By: Grainne Rhuad

There is a thing keeping everyone’s lungs and lips locked; It is called fear and it’s seeing a great renaissance. –The Dresden Dolls, Sing

Fear, it’s one of most living beings’ great motivators.  It arouses the senses telling us to pay attention, something may be coming, and we may need to act.

There is nothing wrong with fear, base fear in and of itself.  However most living things address whatever is causing them fear.  When the rabbit escapes the fox, it ceases to be afraid.  When it dies, its compatriots do not live in fear of ever leaving the warren.  Fear and its usefulness have come to its culmination and passed.

Human beings however are different.  We like fear, or we seem to.  We gather around campfires and tell stories of Unseelie things like Balor and the Sluagh, we watch movies to elicit fear responses and a great good deal of us get our fear fix from the nightly news, streaming into our homes, our consciousness, our being without even our notice most of the time.

Unlike the rabbit that allows fear to pass, we bathe in it.  We sit about talking about dreadful things, working each other up.  Interestingly enough, more talk occurs about ‘being’ afraid than ‘doing’ anything with those fears.

When we fear things I think that we wish for them … every fear hides a wish.-David Mamet, Edmond

It often seems that we make fear our pastime.  Do we secretly wish for the things we fear to come about?  Would the actuality of our fears be as terrible as we imagine?  Or would they in fact alleviate our suffering?  Is it possible that even with the most terrifying of our fears realized that we would have the relief of never again having that fear?

Some people say yes.  There are countless behavioral interventions for those perpetually in fear that expose them to those very same fears.  Beyond that, in interviews with survivors of war, torture and abuse the people who come out the other side very often live fearless lives; they have made it to the other side of what was terrifying them.

Other people however say no.  There is evidence that people witnessing their fears, as in say a car accident or death of a loved one will fold up into themselves even further, taking that occasion as proof that every doubt they have whether reasonable or unreasonable is going to happen.

Of course the latter is correct.  Everything we fear will happen, sometime to someone.  But, should we let it destabilize us?  The rational amongst us say “no of course not.”

And yet, we destabilize ourselves every day.  Purposefully, by constantly watching, talking about and thinking about everything that is wrong in the world.  By putting such a great amount of energy into the fears of the day, we are to a great extent missing the things that would normally balance out such fears.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.-Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful

Is fear in fact a passion?  Sometimes it seems so.  There are a good many people who make it their business to seek out and find things that are fear inducing in order to share them with the world.  You see this on news-like shows.  In comedy, on the internet with your friend postings.  The effect is the same:  “Here is something you should be afraid of.”  Almost never with a suggested solution.  This lack of solution runs counter to the very biological function of fear.  Fear is supposed to kick in to jumpstart our bodies into responding.  But, when we are exposed to fears that are seemingly insurmountable, with no discussion further than, “Yes that is fucking crazy and I am afraid.”  All of the fear is backed up with no action in sight to help us realign ourselves.  This creates in us an exacerbated state of stress.  How on earth can we combat all these things?

What is typically seen are people following up discussions like these with comments like, “Time to throw in the towel.” And, “Time to run away.”  This also instills fear into people.  How on earth are they going to manage that?

This brings us to the next bit.

Fear is the enemy of logic.

Frank Sinatra said it in The Way You Wear Your Hat but he’s not the only one.  When we are reacting in a fear based moment, we are making decisions based on preservation, but not logic.  We are not taking time to think things through and make a real and concerted difference.

The big question is why are we not spending more time dispelling fear?  Why are we not instead empowering each other?

It’s easy to blame all of our fear mongering on recent events like 9/11 and the resultant color coded terror scales we suffered through, which thankfully have been retired for now; as well as the constant ticker tape news updates which seems unlikely to go away.  However, it would be unfair to lay all of this at this particular door.

Since the advent of WWI people in the States and Europe have been afraid.  Initially this fear found outlet in an emerging art source: DADA, which on the surface non-sensical was indeed trying to make sense of the extreme shock and fear dealt out by a new type of war.

Humans being humans however; did not stick with the “let’s do something with our feelings,” route, and instead decided almost across the board to beef up on ammunition and war machines, further illustrating when people are afraid it’s easy to make them more afraid and control them.

We still are seeing the effects of this today.  Our fear caused the most recent war in Iraq. Saddam  Hussein obviously had no nuclear weapons.  There was absolutely no evidence of it, and yet our fear of him wielding it was enough for us to universally put a stamp of approval on an invasion.  We almost did the same in North Korea.  Who knows, we may still do so, we have spy submarines off the coast listening in fear to them right now.

If we were thinking with our logical minds we would wait and work with others.  A prime example is the situation in the West Bank.  Logic dictates that no matter how we feel about the “Holy Land”, people were there before the state of Israel was created and no plan was made for any of them.  Thus, logically we are all to blame for the ugly state of affairs and poor treatment of Palestinians.

But we don’t see it that way, because we are afraid.  Afraid of pissing of Israel whose pockets are helpful to us; afraid of the unrest recombining will cause; afraid of Asiatic dark people; and most of all afraid of admitting the world made a huge kerffufleing mistake.

Fear has many eyes and can see things underground.-Miguel De Cervantes, Don Quixote

The character Don Quixote may have been mad, but he was imbued with the madness of a saint.  He quite succinctly pointed out that our fears very often have us seeing problems that are not there.  This is true of things great and small.  We have very often discussed at Subversify our irrational fear of Russia during the Cold War.  We currently have an irrational fear of Mexico and Mexicans whether they are citizens or not.  We fear drugs; we fear not having drugs at the very same time.  We fear a police state and we fear not being protected.

But, one thing Don Quixote also illustrated is that throwing off that fear, while it may have you tipping at windmills you think are dragons, gives you a liberation that allows you to live happily, fully and without regret and longing.  Isn’t that what we all really want?

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.-Frank Herbert, Dune

By: Ronald Thomas West

How the philosophy ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ makes for ludicrous bedfellows & twisted agenda:

The paranoid Jewish Zionists embrace rabid anti-Semitic Christian Zionists who fully intend the Jewish Zionists will become extinct once they’ve finished the dirty work of retaking the West Bank for the Christian Zionists necrotic vision of a road to Armageddon, meanwhile the Jewish Zionists label non-Jewish anti-Zionist as anti-Semitic when in fact most of the non-Jewish anti-Zionists are the bitter foes of the rabid anti-Semitic Christian Zionists momentarily embraced by the Jewish Zionists.

Now, in the mix of all of this, the anti-Zionist Jewish personalities are in an impossible state of being forced to play a game of ‘shut the fuck up’ or get blasted by all Zionists, Jewish and Christian, while the non-Jewish anti-Zionist is attacked by the paranoid Ashkenazi, who became paranoid and Zionist, on account of the pogroms of anti-Semitic Christian Zionists. These people bite the hand of people who’re actually doing them a favor by taking on the rabidly anti-Semitic Christian Zionists, personalities who intend as soon as the partnership of convenience is over, all those clinging to Judaism will be tossed into a lake of what will almost certainly amount to man-made nuclear fire.

Meanwhile, the Sephardic Jews who’d lived for nearly one and a half thousand years in peace and tranquility in the world of Islam (excepting that period when they’d fought on the side of the Muslims during the Crusades) have become an extinct species in the Arab countries, not in the least because of both Jewish and Christian Zionism via policy and settlement in the West Bank and the incredibly nasty treatment of the Arabs there. Israeli Zionists have enabled this social injustice and American Zionists, including countless conservative Christians, have bankrolled these policies abusing the Palestinians. All this came about because of Jewish Zionist paranoia of living in countries with a majority Christian Zionists and history of pogroms, yet are (for reasons of the social psychology phenomena of inter-generational violence) behaving towards the Arabs like the Christian Zionists had treated them, in turn setting up the present cycle of anti-Palestinian pogroms, based on behaviors Jews learned from Christians, now on a scale of nukes & nations.

It only gets more ridiculous:

The Sephardic Jews who’d relocated to Israel as a result of fallout in the Arab world from Zionist policies are absolutely 2nd class citizens- pointing to the anti-Semitic tendencies of the conservative Ashkenazi Jews, a race based oxymoron of Jewish anti-Semitism. This is obviously as clear as it is ludicrous and self destructive, when a Jewish person in Israel cannot be equal, because this Jew has the appearance, language and customs of an Arab.

I think a moral to this story could be: Any Zionism that is literal Zionism (unlike the benign Zionism of Bob Marley) is a loser. Perhaps this could be the idea behind the UN Resolution equating Zionism with Racism?

Inter-generational hate and violence is a known and understood phenomena of social psychology. Many people have not risen above this malevolent infection of the psyche that is imbued in a very literal sense of the Torah or Pentateuch: ‘the child inherits the sin of the father’. (Or the sins of a xenophobic & nationalist stepfather)

In the larger picture of nations, relating to this inter-generational violence, should it not be the responsibility of several national leaders to stand up and state to the Israelis, whether the leaders of Russia, Germany or Spain, examples given, ‘do not treat the Palestinian as our Christian has treated the Jew’.

If only because it is the responsibility of leadership to demonstrate responsible attitudes in relation to the acts of nations; And crucial, is that nation which had transgressed most egregiously in historic times should demonstrate this courage to again confront the worst of these infantile and irrational behaviors, if only to remind the USA, not only Israel, do not dare to go down this road, do not dare to become the NAZIs.

By: Mike

The Second World War had only been over about two years and back home in Ireland things were still very scarce. Ireland had remained ‘neutral’ and most of her farm produce continued to be exported primarily to England.

My father had been discharged from the Royal Air Force as a result of a supposed injury. He was supposed to be totally disabled but to my knowledge he never missed a day’s work over the following twenty years. He must have got some finance from the British Government as in 1947 he opened a shop in Main Street. He had all new machinery and equipment and it seemed as if things were really looking up. I remember feeling very proud of the fact and his trade as a shoemaker and repairer began to take off.

Holidaymakers would come in droves from the UK with most of the British cities having their own special week. For instance, you would have the Glasgow week, or the Leeds week, or the Cardiff week and so on. The town’s population would swell by about double from eight thousand. Every available room and bed was brought into service and a week’s full board could be had for about £4. It was not unusual for especially the boys of the house, to sleep in sheds or in fact anywhere during these holiday periods. I knew some boys who actually slept in a local farmer’s hay barn.

You have got to understand that this was the time before a lot of British working class people had even heard of Spain, let alone thought of having a holiday there. 99 point 999 percent of similar people would never have dreamt of flying in an aircraft, excepting those who had been in the RAF during the war.

Anyway, visitors suddenly realised that Dad’s handmade shoes were, in Ireland, almost as cheap as ready-mades in the UK. Consequently, from about May onward, he would begin to receive written orders for new shoes to be ready in June, July or August when the customers arrived on holiday. Come to think of it, he charged locals’ £5 a pair and visitors £6. The foreigners were quite happy to pay.

In order to fill the orders, at certain times, Dad would be working from the crack of dawn, about 5am until way past dark into the night. He would make, I suppose, two pairs of shoes a day besides keeping up with his normal repair trade. These were good times as it kept him out of the pub and away from the pitch and toss-school on Sundays. It did, however, mean that all his meals had to be taken to the shop.

One evening, it was my turn to take him his tea. This was a task which each of the children looked forward to, as invariably, the meal consisted of a large fry-up and a pot of tea. Anything he did not eat was YOURS.

This was the major version of the Sunday morning ritual, when in strict rotation one of us would take Dad’s breakfast up to him in bed. It was the only time that he did stay in bed a bit late. His breakfast comprised of a very large fry-up, which would be known today as a major cholesterol boost. Once again, anything he left belonged to the one taking up the breakfast. I know I did, and I strongly suspect that the others did as well, pray with the most devout fervour, that he had been drinking the night before and could not eat anything.

On a really bad morning, you would get nothing more than a couple of rasher rinds. However, on a truly magnificent morning, you might be lucky enough to get a couple of eggs on fried bread, sausages and all the black and white pudding. That was like winning the pools……………..

Right, back to the story: Mum got everything ready and I was too impatient to wait for her to put the two enamel plates in a carrier bag. I said I would carry them in my hands. She made me check to see if they were too hot, but I withstood the pain. My objective was to get it to my Dad as quickly as possible, him to eat what he wanted and me to eat the rest. So, naturally, I was rushing………..

As I began to cross the street, in my haste, I slipped and dropped the whole lot over the road. I stood there transfixed – what in the name of God was I going to do. Luck played a part, as, unlike today, traffic was at a minimum and you could if you wished, play marbles in the centre of the street with the very odd car driving around you. You were in more danger of being bitten by a passing horse.

I decided that I had to do something quickly. If I went home, my mother would kill me and if I told my Dad he would even do worse if it were possible. I suppose it is really, come to think of it, especially if he kept beating you silly before he actually killed you. At least Mum would have been quick.

Another point to remember is that horses were used during and just after the way in lieu of cars. There were also a couple of farms just off Main Street meaning I suppose that the cattle and horses did not mind where they did their business. Anyway, I sat on the kerbstone, picked up all the bits and pieces, wiped the enamel plates with my sleeve and began a reconstruction.

The sausages I cleaned by licking them clean in my mouth quickly followed by a large spit out of the rubbish stuck to it. Next came the black and white pudding, which I similarly cleansed. There was a problem with the fried bread as some grit was stuck to it. However, with the aid of a matchstick from the gutter, that too was removed. The two eggs were licked clean and replaced onto the fried bread. “There, he would never notice”, I said to myself “but I must remember that whatever he leaves, I must not eat as I might get poisoned”. It never occurred to me that he might be so affected.

Right, so onward I went. To the shop and I gave Dad his meal. I was obliged to wait at the counter until he was finished. He soon got stuck in and was really enjoying himself. I thought to myself that I had made a remarkable recovery from my misfortune.

UNTIL————-

After a couple of minutes, I noticed that a bunch of my father’s drinking cronies began to arrive and lean on the counter. “Are you enjoying your grub Paddy?” one asked. “Too true” said my Dad “the best of the best – are you jealous?” “No” they chorused, “I bet it has a great flavour,” added one. “Too true” said Dad. “It should do” the other said to Dad, “Mick hopped it all over Main Street. It must be covered with cow and horseshit”.

Once again in my short life, I was struck dumb and numb and could not move. However, I called up all my reserves of willpower and strength and legged it out of the shop. A quick look behind and I saw that Dad was after me with his hammer. I ran and ran until he could not keep going and I waited a long time before going home and telling Mum. I went to bed that night dreading his arrival. However, he never did say anything and years later I learned that he was quite proud of me for the way I had resolved a very delicate, tricky, and indeed, sticky situation.

———————————————-

The strange thing about this story is that it does not end there: At my Mum’s Wake many years later, my younger brother Peter claimed that it was he who had had the mishap. I did not argue with him at the time but during a family story telling marathon some years later, I challenged him on the subject. He again claimed to have been the culprit. I asked him to tell his version and as soon as he started, I knew it was totally different to mine. He too, a few years after my mishap had gone through a similar experience.

On this occasion, we had moved to the new home about a mile and a half from the shop. Peter was taking the meal in a shopping bag on his bicycle. He says it was pelting rain and he had his head down. Suddenly he crashed into the back of a slow moving car.
He states that he was badly cut on the legs and face and sat in the road crying his head off. The driver of the car began to panic and asked, “Do you want me to call an ambulance son?” “No” cried Peter “just help me to get me daddy’s tea back; he is going to kill me”. They picked up the rashers of bacon, sausages, eggs, fried bread and of course the black and white pudding.

He continued to the shop and did not say anything. The only problem was that Dad saw the blood on his face and demanded to know what had happened. Peter says he began to cry again and blurted out to Dad what had happened. Apparently Dad did not give him a reason to cry any more – much to my surprise.

Ah those memories…………

by Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

Obama’s State of the Union Speech 

fallout @2012 Karla Fetrow

By Karla Fetrow

When most people think of the Cold War, they think of a time when communism was a palpable threat and Russia loomed, big and powerful, ready to step in and rule the world if America failed to protect Western freedom.  For most of America however, in the roaring nineteen seventies, Russia was little more than just another country half way across the world, dark and looming, mysterious and highly competitive.

Not so for Alaska.  The Cold War meant that you were up against an invisible fence, fortified by very visible artillery.  We always knew when tensions escalated between the East and the West, because tanks suddenly began rolling down pathways cut close to the roads, and jets swarmed, shattering the sky with their mechanical roars.  High in the mountains, you could see the large white discs of the Dew Line alert system and the occasional dome of a covered missile site, and you could never forget we were watching and being watched.

It was strange living in the shadow of a nuclear missile site.  You would think it would be comfortable, looking up at that astonishing projectile, knowing it was there to defend you, but it wasn’t.  The missiles were a reminder of how terribly fragile we are.  The one closest to my home was a part of the anti-missile defense; that is it was a missile to bring down the missiles that were firing at us.  It was so huge, ten people holding hands around the base would not be able to completely encircle it.  The newspapers made a pun that the next missile to be erected would be an anti-anti missile; that is, it would go after the missiles that were going after the missiles we had initially fired.  While it caused a few laughs, mainly it caused people to shudder.

The threat of a nuclear war was so real to us that hotels carried instructions for finding fallout shelters next to the Gideon Bibles on the dresser, the schools held routine drills and every home routinely replenished their cache of emergency water supplies and canned goods.  We had a bomb shelter; a rather makeshift one.  It was a concrete, half finished basement, with one small row of upper windows facing the mountains.  There we kept the ping pong table, the washer and dryer, several folding army cots, a broad band radio, medical supply kit, bottled water, canned goods, hand tools and a small generator.

Going into this basement was like entering a stage area.  Descending the steps you chose which dramatic role you would play, locked down in this half ethereal world of washing machines, ping pong games and basic survival.  Possible scenarios rose over and over again of the close huddling, the deathly quiet, the long hours of wait before you could resurface.  Sometimes it seemed more real, this prepared refuge against the holocaust than the ordinary life circling cheerfully upstairs.

While we were reminded every single day that we were teetering on the edge of war, we still had our own diversions from such morbid warnings.  The pipeline was being constructed and there was so much money in the air, it seemed you could just reach out and snap it up.  Everyone had jobs; good jobs; and the air was electric with flourishing businesses.

I was just out of my teens and sharing my first apartment with my sister, Mary, and our two significant others.  We were on an astronomy kick that year.  We shivered as we discussed black holes that somehow seemed more fearful than nuclear bombs.  We tried to chart constellations with star maps, usually failing.  We constructed a solar system from styrofoam balls and neon colored paints, pinning it to the living room ceiling.  Some of the planets were a bit out of proportion, but we were proud of it and fond of retelling everyone about the kid that informed us we had made a mistake – Venus wasn’t a planet, it was a star.

It was one of those very late nights when we stayed up to watch our local television station’s very own late night talk show.  It would have been boring except the cameramen were stoners with a sense of humor.  The host never even had guests, but conducted his show by sitting at a desk and answering telephone calls, while the cameras took aimless shots at his hands and feet, moved the stage props behind him, replacing them with plastic marijuana plants, and sometimes even let a streaker run across the stage.  It was amazing what you could get away with on the air at two in the morning, even more amazing the things it would occur to people to do if they’re out roaming around.

It occurred to someone to drop the bomb.  At least, that was our impression.  We felt the vibration first, a low muttering that chopped the air into little slow moving pieces.  Our solar system fell, one by one, the neon balls seeming to float.  Time moved so slow, we could track the progress of each ball visually, but so fast, no words could be uttered.  And then it hit us, a roar more thunderous than the crash of an angry ocean, followed by a bright, red-orange flash.  The concussion from the impact knocked the curtains from the windows and sent the chairs and table rattling across the kitchen floor.  Only one person said, “it’s begun…” but it was what we were all thinking.

I reached for the telephone, intent on calling my parents, four miles away, but she had gotten to the phone first.  It rang before I had a chance to start dialing.  “Is everything okay over there?”  My mother asked anxiously.

“Yes, we’re a bit shook up, but no one was hurt.”

“I just don’t know how it could have happened.  The base has been alerted, but they haven’t reported any unusual air traffic.”

I reassured her I’d call her back when I had learned more and walked to our now wide open door where neighbors were congregating.  Nobody knew anything.  The police had been called but the police lived in Anchorage and it would be twenty minutes at least before they arrived.  A few army helicopters hovered and swooped, flashing their spotlights over the clustered residential area and beyond to the wilderness swallowed in darkness.

“We should go to Tip’s bar,” suggested somebody, and everybody agreed.  If there were any expert opinions at all, they would be found at Tip’s.

There was some scattered debris between the apartments and the bar.  Nothing remarkable, just some cracked door posts, a collapsed car port, some broken outdoor furniture tilted like injured animals, but Tip’s Bar was in shambles.  The windows were smashed.  Half the bar stools lay out on the ground.  The customers seemed more confused about what had happened than we were.

“Them commie bastards.  I knew they’d come to this.  They’re blowing the fish out of the water so we can’t have any.  That’s what it is,” said one.

A few had already gone to their trucks and picked out their favorite rifles.  They had formed a posse and they were going out hunting for the culprit.  One had found religion.  “It was a miracle.  I was just sitting here, minding my own business, when the bar stools flew out of the bar, then half of them flew back in again.  It’s a sign.”

Throughout the rest of the night and all the next day, the entire community stayed on the telephone line trying to learn who dropped the bomb and why and debated as to how it had missed its assumed target, the military base just a few miles away.  It wasn’t until a couple of days later, we learned it had not been a bomb at all, but that someone had blown up a military bunker.  Within a week we had learned it wasn’t communists or an enemy agent at all, but four teenage boys who had taken on a bigger project than they had expected.

They had thought the bunker was just a shell and dynamited it, but it had been full of stored artillery.  The explosion had caused a three hundred foot crater in what had once been a rolling hill.  The boys had suffered flash burns and when they sought medical attention, it was reported. It was also reported that one of the boys had been too close and had died.

The bomb scare brought to the little community it’s first police force, but not before the citizens had organized their own patrol and was doing their own volunteer watch for trouble makers.  It also very neatly leveled out a large chunk of real estate that was carved into wealthy homes to be sold on the exclusive Powder Ridge.  Powder Ridge residents, of course, have no idea how their real estate got its name, but the locals who remember would rather leave that capricious piece of land to deal with its ghosts.

The day the East and the West decided to end their race to build nuclear arms and stack them along the borders was a day of enormous relief for Alaskan residents.  The day the missile silo was dismantled was like removing a giant shadow that had lingered too long, its dreary tread too pronounced, from in front of the sun.  We had been frightened by a bomb that wasn’t a bomb.  We had gone out to chase an enemy that wasn’t there.  An entire generation has grown up with no idea of what it means to be in the middle of a Cold War.  It’s dreary.  It’s dark.  It’s filled with distrust.  Every day, when you wake up, you feel lucky that everything is normal, that coffee is brewing in the kitchen, that trees are waving outside your door and that the bomb hasn’t dropped.

By: Grainne Rhuad

So, what did the SOPA/PIPA blackout achieve?

First of all, anything announced that has to do with internet and internet freedoms gets the attention of most people using the internet.  There are precious few people who want restrictions placed on their internet activity and those who do belong in one of two categories.

1. Government /Law enforcement agencies-because they need laws-at least superficially to go after people.  Especially people in other countries. 
2. Large Corporations and Industries like Music and Film licensing ones and Media outlets who want to make money off of people’s work.  Being able to give away your own work for free or sharing music, stories etc. with your friends really puts a dent in their pocketbook.

News of the shutdown seemed to bring retaliation from hackers who claimed credit for attacking the Justice Department’s website. Federal officials confirmed it was down for hours Thursday evening and that the disruption was being “treated as a malicious act.”

‘A loose affiliation of hackers known as “Anonymous” claimed credit for the attack. Also hacked was the site for the Motion Picture Association of America.”

P.S.-I love how the news outlets discribe and downplay Anonymous…scared maybe?

It seems to have worked however since a postponement has been called by SOPA’s author which will be discussed in a moment.

Whose Minds’ did it change?

It didn’t initially seem as if it changed anyone’s mind.  Those who were for SOPA/PIPA got up bright and fresh this morning and arrested people in New Zealand in exactly the manner SOPA lays out should be acceptable to us. 

4 people from the company Megaupload.com including the founder Kim Dotcom and 4 of his executives were arrested in New Zealand for breaking piracy laws in Virginia where one of their servers is located.  Even though they hadn’t broken any laws of New Zealand where they legally reside and at least Kim Dotcom is a dual citizen of Germany and Finland, The U.S. wanted extradition and received it.  Of the other three defendants two were German citizens and one is Dutch. 

Other people whose minds weren’t changed ranged from Musicians themselves to most of the U.S. representatives voting on the bill. 

In a bit of strangeness.  Robin Davey, an Independent Musician lately of the group Bastard Fairies, Writer and Award Winning Filmmaker. Came down on the side for SOPA.  Stating in an article he wrote for Gizmodo “People have further been led to believe that music holds no worth, and can be shared or streamed at little or no price. Piracy will remain as prevalent as ever having seen the legal alternative settle so low, and the artists, content owners, and creators suffer even further as they try to cope with ever diminishing returns.” 

See he is concerned with losing money on his creative potential, which is interesting as his band The Bastard Fairies has given away complete and partial albums for free as well as created music by inserting rap and reading around stolen beats from other artists.  In fact, complete songs produced by Robin Davey are pirated. 

But early this morning Senator Harry Reid (D- Nevada) went public with the following statement:

“In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday’s vote on the PROTECT I.P. Act.

“There is no reason that the legitimate issues raised by many about this bill cannot be resolved. Counterfeiting and piracy cost the American economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs each year, with the movie industry alone supporting over 2.2 million jobs. We must take action to stop these illegal practices. We live in a country where people rightfully expect to be fairly compensated for a day’s work, whether that person is a miner in the high desert of Nevada, an independent band in New York City, or a union worker on the back lots of a California movie studio.

“I admire the work that Chairman Leahy has put into this bill. I encourage him to continue engaging with all stakeholders to forge a balance between protecting Americans’ intellectual property, and maintaining openness and innovation on the internet. We made good progress through the discussions we’ve held in recent days, and I am optimistic that we can reach a compromise in the coming weeks.”

Also, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) announced on Friday that he will postpone consideration of his Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) until there is wider agreement on the controversial legislation.

“I have heard from the critics and I take seriously their concerns regarding proposed legislation to address the problem of online piracy,” Smith said. “It is clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.”

Just in case you didn’t know, Smith was the author of SOPA and its most vocal proponent. He had repeatedly said the bill did not need to be changed and accused the critics of “spreading lies.”

Do the Internet Outlets in fact have any power?

This is a question I was looking for in this whole Blackout.  Pretty big companies joined the blackout.  Like Google and Wikipedia.  Granted, they didn’t entirely Blackout, their services were still availably but they were pretty clearly supportive, one had to get around their front page to go to anything else.  The message was there.  People use both of these sites every day, several times a day and they will most likely continue to do so, however it didn’t initially seem as if they held much sway in this case.

People went about business as usual the day after and even the day during.  Most News outlets declined to participate and very many individuals commenting in social forums made light of the attempt to sway the government in their decision making.  A fact that at very least shows the lack of confidence the people have in those who govern them. 

Yet in light of the above statement from Sen. Reid and others today it would seem that the public outcry and new type of boycotting did have the effect intended.  Lawmakers took note and at least slowed down to take a better look at this particular set of laws. 

This is in and of itself is a sort of victory.  Yes this sort of protest works.  Particularly it seems if some big names are behind it.  Google and Wikipedia-A big thanks to you. 

Who is hurt by this thing called Piracy?

The people the lawmakers will have us believe are hurt by piracy are individuals who have created things, like art, music, literature, research.   However as we all know by now, at least here in the U.D. an “individual” can be a Corporation thanks to “Corporate Personhood”. 

Other people piracy could potentially hurt are those artists particularly musicians who are just starting out who have been known to have their material swiped off of sites such as YouTube and lately Mac’s Cloud application. 

Most for- sale download sites like ITunes, Amazon and Barnes&Noble make it clear that you are purchasing copyrighted material.  Their TOS already addresses the issue that SOPA and PIPA seek to put in place making them redundant.

It’s not like the early days of Napster where music is freely shared and nobody gets a piece of the pie except the one 13 year old whose mum bought him/her a CD for the holidays.  Although, Spotify raises some of these questions again…but there again their TOS is pretty clear.

Others who claim to suffer from piracy are those like J.K. Rowling who gets really pissed off at any fan fiction using her characters.  I frankly think this is in bad form.  If you have inspired a new generation to write with your characters as a jumping off point you should be quite proud.  Instead she has been quite litigious in her approach to dealing with anyone and everyone.   

Who is helped by it?

With 150 million registered users, about 50 million hits daily and endorsements from music superstars, Megaupload.com was among the world’s biggest file-sharing sites. According to a U.S. indictment, the site, which was shut down Thursday, earned Dotcom $42 million in 2010 alone.

Although the company is based in Hong Kong and Dotcom lives in New Zealand, some of the alleged pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia, and that was enough for U.S. prosecutors to act.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that the arrests set “a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?”

Alleged piracy seemed to help this company quite a lot as it was reported they had 150 million registered users and about 50 million hits daily.

Along with the arrests the company’s New Zealand Bank Accounts were frozen in amounts that equaled over $10 million dollars.  Also seized where rare vehicles like a Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe valued at over NZ$500,000.and various pieces of fine art.  So it seems they were making a pretty penny off of this thing called piracy.  Most of which was of Motion Pictures. 

The foreseeable trouble with this case is the films were uploaded by other registered members. The company, much like Napster did not put them up for sale nor did they upload them.  They simply offered a membership fee enabling people to share more content.  They were also supported by the very people they were supposedly pirating from.  Music industry giants like Black Eyed Peas and Jamie Foxx participated in videos supporting the service. Although after the arrests most parties denied it.

 

Besides being trance inducing…it’s pretty clear from the video they can’t deny they were a part of the commercial.

Is there a different, better-ish way?

Is there a way for us all to be happy, share content, practice writing, create fan fiction/videos/cartoons while making everyone happy and not costing artists money?

I think the answer is maybe. 

I say maybe because it will require less greed on the part of the J. K. Rowlings of the world.  A lot of artists whose books, movies, music sells on the internet were in fact against the bill and issued statements to that effect. 

Artists against SOPA including Trent Reznor, OK-Go, Neil Gaiman, and more wrote an open letter decrying the bill.  Many artists and celebrities added Stop SOPA to their twitter accts. The difference is these are people who are actively connected to their audience.  They make use of the new ways of communicating and encourage others to emulate them.  They very often give away their works for free.  This is because they have moved with the times and know the best way to get your work out to the people is to let them know about it.  If they love it they will pay.  We see this work very often at places like Bandcamp where naming your own price for music, even if it’s zero very often nets musicians more than they would get from the record companies.  People understand the work that goes into producing something and mostly they are willing to pay for it.  Name your own price works because of that and because of this trust in the artist-fan relationship nobody needs to worry about Piracy.

What have we learned in the last few days?

What I’ve taken out of this whole experience is that unexpected people care about unexpected things.  I never would have thought Robin Davey gave a shit about piracy.  I also never would have thought that the author of SOPA would listen to the world of the internet.  I am pleasantly surprised in that.  I went into this year feeling pretty good about the world in general.  Yes it’s in pretty bad shape and yes we are losing choices daily.  It’s definitely not 31 flavors out there anymore.  But we do still have the choice to stand for something.  And sometimes we are heard.  Which is really nice.  But what’s more important than being heard is standing up, because integrity is everything. 

Also pirates are not all bad, sometimes they take what is on offer and give it away to those who will improve on things and make them better.  It’s really the very wealthy and non-creative people who are most afraid of pirates, because they can’t make anything new.

By :Jane Stillwater

http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2012/01/bizarre-news-what-american-corporatists.html

After I got my long hair caught in a vacuum cleaner the other day, my first thought was pure terror — like I had just been attacked by werewolves or vampires with claws!  But then my second thought was, “Gee, at least I HAVE a vacuum cleaner”.

Despite the recent huge economic downturn, most Americans are still relatively well-off right now, even me.  Sure, our infrastructure sucks eggs and we mostly have run-down schools and hospitals, but at least we still have them.  Old and run down.  But still functioning at least.

But wait!  Perhaps help for our hospitals is finally on the way!  Is it really true that American corporatists have recently decided to spend over nine billion dollars to build at least 20 brand new state-of-the-art hospitals in Georgia?  According to RT News, yes indeed this is true.

The only problem here, however, is that the corporatists who currently own our country are now in the process of building these 20 wonderful new hospitals in the former Soviet-bloc state of Georgia — not in the American state with the same name that’s famous for peaches and Braves.  http://rt.com/politics/us-georgia-iran-war-441/

How bizarre is that news?

And now I’ve just read where American corporatists have recently sent in the U.S. Coast Guard to break up a strike by American longshoremen.  That’s even more bizarre than getting one’s hair sucked into a vacuum cleaner — and even more painful.  One can always just cut one’s hair off, but forcing America’s military to act like low-life strike-breaking scabs?  That’s a cut to our democracy that may never heal.

ILWU members had been promised jobs in Longview as a priority condition for allowing corporatists to receive massive federal subsidies to build a new terminal at the Washington state port.  But after the terminal was safely built, greedy corporatist slugs then fired the longshoremen’s union members point-blank — and not only got away with it but used the U.S. military as their own personal enforcers and thugs. http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/2011/10/san-francisco-unions-support-ilwu-local-21-at-egt/.

Am I the only one that finds this news a bit bizarre?

American coproratists seem to be getting away with EVERYTHING these days.  Cheating on elections, throwing people out of their homes, never paying taxes, robbing our treasury blind, fighting undeclared wars for fun and profit on our dime, beating protesting citizens with clubs, buying off Congress, etc.  But almost nobody in America seems to want to stop them.

Here’s more bizarre news — Stephen Cobert’s video explaining how corporatist superPACs steal our elections:  http://www.colbertsuperpac.com/

Had enough yet?  Or do you want to read some even more bizarre news about what corporatists are getting away with now?  Yes?  Then take a long look at this:  The unassailable New York Times, the esteemed Gray Lady herself, recently reported that the IAEA had accused Iran of using its nuclear program to develop military weapons.  But guess what?  The IAEA had said no such thing.  Now the esteemed Gray Lady has lied to us (again) in order to get us into a useless and unnecessary war (again) that would only benefit corporatists.  http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/times-errors-irans-nukes-sfs-voting/

Very deja vu.  Very bizarre.

But — to me (but apparently to nobody else) — this is the absolute most bizarre news of all:  Perry, Santorum, Obama, Romney and even Newt Gingrich and JEB Bush are all running on a platform of being good Christians.  Huh?  What?

NO ONE who either calls for the bombing women and children in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and America — or is actually out doing it — can EVER call himself or herself a good Christian.  Ever.  These people are no more good Christians than was Attila the Hun.

Send drones to kill babies?  Where in the Bible does it say that Jesus did that?

Leaving the meek of the earth to starve to death and the peacemakers of the world to be jailed?  Jesus is down with that too?  Not!

“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” said Jesus.  Beating down non-violent OWS protesters with pepper spray, tear gas and truncheons?  NOT CHRISTIAN.  Not Christian at all.

Yet no one seems to be calling these monsters out on their uber-hypocracy.  No one calls them out at all.  That’s bizarre.

And it’s also rather bizarre that all these corporatist presidential candidates are happily telling us that they are in favor of “Democracy”.  There is NOTHING less democratic than a corporation.  Face it, CEOs are tyrants.  Corporatists worship the dictatorship model.  To tell us that they want America to remain a democracy is absurd.

Corporatists by definition are top-down kinds of guys, “Do what I say or else you will lose all.”  Corporatists by definition are bullying-type authoritarians who spit on America’s treasured democratic principles — and don’t you ever forget it!

Now let’s turn to the comic-page section of the news.

The average American today seems to more and more resemble that Peanuts cartoon character Charlie Brown — always trusting that somehow Lucy will let him finally kick the football.  But guess what?  No matter how many times you vote for the party of Bush-Obama-Romney-Santorum-Clinton-Paul or believe mainstream media reports or trust corporatists to finally hold the ball upright, you are still gonna get tricked every time.  And you’re still gonna land flat on your face while corporatist secretly laugh at you as you lie there in the mud.  And it’s still gonna hurt.

How’s that for bizarre news?

By: Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

I’ve been reading some ridiculous perceptions that the homeless have some sort of freedom and this makes me sick to my stomach.  There actually are a group of people who romanticize homelessness.  They discuss it like it is a trip to some Floridian beach where you set up your tent and barbecue grill and beach chair; then, sit back and observe the setting sun and green flash along the skyline.I can’t tell you how sick this makes me, because it does everything to minimize the condition of homelessness. What I recall from my days of homelessness was about as oppressive and enslaving as some of the poverty conditions I’ve seen in other areas of the world.

I recall a strong sense of exhaustion from simply trying to survive; two sore arms from carting my worldly goods around in a carry-on suitcase every single place I went; and two of the worst weeks of sickness I’ve ever suffered through in my life.

Not only did I come down with the flu during my days in the winter shelter and living for two weeks on the streets; but I was so sick I passed out in one emergency shelter.  The diagnosis when I was treated at the hospital included:

• diarrhea
• syncope
• bronchitis
• a middle ear infection

…All at the same time.  And since I had no place to use the restroom or sleep during the day to get well, I laid on the lawn in front of the Glendale library, begging God to just take my life and end that misery.At night, I was forced to stand in line for two hours just to get a cot in the winter shelter so I could collapse on an army cot and freeze all night (until someone took pity on me and found extra blankets for me). After being forced out of the Glendale Adventist Hospital for not having insurance at 2 a.m. and not knowing where I was since I had been taken there by firemen; I was left to wander around alone and try to find somewhere safe to lay my head without blankets in the cold weather.  I was so disoriented that I walked around the hospital three times before I figured it out and wandered down the street for a mile to a church to pass out under it’s eaves alone.  I never would have been released in that disoriented state had I not been homeless; or had I been accompanied by someone that knew me.  And it was because someone found me that I’m probably alive today; because I’ve never been that sick in my life.

Does that sound like a Floridian vacation plan to you?

I slept on the cold hard pavement of a church for two weeks, not in a tent under the lovely stars and ocean winds.  I ate foods I couldn’t even identify after being starved for four months, just to get some nutrition and keep alive.  I had no money and was denied general relief because I had returned from El Salvador and had to be in the country for fourteen days before I qualified for that.  They called it a residency requirement, even though I had been in El Salvador on a tourist visa.  Even then, it took months for me to receive my first cash aid; because the case worker was playing power tripping games and sending me on goose chases to get four different bank statements, including statements from accounts closed ten years prior.  So I didn’t have those cocktail dollars to sit back and sip margaritas.

Nor did I have time to witness beautiful sunsets, since I had to be in line to enter shelters for two hours before 6:00 p.m. in order to get a cot.  And once I checked in, there was no leaving, even if I HAD the energy to cart my luggage to one more place that day…which I didn’t.  You see, taking your possessions through every type of metal detector and search to qualify for programs to help you takes a great deal out of you.  And toting a 50 pound bag behind you everywhere is not fun either.  And at 6:00 a.m. I was forced back into the cold to sit in the darkness until dawn broke, because the winter shelter closed at that hour.  I sat in the cold until 9:00 a.m. when the library opened and went in there to warm up before the sun came out and I could lie on the lawn as if I was reading a book.

Those were some of the hardest days of my life, because simply trying to exist without a home when you are ill takes vast energy reserves that you really don’t have when you are homeless.  The exhaustion of it all is still a nightmare for me.

So, who ever romanticizes being homeless — oppressed and persecuted by shallow shelter workers each day or case workers with major inferiority complexes to exist, is sick in my mind.  Even more sick than I was when I was homeless.

Declasse or Privileged Freedoms? You Tell Me!

• Deadbeat dads
• People who sponge off government aid
• Young people who prefer not to work
• Alcoholics
• Drug addicts
• Criminals and con artists

All of the people who make it tough for those who genuinely find a time in life where they are down on their luck and need help.Recently, I read a young man’s statements in a homeless forum where he was bragging that he was about to abandon his wife and two kids.  He was choosing to take up some “adventure” of homelessness, and in his warped mind he thought he would be living some life of survival and freedom.  He had the typical profile of selfish young men who abandon their kids: living with his wife’s parents; she was supporting him while he sat around all day conjuring up some Walter Mitty dream of a violent revolution against the U.S.  In short, he blamed the people of the U.S. for his poor decision making and life’s losses and now wanted to abandon his offspring and prove what a real loser he was.Unfortunately, there ARE people like this in homeless shelters.  They are the men who call all women “bitches and ho’s” to empower themselves; and who buck up at the first opportunity they can to prove how tough they are until a man takes up their challenge.  Then, they back off and apologize and become suddenly quiet until they can confront a woman.  They are abusive.  They are the lowest form of scum on this earth.  They are the scrubs that nurse off the social tit of society.

Then, there are the young people who drop out of high school around their junior year, partying their lives away and realizing in their twenties that their personal resume represents them on more on the level of a mentally challenged person than a potential employee.

Many of them have had a litter of kids by the time they’ve reached twenty one; and later had them taken away for abusing them.  They have five “baby-daddies” and are pregnant again.  They are “baby-daddies” who are impregnating another bimbo.  They spend all day in movie houses instead of employment centers; sometimes carting their offspring along to pass time.  They spend all their food stamps at hamburger stands or taco huts, instead of planning their meals to feed the kids healthy foods.  They may attend parenting classes, but they are so focused on themselves that they interrupt the sessions with a flurry of cellular calls instead of listening and learning how to raise their offspring.

In addition, there are the under thirty and thirty-ish adults who have spent their entire adult life smoking pot and other drugs, seeking drugs, selling stolen cell phones to fund it and hanging with others of like minds.  They are chronically homeless because their families have tossed them out long ago for their selfish and disrespectful behavior; and they’ve opted to live up to the loser label.  They will tell you they are “spare changing” and you see them on the streets in that pride-less state, begging for change instead of begging for a job.  They know every trick to get every free meal and every government benefit that exists.

Many of them are also the career criminals and con artists that pay twenty-five cents on the bus, explaining they have no more to pay when they have twenty bucks in their pockets.  They will talk fast to con you out of money.  They are the people who will connect themselves to the opposite gender to suck their financial well dry.  The women will offer oral sex for a pack of cigarettes and consider themselves marital material.  And many degenerate into the drunks and druggies that become chronically homeless.

So there!  I’ve called them what they are.

But the reason I did this is because they ARE NOT the majority of homeless people today. They ARE the most visible though. 

The shelters I stayed in had an assortment of life’s losers…there is no doubt.  I slept beside a crackhead one night that spent all night stroking himself.  I slept beside hardened gang bangers.  I slept beside women so tough from abuse that you didn’t even look their way; or they might have knocked you out.  All kinds of people who screwed up their lives and had a chip on their shoulder to prove it!

But I also slept next to many middle aged men and women who had once been middle-class people like your neighbors.  Ex-home owners.  Past secretaries, cement pourers, construction workers, hospital workers, assembly workers, accountants…you name it.  And they were trying as hard as they could to recover their lives.  They were not the ones that received the opportunities to do so, though.  They were overlooked and left to fend for their selves.  Maybe homeless shelters have the attitude that only the toughest survive.  I know society does.  And I know that to overcome homelessness, you have to adopt this attitude for yourself.

I hope reading this will bring reality to the condition of homelessness.  What you think exists in these shelters DOES exist.  And these people are shameless.

But there are so many people who may have been your neighbors in shelters today in the U.S. that we should be questioning when we decided to accept this spiral in lifestyles for middle class people.  And it is one of the reasons to support the OCCUPY movements across the U.S. and throughout the world.  The average Joe is now homeless, not out of failing in life, but because the wealthy have capitalized on controlling the masses by keeping them in the hardest conditions to survive.

Body Counts and Federal Grants

Why do you have to sign in each time you register for help when you are homeless?  The answer isn’t as simple as it seems.  The simple answer is that it verifies that different people are being helped through homeless services so the facility can qualify for federal and local city grant monies.But is that accurate?  Not if you consider the services offered and who they go to and who they don’t.

Let’s take your average Joe who becomes homeless after years of unemployment who doesn’t have a substance abuse problem as an example.  And let’s compare that to a person who has suffered years of substance abuse issues.

We’ll name the average unemployed guy, Joe; and call the woman with ten years of substance abuse issues, Kate.

Joe signs into a transitional shelter reading the informational sheet that if he uses any substance during his stay it will be grounds for removal.  So does Kate.

Joe has a history of responsible tenancy until he was evicted recently for non payment of rent.  Kate has been kicked out of several apartments for creating a disturbance due to her alcoholism.

Joe is expected to save his money towards a down payment on an apartment and follow the rules of the shelter; so that he can get his life back on track.  Kate comes into the shelter time and time again, so drunk she can barely function; sometimes, she is even brought to the shelter by the local sheriff.  She spends every penny she makes and saves nothing towards the deposit or rent on an apartment.  She is forgiven for breaking the rules because she is a special project of one of the Directors who is trying to gain additional grant monies for placing chronically homeless people in shelter.

Joe spends 60 days in the transitional shelter busting his butt and trying to find work to get himself off of general relief.  Kate busts her butt seeking another bottle to dull her feelings of inadequacy in life.  After 60 days living as a model client in the program of the shelter, Joe is told he has to move to another transitional shelter because his time is up and he hasn’t found a job or apartment.  After 60 days and a long history of breaking every rule in the shelter, Kate’s time is extended and she is told she is about to get a voucher for HUD housing that Joe is not offered.  Joe is caught with alcohol on his breath and is thrown out of the shelter.  Kate is allowed to continue showing up obviously drunk and is allowed to remain.

How does this happen, you ask?

Because placing Kate is a special project.  Her case will keep the body count that the shelter is helping much higher than placing Joe.  Kate will be placed in a Section 8 HUD Housing apartment and most likely fail to maintain it, much as she has done throughout her history of substance abuse; because she is not treated for the condition that causes her problems.  Joe will most likely succeed in maintaining his residency and the apartment will remain occupied and he will have an opportunity to get back on his feet and stop one more person from being homeless.  Kate’s tenancy will end much as it has in the past; and the apartment will open up again for another special project placement.  Kate’s situation offers a body count for placement and opens the apartment up for another body count for placement when she fails.  After all, it’s not the shelter’s fault that she has substance abuse issues and they can say they tried to help her, right?  Joe’s case only offers one body count for placement; because he isn’t a problematic person..

And such is the way shelters handle these “special projects” where they really don’t help the person accomplish the task of gaining a stable life condition.  But it does provide more funding for the shelter who claims they are helping a number of homeless people.  In shelters, those signatures and body counts are everything.  They are used for advertising on web sites…citing hard placement cases that the shelter has overcome; as applications for special grant funding; and for an array of reasons.  Joe’s case is simply one homeless person that most likely will recover his life.  It isn’t a sexy marketing tool for shelters.  It doesn’t qualify for higher funding for having many complexities.

Now the question is…why aren’t grant funding investigators looking into how many people succeed in remaining housed AFTER they are placed and figuring those numbers into success metrics?

And there you have the profit and loss of housing homeless people and why many shelters seem to operate in a biased fashion when dealing with various homeless people.  Why doesn’t the general public know this?  Guess!

For more, check out Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda’s blog at http://lawsonzepeda.blogspot.com/

By: Jane Stillwater

[Author's note: For the wiser of us, this article may appear to be a satire but for the rest of us, a war on Iran might actually seem more like a macho wet-dream come true -- once again confirming Plato's most excellent cave theory...]

Let’s put our money where our mouth is, stop constantly blathering on about how desperately we want to launch a war on Iran — and just do it.  I’m bored with life anyway — and there’s really not much else going on between now and when the next season of “Survivor” starts up.

Almost all of the Republican presidential candidates this year seem to be rabidly in favor of a war on Iran (except, of course, for Ron Paul — but he’s never given any media airtime so he doesn’t count).  So let’s vote for Romney or Gingrich or Santorum or that GOP wannabe Obama or Perry or whoever.  I’m tired of just playing video-game wars and watching war movies.  I want to see the real thing.  Again.

Republicans, GOP wannabes and their corporatist buddies on Wall Street already have an excellent “make-a-war” track record.  They’ve already gotten us into that bloody, expensive and deadly war on Iraq, that terrible, unnecessary and grisly war on Afghanistan, and that truly weird war on Libya wherein Al Qaeda was actually our ally.

When it comes to starting exciting-but-disastrous wars, Republicans and corporatists have turned out to be real pros.  So, pretty pleeze, give these cool-crazy dudes yet another shot at getting us into yet another meaningless, expensive and bloody war — this time a war on Iran.  I can hardly wait!  How exciting is that!

Do you ever watch TrueBlood on TV?  And don’tcha just love it when they stage their vampire wars?  Lots of carnage, lots of blood.  Very entertaining.  But a war on Iran would be even better — another American vampire war on the Middle East, only ours are fought with real blood.

Go ahead, guys.  Get this war started.  Entertain me.

And when things go awry like they always do during wartime, then you and me will probably be dead too — after corporatist vampires start sucking blood from us as well as from Arabs and Persians.  Go ahead, bite me!

Can’t you just hardly wait for this next war to start?

And it looks like we’re not gonna have to wait very long either.

According to WhiteOut Press http://www.whiteoutpress.com/articles/q12012/us-troops-going-to-israel483/, “In one of the most blacked-out stories in America right now, the US military is preparing to send thousands of US troops, along with US Naval anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel, to Israel.”  U.S. boots on the ground in Israel?  What?  Now all of a sudden the IDF isn’t good enough for Ehud Barak and he wants our boys over there too?

But why?

The poor enslaved Palestinians have already been subjugated and subdued by the IDF to the point of embarrassment (it’s getting harder and harder these days for Israeli corporatists to pretend that Israel is in danger — or even a democracy or even barely Jewish).  So obviously our troops won’t be needed to enslave more Palestinians or steal more of their land.  That’s already a done deal.  So perhaps this sudden need for U.S. missiles and U.S. troops on the ground indicates that our Ehud might want Washington’s help in enslaving and subduing Iran as well — turning it into yet another open-air prison like Gaza.

According to Israeli journalist Uri Avnery, however, that’s never going to happen and we’re all gonna end up with a swamp of a war instead — because if America and Israel do attack, then Iran will simply block the Strait of Hormuz, and there’s not much that even American vampires can do about that.

“Still the Iranian missiles will come in,” writes Avnery, “making passage through the strait impossible.  What next?  There will be no alternative to ‘boots on the ground’.  The  US army will have to land on the shore and occupy all the territory  from which missiles can be effectively launched.  That would be a major operation.  Fierce Iranian resistance must be expected, judging from the  experience of the eight-year Iraqi-Iranian war.  The oil wells in  neighboring Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states will also be hit.  Such a war would go far beyond the dimensions of the  American invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan, perhaps even of Vietnam.”  http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1325859818/

Yay!  Bring it on!

According to Middle East expert David Pratt, “Some European countries, notably France, seem keen to fall in behind Washington’s sanctions bill signed by President Barack Obama on December 31.  Earlier this week French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe urged EU countries to follow the US lead in freezing Iranian bank assets and imposing an embargo on oil exports.”  http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/sense-must-prevail-to-avoid-iran-catastrophe.16371043

Oh goody!  Now Europe wants to get in on the action too!  Now we’ll all die for sure as the war on Iran begins to expand and sweep across the rest of the Middle East, Israel AND Europe — and then possibly on to America as well, probably leaving only those One Percent guys alive in their bunkers and in an excellent position to snatch up whatever pieces of prime real estate that are still left standing.

And I’ll have my own piece of prime real estate too — the plot next to my parents at Skylawn.  Face it, guys.  I always wanted to be a zombie — and here’s my big chance!  Grateful dead, move on over.

“But Jane,” you might ask, “why are you being so pessimistic?  All those experts are wrong and the Repubs are right.  America can easily win a war on Iran.”  Nope, nope, nope.  Iran is not just some camel-driven economy that is barely out of the stone age.  Tehran is as civilized as Paris or Rome.  I’ve been there, I’ve seen the place.  It’s got the internet and traffic gridlock and everything.  It’s even got Gucci, Benneton and Calvin Klein!   http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2011/01/iran-vs.html

Iran also has at least 20 submarines and all kinds of missiles.  Should America or Israel attack Iran, there would definitely be a hot time in the old town tonight.  And not just in Tehran — but probably in Tel Aviv, Paris, London and perhaps even Washington DC as well.  Get out the marshmallows, folks!  This war will definitely heat up.  We’re good to go.

According to Global Research at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28511, “The Iranian defense has the capability to sink not one, but many US Naval ships currently flexing their muscles on the periphery of Iranian territorial waters.   Such an event would register with shock and horror in the US public mind, but worse, may be used by Washington hawks to justify a revenge nuclear strike against Iranian civilians.  Both Washington and Tel Aviv have already raised the talking point of deploying ‘tactical nukes’ against Iran….

“Any nuclear conflagration by the US or Israel would most certainly result in a global backlash against the West – at its worst acting as a procession into the hot stages of World War III – or at its very least, re-balkanizing the geopolitical scene into a New Cold War, with the West on one side and Iran, China, Pakistan, and Russia on the other.”

Barbeque time?  Oh yeah.  We might even end up being able to roast hot dogs 24/7 almost anywhere in the whole world — or be dead.

PS:  I recently saw a really excellent movie (here’s a review of it: http://www.ebertpresents.com/movies/a-dangerous-method/videos/338) about Freud and Jung and Jung’s mistress, Kiera Knightly — and they all got together and talked about Eros and Thanatos and the human mind’s bizarre attraction to death.  Hey,  I’m attracted to death too!  Death is sexy as hell.   But I’m obviously not the only one that is attracted to death.  Apparently our so-called leaders in Washington are too.

Love or Death?  “TrueBlood” or “Survivor”?  I’m sort of kinky that way — bored of living — so I think that I’ll go with TrueBlood.

Which one will you chose?

By: Mike

(It is during winter months, such as we are presently having, that my mind often – but not often enough – wanders and I think of those who are not as fortunate as most of us truly are. I speak of those who have absolutely nothing and for whatever reason they find themselves roaming the bright lit streets of all our major cities. They are commonly called vagrants, dossers, rough sleepers and such. Old Mary was one such person. I would love to think that the sight is of many years past, but I am afraid that there are still some people who slip through the welfare net. Think of them once in a while…………………..).

When I came to London in 1966 and joined the police, I soon learned that there were numerous people who wandered the streets and slept rough in park shelters or wherever they could find a little respite from the winter wind, frost, snow and rain.

There were of course Government sponsored ‘places of shelter’ but they would only allow a person to stay for a week or two, then they had to get back on the road. ‘Battered Wives’ Refuges’ had not yet been organised and many wives who were at their wits end merely walked out of their homes and wandered the streets day and night. It was pathetic and pitiful……………….

Many of those I came across were of a professional background, be they doctors, surgeons, solicitors and the like although the majority were just plain poor. On night duty in particular I used to stop and speak with many and I came to know quite a number of them and their backgrounds.

One in particular was an Irishwoman I knew as Old Mary and she was aged about 60. Because of her hard life she did in fact look more like 75. She was a charming woman with a wonderful west of Ireland accent. She spoke intelligently and had obviously received a good education.

Her story was like many of the others. She had married young in Ireland and came to London with her husband to seek their fortune. She never had any children. Her husband, like many of the Irishmen of that period liked his beer and spent most of his earnings from the building site in the pub before coming home. She told me that she often found herself without a penny to provide the type of meal he always demanded.

At first, the abuse was verbal but it quickly became physical. He tried to force her to prostitute her body but as she was a staunch Catholic she refused. This led to more violence. She was one of those women whose mother always quoted the old saying that ‘Now that you have made your bed, you must lay in it’. Whenever she spoke to the priest in her local church, he too preached her about the ‘sanctity of marriage’ and told her to stay with her husband. The Police in those days would not get involved in ‘Husband and Wife disputes’. Thankfully, that has changed and ‘victims’, no matter what the relationship with the person responsible, get the full protection of the law through Domestic Violence procedures.

Old Mary stood the mistreatment for more than ten years until one evening her husband came home drunk and began punching her about the house. She waited until he had gone to bed, took some of her clothes and walked out. She had nowhere to go with no friends whom she could call upon but she did not care. She was free……

And so her long wanderings about the streets of the East End of London began. As the song, ‘The Streets of London’ says, she was seen ‘Carrying her home in two carrier bags’. She had her regular haunts and some of the local people came to know her. She detested so-called charity but occasionally accepted a little money. When I met her, she had been on the streets for about fifteen years.

Occasionally, especially during the harsh winter months, she would be traced by the Salvation Army Social Worker and almost forcibly taken to one of their establishments where they bent the rules and allowed her to stay until the spring weather arrived.

Finally, I did not see her anymore and thought that she must be staying at the Salvation Army Hostel but learned from another rough sleeper that she had been found dead outside a local Catholic Church the previous Christmas. I like to feel that she died peacefully close to her only friend in this world – and indeed the next……….

An old Irish poem of my childhood often reminds me of Old Mary and when I think of her, I thank my God for everything I have and say a prayer that she now rests in peace…………………

Old Woman of the Roads.

By Padraic Colum.

O, to have a little house
To own the hearth and stool and all
The heaped up sods against the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall.

To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown.

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store.

I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loath to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph.

Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush.

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house – a house of my own
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way