Tag Archives: Sucks

Ayn Rand SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Let me first begin with how I was exposed to Ayn Rand. I am in high school and awhile back my teacher was doing a course on homelessness. In a ‘prompt’ that she gave me as to what are the causes of homelessness, I answered CAPITALISM. A week later I was astonished to get back my paper with a Zero. I showed this to many people all of whom agreed that it was in no way deserving of a zero. My dad and I took this question as to why I had gotten a zero on  my paper to the teacher. I wasn’t expecting much but even after one hour of asking my English teacher why I had gotten a zero on my paper she had no reasonable answer other than that I had not followed the ‘format’ correctly, even though I had a previous organizational sheet on which I based my writing on following her format. she ended by saying I was a horrible writer;  we gave up trying to get to through to such a numbskull.

I didn’t quite understand why she had given me a zero until a couple months later, and so began my experience with Ayn Rand. My teacher took us to get the book. As I read the summary I knew it would be some sort of method for her and d-11 to push their politics on students;  however I had no previous knowledge of who Ayn Rand was.  The next day in class she gave us a powerpoint on the background of Ayn Rand and what the book Anthem was about. It was filled with negative comments on communism including that communism supposedly takes away knowledge, individuality and free expression.   As I was assigned to read more and more of Ayn Rand I realized how horrible of a writer she was. I started to listen to Ayn Rand’s interviews. I then understood that  they were forcing me to read a writer who didn’t believe in helping anyone, because she was a racist, a nationalist and a pure evil witch. These interviews can be found on <youtube> and <bluecorncomics> among many other articles revealing Ayn Rand to be a racist.

The more and more I read into the book the more i was infuriated at the pure ridiculousness and hypocrisy of it.  In the ending chapters it is written by Ayn Rand that

“The word WE is the lime poured over me, which sets and hardens to stone, crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?”

As i read this I wasn’t sure whether to laugh, throw up, or rip the book apart . I was sickened by how when I had expressed my “free speech” I was given a ZERO; by how I had to read an author who believes being selfish is  a virtue. And by how every day, whenever I went to class instead of being taught English literature I got the teachers Right Wing, anti-communist politics thrown into my face. Each time a question on the book was asked I didn’t hear an opinion on whether the book was good or bad i only heard questions on how communism takes away individuality and how  Ayn Rand is right on what her idea of what communism is? I said the teacher was expressing personal opinion and the whole class started to yell at me to shut up. I got so alienated and depressed after they  said that communism makes robots, and brain dead people  even though I couldn’t find more brain dead robots as hard as I looked than the ones that were sitting right next to me.

I couldn’t take the class anymore as it was an insult to who I was, what I believed in, and all the people I respected were continually insulted and lied about. I started skipping the class after my dad not only talked at a school board meeting but also to my assistant principal, in both cases we were given the cold shoulder and treated horribly rude. I decided to go to the class again and deal with it. As I read the quote given above in that class and as I looked around i became terrified of being like them. I was torn between staying and swallowing my believes and to be JUST LIKE THOSE SHEEP or to get up and leave. The overwhelming fear of being lost into them made me get up and walk out of the class. Later that day the assistant principal took me out of a class and made me feel like an outsider, like a weird person that needed to be put in a psychiatric hospital. I complained that I was being pushed politics in a public school and his response was that no other students felt like I did. When I told him that the teacher had given me a zero and was now failing me out of the course, who had said I was a horrible writer; he said He didn’t believe me and that I was wrong. He told me that if I was to walk out again I would have to deal with the consequences even though he wouldn’t deal with a teacher pushing politics.   He smiled as I cried for being  looked at as being an idiot and a weirdo kid ; it took me about two hours to get with it. We continued to try to get me switched out of the class, which finally we did only to find that Ayn Rand was being taught in that course too and  in all English classes for that matter.

I realize I will probably never get them to change, to respect students, parents and INDIVIDUALITY. But this  continuing fight which is probably the hardest I’ve ever had to fight proved to me that I would stand up for myself against a herd of flesh eating zombies, that I would NEVER BE LIKE THEM . And I felt pride in knowing I stood up to being brainwashed by  anti communist right wingers.

PICS: Occupy Walmart 12/12 First of our Twelve Walmart Days of Christmas

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OCCUPIED COLORADO SPRINGS- Occupy CSprings occupied the Walmart on 8TH STREET for our first of 12 Walmart Days of Christmas. Slogans you can use for your own superstore boycott: WALMART: ROLLING BACK UNION GAINS, ALWAYS — WALMART KILLS MOM & POPS — SHOP LOCAL, NOT WALMART and HEALTHCARE FOR CHRISTMAS. Up next: POWERS BLVD!

More posters: WALMART SUCKS THE LIFE OUT OF OUR TOWN — WALMART: BAD JOBS, BAD KARMA — WALMART: LOW WAGES, NO HEALTH CARE — DON’T SUPPORT SLAVE LABOR — BOYCOTT WALMART: COMPANY STORE OF THE GLOBAL PLANTATION.


Photos by Roger, Robin, Loring and OCS.

Composer Jason Robert Brown wants to protect his unintellectual rights

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As a musician and fan of stage musicals, I must proffer this disclaimer about American theater composer Jason Robert Brown: he’s terrible. Brown is a poster child for the music industry’s common mediocrity, of commerce’s habitual triumph over art. Now Brown has appointed himself defender of intellectual property rights, holding that teens should not use the internet to pirate his sheet music. Of course, I can only wish him foolproof success.

American musical theater saw a golden age in the 1940s, with notable glimmers of resurgence since then, in ever infrequent cycles. I don’t think anyone would argue that in-between was constant dreck –to which “show tunes” owe their stigma. Defenders of Andrew Lloyd Webber will find themselves similarly unrestrained enthusiasts for popular music, popular fiction and television. To each his own slop.

I have particular antipathy for contemporary composers of awfulness because they drive the inartistic music publishing industry where it does irreparable harm. School bands and theater departments are influenced to pay royalties for the performance pieces whose rights are most profitably leveraged, at the expense of older works of renown. Instead of seeding young repertoires with melodies and lyrics to enrich their memories, teachers pollute their students with forgettable claptrap, courtesy of bards like Brown.

I have the same prejudice with regard to literature. Why aren’t today’s students reading Stevenson or Poe instead of Blume or Rowling? Of course, composer JR Brown is more on par with author RL Stine, he’s that horrible. But don’t take my word for it, have a listen.

That said, here’s Jason Robert Brown championing not just the exclusive right to sell online what his publishers hawk through their network of scholastic pushers, but he wants the same markup. If ever a commodity could change hands for its true worth, Brown’s entire catalog should be ventilated for free through file sharing. Instead he’s personally joining various trading websites and then emailing each and every member who appears to be trading in his goods.

To paraphrase: Hello, I’m Jason Robert Brown, yes, The Jason Robert Brown, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped illegally sharing my music, since it deprives me of my rightful royalties.

Brown has posted some of the ensuing email exchanges on his blog, without any mention of offering remuneration for their contributions. Most laughable, but consistent with the weakness of his music work, Brown has engaged chiefly teens in his discussion of intellectual rights. He lists one discussion in which he compares his stolen sheet music to a loaned screwdriver, a Xerox’d book, and a copied CD.

Mr. Brown, might I direct you to the innumerable organizations which argue that intellectual property rights are not inalienable. They are restraints to trade, impediments to idea sharing, and diametric to elevating community wealth.

You have every right to contrive a product and sell it by whatever connivance, but your monopoly ends there. Whoever were your customers should have the right to do with their purchases what they will. What right have you to tax the use of your thought fart as it passes from ear to ear? Home Depot can’t charge multiple times for a screwdriver it’s already sold; to use your example.

Consider also that your melody was plucked from the ether of shared cultural experience. Should a rights police attach royalty liens on every whiff of inspiration you borrowed? Better to admit we are all channels of a community expression.

Mr. Brown, please be satisfied to exploit the business advantages you’ve built. Your Tony Award is indication enough of that accomplishment. Insisting that you deserve more only invites scrutiny of your ouevre. Your arguments may find refuge with fans of the “Twilight” caliber, but I am not about to underestimate the sophistication of your own musical taste. If you love Broadway, you know the incredible deficiency of the songs you are peddling. Describing your “music sensibility [which] fuses pop-rock stylings with theatrical lyrics” is faint self-praise enough.

Young stage enthusiasts. To you, JRB may appear a “genius” but what else would we expect of a generation raised on High School Musical. For superior fare, check out the pre maudlin days of Broadway, the shows which see regular revivals. If you want something further afield, look to lesser known works by those same composers. Even their obscure productions eclipse the best efforts of hacks today. Much of this material is freely available, but you’ll find that real showstoppers will have you showing no reluctance to part with your lunch money.

Jason Robert Brown, please stop your indecorous whine about the new leak in your traditional income monopoly. Leave your fans to trade them for their real worth.

Relief convoy to bring media Armada

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What this Freedom Flotilla has over previous relief efforts like the Viva Palestina caravans is a momentum building in the international press. It’s the big ship effect that works for gunship diplomacy, brought to bear this time to enforce social justice, too big to ignore.
(Update 5/24: Australia’s Sidney Morning Herald has three articles: 1. the Turkish sendoff 2. Elvis Costello honoring the BDS cultural boycott, and 3. an in-depth story featuring the trademarked media logo BUSTING THE BLOCKADE!)

Admittedly America’s is a Zionist media. That’s where I suppose the social media campaign must wag the Zionist dog, to mix pun with metaphor. It’s going to help no doubt that the Israeli press is already awash with anticipation.

Where the last Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy crossed continents before the BBC begrudged it coverage, the 2010 Freedom Flotilla, including ShiptoGaza and the Free Gaza Movement have already hit BBC radar. The IHH efforts are being joined by a cargo ship which just left Algiers.

Here are the latest photos from Turkey, a Convoy to Gaza blog being updated by UK activist Lorbital, and Tox’s notes about DAY ONE of relief convoy, day 1075 of Gaza Siege.

With Israel vowing to stop them, and the Freedom Flotilla determined to push through, the showdown will have Western media outlets unable to maintain their news blackout. This will be no USS Liberty pummeled by sneak attack with no witnesses permitted to break the story. The Gaza relief convoy numbers nine ships, with more adventurers joining the escort no doubt, a measure of supporters’ anticipation of an inevitable catharsis for the siege.

The inertia looks good to me. Press releases are flying announcing who’s joining the convoy (now a USS Liberty survivor), and European diplomats are issuing statements that they expect Israel to give the convoy safe passage. Wait until the ships are making the final crossing from Cyprus for heavyweight supporters such as George Galloway or Hugo Chavez to weigh in.

Israeli welcome flotillaThe Israeli press is already running circles. A fleet of Israeli sailboats from the Herziliya Marina is preparing to greet the relief convoy with banners that say HAMAS SUCKS to counter whatever humanitarian message they worry the “peace activists” might score. There’s some speculation that Israel would fare better PR by letting the aid through.

A fortuitous coincidence places White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in Israel when the blockade-runners are due to arrive. By Israel, I actually mean the Occupied Territories. Emanuel was trying to book the Western Wall for his son’s barmitzvah. Plans were changed due either to threats from the ultra-right because of US criticisms of continuing settlement building, or because US officials are prohibited from conducting personal business outside of Israel’s Green Line.

Algerian relif convoy shipThe cargo ship which sailed from Algeria today is the al-Jazair. More info on this ship as we find it.

ShiptoGaza Sweden has uploaded more pictures of the loading of the charming Sofia in Athens.

Turkey’s third convoy vessel has been identified as the massive cargo ship Defne Y (IMO: 7725518), loading in Istanbul and due to join the Gazze and Mavi Marmara in Cyprus.

Ed Billings puts city council on Weebly

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Springs’ own Guy Fawkes, aka union activist Ed Billings, has a website finally, named not unpredictably, Colorado Springs Sucks. His first salvo is aimed at Mayor Rivera and our city’s cutback of transportation services. Excerpt:

Mayor Jackass …er… I mean Mayor Lionel Rivera … wants Colorado Springs to be the best city in America to live and work. Doesn’t he know how many people will lose their jobs after January 1, 2010 because he and his third reich have just taken away our extended bus service? … Our bus service will only run Monday through Friday from 6:00 am to 6:45 pm … Colorado Springs will have the highest unemployment in the United Stated thanks to Mayor Jackass and the third reich!

Big Insurance greed? COS is Sick Of It!

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KRDO‘s Eric Singer called today’s health care reform rally “very one sided,” so much so, seeing it, “you might have done a double-take.” Because it wasn’t our backwater’s customary Teabag Pity Party where agitated ignorants throw their own hopes for adequate health care into the drink; but KRDO doesn’t report those anti-rallies as one-sided. Of course, KRDO’s advertisers are the medical system conglomerates, pharmaceuticals, and big insurance! Greed. We are sick of it!
Pattie Mulkey addresses health care reform rally
The Gazette repeated their usual mantra that health care reform is unaffordable, but offered a refreshingly frank representation of Pattie’s nuanced address to the energized crowd.

The full Gazette article:

Health care reform activists rally in Springs
October 13, 2009 3:45 PM
MARIA ST.LOUIS-SANCHEZ
THE GAZETTE

Patti Mulkey wants to work and be a productive member of society. Unfortunately, she says, her health insurance doesn’t cover all of the extensive treatment she needs for her chronic kidney disease. She said her insurance plan keeps her alive, but doesn’t provide enough care that would let her go back to work.

“They make decisions without knowing how this affects everyone’s lives,” she said to a small, but vocal group of people at a rally Tuesday for health care reform in front of Colorado springs’ City Hall. “People who are ill don’t want to be ill. They want to be working and well.”

The “Rally Against Greed” attracted about 40 people carrying signs that read “Greed Sucks” and “Jesus Didn’t Charge Premiums.” The rally was organized by the group Change that Works, a liberal organization that endorses a public option for health care.

While protestors were vehement Tuesday, the rally wasn’t close to the size of other local rallies against the proposed reforms. Instead of focusing on the cost of expanded health care, organizers blamed insurance companies for the high costs in relating the stories of people coping with illnesses.

Like Mulkey, many of the people who attended the rally said they had health insurance, but it didn’t pay for their care. Pat Hill said that even with health insurance, she was paying $750 a month in medical bills stemming from complications from cancer treatments.

James Tucker, a local activist, said the people who reject the proposed reforms may regret it.

“If they don’t get involved and join us, they will pay a price when they need the care,” he said.

How Stupid do they have to be?

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You remember, if you have been paying attention, that mini-controversy a couple of months ago where all the Corporate Sucks were calling us STUPID and/or CRAZY for daring to suggest that a commercial extolling WalMart and Halls Cough Drops being in collusion to force employees to work even while packing contagious diseases?

The same Corporate Sucks or their demented twins who derided any suggestion that the overcrowded overmedicated animals in the Meat Factories aka Concentrated Animal Feeding Enterprise system could possibly be a huge breeding pool for Viral diseases, such as for instance Influenza and resistant bacterial strains like the MRSA and Tuberculosis SuperBugs which are resistant to every antibiotic known.

Or that feeding them antibiotics, which kill bacteria but not Viral infections, leave the immune systems of the Future Hamburgers and Kentucky Fried weakened, thus more susceptible to, oh, let’s seeeeee…. Bird Flu and Swine Flu.

There was another series of commercials a couple of years ago, where a hideously deformed troll gets on a city bus, hacking and sneezing and wheezing, everybody recoiling in fear….

Then he takes an over the counter Flu remedy and gets “all better”…

Asymptomatic but, still contagious.

Same scenario in a crowded office building and in a crowded school…

But, hey, that’s all just Amusing and Entertaining commercials, right(wing)?

Then there’s the deregulation imposed on first US and now Mexico, forcing all those bad ol’ naughty wicked Socialist State programs like meat inspection, Environmental Protection, Occupational Safety and Health Administrations…

To quit meddling with businesses.

Let the marketplace regulate itself and no harm done…

Oh, yeah, that sounds like a workable plan.

See, this system is So Very Superior that we owe it to the rest of the world to place their economies and ecologies under the Benign Dictatorship of Unbridled Capitalism.

It’s for their own good, dontcha know.

Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to build an economy based on Adjustable Rate Mortgages and selling them off as though they were real cash…

Cable TV’s History Channel sucks coal

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The History Channel - Empires of Industry series - The Legacy of CoalNeed further proof that The History Channel is Fox News for the archives? From rewriting the Vietnam War to mythologizing Harry Truman, The History Channel is determined to paint the televised record askew. For example, even in light of the current climate crisis, you will not find a more glowing tribute to America’s monarch of energy, especially its potential for continuing to supply America’s energy needs.

Sarah Palin and her debased GOP base

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Obama Sucks t-shirt vendorCOLORADO SPRINGS- At Sarah Palin’s rally at Sky Sox Stadium on Monday, it was really depressing to see the thousands of people still turning up to see her. But what a bunch they were, and many of them brought children. A few local Dems showed up at 6am to demonstrate for Obama, and a hairy counter-protester set up a t-shirt stand across the street. He kept shouting “Obama sucks” every few seconds. However inane, his effect was demoralizing. He struck this fitting pose when he saw me aim my camera.

Obama supporters
The Obama support scattered themselves along the intersection and kept to a strict message of enthusiasm for their candidate.

Andy
We antagonists entertained jibes with motorists and Republicans arriving on foot.

Eric

Supposedly liberal New York Times spreads fascist filth around country

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boratA spokesperson there said the (New York) Times last Sunday inserted 145,000 DVDs (of “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,”) in its papers delivered in the following markets: Denver, Miami/Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, Detroit, Kansas City, St Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee/Madison. Note: These are all in swing states…

See America’s oldest journal covering the country’s newspaper industry full report about the so-called ‘Clarion Fund’ titled UPDATE: Newspapers Deliver Millions of ‘Terror’ DVDs to Subscribers — In ‘Swing States’ That is, they are delivering DVDs targeting a religious group with racist and US Christian nationalist filth urging yet more war, bloodshed, and Christian religious hatred directed against the Muslim World.

What is most disgusting about this material is the projectionism onto others of their own motives as authors of this DVD. The makers of the DVD urge Christian Americans to stop what they say is a Muslim effort to take over the entire world. Isn’t this exactly what Christian Americans advocate in American foreign policy, where they see American Christians as God’s chosen people and are encouraging a war to help America run the entire world for the supposed future benefit of Christianized America?

So here is the supposedly liberal (in the eyes of Christian Jihad Crusaders) New York Times spreading the Chruistian Fascist Movement’s racial and religious intolerance around our country. And this supposedly liberal paper is doing it to help along the campaign of John McCain, too!

John McCain is trying to create a war hysteria in this country against both the Muslim World and Russia, and the NYT is aiding and abetting the effort. Go figure? Maybe this paper with the liberal reputation is not that liberal at all? Not too liberal to help spread fascist hate mongering against an ethnic and religious minority in our country?

The New York Times is really a paper that totally sucks, Liberals. Why do you read it when it acts most like Fox News most of the time? You liberal dumbasses make conservatives actually believe that The New York Times is a liberal paper when it most certainly … well… really most certainly is not! Stop buying the damn thing! It’s boring, too, … and racist. Of course, many of you liberals are just that as well.

MySpace censors Bush AFA protest story

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Radley
MYSPACE.COM- Radley created an adjunct MySpace page on which he recounted his experience protesting President Bush’s recent AFA visit. Now the page is gone, Radley is being denied access, and MySpace will not explain their actions. Here’s what he wrote:

Bush sucks… anyone for Denny’s?

Well, before I begin this blog. I would like to place a disclaimer in front of it.

Disclaimer: I’m not really an extremist. I try to stay out of the political and social disruptions in the world. Mostly so I can form my own opinion and not argue with zealots of any kind.

That being said, I’d like to tell you about my last “peace protest” with Eric Verlo.

At first, I must admit. I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to help Eric on June 7, the day Bush was arriving to Colorado Springs to give some speech for the Air Force Academy. I suppose this was due to his supposed “liberal shenanigan” reputation amongst reviews placed upon him by the Gazette, the Independent, and/or the Independent.

Also, I forgot to mention about his recent arrests by the Colorado Springs Police Department for his “peace protests” at the St.Patty’s Day parade, and the democratic state convention.

Perhaps I was feeling adventurous, or I ‘m too much of a nice guy. I decided to do it. Even though the thought of getting arrested did go through my mind.

As a matter of fact, when I left the house at six in the morning, (very unusual, let me remind you) my stepfather said, “call us if you get arrested.” Nervousness sets in.

When I got there, I really had no idea of what was going on. All I really remembered was I said yes to meeting Eric on June 7 2008.

The plan was to place a sign up for GWB saying “mene mene tekel upharsin”. The quote “mene mene tekel upharsin” was taken from the bible in the book of Daniel saying, “numbered, weighed and divided.”

Here are some pictures of the event.

I’ll be honest. In retrospect, I’m very glad I went. I didn’t get arrested either. The cops were unbelievably nice to us.

I learned two important things from this.

1. It was surprising how vehement and aggressive some people can get about voicing their anti-peace protest opinions. A few people where yelling at us with their usual republican psycho babble. Statements like ,“Give BUSH his day!” or the common place middle finger.

This gave me an idea. This is good. Too good. My current film “The Republican” is a independent film that ridicules the absurdity of republicanism. By the way, Its currently in production and expect a gorilla marketing campaign coming very soon to Colorado Springs.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that from witnessing the reaction of one of Eric’s peace protests makes this an almost perfect place to premire my film. For anyone who knows anything about the film industry knows no there is no bad publicity. As filmmaker John Waters says put as much sex and violence in your first couple of films, so you start getting people’s attention.

2. the second thing I learned was something about my boss Eric Verlo. To be flat out honest, I don’t think I really knew Eric at all until this event. Even though I’ve been working for him for years. He came across to me as just one of your average guys who wants to slove the America’s problems, just like everyone else. Not someone these political pundits take as some extremist liberal. Its interesting how the media labels you into groups, I wonder what mine might be in the future?

So, afterwards we all came to the conclusion that bush sucks. Eric sort of suggested in a non sequitur way “anyone for Dennys?”

Betrayus redux

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So, now, the one general Bush could find willing to be his bag-man and “take one for the Team” is apparently not happy taking one for the Team, and taking another one for the Team, and then taking another one…

Apparently, the Surge is not working as splendiferously as Mr Bush lies to us. It’s gotten so bad the trained liars are circumventing the story by screaming about shit that means absolutely nothing, but does keep our minds off the fact that the situation in Iraq sucks much dog. And now even Petraeus is saying it.

The latest “scandal! Outrage! there must be Blood shed!” is about a presidential candidates preacher saying that (gasp!) there’s RACISM IN AMERICA!

Hard to follow an act like that. WC Fields or Foy or one of those Last of the Vaudevilleans, great actors, said you should never try to follow an act involving animals or children. I guess the Chimp and his ministry of Lies kinda qualify as both.

But the slaughter goes on… sure, you can keep the boot heel firmly on the necks of the conquered, provided you’re willing to spend the economy of your entire nation to do it.

Then one day, you have to let up, you can’t keep the boot heel on the neck forever. Physical and logistical impossibility.

But it’s not really as sad and pathetic as it seems…

actually, it’s much much worse…

Maybe that’s part of the reason Bush is willing to put the already overstretched military, most of the combat-ready brigades are already in the line of fire, in the line of Further and More intense Fire with his really stupid idea to jump a nation with 5 times the population of the nation they can’t govern effectively.

Some of the Military in town here have called this “sedition” to say things like that.

The actual charge of sedition is to teach the violent overthrow of the government and laws of the united states.

George Bush has not only TAUGHT this doctrine, he and his Gang of Thugs have accomplished it. And put in place a system wherein they might be able to make their Terroristic Dictatorship permanent.

Soldiers and Airmen read this, I know because when I first looked for the blog (not knowing the name) I googled “camp casey colorado springs” and got a discussion forum for soldiers, who were saying that we are seditious.

Fellas, your Commander in Thief is the one committing sedition. You guys swore the same oath I did, and incidentally, the one Bush swore once when he joined the National Guard and twice as POTUS, to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign AND Domestic. That would be the same Constitution he and his group of thugs Openly Declared they would eliminate, by whatever means they considered necessary. The one Bush called “just a piece of goddamned paper” in one of his Imperial Hissie Fits when he was informed that the actions he was proposing were unconstitutional.

He wants to use you as instruments of his Imperial Will, and is willing to make a burnt offering of YOUR blood in the sands of Arabia, but, if you notice, not HIS blood.

To deny this, or denounce this, you first have to read it. Some of your officers will want to suppress this idea by mocking it into disappearing. Or use your muscle to Threaten it into disappearing.

The Romans tried that with Judaism and Christianity.

How’d that work out for y’all?

And I say that because you are the heirs to that empire. Have fun trying to destroy an idea.

You’ll drive yourselves mad trying.

Ask your General with the name of a Roman Legionnaire.

Ask your president whose foreign policy is an exact copy of that offered by Emperor Caligula “Let them hate, so long as they Fear”.

Not my three cups of tea

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Attentive Pakistani CAI convertsI remember a time, not so long ago really, perhaps last month, when I was blissfully unaware of a wayward mountaineer named Greg Mortenson. After nearly reaching the summit of K2, and having lost his porter and his way on the descent, he limped, hungry and cold, into a tiny town in northeast Pakistan called Korphe. After several days spent recovering from his misadventure, Greg Mortenson stumbled from the village leader’s hut into the rarefied Himalayan air.

I am only halfway through the book Three Cups of Tea, One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time which attempts to tell of Mortenson’s journey through Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his quest to build schools for impoverished children. A brave and noble mission no doubt.

I must say, however, that the book is the most poorly written of any I’ve read since my Fabio days. I imagine Mortenson’s adventure was dangerous and thrilling, likely rivaling fellow climber Jon Krakauer’s Everest adventure. Krakauer’s tale was a positively riveting account of the experience, and Into Thin Air remains one of my all-time favorite adventure stories. Three Cups of Tea, on the other hand, well, sucks. I say this not to be unkind, but because I am wondering how on earth it ended up on the New York Times bestseller list.

Here is but a small sample of the creamy pablum co-author David Oliver Relin dishes out:

…Why couldn’t the flag of crescent and star lead these children such a small distance toward “progress and perfection”?

After the last note of the anthem had faded, the children sat in a neat circle and began copying their multiplication tables. Most scratched in the dirt with sticks they’d brought for that purpose. The more fortunate…had slate boards they wrote on with sticks dipped in a mixture of mud and water. “Can you imagine a fourth-grade class in America, alone, without a teacher, sitting there quietly and working on their lessons?” Mortenson asks. “I felt like my heart was being torn out. There was a fierceness in their desire to learn, despite how mightily everything was stacked against them….I knew I had to do something.”

That something became a big something, and Greg Mortenson will share his story at Shove Chapel on January 15.

In Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson, besides being of impressive stature, a point made on every page of the book, is portrayed as little more than a socially stunted somewhat incompetent drifter. So how did this guy, who couldn’t find a decent ghost writer, suddenly become a master of self-promotion? A book tour, magazine covers, even promotional materials sent home in my child’s school backpack. It’s pretty amazing.

I am, as I said, only halfway through the book but I’ve not read anything about Mortenson’s mission of peace. Korphe’s village leader confided to him that, although he ran his fingers reverently over its pages, he couldn’t actually read his treasured Koran, and did not wish the same terrible fate on his children. Mortenson’s mission appears one of education and literacy. I found a copy of the book with a previous title, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations…One School at a Time. Vanquishing terrorism and nation building are the pet projects of neocons, aren’t they? I guess peace promotion is easier to market.

A final note. Greg Mortenson’s lecture at Shove Chapel is sponsored by the UCCS Center for Homeland Security. I really don’t get the connection. I feel like this guy is an unwitting pawn in some greater game. What that game is I don’t know. So I’ll finish the book, go to the lecture, and see if I can connect the dots.

Nicaragua, US made basket case

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Pity Nicaragua, and pity Haiti. The US has screwed up both places royal through its ‘interventions’ time after time, and yet hardly an American seems to care. What a totally immoral country we live in!

Today, these are the 2 poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere due to what our country has done to them and continues to do.

I have been visiting a friend in immigration lockup in Aurora about once a week for the last month. He feels that INS (ICE) will jail him for about 6-9 months before they deport him back to a country where 50%PLUS of the population is now living on less than $1 a day. Our rich folk’s laws in the US say that he has no right to be here and that he acted illegally in entering their country which happens to be my US. Go figure?

The US entered his country illegally and blew off one of my friend’s arms back when he was still a kid, and turned the country he lived into a total basket case which it already was. The last American intervention just got it turned into yet an even worse basket case than the previous US intervenion had made it into. With each US intervention they just fucked up things worse for the Nicaraguans.

These American rich people that went and pulverized Nicaragua over and over again, always talk about how the poor need to take personal responsibility for their actions yet they themselves never take any personal responsibility for turning another man’s country into a total shit hole of poverty, like what has been done to Nicaragua. These rich imperialist supporters are mean, stupid, and uncaring beyond belief.

I would much rather that our own rich were deported to Hell where they belong than that my friend get deported from where I live. What the Hell is wrong with so many of my neighbors that they actually see poor immigrants, like my friend, as being some sort of threat to their own well being?

I wish my friend the best, and am disgusted with the country that is my own. I would leave it myself except that the US has screwed up most of the rest of the world anyway. America, love it or leave it? Get real… America the way it is just plain sucks and its stench is smelled throughout the world and there is no getting away from it.

There just is nowhere to run from the odor. I am ashamed of the people we have become. Just look at how many places we have destroyed. Is there any current hope for Nicaragua? It is hard to tell.

The Science of Fools

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I’m sure you missed it, since most of us have long since given up on reading the idiotic editorials of The Gazette, our Far Right Wing local daily paper. But there it was this Tuesday morning as they attacked the notion of giving our country’s children government guaranteed health care. Oh horror of horrors they said, ‘This will keep people from buying health insurance for the tiny tots!’

This all from a paper that has no problem with giving trillions of government funds to the military industrial complex. They call their ideology ‘Libertarian’, too! But what about the science of these fools, the Science of Libertarian Fools?

Well lets see…..? Just at the moment that scientists see an explosion of infectious disease epidemics as being likely in the near future (in fact they see it as already underway), these fools of The Gazette ignore scientific opinion. They don’t give a shit that the Medical System of the US if more full of holes than Swiss Cheese.

They pooh pooh the idea that there is such a thing as Global Warming, too. Or that there is any planetary ecological crisis currently underway! They practice the Science of Fools, Pretend Libertarianism, so they oppose strengthing medical coverage at the time it is most needed! That’s how they support ‘national security’. They ignore common scientific sense.

Speaking of ignoring science. The Gazette Gang of Editorial Clowns wrote their editorial against providing federal medical coverage for America’s children almost exactly 2 years after Katrina. That was when political clowns such as The Gazette always supports had completely ignored scientific advice calling to strengthen the levees of New Orlean, scientific advice that had been given for decades.

Ignoring that scientific advice led to the Great New Orleans Flood, which no doubt the ignorant a-holes at The Gazette consider to be God’s will. It wasn’t, but New Orleans got washed into the gutter because of dumb dicks like the Gazeete editorial writers that always support what they call “Free Enterprise,’ while condeming and ignoring realy important scientific opinion. Goodbye, New Orleans.

Boy that paper sucks! Every time The Gazette writes editorial comments on ecology, medicine, or anything at all dealing with science, they just are on Cloud Nine. They are lost dealing with Political Science, too. In fact, they are as corrupted as you can get.

The ‘free market’ doesn’t like science at all. It just gets in the way of maxing out making profits for the well-to-do. Our children deserve more, and they deserve guaranteed federal mandated medical coverage. This is the science that will stop the spread of disease. Big Business hates it. They prefer the Science of Fools instead.

PS- See where these unoriginal editorialists of The Gazette got their unoriginal opinion from. A Socialist Plot

Reality sucks for the right… Right Michael?

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Now, our resident Provocateur, Slivka, has been talking (or writing) much smack lately about Walter Reed and comparing it to one of the Right Wingnut talking points, publicly funded health care.

On the other other hand,

Now this is a link to an Army newspaper, The Army Times. As everybody knows, a hotbed of Socialists and Liberals.

What it essentially means, (the story is about an Army General being silenced, by the Pentagon, but subpoenaed anyway to testify in Congress)
is that there seems to have been a little teeny small wee itsy bitsy thing Michael Slivka and his right wing Keyboard Kommando buddies didn’t want us to know. If Michael pleads ignorance, I for one am almost prepared to believe him.

You see, the health care at Walter Reed was privatized. To people with strong links to our old friend, Ali Burton, the Thief of Baghdad.

The righties got all wound up that it was a clear case of socialized medicine, and the failure thereof, and how a private health care scam ooops i mean “plan” would have made all better…

And then that bad ol’ wicked reality jumped up and bit them squarely on their right buttcheeks.

Democratic Guv Ritter betrays Colorado Labor-What a surprise!

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The Guv has just vetoed HB-1072, a Colorado bill that had already been passed in both houses of the Colorado State Government, and a bill he had promised the unions he would support. In doing this, he acted on behalf of the Republicans and business interests that want it to continue to be almost impossible to unionize work places in this state.

This veto was a total betrayal of the workers who voted for him, and believed his promise that he was pro-labor. He is not, and now has shown his true colors but only after he was elected by those in the Colorado Labor Movement who supported him with their votes, and in return got conned.

Workers would have been electing a union shop when they vote union if this legislation had been allowed to take effect. Now, if they vote to have a union, they don’t really get one since the current state law allows the losers of any employee vote to just opt out of paying dues, even as they still would benefit by any contracts negotiated to their benefit by the dues paying union workers in their workplace. This of course destroys the cohesiveness of those trying to present a solid front on behalf of the employees against the bosses, and as a result, makes it next to impossible to unionize.

The type of betrayal done by Democrat Bill Ritter is par for the course. Labor unions have been pumping billions of dollars through the years into the corporate Democrats, and as a result, is now so pitiful and debilitated in the US that essentially we have no functioning unions here in America. People don’t want to join the unions even if there is one around, simply because the laborcrats siphon off most of the dues to themselves, and into lobbying a political party, the Democratic party, that is pro business, and not pro worker. How stupid is that?

There is one bone thrown still tossed out by Ritter to the labor bosses of Colorado that spent union dues money in helping him get elected. They got a man with a Spanish last name, Don Mares, appointed to head up the Colorado Department of Labor. Oh Wow!

Mares is an attorney and vice president of the LAEF (Latin American Educational Foundation, and ex candidate for Denver mayor. The LAEF is a total corporate write-off and public relations group funded by the Coors Foundation, a major funder of Right Wing causes throughout the US. Some ‘labor’ rep Don Mares will make! The union hacks might as well throw their rank-and-filers’ union dues paying money to the wind as to keep funding these types of con artists. What losers they are, these trade union honchos lined up with the DP!

Governor Bill Ritter is just another case in point that the Democratic party sucks big time. Progressives need to stop wasting their time and money on these charlatans, and it sure is no way to rebuild the union movement in this state, or this country, to be trying to buy and lobby votes from the Democratic party politician scoundrels. All that good money wasted and for about next to total Zilch.

25 in one

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That was the score for friday. 13 in one accident or so they say. Their “accidents” always look suspicious to me.
All in all, a hot day in the middle of winter. Usually at four in the morning I do better than this, but man that sucks.

I know, I know, 25 human beings took the final trip and the best I can come up with is that sucks. no, worse than that, it was “man, that sucks.”

And the others who took the trip with them as well, I can’t think how many… 20. 50 maybe 70 … and as usual all of them were militants.

I really AM in awe of that kind of targeting and precision. All those people killing each other and the U S only gets the bad guys, and never ever kills a single civilian.

The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs sucks big time

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Citadel Let’s face it. UCCS was designed by second rate people to be a second rate school. A simple visit or two is all that is necessary to come to this conclusion. America is full of these second rate schools and all of them have the same features. These middle schools masquerading as universities all were deliberatey designed not to become another Berkeley, Madison, Boulder, UT at Austin, etc. They were designed to be intellectually barren zones, devoid of life, liberty, and happiness. Just what is the formula for doing this that the architects of The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs followed so faithfully?

Location, location, location! That is the key to successfully designing the second rate, nominally public university. You got to build these places out in the boonies far from intellectual family, friends, and community. You want no liberal cafes, bookstores, video stores, nor public places of any kind to pop up. The ideal, is to enclose the campus building within a fortress of parking lots 40-50 miles out of the way. A place amongst the cows, and far from the people. UCCS didn’t quite meet this ideal, as it is not even that physically far from the center of the city. But just try to walk onto the campus from outside! It’s nigh near impossible!

On one side you have the cliffs, and on the other side you have the busy road. Then you have the wall, the signs that disallow parking, the signs saying it is illegal to cross the busy road on foot. Shoot, I’m surprised they don’t have machine guns pointed out over barbed wire blocking the community’s way to keep normal folk of the city away from the impressionable young minds jailed inside! So as it is, you do risk your life by trying to ambulate onto the grounds of higher education designed by second rate people to be second rate. Oh, and to produce conservative credentialed folk that are usually too stupid to realize that they got robbed of any real education by the time they stumble forth once again.

Maybe you want to commute a vehicle to approach this ivory tower of mediocrity? Some delectable conference ‘open’ to the tax payers of Colorado Springs has perhaps tempted you to breach the gates? Go right ahead inside! Pop out of your car, appraoch the automated university pick pocket, and chunk down your $7.00 parking fee. Oh what a bargain, no wonder people are knocking this place down to use a s a community resourse! Not. What you have instead is so-called university designed as gated community. Gated any way you look.

There are two common incorrect assumptions made about the UCCS. Number one- that it is actually a university. Wrong. A university is engaged in education, while UCCS is not. It is engaged in credentialing. That is, it is engaged in credentialing essentially people that remain uneducated. Number two- UCCS is thought of as being a publicly funded school. Not really. Go to their website and see where the money actually comes from.

Sure, some of it is from public taxpayers’ money, like the parking structures and general architecture of the area, all designed to keep the taxpaying lower classes of the public away and off campus. But the big political money comes from super rich people like Philip Anschutz. He just wrote off his taxes to the tune of $92 million given to control the direction that UCCS goes in. Think this supposedly public university is going to allow any public professor to bad mouth Phil? You can take all that chortle and nonsense about balance and free speech away, can’t you? This is a place paid for by the Mr. Bigs.

So you now see why the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs sucks so big time. Big money produces big crap once again in yet another American city. ‘Universities’ everywhere, and all populated by credentialed dunces. Thanks, Philip Anschutz. Thanks big boys. So much money to produce a UCCS! What a waste.

Humor

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I once had to break up with a perfectly good boyfriend. He was 6’5″, 240 pounds, Denver Broncos tight end, straight-A student, fast car, cool apartment….blah, blah. We had dated for two years, discussed marriage and children, a serious deal. But I knew that it was time for me to pull the plug. Why, you ask? Here’s the honest truth. He thought the Three Stooges were HILARIOUS.
 
pictureThis may seem a ridiculous reason but, really, when your man is curled up in a fetal position night after night, laughing convulsively at Larry, Curly and Moe, a feeling of separateness, a moat that no drawbridge can span, envelops you and leaves you completely alone, bereft, devoid of vision and hope.

I’ve often said that my sense of humor has saved me as I’ve weathered the storms of life. Don’t laugh. I’m very serious about this. I think the ability to see irony or absurdity, the ability to be self-effacing, has enabled me to cope with all that has come my way. A sense of humor is more therapeutic to me than Prozac or Valium or crack cocaine (it was only that one time, I swear).

This past weekend I stumbled across VH1’s 100 Best Saturday Night Live skits. I think I may be one of the only people on the planet who has watched SNL religiously, season after season, since its inception in 1975. I was in the 8th grade when SNL began. I’m 44 now. In a good year perhaps 30% of the skits could qualify as funny. But those that are change our perspective, change our lives really. Do you remember when the old George Bush overcame the wimp factor to become our 41st president? Do you remember when he drew a line in the sand…daring the Iraqis to mess with the US of A? His approval rating was higher at that time than almost any president in history. Enter Dana Carvey. His affectionate, yet biting, parody of George Bush allowed us all to breathe a collective sigh of relief. Yes, we elected him, we like him….but we have reservations. Na Ga Da…what the hell does that mean?

Now we have president number 43, Dubya. Shit, hell, fuck. Please give us something to laugh about because he’s letting us down big time. This war sucks. At least let us mock his laugh. Hehehehe. My goodness, can’t we make fun of his fraternity boy demeanor….his inability to speak in complete sentences? If not, how about those daughters of his? Texas girls…tequila-swilling, blow-job-giving hose bags. Well…nothing that I wasn’t but who cares? I wasn’t in the public eye so too bad presidential daughters!

And Hillary. You went to Wellesley like all smart lesbians do. You could be our next president if only you didn’t have cankles! Look it up in the dictionary you’ll see a picture of Hillary Clinton’s lower leg. Hahahahahahaha! No credibility with me because no differentiation between your calves and ankles! Universal health care?! SHUT THE HELL UP, FATTO!!!

Thank you, Lorne Michaels, for sticking with SNL. Thank you for being politically incorrect (a phrase that didn’t even exist back then). You’ve given wings to a whole new generation of political satirists…..Dennis Miller, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert. We hunger for someone to interpret our global reality. It sucks. But it’s funny. Yes, there’s terror in the world but there is also laughter, my friends. Tell me that there isn’t something humorous about tall skinny Osama hiding in a cave needing dialysis. Poor Osama. Just the name Osama doubles me over. O-S-A-M-A.

Back to you, my Stooge-loving former sweetie pie, I know you married not too long after we parted. I imagine that your wife is beautiful, your children perfect. I picture their prowess on the field, their superiority in the classroom. But mostly I picture grubby hands, erect across the bridges of freckled noses….avoiding the inevitable double eye poke. It’s a life that I could never be a part of. Nyuk, nyuk! Woo, woo!