition, of them -that's Wikipedia's).   I'm getting pretty damn sick and tired of watching my government alienating its friends and making more enemies every time I turn around. And however someone feels about the "right" of government to intrude on the rights and acts of our personal and private lives, at least, someone like myself no longer writes and polemicizes from a lone hut on the mountain. Now there are many more voices, finally, joining the fray. As I said, it can only get better, because as someone once sang "there's something going on around here that surely won't stand the light of day." Let the light win out.

Here's a link to exactly what I mean when I say "alienating our friends."
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/06/28/irish-politician-stop-slobbering-over-obama-the-war-criminal/

Monday, June 17, 2013

Our Constitution Is On Fire

     "Governments derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed." This was written back at the start of our Republic. I would like to know, exactly when did we consent to the shredding of our 1st, 4th, or 5th, amendment rights? Recent news has exposed the underpinnings of a vast, unrivaled secret police state, in Dan Ellsberg's words "the United Stasi of America." That is not far off the mark. Today's technocrats have at their fingertips a vast power of theoretical police superintelligence which Hitler's GeStaPo could only dream of- I mean all they had were IBM punchcards! Nevertheless,  they were able to track down nearly every single Jew in Europe and subject them to genocidal "special treatment."
     Where was the "taxpayer consent" for this marvelously Orwellian  & grandiose NSA center in Utah? I'd like to know, which black budget box did that come crawling out of? Is such a gigantic cloud-brain truly necessary  to track a miniscule number of individuals around the globe who organize into cells to disrupt decent, innocent civilian lives? (Like, demanding use of a bulldozer in order to squash a fly.) Or is it because the government of a nation no longer trusts even its citizens, and wishes complete and total obedience? Just what part of the 4th Amendment created that? Where did We the People sign off on that- and which branch of government?
     I would like to know just when Americans said, that it's just plain and fancy A-OK for OUR government to make such sweeping blanket searches and seizures of people's personal data and private communications.
     Oh, I know all about 9-11, the Patriot Act, etc etc. But maybe it's time someone read the Riot Act to these authorities who have claimed for themselves that such unprecedented, unAmerican intrusions are warranted "for our national security." The true shame of it, is that while a Republican administration did a great deal of the legwork getting this all going, a Democratic administration jacked it all up beyond recognition. I would not expect such things of the party of Sam Ervin, or George McGovern,  but there it is -- for all to see.
     I may never vote for the office of President of the United States, ever again. If by voting I consent to be RULED, rather than governed, by a man who is as subject to the laws of the land as myself and who may be held accountable under those laws and reasonable expectations that he is going to faithfully execute them- well, I have a problem with either the laws, or the man in the office, but my tendency is to put my hope and faith in the laws, rather than the man. And when that person have elevated themselves into the position of a king - able at a single moment's notice to suspend the life and liberty of any single individual, then, they are no longer a person on an equal footing from me, and I owe them nothing but distrust in return.
    Our Constitution was not written to protect one party at the expense of others. Nor was it written to protect one class of individuals, at the expense of others. It is meant to preserve and protect the liberty and rights  of every single individual, except when proven by due process of law- that right or liberty shall be deprived. Either it means what it says, or it does not. But now, it's flaming on fire, and the only firemen around seem to have walked from the pages of Bradbury's Farenheit 451. While the scandals are indeed entertaining, and it's always enjoyable to watch the mighty walk back their words, it's not encouraging in the long view of that which we might hope to bequeath unto our posterity.

Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A Note on the Scandal and the Vandals Who Stole the Handle

     Well, my friends, the question is no longer "are you with the terrorists, and against us?" or "are you with us, and against the terrorists?" The question is- "Are you a totalitarian authoritarian, or are you an anti-authoritarian?" And most who seek liberty and human rights across the globe would have to answer to the latter, in my opinion. But the answer, my friend, may yet be blowing in the wind...
     (Actually, watching all this occur, is the most entertaining thing I've witnessed in over 40 years, since Richard Nixon met his Watergate.) I LOVE watching dissembling public officials, stumbling their way across the fields they have strewn with the mines of their own lies. It can't but get better from here.

Monday, June 10, 2013

LIQUIDATION OF DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD UNPERSONS MEETS APPROVAL OF BB

The new head of MiniLuv, John Brennan, ongoes to regardnot concepts and constructs of goodlaw in his pursuit of the doubleplus ungood dobadders who dare to resist the might and power of BB by challenging the principles of IngSoc using terror tactics. The doubleplus ungood dobadders who appear on the IntelMatrix at Miniluv are plainsee so ungood that not even MiniLaw can assume their trial by jury. They have forfeited their personhoodness and right to citizenbeing, for as all good Party Members know, citizenbeing is a privilege, not a right, in Oceania. Reports that at least three Oceanian citizens have sotoward been classified as unpersons and disappeared unhave “due process” or unability to challenge allegations of terrorist affiliations are nothing but rumors and crimethink. Even a 16 year old male of combat age who appears at the wrong place in the wrong time (and thenceforth qualifying as the unperson to be delimited of citizenbeing rights) as the reports have gone, 
have been truemade to havebe nothing but terror propaganda updone by the terror societies that flourish all over the planet. And as all good citizens and Party Members know, because BB loves us, those who make such aspersions as to the ungoodness of the nation of Oceania itself are doubleplus ungood and deserve to comebeing unpersoned. With more terrorist crimethinkers created every day by the results of MiniLuv and BB’s suchrumored targeted-to-disappear-unpersons-program, work has begun at MiniTrue on the restructuring and resurrection of goodlaw in order to meet the protocol and demand of the new Chief of MiniLuv, as well as BB. ‘Only when we have cleanmade the world of this problem we usfully have created will we have peace” BB declares in the last Six Minutes Hate. As we all know the only peace is found in the shelter of war. Nothing is a better engine of our fuleconomyness than the plusmaking of machines of death. Factwise, there is no death, unless BB says it is. Our children must inherit such a cleansed world, because only the principles of the Party and of IngSoc deserve to comebeing the shapers and deciders of the human future. And without such tactical tools such as the suchrumored targeted-to-disappear-unpersons-program, Oceania will continue to be threatened by nonstate irregular terror actions by crimethinkers. All ungood unpersons should be speedful and quickestful eliminated, no matter what it takes. Long Live Big Brother!
W Smith

MemHoleEd

[author's note- the above was written nearly thee months ago while John Brennan was still under consideration or had only been recently approved to be head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Subsequent revelations on the far-reaching, anti-constitutional surveillance state headed by Hif Majeftie (BB) and MiniLaw Eric Holder, as well as Hif Majeftie's recent claims that such a situation exists for the benefit of our nation,  and that we must make compromises between our liberty and state security, despite our Constitution, have necessitated my re-publishing this article. I had envisioned an ongoing website dedicated to NewSpeak parsing of the news, however, found one article like this almost too much to take on, and an ongoing hassle that would not be even HALF as much fun as I had imagined. But let this stand as a part of public record, then, against Hif Majeftie's mockery of those of us who feel -as he dissembled and was at a loss for words- 'the work of some Big Brother program ...uh... run amok.' Oh and now he'd like to bring yet another Bush appointee in, as the head of the FBI. "Hope and Change!" You betcha!]

Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:


Tuesday, June 4, 2013

OUR STATE RELIGION: PATRIOTISM

     The common assumption is that there is no official state religion in the United States. No formal, accepted, sanctioned "official" religion. Not Buddhist, nor Christian, nor Islamic, nor Jewish, nor Pagan, nor Atheist... no official religion. But this assumption is completely false and paints a Potemkin facade over the true, official state religion of the United States of America: Patriotism.

     Yes, Americans are free to worship any of the above, or any other religion I have not happened to mention, but there is one religion which all Americans have inculated and pre-programmed and brainwashed into them from the very earliest age: Patriotism. That this is the Best, the Chosen By God, the One Great Hope of Mankind, the United States of America. And by God, don't you ever doubt that! We even pass laws with ridiculous titles such as the "Patriot Act" to ensure that nobody goes around badmouthing our leaders --most especially when it's inconvenient for them.

     Here in the United States, we do not erect our temples to Zeus, Apollo, or Aphrodite. Would that we did, perhaps! No, here we erect our civic monuments to our great, mortal leaders- Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, et al. Our monuments to our Sacred War Dead collect themselves with each generation's sacrifice to the Military Industrial Moloch in Washington DC, alongside with those to the other mortals.

     To question the government, even the validity of the Commander In Chief, is to risk approbation, social sanction, being outcaste/exiled, even. "Love it Or Leave It!" you hear the breast-beaters shout, as Johnny comes marching home in a pine wood box to a parade of muffled drumbeats, and mothers, sisters, lovers, children weep. "A grateful nation thanks you for your (their) sacrifice." Empty words passed on at every soldier or veteran's memorial service, followed by the rooty-toot-toot 21 gun salute.

     The notion that something is always going wrong in the world, somewhere, and that America should and ought to be, there to "fix" it, has led (in the past sixty years) to all manner of stupid, immoral and illegal incursions, wasted trillions of hard won tax dollars, and killed thousands, both American and foreign lives. All wasted in the strange and vain notion that America's Way is the Best Way, the Only Way, for societies to organize themselves. Got a problem with some country electing the wrong man? The USA, & the CIA, we're here to help you!

     No, this is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, with more convicts in our prison system than any other society on planet Earth, and with the free-est press system Anywhere! We are free to speak our mind, say what we like- and be subjected to secret government surveillance, while we're at it! We're free to assemble anywhere, just so long as that we are not organizing, somehow, to disrupt the machinations of the bureaucrat class.

     It's probably significant that American reporters who are courageously bringing to light the dank spiderweb of the present administration's war on personal freedoms are doing so from outside the country. The American press has fallen flat on its face on the job, having previously chosen swandiving into a love fest for Hif Majeftie during the last election campaign- rather than to objectively report on the bias and difficulties inherent with both major party candidates. That is, until the latest revelations of snooping on the AP surfaced. Inside the nation, the former "liberals" now choke on the news that their Messiah has come not with a sword of liberation, but a torch handed off from his predecessor, and loving it, too! But some of us saw it coming & resisted the temptation to be fooled again.

      No, we have the right to be secure in our papers, letters, and effects- but now, only governmental appointees can be assured of the ability to hold "secret" email accounts, hidden from public scrutiny,  immune to the same subject search and seizure without warrant- and to avoid the stain of accountability when innocent people get "accidentally" turned into the  targets of our Chief Executive's wrath. Or as a similar situation was once put, in the old Soviet Union- "They, the Servants of the People- They have running water. But We, the People, do not."

     So God Bless America, and all the poor sods who died (now in vain) fighting for the freedoms we took for granted and haven't even noticed we've lost, all in the name of some "momentary security," which one man involved in creating our Republic long ago said we might no longer deserve, if the truth shall be self evident...
Being President of the United States of America means never having to say you're sorry:



[for a couple of well-spoken related articles which I agree with in full please click on]:
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/13/nbcs_war_for_fun_and_profit/
http://antiwar.com/bourne.php
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/all-the-infrastructure-a-tyrant-would-need-courtesy-of-bush-and-obama/276635/