first slaughter turkeys, then people.

word is that the obama administration will not make the decision to send more troops to afghanistan until after the thanksgiving holiday. isn't that nice? but, what if it were october? would he wait until after halloween, or columbus day?

of course, a holiday which glorifies the slaughtering of past people is more important than the slaughtering of present people. indeed, whether to fight a war is not nearly as important as who gets the turkey leg, or first crack at the banana pudding. and you can't expect obama to make such a decision before he has the opportunity to pardon a turkey.

war is something that is done after the holidays. let it not ruin our joy, or cramp our styles. yes, there are impoverished children to kill. surely, we will get to that. but, let us entertain our annoying relatives first. all things in time. i suppose the afghans can give thanks that those 40,000 additional troops won't arrive for a while longer. aren't they the lucky ones.

you know, i wonder what the liberals would say if bush determined policies around his holiday schedule? in fact, i know what they would say..."he's an idiot." "his turkey comes first." shit like that. but, when their guy acts like a fool, it passes without comment. and there has been a lot of foolishness that has passed without comment within liberal circles during the last year. of course, the far right has been hard at work, painting obama as a radical socialist that wants to destroy our cracker civilization. but, does their insanity excuse their intellectual dishonesty? i think not. for, the liberals have always been this way. when clinton bombed serbia, they put their hands in their pants and jerked off, while thousands died. it's ok, as long as they are doing the killing.

saul alinsky once said that the conservative laughs as he stabs you in the back, while the liberal cries. well, that would be bad enough, but i'm not even seeing tears anymore. the liberal no longer apologizes. rather, he arrogantly struts on the big stage, killing easily. he always did, but he no longer hides his ferocity.

except at thanksgiving.

well, the turkey may feel differently.

especially, knowing that a jive turkey in the white house will be eating him.

just a piece in a puzzle

they changed my schedule today. there was no notice. dude claimed he had been trying to reach me, but i'm always in the same place.

it really doesn't matter, but the kids wondered where i was. it matters to them. they haven't learned yet that we are all just parts on a giant chess board. when they decide to move us, we move. every once in a while, we refuse to move, but those times are exceedingly rare. in this case, it all seemed a bit silly. the teachers who were introduced to me where unaware that i would be joining them. friendly fascism, if you will. i felt as if i were a bit player in a marx brothers routine. it couldn't be taken seriously. where i am doesn't seem to much matter. that i have to be anywhere is the real crime. that i have to get up in the morning, put on my clothes, catch the bus, and take direction from men and women who aren't worthy of scratching my ass, is the problem of all problems.

and yet, the kids don't know yet. and it's sweet. they like you. they don't care that you are only a para. to them, all that counts is that you are a good guy. and we teach them.

so, i will be in some different classes from now on. mellish the gypsy. if only i could play blues for ike. as oppression goes, it ain't much. but, it would be nice to determine my own movements.

as it was, i was sitting in the teacher's lounge, listening to gene ammons, when a bearded man with a voice higher than little anthony, approached, claiming he wanted to talk to me. in actuality, he didn't want to talk to me, but to the position i hold. very few people want to talk to me, but that may be for the best. the bearded wonder laid out his plan, seemingly improvised on the spot. zoot sims he wasn't.

and so it goes. i'm just another piece of the puzzle. i can be moved whenever "they" decide i should be moved. there is sadness to it, and humor as well. it's meaningless and profound, simple and complex. like everything else.

they own me from 8:20 to 2:45, as long as they don't personally insult me.

they can impersonally insult me all they want.

sad, but true.

by the way, i told the kids that they would see me around. that i would drop by, still bring my basketball, sing in the hallway, all of that.

i'm still here, folks.

kind of.

today is veteran's day. our nation will always make sure that there are plenty of veterans to honor. obama has just approved 40,000 more troops to afghanistan. 40,000. surely, those 40,000 troops will end up killing more than 13 people, the amount of people killed at fort hood, an event which has temporarily made us compassionate again. surely, obama, by continuing to prosecute wars in afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq, has been responsible for thousands of deaths. but, no one in the media has tried to figure out his state of mind. no one seems to think that the pressure has gotten to him, that he is suffering from ptsd, that religion is forcing him to kill. obama remains a liberal to both liberals and conservatives alike, the mounting death toll notwithstanding. in truth, truth doesn't matter. to the liberals, he wants peace. it doesn't matter that he makes war, for they know what he "wants." he has to move slowly, they tell us. why he has to add troops, they neglect to mention. supposedly, obama wants to do good, but it is tough. but, why is it easier to add troops than to subtract them? and to the conservatives, he is not sending enough troops. whatever he does, it doesn't matter, for he is a muslim socialist that wants to hand everything to black america. with two sides such as this, there is nothing to discuss. there is nowhere to turn.

we are left with the results of many more veteran's days to come. and come they will, courtesy of democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives. whoever drops them, the bombs feel the same.

we worry about the madmen, as the sane ones continue to kill in far greater numbers. erich fromm called us "the sane society," meaning that we are all nuts. in such a world, sanity is relative, as is madness.

it is mad to shoot 13 people, sane to send 40,000 troops to kill and be killed into afghanistan. what is the connection between sanity and madness? if it is sane to fight wars, why is it madness for individuals to pick up the gun and decide for themselves who they will kill? if we are willing to condemn the latter, why do we insist on condoning the former? we malign safe victims, knock the approved villian, as we salute killers of far greater magnitude. the big killers go to ivy league schools, lead countries. some even have african fathers. not many, but a few of them do.

just trying to judge men by the content of their characters. don't beat up on me too much.

i suppose tilberg won't post this one on facebook. too many would be offended.

well, that's when you know you're doing your job.

happy veteran's day.

here's to many more.

violence in the hood

fort hood. not the hood, but a violent place indeed. always so, but usually, violent in a way that we are comfortable with. we don't mind killers, as long as we get to train them. as long as they kill the right people. you know, the ones with "funny" names and small bank accounts.

but, once in a while, violence comes back to bite those seemingly expert at only giving and not receiving. sometimes, they are victimized by "one of their own," who, in a blaze of crazed heroism, decides it is better to use his skills against the home team.

and, it is at that point, where we all suddenly become non-violent. a plethora of pacifists is born. now, we care about each life that has been taken, for the ones killed were american, and had names that may have been our own. this compassion was not in evidence before, and will soon go back into its hiding place, waiting for the right victims to present themselves. iraqis, afghanis, surely they will not do, for they are being killed by us, so therefore, our compassion can only go toward the murderers.

13 killed at a military base. the biggest military base in the country. the shooter? an army man of 9 years. a muslim. deeply disturbed by u.s. foreign policy. worried that he would soon be deployed to afghanistan. a madman? perhaps, but if he was mad, what drove him to madness? could it be the destruction of iraq and afghanistan? surely, more than 13 people have been killed by our troops in these two nations. who among us is willing to speak of the madness of the u.s war machine, a madness that dwarfs any response to its horrors.

what are troops doing at a military base? surely, they are learning to be better killers, are they not? well, it seems that at least one of them learned his lessons fairly well.

now, i would like you to imagine a scenario. it's the early 1940's, and the place is a german military base. a soldier at the base is deeply disturbed by germany's invasions of russia and poland. he loses it, can't take it anymore. he has to act. he picks up the gun and kills 13 people at the base. today, how would this man be judged? my guess is that many would judge him to be a hero. and yet, we have no more right to be in iraq than germany had to be in russia.

madmen are the violent ones who act against the wishes of the powerful.

and, so it goes. if a chilean soldier at a chilean military base, during the terror of the early pinochet years, turned his gun on his fellow soldiers, how would he be judged today by those of us on the "left?"

speaking of which, where is the left? where is the modern emma goldman, where is that someone who will humanize him whom the society will portray as a craven madman? who is it that will acknowledge the profound ugliness which led this man to act. the ugliness which is war, occupation, and religious bigotry.

as always, the real crimes will go unmentioned. our compassion will be selective. we won't learn anything, for to learn would mean that we have to change, and change we won't. we can not acknowledge the extent of our evil.

and therefore, we can not understand.

and we never will.

low impact day

we at bhs care about the environment. today, some of our teachers elected to turn the lights off. i'm sure the earth felt the profound power of our action. speakers came and said many good things. they can't really be faulted for anything. for, you see, we are all doing our part. of course, no one mentioned how bad war is for the environment, or civilization, or big public schools, for that matter. no one really did anything. yes, some students "got involved." yes, some cards were signed. i suppose some people "learned." but, in the end, it felt fake, unreal, happily superficial. for, how can we care about the environment and bomb afghanistan? surely, there were many fascists who cared about the "earth," but today, we don't remember these heroes of yesteryear. will anyone remember us? and, if they do, what will they think of us?

today was low impact day, but what about monday? activism isn't a holiday, despite what our well fed "progressives" may think.

so, the speakers make speeches. young, well off white kids get to care. they will learn what we choose to teach them, which is quite little. a few of them will get it, eventually, but the rest will go merrily along, thinking that while we may have our problems, if we just sign enough cards and call enough congressmen, things will swing back our way. they will tinker at the edges. i recall a guy i knew who considered himself a radical leftist, and he proved it to me by saying that he had worked on the john kerry campaign. these "committed" kids will bemoan corporate abuses, but will never learn to question the legitimacy of the corporate state. they will sing the praises of obama and other democratic duds, either not knowing or not caring about the actual policies of the politicians they admire. of course, these same students and their mediocre mentors will rail against the republicans for instituting the same policies. a teacher i work with, quite intelligent, and certainly, not a bad person, will soon show the class "an inconvenient truth." meanwhile, "as the world burns" will go unread, as will gore's actual environmental record when he had a chance to do something. just ask the indigenous people of columbia just what al gore thinks about "our mother." but, of course, our determined, dedicated environmentalist, who bikes to work, wears new balance, is a vegan, and probably wipes her ass with old college textbooks, will not mention the indigenous of columbia. for, we need good guys. we need to believe that change is possible.

yes, change may be possible, but not without a fight. and change is not possible if it is to come from the very same men who helped to create the problems.

turning the lights off won't do it.

it's as if your house was flooding, and your main concern was to make sure that your kitchen sink isn't dripping water.

we are fucked.

simple as that.

but, there ain't a high school in america that will swing with that message.

there's no money in it. no grants. no articles in the local paper. it doesn't make us feel good.

in the end, that's all we really care about...ourselves.

and, that's why we are fucked.

america, turn off the lights.

The Super Rich are Laughing
The US as Failed State

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The US has every characteristic of a failed state.

The US government’s current operating budget is dependent on foreign financing and money creation.

Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through diplomacy, the US relies on terrorism and military aggression.

Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in the interest of rich organized interest groups at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. For example, war at all cost, which enriches the armaments industry, the officer corps and the financial firms that handle the war’s financing, takes precedence over the needs of American citizens. There is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400.

“It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome,” said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the subcommittee.

According to reports, the US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only a country totally out of control would squander resources in this way.

While the US government squanders $400 per gallon of gasoline in order to kill women and children in Afghanistan, many millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes and are experiencing the kind of misery that is the daily life of poor third world peoples. Americans are living in their cars and in public parks. America’s cities, towns, and states are suffering from the costs of economic dislocations and the reduction in tax revenues from the economy’s decline. Yet, Obama has sent more troops to Afghanistan, a country half way around the world that is not a threat to America.

It costs $750,000 per year for each soldier we have in Afghanistan. The soldiers, who are at risk of life and limb, are paid a pittance, but all of the privatized services to the military are rolling in excess profits. One of the great frauds perpetuated on the American people was the privatization of services that the US military traditionally performed for itself. “Our” elected leaders could not resist any opportunity to create at taxpayers’ expense private wealth that could be recycled to politicians in campaign contributions.

Republicans and Democrats on the take from the private insurance companies maintain that the US cannot afford to provide Americans with health care and that cuts must be made even in Social Security and Medicare. So how can the US afford bankrupting wars, much less totally pointless wars that serve no American interest?

The enormous scale of foreign borrowing and money creation necessary to finance Washington’s wars are sending the dollar to historic lows. The dollar has even experienced large declines relative to currencies of third world countries such as Botswana and Brazil. The decline in the dollar’s value reduces the purchasing power of Americans’ already declining incomes.

Despite the lowest level of housing starts in 64 years, the US housing market is flooded with unsold homes, and financial institutions have a huge and rising inventory of foreclosed homes not yet on the market.

Industrial production has collapsed to the level of 1999, wiping out a decade of growth in industrial output.

The enormous bank reserves created by the Federal Reserve are not finding their way into the economy. Instead, the banks are hoarding the reserves as insurance against the fraudulent derivatives that they purchased from the gangster Wall Street investment banks.

The regulatory agencies have been corrupted by private interests. Frontline reports that Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers blocked Brooksley Born, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating derivatives. President Obama rewarded Larry Summers for his idiocy by appointing him Director of the National Economic Council. What this means is that profits for Wall Street will continue to be leeched from the diminishing blood supply of the American economy.

An unmistakable sign of third world despotism is a police force that sees the pubic as the enemy. Thanks to the federal government, our local police forces are now militarized and imbued with hostile attitudes toward the public. SWAT teams have proliferated, and even small towns now have police forces with the firepower of US Special Forces. Summons are increasingly delivered by SWAT teams that tyrannize citizens with broken down doors, a $400 or $500 repair born by the tyrannized resident. Recently a mayor and his family were the recipients of incompetence by the town’s local SWAT team, which mistakenly wrecked the mayor’s home, terrorized his family, and killed the family’s two friendly Labrador dogs.

If a town’s mayor can be treated in this way, what do you think is the fate of the poor white or black? Or the idealistic student who protests his government’s inhumanity?

In any failed state, the greatest threat to the population comes from the government and the police. That is certainly the situation today in the USA. Americans have no greater enemy than their own government. Washington is controlled by interest groups that enrich themselves at the expense of the American people.

The one percent that comprise the superrich are laughing as they say, “let them eat cake.”

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

moore lies

double m, michael moore, has done it again. the big man plays fast and loose with the truth. that we know. but, the details demand repeating.

moore recently appeared on the jimmy kimmel show. on the show, he was asked about a meeting he had recently had with chavez at the un. it seems that chavez and moore had met for three hours, but moore asked that no photos be taken, as the meeting "would make him look bad." (contrast this with oliver stone, who just filmed a movie on chavez.) however, a few shots were snapped, so the meeting became public. in the photos, the two men are dressed in suits, and are sitting at a dinner table. but, facts have never meant a great deal to moore, so he went on to tell a tall tale. in his words, he heard a racket in a hotel room a floor below him. this "racket" was taking place at 2 in the morning, so us clever viewers of kimmel were sure to get the drift of what chavez was supposedly doing. incredulously, moore then proceeds to go down to inspect. he knocks on the door, and a hulking man answers. the man then lets him in! my, it's getting quite easy to intrude on presidents in the middle of the night. perhaps, i'll drop by on the big o in the wee small hours, for a little late night snack. in any case, moore then noticed a couple of bottles of tequila. likely this was the only latino liquor that moore could think of. supposedly, chavez then invited moore to sit by his bed, and the two began to chat. amazingly, chavez then asked moore to help him with his upcoming un speech! chavez, mind you, is a noted public speaker who often doesn't even read written speeches. rather, he improvises, going where his heart and head tell him to. it is beyond belief that chavez would have been unprepared for such a speech, or that he would have turned to moore for help, especially considering he had no clue in this tale that he was going to be meeting moore.

the next day, moore was watching tv, when he caught a glimpse of chavez speaking at the un. incredibly, chavez was using the very same words moore had supposedly written for him the night before!

wow...in this story, moore riffs on common latino stereotypes. here, chavez is a party animal. here, chavez is a heavy drinker. here, chavez is sex crazed. here, chavez is a believer in the "manana is good enough for me philosophy," in that he has not prepared for a vital talk just hours away, preferring to get his groove on instead.

also, moore has once again managed to stroke his own ego. this time, he is writing speeches for leaders. also, in this tale, moore gets to flex his patriotic credentials, for supposedly, moore told chavez to apologize for calling bush the devil. apparently, it's ok for moore to mercilessly mock bush in film, as moore is a blue eyed, white skinned north american. i guess chavez doesn't have the same freedom to speak the truth, at least in moore's eyes.

so, moore is doing many things at once here...demonizing and mocking an "enemy" of the u.s., overrating his own importance, and stereotyping latinos.

sounds like a true progressive.

white american style.

and to think that chavez is actually attacking capitalism, as opposed to talking about attacking capitalism.

for, you see, there is no money in the actual attacking. and the other side has guns and tanks and bombs they aren't afraid to use. so, better to appear on late night tv, and make movies, and grow fat, literally and figuratively, from the profits, and most importantly, to mock the men who are actually challenging american capitalism.

that will ensure more moore on late night tv, and mainstream theater screenings, and favorable reviews.

if moore is a progressive, it may be time to regress.