fart on conrad-izzy
The Rude Macedon
 question everything
fight lies truth is beauty
VOICELESS NO MORE!!!!

current
Top Of The List!
Canadians for Canada Coalition (CCC) - United Left, if you will - but bottom of the line - Get Rid of Corporate Government in Canada - 2004 Federal Election may be your last chance - act NOW PLEASE!!
The Debt Conspiracy Theory Fact - do you believe people who email you from Africa wanting to give you 10 million bucks? No? Well WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THE NATIONAL DEBT IS LEGITIMATE?!?!? (Sorry - I get excited about this...)
911 - as important as the debt scam - ask yourself why you are so afraid to admit the truth here, even when it's been kicking you in the face almost since it happened? When the world you live in is operating under a lie this big and obvious and monstrous, you have no security whatsoever.
Democracy - well - it is or it isn't. We're in control or not. What do you think?
 RM-Vol 1 No STILL WORKIN ON IT MORE May 22/2003

Lead Rant Editorial

Here Buy One, Get One Free is a(nother) very good essay by an Indian writer named Arundhati Roy, whom a lot of you probably know already. It's her latest talk, given recently in New York, and it's about the new American Empire - early on she says "...may I clarify that tonight I speak as a subject of the American Empire? I speak as a slave who presumes to criticize her king...".

It's a truth (she is one of the great truth and freedom fighters in the modern world) that we all better start acknowledging, although just ignoring it is certainly easier, and will undoubtedly be the path of choice for many. Not unlike going along with Hitler was the easiest thing to do for a few years in 1930s Germany. Caught up to em in the end though, as things are going to catch up fairly quickly, I'm thinking, to those today who refuse to acknowledge what's happening in New Fascist America. I still can't think of Bush as Hitlerian, though - a pathetic strutting puppet, although evidently a nasty enough little man - little being the operative word, of course - whereas Hitler was nasty and little, but evidently charismatic and powerful to go along with it - I have never read of anyone supposedly pulling Hitler's strings (no, I'm not going to make a bad Eva Braun joke here) - with Bush, it is a given that corporate money is giving him marching orders and filling out his teleprompter cards (they won't let him near a real live interview situation where he would have to say something non-idiotic on his own, evidently - the few chances he did have in the past - well - "Is our children being educated? ..." kind of speaks for itself.

But this isn't about Bush - there are many good sites out there exposing the pimple for what he is. Just a couple of quick quotes from many of Roy's in this essay to choose from (she is very good with words): "(The Iraq invasion)... ushered in an old doctrine in a new bottle: the Doctrine of Pre-emptive Strike, a.k.a. The United States Can Do Whatever The Hell It Wants, And That's Official." - truth. (As proven indirectly by the fact you will NEVER read it in the mainstream media - their aversion to truth at this time in history will be perhaps the 8th (or 9th - I don't know where the opening is) wonder of the world)

And this one - "After using the "good offices" of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million children dead, its infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons had been destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be unrivalled in history, the "Coalition of the Willing" (better known as the Coalition of the Bullied and Bought) - sent in an invading army! .... Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don't think so. It was more like Operation Let's Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees." - more truth - I've been wondering why I haven't seen a bit more on this - absolutely amazing, to spend as much time and effort as the US did to make sure Iraq was as unarmed and weak as possible (after 12 years of debilitating sanctions, at that!) - and then go in with all cannons blazing, blaring out through their "embedded" (I would read whore-like - sorry, immediate apology - prostitutes are (by and large) honest purveyers of a demanded service - "embedded" journalists are people who sell their services to the highest bidder in the service of evil ends - despicable people, unlike sex-workers - on a scale of 1-10 sex-workers 10 embedded journalists some negative figure) media trumpeting their praises, denigrating the Iraqis, lying as much as possible. The bully-like cowardice is absolutely stunning, classical, a veritable exemplar of the genus Homo nonsapien bullicus berserker assholicus. I guess because they're the biggest, spoiledest kid on the block, and they have the biggest guns and toys, and the least morals, few people want to take the chance of upsetting them. (Fidel Castro has to be by far the ballsiest leader on the planet - which is why he is also far and away the most hated by the bullying US government).

Here's another guy who ought to be on every thinking Canadian's mailing list, Stephen Gowan and his What's Left site - a fairly serious truth-see-er (and more importantly, caring enough to talk about it), who turns out these gems of essays a few times a month. This is the latest, also about the recent US invasion - like a few of us, Stephen is not buying the story about "it's finished! - fergetaboudit and get on with life!" - we can't do that. Great wrongs have been done by America (and others) over the last 50 years - wrongs whose effects are ongoing, and tens of millions of people are still suffering greatly due to those wrongs, and new generations of children are facing miserable, almost hopeless lives due to those wrongs, and it is a blight on the face of the universe that we, the supposedly sane citizens of planet Earth (as opposed to the out and out berserkers such as the American government crew, CEOs, etc), are allowing them to continue.

Anyway - another very good writer, Stephen also has a pretty fair way with words - "U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, who seems to follow H.L. Menken's observation that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of Americans..."

... or this one, a bit long, but it seems to me to be very close to the heart of a lot of what is going wrong on our world today - too few people getting involved, too few people standing up and shouting out "THIS IS FUCKING WRONG!! STOOOOOPPPPPP!!!" - those of us who do are pretty marginalized usually - but as long as these old grey cells keep waking up in the morning, I will be out there. But Stephen's slightly more detailed explanation, about the same issue from the same article -

"Which brings us to a third stream of discussion, a not very involved or detailed one, for it reduces to two words: Who cares? This is not to say that people don't care, only that life moves on, and that (1) there's not a lot that anyone can do within the comforts of their everyday life, (2) there's not a lot that anyone can think of doing, and (3) there's not a lot that anyone is prepared to do. Which is why, when someone jumps up and down about Washington predicating its attack on Iraq on bullshit, most people say, "It's too bad, but look, it hasn't hurt me, and in the end the people of Iraq will probably be better off anyway. So, you know, it's not something I'm going to get agitated about...."

It does seem like a big problem, much bigger than most of us can possibly deal with - but deal with it we must. Or someday, the grownups of the universe are going to be looking at ALL of US like we (at least those of us who think about history a bit) look back to the Germans of the 1930s thinking - "How could they have let that madman take over their country and do what he did??"

Well - I'm sure you're about as sick of this Mr. Nice Guy shit as I am - it is useful to point out the good guys, but we're here to jump the bad guys - just call me Gandalf or Neo (haha). Let's get on to the real point of what we're doing here. Here, for instance, is a prime piece of propaganda from (where else) that trusty old National Pispot (c'mon Izzy and Terrence and Diane and all you Pispoters - you're not gonna keep takin that shit are you? sue the fucker!!)

Michele Landsberg loses it
National Post Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Basically, it is an ad hominem attack on Ms Landsberg of the Toronto Star, whose story we talked about here (in somewhat different terms!) a couple of days ago, wherein she talks about an interview with another Canadian (real) journalist (unlike the corporate propagandists-fascists-scum of the NP) who asks some pretty serious questions about what has become to be known as "911" - the destruction of the World Trade Center. A lot of people think there are a lot of unanswered questions about that day (not that you'd ever know it by reading the mainstream media) - but the US government is BY GOD NOT going to have any investigation of it! - which is a pretty strong prima facie case in itself that they're up to their eyeballs in guilt (when was the last time you heard of some innocent person scared to death of an open investigation?). But the NP, bootlickers extraordinaire of the Repugnant American Fascict Party (leading the Canadian Benedict Arnold revisionist party), are not going to hear of it - SCHNELL!! is their battle-cry (means Stop!, for those whose German is a bit weak). Aside from several paragraphs of vitriol directed at Ms Landsberg (of the "We really don't like that person, so we will accuse her of every bad thing we can think of" variety - these NP editorial writers are just so clever), their sole offered reason for not wanting this written about (or god forbid questioned) is that "...Whatever currency these theories once enjoyed was blown away last year by a stream of confessions and operational disclosures from captured al-Qaeda commanders...."

Aside from the fact that this is simply not true (I can't figure what they're referring to except some of the disproved Bush Cabal lies - there were a few second-rate, pretty compromised in terms of CIA-connections, "captures", but nothing approaching major leader "confessions"), even if it were, it does not address any of the major questions Zwicker and others are concerned about - i.e., even if there was any credibility to the stories of Al Quaeda commanders confessing - what about the stand-down of the American military on that fateful morning for the best part of two hours? Known-to-be hijacked planes heading for Washington, and NO fighter jets scrambled to protect the nation's capital in TWO FUCKING HOURS!!??!! - UNTIL THE DEED WAS DONE?? I don't recall even the American government claiming Al Quaeda ordered that!! (they are very carefully and even aggressively avoiding acknowledging the question at all, let alone answering it). Or the insider stock trading - a big story for a few hours - until some European reporters traced the trading to the CIA!!! - and then, for some reason - we have never heard a peep about it since!!! wowser. Or what about the "coincidence" that all of the major corporate leaders headquartered at the WTC were at some fundraiser at an air force base in Idaho or some godforsaken place that morning!! - and goshdarn it if George's Air Force One didn't (fuck dare I say coincidentally again?) wound up at - that same air force base after he scampered out of Florida, a few hours later!! - did the Al Quaeda guys confess to that stuff, NP?

"The truth, of course, is rather less dramatic. While 99 out of every 100 Canadian journalists do indeed find Ms. Landsberg's nonsense "embarrassing," it is not for any lack of courage. Rather, they recognize that Mr. Zwicker's "Big Lie" theory is an eccentric crock. The reason they haven't reported on it is because they're good reporters." - Well, let's see if we can find our way just a bit closer to the truth, as we try to do here. Any real reporters would be embarrassed by this shit - a whole bagful and then some of unanswered questions about what happened that day, NO official investigation of any sort, against all precedent, a non-elected government (again a startling avoidance of this issue by the NP-ilk reporters) led by an appointed president with a very shady past (see previous re avoidance of issues)) which has since proved itself over and over to be a congenital liar, and almost every so-called reporter in the country (we are counting "reporters" here in Canada who work for the major media as US "reporters" here, since their masters are obviously taking orders from the US masters) rolling over and lapping up the most outrageous crap thrown at them by the American government without a single question. Which is to say, 99 out of 100 Canadian "reporters", according to the NP, are bought and paid for propagandists. Oh well, we knew that already. Nixon must be rolling in his grave - "Why couldn't I have been president 30 years later, after the death of the press?")

One last one - it's pretty sickening (hope you got yer kids in bed) - but also pretty revealing: ...We will not try to argue down Ms. Landsberg: Clearly, her logic circuits have been blown by a blinding hatred of the United States... - this is, in a nutshell, how the NP tries to deal with any real journalists out there (there are a few) who just expect to do a (real) reporter's job and ask questions and get to the "truth" of stuff (a word I love and respect and the NP obviously hates) - also a common tactic of those who are trying to bullshit their way through something - attack the reporter, not the story - since the story (many unanswered questions indicating probable complicity of the US government in the WTC destruction) is something they obviously do not want to examine, they must destroy (or try to) the bearer of such unwanted tidings. In reality, of course, Ms Landsberg, as a decent human being and good journalist (note the lack of quotation marks - using the word in its real sense here), simply wants to get at the truth, for her readers - she does not have any "blinding hatred" for the United States, she simply sees what she believes to be a situation requiring some action, and tries to write about it. Indeed, it would be the so-called "editors" (again the brackets - real "editors" are good human beings, doing a responsible job of reporting on the events of the day, which those claiming the title at the NP are very obviously NOT) of the NP who have a "blinding hatred" of anyone with any access to mass media who tries to engage in fair and honest reporting, and work for the good of the people in the country, rather than the elites for whom the NP people are such obvious shills.


The RM archive copy - read it all here if the original link has problems (and yes I know putting THIS kind of NP stuff on the site considerably lowers the high journalistic standards we try to maintain and somewhat increases the smell factor - but ya do what ya gotta do sometimes - and these guys are top of the list of people who need talkin to (c'mon Izzy - sue me!HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH))


Well - that's about it for another day. So much left to say, so little time to say it in. I hope you're thinking about getting involved here - we need help to fight these berserkers. Write if ya want.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: With thanks to the Editors of the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Ch'town Guardian, Vancouver Sun, and others I cannot think of at the moment, for their refusal to print my letters over the last few years on various issues of national import - had I even a hope of being printed occasionally in these fora and my voice acknowledged in the national debate, I would undoubtedly have not bothered putting all this together. Cheers!