International Citizen's Inquiry Into 9/11

Phase 2, Toronto, Canada
May 25 – 30, 2004
Recent
0507-There I said it again..
0430-again and again...
0423-How many columns...
0416-fish rot from the head
0410-The Box II
0403-The Box
0331-A 'Rang & a 'Roo Too!
0322-How Old!!???
0314-The Golden Rule...
0304-Everybody had a wet dream...
0229-LEAPing confusion...
0221-.. a nose job...
0214-Heads I win...
0206-Divided we fall...
0131-Dear Kofi..
0124-We the WHOHAHA??
0119-Get outta my bong!
0110-Happy WHAT?!?!?
RM Archives
current Top Of The List!
Change - we know the problem - what the fuck are we going to DO about it is the question...??
Ammo - selection of very good commentary from other writers on important stuff - FAAAAARRRRR BETTER THAN TV!!!
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.
Word Warriors and Others of Note
Unbrand Your Life

Pogo knew....

stop this....

and this....
and this....

Thomas D'Aquino
Hand of Mordor
in Canada
Happy Canada Day

stop this...

save this...

1984
random quotes
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human
face - forever. George Orwell 1984
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Albert Einstein

mama mama who dat scary man mama??!!
HAHA HAHAHA HAHAHAHA !!!!!!!!!!
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040523 - the Occam thing...
geez what's happened - procrastinating and reflecting and lazy! I must have been zapped by some evil space alien or CIA-CSIS jerkoff to try to stop RM from changing the world HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA IT WON'T WORK YOU EVIL FIENDS OF MORDOR HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
naaaaa - just a brain zonk after half a million words or more the last year. awesome. a wonder I survived this long without taking a few days of down time. a one-year pause for some thought.
orrrrrrr - maybe there was SOMETHING in the last issue (that was a damn good letter HAHAHAHAHAAA) that the powers-that-be in the universe - the universal balance stuff, nothing personal at all - wanted someone somewhere to see, and some other arrangement had it so that that person or persons weren't going to get to RM until now, so it had to stay up a few extra days. Who knows? - all I know for sure is that it is a big, confusing place out there, and there's a whole fuck of a lot more I don't know about what it's all about than what is going on. and a few days hardly makes much difference in the big scheme of things - nothing much changes.
This week's second letter first (one of the dangers of writing over many days - continuity can get tricky - but then life is already tricky so what the hell HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA) - anyway, after once again practically swearing off wasting my time writing letters to people who never respond, I try once again - at least RM is sort of a public record for this stuff, and will limit the ability of these people to say, at some point in the future, “Golly! Who’d ever have thought THAT - I had NO idea really!!!” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA:
To a certain Jeffrey Simpson of the Globe, who used to be better - but then, so did the whole Canadian media:
Dear Jeffrey Simpson,
In your column Rich, gifted and incompetent: the Ontario enigma (RM copy following this letter) of May 21/04 in the Globe and Mail, you ask, "...what is it about the governance of Ontario that keeps producing these mistakes, and this cycle of recurring deficits, regardless of which party governs?..."
Well, perhaps I can steer you to an epiphany of sorts, as the low-born are occasionally called upon to do for the highborn. I'll tell you what happened, and continues to happen, Mr. Simpson, if you really want to know, to lead to this puzzling situation - for it is indeed seemingly odd, that the wealthiest province in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with hard-working, well-educated citizens, who pay significant taxes, should be so strapped for finances in its government. It is hard to believe you would not already be aware of what I am about to relate - but then, as one who has written from within the power structure for so long, embedded as it were in the corporate-government-media nexus that controls us all, it is also understandable that you could conceivably be in one of those "can't see the forest for the trees" situations. So I will take a few minutes and direct you to some ideas that just possibly have managed to elude you for the last few years - none of us, after all, can be expected to know everything - and, certainly, what I am about to tell you has never, to my knowledge, appeared in the mainstream media, so those dependant on this media for their information, or embedded therein, will have had to figure this out by themselves - which people are not by and large encouraged to do, these days - or been lucky enough or curious enough or perseverant enough to stumble across one of the alternative sources of information available to those who seek wisdom concerning some of the mysteries of modern life.
The problems in the economy, and budgets (not only of Ontario, obviously, but all across the country), I can tell you with some assurance, are not mistakes, or well-meaning people making poor decisions, or acts of god or otherwise inevitable, or "natural economic cycles", or swirls and flows in the currents of the universe in that backwater planet called Earth whose seemingly endless warlike proclivities have stalled indefinitely an invitation to the Greater Galactic (Peaceful!) Empire - no, the things happening in the economy are the direct result of intentional government policy, with highly predictable outcomes. The budgetary problems faced by all Canadian governments could be solved essentially overnight, were the political will there to do so. The political will, however, unfortunately for most of us (although to the great benefit of a few) is directed in somewhat different directions.
Hint: the case of Air Canada is a perfect exemplar - there is something in the news always that, if looked at in a holistic, historical sort of way, reveals to the aware mind what is happening. Robert Milton is signing gold-plated contracts and parachutes for he and his top aides - while demanding the employees take significant pay cuts. Or - the average family in the opening year of the 21st century here in Canada needs both adults working full time to maintain a standard of living that, 30+ years ago, could be maintained by one adult working. What happened to progress, Mr. Simpson? At least for ordinary Canadians? What happened to "new technology leading to better lives, less stress, more leisure" as we were all promised? Did such things disappear from natural causes - or were they intentionally taken from us?
Think of it now - the people running our economy - the high-level corporate execs and Boards of Directors and Bankers and others occupying the top levels of the Bay St towers, and the top level government politicians and bureaucrats, are not (all) stupid people - they all have decades of experience and access to the best advice available, and have been running successful business enterprises for decades. If they want to build a CN tower, or a railroad from coast to coast, or an Avro Arrow (most advanced jet fighter in the world in its time), or get paychecks out to a million people every month on time, projects and records and budgets that must be managed and carefully controlled within certain parameters for years and decades - they can organize the people and materials and space to do such things with a very high success rate. Organising the day-to-day financial dealings of the citizens of a country is, all things considered, a very manageable proposition - not easy, but doable. Like the CN railroad or Avro Arrow - complex in the extreme - but we can do it! Such things never run perfectly, or without hitches, but in a well-run business, or government, such hitches are dealt with through normal channels - competent, dedicated leadership should see our economy standing on solid financial ground, not on the edge of disaster, as it has been for the last 20+ years.
So why does the government regularly find itself strapped for funds the last couple of decades? - a wealthy country, with this wealth of modern, trained and experienced managerial talent available, with a more-than-adequate tax income from its citizens, should NEVER find itself short of funds, should it?
And indeed - an examination of the facts, and some deductive reasoning, leads to only one conclusion - our governments are in serious financial straits because that is the way the people running the place (note - this is NOT your collection of backbench MPs!) WANT it to be - which is, speaking bluntly, a society where the rich get richer and more powerful, and the poor and middle class get poorer and less powerful, and which we have been seeing for the last 30 or so years. Intentional policy choices were made that led us to this situation - policy choices which could equally have led other places, had those making the decisions wished to get to other places - such as a stable, thriving democratically-controlled economy that had the desire and wherewithal to look after all of its citizens well - and actually improve everyone's lives, rather than, as we have been seeing, taking us backwards to much less prosperous and secure times - taking us back, indeed, it would appear, to the days of a small wealthy leisure class and a large underclass of workers and peasants with few rights such as prevailed in Dickensian England, for example, or even prior to that time - no, of course, we are not there yet - but you can hardly deny that is the trend, backwards rather than forwards.
But what of these policies that have led us down this sinister path? Well, one in particular is the basis of everything else, the Sauron-Mordor from which all the littler evils flow unceasingly - the "National Debt Scam" - wherein, over a period of a few years in the late 70s and early 80s, the government faced some cash shortages due to a reduction in corporate taxes at the time, and a period of Draconian usurious interest rates, and, rather than turning to the Bank of Canada and directing it to credit the government accounts with legal tender, turned to private banks, and allowed THEM to create the “legal tender” which they then borrowed to maintain government programs, at of course prime interest rates, which rather magically over a short period of time morphed into a $600 billion national debt by the mid-1980s, where it has rather (again) strangely or magically remained, draining on average some $30-50 billion (give or take, depending on various factors) per year in “service charges” right off the top of the tax dollars collected from Canadians.
Are you aware that the federal government alone has paid out something over a Trillion dollars in "service charges" on the federal National Debt alone over the last 30 or so years? That’s a lot of money - do you suppose our governments would be crying the blues about "not having enough money" if this Trillion had NOT been handed over to wealthy banks and "investors" during those years? (It's hard to get a decent figure without a lot of research I don't have time for right now about how much the provincial governments have paid out over that time - but several hundred billion dollars at least - this very year, in the budget you refer to with such wonder, McGuinty and the Ontario Libs are crying about a deficit of 6-8 Billion forcing them to cut back various programs, charge new premiums for health care, etc - and the "service charge" on the provincial debt is around $10 billion (rather odd that no news story (that I've ever seen anyway) has ever mentioned that!). And that's only this year alone - imagine if the provincial government had of had that 10 billion last year, and the year before, and the year before.... and the feds an extra 30-40 billion or so, each year for the last 10 or 20 years!!!!!)
Just imagine.
I know you're immediately reacting with the standard knee-jerk, hands-in-the-air response that "governments printing money is inflationary and must be avoided at all costs" - but that is just nonsense, Jeffrey, just nonsense, like so much else we are taught to believe unquestioningly. Think about it. The assumption behind this "received wisdom" is that if governments use this prerogative, they will print money by the boatload to give all their friends, causing the ensuing terrible problems - but why would a responsible government behave in such a fashion? Why would it print such huge amounts of money rather than simply the amount demonstrably needed, a figure arrived at by responsible deliberation of responsible people, and justified by natural economic growth in the country? You would have to assume, in Canada, that all of the top level people in the PMO, the various financial departments, the top level bureaucrats, and various other high-level private sector influential advisors would all agree to such an irresponsible thing - highly, highly unlikely, I would think, in a "responsible" government, particularly with a “responsible” business press keeping a close watch on them, yes??
And have a quick thought about the other side of the coin - rather than instructing the Bank of Canada, over a few years, to issue something like $100 Billion for various program expenses back in the late 70s and early 80s, matching the growth in the money supply with the natural growth in the economy, the government did the "conventional" thing and borrowed that money instead - leading within a very few short years (quite predictably, one might add, given the known effect of compound interest rates) to a national debt of over half a Trillion dollars, upon which, as I noted above, we have paid in the order of a Trillion dollars in debt service over the last couple of decades, and still face budgetary difficulties because of the ongoing interest payments - and we still are looking that half Trillion dollar debt in the face!!! It escapes me entirely what was so "responsible" about that course of action - indeed, there is a very, very strong prima facie case to be made for, at the very least, a serious breach of fiduciary duty and financial mismanagement and incompetence of the very worst sort. At the least. I think personally that an equally strong case could be made for intentional fraud in VERY high places, but that is not the objective of this short missive and we'll leave that for another day. As a journalist, you might however dig around a bit yourself, as one concerned with governmental financial problems. (but be sure your life insurance is paid up first haha)
But why would such a thing be done? Why would such a massive debt be incurred intentionally and unnecessarily, when it would lead to such problems for the governments of We the People? Well, I would suggest two related reasons for this, one direct, one indirect, but both highly persuasive.
Directly, there has always been a struggle between progressive elements in society who believed that the government should provide a "security blanket" for all people, with everything from pensions to UI to health care, and those who believed in a more laissez-faire, "everyone looks out for themselves" form of government - and it's no secret that a strong majority of the wealthiest members of Canadian society (as voiced primarily in such organisations as the BCNI-CCCE and their ilk) who generally favor the second view have been very influential in Canadian government policies, particularly beginning with the Mulroney government (where, "coincidentally" enough also, this "debt problem" sort of sprang out of thin air overnight) - and a "huge" debt problem leads to a government having a good excuse to tell the people it **has** to make “tough choices" even if it might wish to do otherwise - such as moving towards a privatised health care system and reduced "social entitlements" in general, or even (this takes a bit of doing, but that's why they have a lot of expensive PR "consultants" and control of the media to reduce dissenting voices less inclined to pass on government-corporate BS without asking some sceptical questions) reducing taxes for those who have the most money to "spur the economy" and create a "trickle down" effect. Such "cutting back" policies also have a number of additional bonuses - people with less money are less concerned with democracy or government policy in general - taking care of the basic needs of themselves and their families comes first. Also, people with less security and higher bills are more likely to take lower paying jobs, which is good for all the corporate sector, and their desire to boost the bottom line by reducing their “salary expenses”.
And secondly in terms of "why?" - well - where did the government borrow all that money from over the years, and where are all the "service charges" going? $30-40+ billion a year ain't small change, even for these guys.
I don't know how much you are aware of where our money comes from (most people don't seem to have any idea), but for quite some time now (oddly enough, dating back to the mid-70s when all of this trouble began, culminating in essentially removing the reserve requirements for banks in the early 1990s as part of the bank bailout) the government has allowed the Canadian banks to create about 90% of the yearly increase of the money supply of Canada - a pure golden "service charge-interest" windfall for them, and reflected in their huge profits every year. But it is absolutely insane that when the government of Canada needs money, it allows private banks to create that money, and then borrows it from them, committing the Canadian public to paying interest to those banks for decades into the future. Absolutely insane - and again, I think one could make a very strong case for criminal fraud. (No, I can point to no signed confessions, high-class crooks aren’t THAT stupid - but then again, if signed confessions were the only basis for investigating people in white-collar crime, we could pretty much shut down the courts in this country. Denial does not equate with innocence in criminal matters, Jeffrey, as I'm sure you know. And equally, high level conspiracy does exist in high-level financial circles in the modern world - you do recall Enron and Anderson, I am sure - and various Canadian banks were implicated in that situation as well, although it got pretty short coverage in the Canadian media.
The natural growth of the money supply in a country such as Canada - more people, new businesses, natural growth - is 3-4% - if the government created this money rather than the banks, it would allow them to meet all of their spending needs without this crazy notion of allowing private banks to create the new money and borrowing it from them - which is, obviously, great for the banks and their "investors" - but surely the purpose of our economy should not be "First the banks! Then the rest of us!"???
There is one and only one problem we face in this country at this time Jeffrey - political will. At the moment, the political will is almost entirely devoted to enhancing the wealth and power of those who already have most of those attributes - and as long as this is the situation, things are not going to improve for the average people - indeed, things will continue to get worse, as more and more and more of what wealth we have continues to be shovelled up and up and up, as we have seen in a whole list of provincial budgets the last few months. As Ross Perot put it a few years ago in a slightly different context, there is a huge sucking sound all around us - and that sound is huge scads of our money going up and up and up, when it SHOULD be used for OUR purposes, not to enrich the banks and other wealthy “investors”. Things could improve a lot, and quickly, for most people were the political will ever there to do so.
(How? The political will to do what? Well, everyone comments, as do you, when talking about our “budgetary problems”, on the great drain of health care costs - so implement the Romanov report, for starters - which is NOT simply about "shovelling money" at a problem, although some money is needed to make up for the starvation of the last few years - but by reorganising health care so there are fewer doctors needed, fewer hospital ER visits and stays through 24-hour community clinics, cheaper drugs (and less drug use as well), and many related things - there is an excellent story again in your paper as I write about one aspect of this - N.S. islanders reap benefits of health-care alternative (By SHAWNA RICHER Saturday, May 22, 2004 - Page A9 ). Or use the Bank of Canada as suggested above to quickly pay off that national debt and get rid of those usurious, draining “service charges” year after year after year. What if your paper started a campaign saying something like the needs of Canadians MUST be placed ahead of the profits of private banks and wealthy investors? - it is time that INVESTORS reduced their demands for ever-higher ROIs rather than Canadians reducing their health care expectations!!! - again, Jeffrey, it is all about political will - we have some of the best minds on the planet in this country, and if they want to do something - if WE as Canadians want to do something - we can do it. If those minds in government and their Big Business advisors want to devise a system to maximize their personal wealth and influence - they can do so, and have. If, however, they wanted to create a country that worked well for EVERYone, and not just the privileged few, with an economy that was strong and stable for average Canadians, rather than a giant gambling casino for wealthy investors - well, such could easily be done too.
Political will.
(Should you wish some more info on this from people much more knowledgeable than am I, you have an excellent opportunity there in Toronto, and not far from the Globe office - you might consider spending a few hours at a conference that just happens to be coming up next weekend - FUNDING THE FUTURE: PAYING FOR THE PAST put on by the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform, COMER - Saturday, May 29th, 2004, 9am - 6 pm, Steelworkers Union Hall, 25 Cecil Street, Toronto. You can find more info at the COMER website
It would be an excellent opportunity, should you truly be concerned about these things, to use your column to alert a lot of Canadians to one of the central problems in our country during this time in our history - the control of the Canadian money supply by private banks rather than by the Government of Canada, where such control rightly belongs, and the huge problems resulting from that mis-placed control.)
Oh well - all for now. I fear I once again waste my breath and my words, but it is what I do.
-30- 30 -30 -30 - etc -etc -etc hahahahaha
And now - where we originally started before the epiphanous sidetrack -
Dear RM -
Well, you made it to one - congrats ol bud! Time goes so fast - doesn't seem like a year already. Half a million words - to, as far as can be determined, no effect whatsoever. Was it worth it?!?!? Might you have been doing something more useful with all that time?
It is an existential sort of problem, in some ways. Is there anything left to say after one year? Most of what I have been doing the last little while is variations on a theme, or a few central themes. It works for propagandists and advertisers and politicians - same difference I guess - but I don't consider myself to be of that lot, and like to have a bit more respect for those who read anything I write, here or elsewhere - I like to think those I deal with will respect my intelligence, as I should respect theirs - and constantly repeating things as if the reader or listener is too stupid to understand or remember the first time is not very respectful, it seems to me. One reason I have such limited tolerance for television commercials or politicians and their endless repetition of the shallowest, stupidest comments - it seems to me that they must be speaking to themselves, and using methods that would work on their own tiny brains, and assuming everyone else has brains as small. And to the extent that those methods work with a large percentage of the people, one must suppose, sadly, they are probably right. They are intelligent enough, at any rate, to stick with a formula that has worked well for many years. If they spoke to we few intelligent folk, they'd lose all the others they currently reach. They know where the votes are. And they LIE so much - incessantly, it seems - which is the most offensive of all. I don't think they actually have any concept of the truth anymore, they just figure what they have to say to persuade whoever they are talking to to whatever they want to sway them to, and away they go - I think you would have to lose your sense of what the truth really is, and the value of it, after a few years of doing that. No wonder everything is so fucked up these days, with nobody able to believe anything - you cannot have a decent trusting sort of community without truth. It seems to me that "we", most people in society, used to know that. After the last 20 years of tv, most of them don't seem to anymore.
But then I've always been an existential sort of person - always understood Camus's "Other", always been on the outside looking in, since I was run to the edge of my small town by the local cop when I was about 15 and told not to come back until I got a haircut. Which maybe colors what I think, feel, write about a lot of things, my anger and refusal to accept pointless rules, and fight fight fight the bastards. I look at what appear to me to be the barbie-ken types running around to their jobs and daycares and malls and tvs, and think - "Man o man! Who'd wanna do that all the time if they had a choice?!?!" - and those in the box, when they occasionally get a glimpse of those of us outside the box, seem to think, "Wow! - who'd wanna be stuck out there if they had a choice?!?! Wow what's on tv?" hahahahaha. True, though, as far as I can see. In is in and out is out and never the twain shall meet, to paraphrase one who saw the divide a long time ago - undoubtedly from "out" - the "innies" don't seem to write much about it, at least in any reflectful sense, no time or ability for that after 6 hours of tv every day for a few years, sound bites are NOT intelligent or meaningful communication - they do enough of the "Whassa matta wit you get wit the program???!!!" shit, though. With us or against us, as their Great Leader likes to say, in his own thoughtful way. I understand that better now than I did when they ran me out of town, what a threat I was to their fantasyland, the cage rules they lived by and still do, the ways they kept their minds locked behind the wall, their refusal to think about certain things, ask certain questions - they can pretend all they want about anything they want as long as there is noone walking around who is living proof that what they do and say are not what they pretend them to be. Freedom does not really involve working 40+ hours a week, for 40+ years of your life making lots of money for someone else and living little more than a subsistence life yourself - but you can pretend it is, with the tv to reinforce your fantasy - as long as there aren't any *really* free people walking around out there as a walking, living example of what *freedom* really is, and how very, very far you really are from such a thing. But there aren't that many of those around anymore, haven’t been for a long time - no space for them, the capitalists have bought it all up, and living in a cardboard box under a bridge in the wintertime isn't, understandably, that attractive to people who are used to hot showers and some food in the fridge and a warm bed - even if they have to sell their souls to get that stuff. We have a few movies like Kesey’s One Flew over the cuckoo's Nest or the Powder one I mentioned a few months ago to make sure nobody gets any ideas - who wants to wind up like that?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA - writers have written frequently about outsiders - good stories, and writers, for some odd reason, identify with that sort of shit.
So what has been accomplished with RM the last year? - not a lot, really - I knew before I started this most of what I need to about how things work, and haven't learned a lot new through all of this - and as far as persuading others, it appears my persuasive powers are not that great - of course, that has a lot to do with the soapbox one speaks from, and mine's pretty small, compared to the Sun or Izzy's papers or whatever, or Simpson above - and not forgetting the rather important idea that, one of many old sayings, "None are so blind as they who WILL not see..." -
Hahahahahaha - as I say again and again - there is some sort of tide in the affairs of us all - here is John Kaminski, saying he has not been writing lately also - and why - he writes as an American with that perspective, and we cannot ignore it obviously, but mine is more Canadian - but I feel the same hopelessness at times - we are so close to the edge, so close to the iceberg, so close to the real abyss, and so few of us in Canadian society seem to care, or even be aware - the American abuses seem to draw at the most a "gosh darn maybe there's something not quite right here, but I'm sure the Authorities have things under control, so let's see what's on tv tonight" sort of stuff - I think after most of that there is usually some kind of ”...and I sure as fuck don’t want to think about it all, which may lead to a place that says I ought to DO something about it all, which I have no fucking idea of how to go about - so avoidance is far and away the best strategy right now....”
Another analogy about our economic system - they're often such great ways to clarify things - Mr. Aesop called them fables, JC called em parables - same idea. (huhh?? - NO that's NOT the former PM!!! geez)
But think of our society, our economy - the economists and bankers like to say that, as far as money goes, Bob works at some job and makes some money. He uses some of that money to buy some groceries from George, and George uses his profits from Bob and others to buy some gas from John for his car, and John gets a haircut from Donny, and Donny's wife buys a dress from Suzy's dress shop, and on and on and around and around, and the money circulates and the economy is based on this kind of "free market" exchange of goods and services and that's the way she works, kids! And if that was it - why, it sounds pretty good - why would there be any problems?? But - hmmmm - how then did George and Donny and Suzy and the rest, in this simple wonderful Smithian "invisible hand" market economy passing the bucks around and around, wind up with a fucking $500 Billion dollar debt in their country - their larger community - draining huge amounts of their collective prosperity year after year after decade after decade on and on and on??
Well - what the economists, and bankers, and gov people don't tell you in this little parable for some reason (fairy tale would be a better word for the kind of shit THEY spread around) is - working together behind the scenes, a certain small group of people, in secret essentially (call it a conspiracy if you want! - see if I care!!) have all arranged our economy to be like a big Vegas gaming house, and EVERY time you and George and Suzy or whoever make one of your "market" transactions - THEY are there with their grubby little paws out for their percentage - like the House takes 10-15% of every pot in Vegas, our bankers and gov want 10-15% of every transaction we small people do in our "market" economy. No - I ain't talkin taxes, or at least legitimate taxes, which are what we put into the collective pool (yea, that's socialism talk, "collective" - and it's ok, when it works right - do you like your Canadian health care card or not? Who built the roads you drive on? Who provides the electricity and policing and water? And then - Who pays for it? Right - we did and do, collectively - and that's all socialism, regardless of the propaganda we've been fed since forever - think about it!! Don't let the rightwing press (whose one essential feature that never changes is that they lie a FUCK of a lot about everything important) tell you "Socialism Is Evil!!!!" - they're all smallminded selfish elitists with the consequent lack of brainpower and ethics that goes hand in hand with, but I won't get into it here) - taxes are what PAY for these things! No, the real, serious "skim" is what we know as the "national debt" and, more directly, the "service charges" we pay on that debt - and thus the now very excessive SURtaxes you might say that we pay for that debt - a tax to pay for health care is ok, but I doubt if most of us would approve of a 20% tax to feed directly to the banks, were they honest enough to tell us what they are really doing. How much benefit do YOU get from the gov turning over 20++% of your tax dollars right off the top to banks and "investors"??? Right - diddly squat. THEY do fine from the system. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
But the point is - when you and Bob and Dave and Candy and Sally and all the rest keep circulating your money, but EVERY time you circulate the "house" (that would be your House of Bay Street - another collectivity HAHAHAHAHAAAA) takes a cut - well - it ain't hard to figure where that's gonna lead, after awhile - we're gonna get short of cash, if there is this constant vacuum cleaner sucking a percent from every transaction - for we small folk, sort of reverse-direction (but how things work in real-life) Monopoly - every time you pass Go, you get to hand over a couple of hundred to the Bank!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA - THEY FUCKING LOVE IT!!! And as we get short of cash, we naturally have to come with more from somewhere, to feed our kids and pay the mortgage and get haircuts and buy gas and all the stuff we have to do every day - and where do we get more money?!?!?! From the banks of course - always happy to lend you some, as long as you can keep up with the vigorish. But it only leads, as me Gran used to say, to a bad end.
And for every hundred bucks you borrow - ya gotta pay back a hundred and ten. For every billion "We the People" borrow, privately or through the government scam - we gotta pay back an extra hundred million, give or take.
Let that soak in for awhile. It's the way the economy works these days, thanks to our Bay St Bankers and their subsidiary Canadian gov setting it up that way - a system GUARANTEED to fail. Did they ask you about this at any time???? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA I thought not.
So that's the problem, in a nutshell parable so to speak - and when you lay it out that way, the solution becomes pretty straightforward - turn off that fucking vacuum cleaner, and everything, while maybe not perfect, few things are, sure gets a lot better real fast. Sort of like a tapeworm in your gut - you keep getting weaker and weaker until you get rid of it - and then bingo! everything starts looking better overnight. These bankers and their interest are about the same sort of problem. Get their little greedy faces out of the national accounts, and all of a sudden we got lots of money for things we need and want as a society.
Think about it. HAHAHAHAHAHA GET THE FUCKERS I SAY!!!!! PUT EM ALL IN JAIL FOR THE REST OF THEIR FUCKING LIVES!!!!! AND GET THE MONEY BACK!!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA - you better if you're interested - you sure as fuck ain't gonna read about it in the national Pravda collective HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
- but don't stop there, oh no oh no oh no!!!! - once you get that idea, start asking WHO turned that fucking machine on in the first place - where has all of our money that that machine has been needlessly sucking up for many, many years now, gone?!?!?!?! Can we get it back?!?!?! Was there some criminal activity going on here - some sort of fraud or scam?!?!?!
hahaha - a tide indeed, second last Kaminski - Why the 'good war' wasn't so good, in which he too sees the importance of the debt chains, and how getting rid of them is pretty essential to our future, if we are to have one, which is far from certain.
Well, this isn't of course a solely Canadian problem at all - it goes back centuries and spreads over most of the world today, courtesy the World Bank, IMF, USAID, the WTO, etc etc - so why do I focus on Canada? Well - I think we have absolutely zero chance of confronting the international financial order, whoever runs it, just WAY too much organization required, WAY too many people having to work together, not to mention WAY too many people supporting them - yet we MIGHT have a SMALL chance if we took control of OUR Canadian government, and with the small influence that has in the world, just maybe, through example, we could start to set things on the right path. Small chance I say - we can be absolutely certain that the big guys would do their best to stop us - but the only chance, it seems to me. There’s a LOT of good people in the world, a lot of them in more progressive governments in such places as the Scandinavian countries, a lot of people trying for better lives in developing countries - we might all be surprised at how many there would be if a leader showed up one day ....
- hey, it ain't only me - ran across this again recently - THE BIG QUESTION by Ian Woods "... Why does the Canadian government give away 19 billion dollars each year to the chartered banks, free of charge, when this money could be used to balance the books in one year, without any more cuts, and later be used to pay down the debt?..."
mumble mumble mumble mumble ...........
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE WORLD OF MS!!!! (not original!!! came in an email one day....) - BUT OH SO FUCKING TRUE !!!!!!!
An Imagined Interchange
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.”
In response, General Motors issued a press release stating: “If GM had kept up with technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
- For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day. (Minimum. RM)
- Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you would have to buy a new car.
- Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
- Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
- Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive – but would run on only five percent of the roads.
- The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single “This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation” warning light.
- The air-bag system would ask, “Are You Sure” before deploying.
- Occasionally, for no reason whatever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
- Every time a new car was introduced, car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
- You’d have to push the “start” button to turn the engine off.
- me, I think of it this way - what would happen to the airline industry if it came out that MS Windows was being used on 747s??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA (stupid question - obviously, if MS was being used on 747s there wouldn't BE any 747s left - they'd all be at the bottom of some fucking ocean HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA)
- all I'm saying is, if MS spent a fucking FRACTION of the money they spent on PR and buying up superior computer systems to put them out of business, on actually hiring smart people and creating a good computer system, they could probably fix their damn system and make it half decent - I just can't figure this kind of "business" and this kind of world - it certainly has nothing to do with "superior products dominating the market" as one is led to believe in Box Business school - the REAL MS business slogan ought to be "How much time can we waste today .... (hahaha - LOTS!! -THIS PROGRAM HAS DONE SOMETHING ILLEGAL.......) (and which, in combination with my internet "server"'s HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA) general philosophy of "HOW FUCKING SLOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW can we go today!!!???" keeps me in a really great frame of mind most of the time)
- here's a good piece that says one of the things I keep saying in another way - A Wretched New Picture of America by Philip Kennicott - ".... Tyrants censor; democracies self-censor. Tyrants concoct propaganda in ministries of information; democracies produce it through habits of thought so ingrained that a basic lie of war -- only the good is our doing -- becomes self-propagating...."
Habits of thought so ingrained - and where do THEY come from???? From being brought up that way, from the day you are born.......
A nice read for those of us who grew up with John, or learned later about him - All We Are Saying Is Give Peace A Chance -
They're back at it with the "journalism" awards - Two Star series win prestigious honours - they ought to rename these things - the "In the Sandbox" journalism awards or something - sure the stories are of interest and concern - but they reinforce the notion that there isn't much we can do, maybe redirect a bit more money at the problem, whatever - but we need, of course, OUTSIDE the Sandbox stories and awards - stories about how these problems and most like them are caused by the Debt Scam, or stories about the REAL 911 Conspiracy Theory - instead of over and over the one we hear from the White House and major media, the one that is now “received wisdom” and apparently is accepted by everyone, total BS that it is, the one that decided a bunch of Arabs living in caves in Afghanistan stole some planes and drove them into the WTC - NO PROOF NEEDED!!!!!! - just a great story, if you repeat it often enough it becomes true - like Salim's column I talked about last time on this - history is as the winners deem it to be, and to hell with the facts - Salim KNOWS the damned Japs bombed Pearl Harbour, and the Americans knew nothing about it, such a surprise - Salim probably read somewhere that FDR did indeed have warning of the attack, and sent all the best boats out to sea and let the Japs proceed unhindered to get American people to agree to going to war - Salim probably read that somewhere, and then immediately shoved it behind that WALL where you put things you don't EVER want to think about again because they REALLY fuck up your comfortable little sandbox world that you've believed in since you let go of Santa and glommed onto this new fairytale. And he's back at it again, here - Beheading, prison abuses can't be linked - he's as bad as some of the half-witted "Senators" that were talking on CNN last week about the beheading situation - "...This is barbarism in full flight. And it has a lengthy, sordid history within the Arab-Muslim world... We have seen images of such barbarity as in the ritual killings of veiled women in crowded public stadiums of Afghanistan under the Taliban, and the sadistic killing in public of Najibullah, the former Afghan leader, with his testicles removed and his orifices stuffed with cigarette stubs..." - well Salim old buddy you don't look like a young guy - can you remember a place called Vietnam where ALL of this shit happened and a lot worse, for a long time - barbarism in full flight indeed? Can you remember more recently a place called the School of the Americas, where death squads were trained to maim and torture such people as priests and nuns in Latin America? On and on - sure the Arabs and Chinese and many others have been barbaric in their turn - but people like Salim pretending that America is better for some reason are just adding to the problem. I don't know why I get so excited anymore - either you know this and know people like Salim are spreading some combination of BS and propaganda - or you believe it all and there isn't really much hope for you - you're urging the ship on, icebergs be damned!
Spittin' mad? That'll be $155 - "...In downtown Barrie, they'll no longer be able to spit in your eye. To make its downtown core feel safer, city council passed a nuisance bylaw Monday night that makes loitering, panhandling, skateboarding and yes, spitting, a fineable offence..." man I am SOOOO proud to be a Canadian, brother and sister with these amazing human beings creating a wonderful new world like this. I could just spit HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
man o man o man - next day same paper - Asthma rates among highest - "..., yet increases in asthma rates continue and no one knows why. Today's report says 300 million people in the world have asthma. O'Byrne said whatever is going on happens in the first few months, or year, of life. The most plausible explanation, he said, is the "hygiene hypothesis" — increasingly sanitised living conditions. .... Little exposure to bugs early in life primes the immune system to overreact later, producing allergic diseases. Most asthma is triggered by allergies...." - common sense being the key here - nobody (well, I suppose SOMEbody...) wants to live in caves and eat uncooked rotten meat off of dirt floors - but on the other hand, to try to eradicate ALL things from the planet that we don't like for some reason is equally ridiculous - the Buddha had it right, you know - the Middle Path. Too bad a few more people don't understand that. I can respect YOUR right to live as you want, as long as you keep out of my face - but why can’t you people respect MY right to the same thing? Serendipity again - as always - this Mallick lady in the Globe seems ok sometimes, a bit leftish is you will - but here we see the Big Sister aspect of “leftism” I have found of concern before - Don't pluck on the subway, baby - if this is satire she disguises it well - if it’s serious (in a supposedly humorous way) it’s scary as hell - but I’ve known a lot of people just like this.
Christ - next day again - Editorial: Ban smoking rooms -
- and 206 men arrested in `john sweep' - it’s very unclear to me how these people are less dangerous than the Muslim Jihadists who are trying to take over the world - both groups KNOW how people should live, and are willing to use the full power of whatever government they have to force everyone to bow down and kiss their gods. The Jihadists will chop your head off - but the Big Sisters are just as anxious to lobotomize you - it isn’t enough, Winston, that you do what Big Brother says - you must Love Big Brother. Neither group has any understanding of “freedom” beyond THEIR freedom to decide how others will live, and YOUR freedom to obey them unquestioningly, since they have received the very light of god. Which doesn’t impress we atheists very much at all.
And to enforce all the laws - the justice system - Appointment process is fine: Chief Justice - an ongoing "controversy" the last little while, about how the high judges get their jobs. The thing is - are these judges ultimately interpreting the laws of the people of Canada for our protection, as the mythology has it - or are they REALLY there as the last bulwark of the elite, to make sure nothing happens legally in Canada to jeopardize the elite control, as some of us feel? Well - you will have little doubt as to where I would stand on the matter. But this proves it as much as anything - as long as the PM appoints the big judges, the process is pretty much controlled. But what if the people of Canada got to choose the judges through an election or something, people they thought would do what the PEOPLE wanted done in terms of interpreting the law???? I guess, as long as you can trust your politicians, the appointment process works ok - we USED to have a pretty good justice system in Canada, the same as we used to have a pretty good bureaucracy and yes, even government, until the neocons bought everything up starting 30 or so years ago - and that is why this appointment process is starting to look pretty bad - I mean, look at the mess in the US, 100% partisan, no questions asked (a lot of lies and pretension and huffy-puffy, but EVERYONE knows that Bush is loading the courts with rightwing Neanderthals, carrying on where his father and Reagan left off (Clinton didn’t get to appoint many - the rightwingers hung on and on and on to avoid that) and with a Republican Congress and Senate, and the Democrats acting like the proverbial carpet, that country is in such deep trouble it may never get out without another real revolution - but we still have a chance to get out of the mess we are in in Canada, and become the world leader we ought to have been - but NOT allowing the Canadian courts to become a mirror image of the reactionary rightwingers in the US would be an important part of that process.
Like this - Court rejects teens' appeal to lower voting age - I must admit to being a bit baffled by this, but that doesn't stop me from thinking it stinks. As does the legal "reasoning" - "...Justice Erik Lefsrud of the Court of Queen's Bench agreed in principle that voting-age limits violate democratic and equality rights under the charter. But Lefsrud said the infringements are justified because they maintain the integrity of the electoral system....". Read it again. HUHHH??? But that's the thing about judges - no accountability - they can say whatever idiotic things they want and noone calls them on it (unless they say something against women or something - and even then it takes repeated offences...). But this guy - saying a certain percentage of the population can't vote because it maintains the integrity of the legal system???? My my - me, now, I would have thought that denying a certain percentage of the population the right to vote sort of cast a big question on the "integrity" of the electoral system. Sort of like letting judges spout nonsense like this freely casts a fairly serious question at the integrity of the legal system. Not unlike the Percy Schmeiser decision, which everyone knows about and I ain’t got time to get into.
But that's me, and I don't live in the Box. Outside the Box we think for ourselves, and when stuff THIS smelly comes along it's hard to not notice it.
Fuck ya just gotta love it - onetrack mind, one way streets all the way - Air Canada inching toward deal - look at the whole tone of this “news” article - them goldarned greedy union workers causing all this trouble - ready to shut down our great ol Air Canada rather than take a wage cut!!! - and NEVER NEVER NEVER will we hear a word about maybe how the "investors" should consider a cut in their yearly payouts from the profits that the workers have made for them, or *&(*%&*(GOD FORBID!!!!!)_) that Milton and his co-managers should CONSIDER a small pay cut themselves (I mean, usually people who fuck things up get fired, not raises - HAHAHAHAHAAA - no no no I realise that only happens in the "real" private sector of small business and to “employees”, but doesn't apply in Big Business where the worse you fuck up the more you get paid HAHAHAHAHAHAA (look at the mess of our economy the last few years, and then graph that alongside MP pay packages HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) - anyway, maybe people could look at this and think that JUST MAYBE a NATIONAL airline is something the government ought to be involved with - I'm not saying bailout time, I'm saying ownership time, like it used to be before the western world went crazy with this privatisation shit - for starters, the gov could pay off the Air Canada debt which, I believe I have read, is having to be "serviced" (HAHAHAHAAA - there's that "we;re getting fucked" word again HAHAHAHAAA) at something like a billion a year - sounds like that amount of money last year, and this, and next, and so on, added to the company books instead of subtracted, would probably go a long ways towards easing their pain..... (that is to say - after I don't know but MANY years of private management, which is supposed to be so fucking wonderful - well, we're sort of seeing the real picture now, right?? The "service charges" on huge bank loans, huge CEO salaries and maximised "investor" payouts and demands for employees to accept lower and lower salaries - leading to a business in BIGGGGGGG fucking trouble and ready to collapse. So tell me - what was so bad about the gov running Air Canada again?!?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA What was so bad about the Ontario gov running Ontario Hydro?!?!?!?! Is it BETTER now?!?!?!?!? HAHAHAHAHAHA)
AHAHAHAHAHAHAAA - NOW who put what in the beer?!?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAAA - man it’s hard not to get hysterical in this fucking gagaland. Valium or hops. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA - thing is, after some hops I’ll still have a brain tomorrow HAHAHAHAHAHAHA(woops!!!! another secret they don’t want people talking about HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA this is turning into an alright day HAHAHAHAHAHAAA)
- but what it all boils down to, as I tried to tell Jeffrey (he knows, he just ain’t talking about it) on the next level you will NEVER see talked about in the mainstream BUSINESS press, is the absolute insanity of running our society almost entirely for the good of wealthy "investors", and making policy to please them - that's obviously great for them - but it really sucks for the 95+% of average people. Our country and communities should NOT be a giant monopoly game, with a few wealthy investors rolling the dice and winning or losing big, with the rest of us nothing more than pawns totally at the mercy of what they do. Insane. Yet most people seem to accept it as if it is some ordained act of god they can do nothing about, and the only thing they think about at times like what is coming up (the election) is whether or not Paul or Stephen will be kinder to them.
If you people ever want security, what you have to do is - tell Paul and Stephen and their Bay St Buds that you will no longer accept your role as a pawn on their little monopoly board - you, as a Canadian citizen, are a player - YOU make decisions, and YOU decide that THEY will no longer be allowed to fuck with YOUR lives in this way.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AAA man I won't hold my breath. Say dear isn't that new Survivor show (My life as a pawn!!) on tonight?? Sounds really interesting! You're WHAT?!?!?! Watching a show called RM?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA WHERE’S MY UZI HAHAHAHAHAHA
It is interesting to say the least that this American who apparently got beheaded a few days ago (that was just SOOOOO fucking convenient - all the world outraged at American behaviour, and here just a couple of days after the shit hits the fan the "goldarn terraists" do something even worse, to draw attention - man o man o man - love those "coincidence" theories folks!!!!!) has, in 3-4 days (actually the first day alone) gotten FARRRRRRRRR more press and outrage than 10,000+++ Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives to American bombs and snipers the last year (murder in anyone's eyes but the Americans and their apologists), or a million or so over the last 12-13 years. FARRRRRRRR more. But we are just NOT going to talk about Iraqi civilians, are we???? Same as the 4 mercenaries who got caught and dealt with last month. Live by the sword, boys ....
Isn't that just soooooo interesting?!?!?!?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
Sometimes I think the people who watch 6 hours of tv every day and have no brains are the smart ones - it's ME who's bothered by this shit - nobody else gives a fuck (yea yea I know there's a few - but relatively speaking....)
Later - others have the same idea about the Berg story - here's one that lays it out in a bit more detail than I have patience for - Fishy Circumstances and Flawed Timelines Surround American's Beheading
Speaking of "terrorists" and Canadian “justice” - Court won't hear Zundel's appeal - "... Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel could spend as long as five more years in solitary confinement, after an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that it cannot hear his challenge to a federal anti-terrorism law..." - secret accusations, secret trials, years in jail without a trial, not even knowing the accusation against you - Canada, you say? Pity, what? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA
- and more homegrown terrorists - our courts - Party hosts could be liable: Ontario court - hey, don't get me wrong - this guy that drove his car into another car and killed and maimed people - should he be punished? Abso-fucking-lutely!!!! - Throw the fucking book at him, in my opinion - there is no greater crime than screwing up other people's lives through careless behaviour (except doing so intentionally, I guess - the last 20+ years of politicians and bankers and Bay St Boys are going to have a FUCK of a lot to answer for if sanity ever rears its head in this country) - but why bring the booze into it? Are we saying that if this idiot was cold sober - but chatting on his cellphone and/or having a fight with his girlfriend when he drove so recklessly - it would somehow be a lesser crime? Not in my books!
I've been through all this before and won't get into it again - but alcohol is a freedom drug, not unlike grass although it has some differences, and that is why there has been such a drive on to demonize it - and why it persists - the fascists HATE freedom, and it is a LOT easier to whip people into obedience when they don't have some chemicals available that help them overcome the brainwashing, help them find a bit of courage to resist.
Think about it. Think about your automatic response to what I just wrote that "man, is he a nutcase or what???"- why would you have that automatic response - from personal experience or from years of being TOLD to have that response?!?!?!?!?! Pavlov - dog - food - bell - salivate HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
An interesting historical read, about some of the "real" reasons things are done that you don't read about in the See Dick and Jane Vote after Getting Fucked by Big Spot civics books they teach from. Blackmail Business - Part 4 US And Israel In A Real World - I don't know how true it all is, but it sounds at least possible if not probable (boy we need that scopolamine!) OH NO!!!!!! I hear the shocked gasps! - OUR leaders would NEVER do stuff like that!!! They (and WE!!) are such nice people we wouldn't possibly!!! It's all just them darned old conspiracy theories - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA (and those darned ol hillbillies in that Eye-racki jail are EXCEPTIONS!!! - Sure they are HAHAHAHAAA - they do NOT represent "real" Americans!!!)
oh my my my where's that See Dick Look at his dick book - I need to brush up on some of this stuff HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"...We're an embarrassing species..." - right on. Rick Salutin, Which reality is real?
- but we have our hope as well - Morford is a good read - Please Write More About Rape Will sucking down endless stories of tragedy and war and BushCo poison the human soul?By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist - "...Your job is to take that perspective and balance it with your own and read your ass off and get as informed as possible and filter and digest as best you can.... The world's tragedies absolutely deserve our immediate attention. And our hope. And our divine raw funky sexed-up intellectual perspective. This is not a question.... But what it needs even more is the counter-energy. For us all to remember to shut it all off and get the hell away from the computer and go have a glass of wine and a deep tongue kiss and a romp and a an intense book and a hot sweaty yoga class and a soft swoon to an incredible blues singer..."
Yeah - that’s good - there’s some positive energy out there, quite a lot of it actually. Another by Sam Smith I recently came across again - Why Bother
Well - time for one more dose of health food before the barbie or whatever little meat treat we got tonight - no really - Rx: A tipple a day - ".... "It's indisputable ... Moderate consumption of drinks containing alcohol is associated with a very significant reduction in coronary artery disease and disease in brain vessels — angina, heart attacks and occlusive strokes...." - HAHAHAHAHAHAHA TOLD YA!!! nothing wrong with THIS old brain HAHAHAHAHAAA. Fuck I've known that for years - question being, of course, in THIS fucking world it may be a sign of mental instability to WANT to live longer or to have a rationally functioning brain .....
Well - that’s enough for now. So - another birthday - RM at one. What a year. Half a million words here - not ONE in a Canadian mainstream media, not ONE reply from an MP or columnist or anyone else in that august place.
Meaning what? I don't know. I don't think it means anything, really.
- but one of these days I'll finish that book, and one of these days I'll find that door outta here. Soon. It's time to move on. What I do know is that I don't belong here, where a majority of the people can watch the evils and scams and lies going on all around them and not do anything about it. All that is required, as someone once said, for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing while evil is occurring around them. And we got that going on in spades, these days - a whole lot of evil, and a whole lot of people doing nothing about it. And evil ain’t only happening, we got evil in the ascendency. And I ain't talking about al Quaida. (yea yea insofar as they exist outside of neocon bogeyman stories they are evil too, it appears, fundamentalists of ANY stripe are NOT good people to have in a community with their eyes on the levers of power and a goal of "do it my way or die infidel" - but they are the bit players in THIS game - the neocon message is not much different, but THEY have the biggest military machine and budget in the history of the world to enforce THEIR equally fascistic message.....)
Maybe I had a little epiphany myself this morning (always get a few good thoughts and ideas under the shower - flowing water is really good, positive stuff - magic even) - all the people out there who seem not to care about what is happening aren't really "sheep" - but they are somewhat less than active players in charting the course of events of our society as well - maybe passengers would be a better word for them. They do indeed have lives and thoughts and feelings and opinions - but they have been quite carefully raised and "educated" to have no real idea of how society operates, or what their lives might *really* be if they were properly educated and given an opportunity to be more than a wage slave, mall-goer, backyard BBQer, tv-watching citizen, voting for tweedledee-dum every few years, basically doing what someone else tells them to do all their lives - living in the Box, in other words. A passenger on the planet, in their society, with no real control over the bigger picture - and not seeming to be much aware of that, and not seeming to care much. All stuff I've known, of course, but looked at through a slightly different lens. Slightly less condemnative, you might say. And leaving me, at the end of this disjointed ramble - where? Still don't know. Suppose I'll have to look at this passenger stuff a bit more - whatever the deal is, the answer, for me, would not seem to be "giving up" - that would be the easy way out, become cynical and laugh at everything as if it didn't mean anything.
It ain't so, to me - this is a big, indescribably beautiful planet, and life is indescribably amazing and wonderful and precious - and to sit back with the attitude "Oh, well, nothing I can do while the psychotics running the place trash it, so might as well join the rat race and the rest of the “passengers” and get as many toys as I can and have as many laughs as I can before we hit the 'berg..." - well, just doesn't seem right. Not right at all.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding. – Justice Louis Brandeis
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglas
"The most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed..." -Steven Biko
"I didn't say it would be easy. I just said it would be the truth." - Morpheus
- and insofar as this grasshopper understands it, so it is.
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr Seuss - man he was smart....... I gotta read some of that stuff again ..... that's almost as good a play on words as the great old line about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.....
George Orwell: During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair - great writer - reading stuff like this helps understand how the problems of today are NOT new!!! - and is a clear indication of the truth of the old saying that he who does not know history is destined to repeat it, or whatever)
"Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko." — John Loeffler
Write if ya want (ya gotta take the xxx off the front - I'm trying to reduce the intake from the spam assholes (oh yes you fucking are - it is NOT amusing - get a fucking life why don't you, instead of bothering people - how fucking stupid can you be?? If you were the last fucking product on earth I wouldn't buy anything from you!! Fuck.)).
What direct action did you take today to do something to get rid of corporate
government in Canada besides deleting spam? Do you feel that it was enough, given the situation?
Will you feel content telling that to your grandchildren, should they survive,
and the country, and the planet?
So much left to say, so little time to say it in - probably only a few months until the next federal election - do you want to try to save Canada in that frantic four weeks when big Paul drops the writ and EVERY friggin advantage is his - or would you like to start now, when we have some sort of outside chance? Canada for Canadians Coalition - get involved.
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