AMERICAN SENATE TO VOTE ON WHETHER TO HAVE A POLICE STATE

Just in case you still think that what the Occupy Wall Street movement has been fighting for is all quite unnecessary, please note that the United States Senate is very shortly to vote on a very terrifying bill indeed. The following is from the ACLU website, and you can get more details there:

"The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself."

The vote will take place this Monday or Tuesday. Check out the ACLU for what you can do about it.

Yes, the police and the army are the RIGHT HAND OF GOD ALMIGHTY. We are being require to FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP every state employee with a gun in his hand. As Chef says in APOCALYPSE NOW, "it's fuckin' pagan idolatry!"

WHAT ARE THOSE NIHILISTIC, MARXIST, ANTI-SEMITE

hippies doing at Zuccotti Park today? Demanding handouts? Selling drugs? Peeing in the street?

No, ah, well, they're handing out food and celebrating Thanksgiving.

Ah, but this must be a cynical plot to make themselves look good, eh? Hmmm?

I remember that when Jesus cast out devils the pharisees thought it was the devil doing it. Nothing Jesus did pleased those people, and so it is with OWS and the truculent reactionaries who blither against them.

What sort of a devil celebrates Thanksgiving?

Let the 1% and their stooges continue to slander and foam at the mouth. The Lord shall hold his enemies in derision.

Joy has entered politics.

I ALWAYS FIGURED

the police were supposed to protect us from people like those you might find in a biker gang. But what about when the police ARE a biker gang? Here we observe a police officer, in full macho mode, beating a protester in Oakland, November 3. Why? The cop has all the arrogant demeanour of some thin-skinned superman who feels his honour has been slighted somehow, and he must assert himself. From a position of perfect security, this pig (I will not dignify him with the title of policeman) strikes the very brave Kayvan Sabehgi.

Mr. Sabehgi is a veteran of the Iraq war. His behaviour is entirely peaceful, as you can see in the clip. Could it be this peacefulness which so enrages the furious little potentate? As the Good Book says, the darkness hateth the light.

I would like to believe that piggy was attacking in sheer frustration at his own shame. If so, there is hope that some day he will become a man again, instead of a pig. He might decide to walk on two legs again, and get out of the mire of his cruelty and self-pity, or whatever that mess is in there.

And right near the end of the video, I believe there is a woman protesting this brutality, but still trying to appeal to what is best in the police. Such patience! She is still able to hope that piggy has a human heart. And yes, she is right to do so.

It's enough to make you weep. These people strengthen me. If any of the OWS protestors anywhere is reading this, I want you to know that you strengthen me. You do indeed turn the other cheek, and out of strength, not weakness. Your peace is the peace of Christ, and I say this about all of you, whether you are Christians or not. The peace of OWS is stronger than the violence of the state.

Fuck it. How much commentary is really necessary? Just watch the video.

The people have the courage to stand up to the police. When will the police show some courage to stand up to those who are telling them how to dance? Or perhaps courage is not the issue: perhaps the cops really do love the state more than they do the people. Perhaps they are glad of what they are doing and enjoy it. But I believe the days of this wicked pleasure are numbered . . .

AT LAST . . .

. . . a cop who ACTUALLY HAS A NAME. The officer in this video is, allegedly, Lt. John Pike. Yes, he pepper sprays peaceful protestors at an Occupy protest in Los Angeles, University of California I believe, as if he were casually watering daisies on a Sunday morning.

But look what you're growing, porky: contempt. More and more people are noticing your lack of guts and your willful blindness to other people's humanity and rights. They may have the mace in their eyes, but you are the one who is truly blind. Don't you see the strings attached to your limbs? Take a look up there and see who's holding them. That's it: the 1%. That's who you are serving and protecting.

And look at the discipline of the protestors! This never ceases to impress me. No one breaks ranks in a panic, no one hurls himself at the state's obedient gardener in a fury, playing into the hands of a state that is aching to prove OWS "violent."

Thomas Merton Poem: "First Lesson About Man"

“First Lesson About Man”

by Thomas Merton

Man begins in zoology.
He is the saddest animal.
He drives a big red car called anxiety.
He dreams at night
Of riding all the elevators.
Lost in the halls,
He never finds the right door.

Man is the saddest animal.
A flake-eater in the morning,
A milk-drinker.
He fills his skin with coffee
And loses patience with the rest of his species.
He draws his sin on the wall,
On all the ads in all the subways.
He draws moustaches on all the women
Because he cannot find his joy,
Except in zoology.

Whenever he goes to the phone to call Joy,
He gets the wrong number.
Therefore he likes weapons.
He knows all guns by their right name.
He drives a big black Cadillac called death.
Now he is putting anxiety into space.
He flies his worries all around Venus,
But it does him no good.
In space where for a long time there is only emptiness,
He drives a big white globe called death.

Now dear children
Who have learned the first lesson about man,
Answer your test:
“Man is the saddest animal.
He begins in zoology,
And gets lost
In his own bad news.”


If you want to hear this read and with some cool paintings to go along with it, check it out at YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQz63Om0vdk

NEVER MIND

that previous post. I carry on. And speaking of posts, here's a short, knockout essay by one of my favourite political guys, Chris Hedges. An excerpt:

"The rogues’ gallery of Wall Street crooks, such as Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs, Howard Milstein at New York Private Bank & Trust, the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, the Koch brothers and Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan Chase & Co., no doubt think it’s over. They think it is back to the business of harvesting what is left of America to swell their personal and corporate fortunes. But they no longer have any concept of what is happening around them. They are as mystified and clueless about these uprisings as the courtiers at Versailles or in the Forbidden City who never understood until the very end that their world was collapsing. The billionaire mayor of New York, enriched by a deregulated Wall Street, is unable to grasp why people would spend two months sleeping in an open park and marching on banks. He says he understands that the Occupy protests are “cathartic” and “entertaining,” as if demonstrating against the pain of being homeless and unemployed is a form of therapy or diversion, but that it is time to let the adults handle the affairs of state. Democratic and Republican mayors, along with their parties, have sold us out. But for them this is the beginning of the end."

The whole thing is a very rousing, empowering piece of work. See the link above for it all.

WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT

of carrying on with this blog any more? On a very good day I might get a dozen hits. I know I can attract more traffic by giving up my job and the rest of my life and spending all my fucking time trying to get more people to come here, but I don't seem to have the hours of self-promotion time others do.

Fucking Hell! I can't go to any of the OWS protests, so I would like to at least support OWS on the net. How do I get more traffic here without making net work a full time job?

History is being made, people are standing up to the fascist goon squads (otherwise known as police) and here I am just fucking talking to myself.

SO THEY'VE CLOSED ZUCCOTTI PARK, HAVE THEY?

Do they really think it will be as simple as that? Just pull enough cops together (massive numbers of them, apparently) and you can maintain corporate/state control over the population?

Here is one big advantage of the 99%: we outnumber the enemy. There are not enough cops to keep us under control, and there never can be.

If anyone says OWS is over they are engaging in wishful thinking. So what else is new?

I ACKNOWLEDGE CLASS WARFARE EXISTS

Here's an excellent OWS related Facebook site: I ACKNOWLEDGE CLASS WARFARE EXISTS.

LET ME TELL YOU . . .

I remain a Christian, because I don't know a better, more reasonable, or more convincing way, and because I believe I have been given the grace to see some truth here that might otherwise look crazy on some levels. And pissed off as I often am these days by the pharisaical self-righteousness of atheist fundamentalists, I have to say I detect in some of them a rage against the God they claim not to believe in.

But I can tell you I share this rage. I can give you the theologically correct line that God is perfect and without sin (and I believe this) but I am still angry at Him. I have been having some very persistent problems lately, and they are not even that bad compared to what a lot of people have. I am deeply frustrated.

So what gives? Why does God let the world remained fucked up? Why are we still waiting for the Second Coming? No one really has an answer to this do they?

Fuck it all. Fuck it all. What can you trust God for? What if you ask for bread and get a scorpion? I suppose you just keep waiting. the idea seems to be that you are not to put God to the test. Whatever.

I don't think I would ever be capable of becoming an atheist. But I could very bitterly turn against God.

And does He love us UNCONDITIONALLY or not? And of what does this love consist? What do we GET from it (and I do not care if that sounds mercenary)? And can we therefor give up worrying about the afterlife?

When your life is fucked up, is this God's punishment? Judgement? Is it your cross to bear as Jesus bore his, and can you feel you are serving God in your suffering? Is there honour in your suffering?

I hate this life. I truly hate it. I am not at all sucidal, nor without hope. But sometimes I hate this world and want to shit all over it.

HAVE YOU HEARD OF TONY CAMPOLO?

I did years ago, but didn't pay a lot of attention. Well, recently I've been checking out a lot of YouTubes featuring him. I don't agree with everything he says, but I agree with a lot. I like his solid, loving, earthy Christianity. This is a man who is both compassionate and no-nonsense. Actually, he even reminds me a little of Don Rickles. Check out this Youtube of him talking about consumer culture. Though he doesn't mention the Occupy movement here, I think what he says here is eminently relevant to it. You may think it odd that a self-described pornographer and cultural bolshevik such as myself would admire an Evangelical and self-described "conservative," but there are a lot of strange overlappings in the world that people miss.

And this is one reason why I have grown to hate that climate one sees on the net that pits religious people against secular ones and sees one party as all good and the other as all evil (or idiotic). But that's another story.

U.S. WEALTH DISTRIBUTION

For more such charts, graphs, etc. on U.S. wealth and income distribution, see BUSINESS INSIDER.


http://www.businessinsider.com/new-charts-about-inequality-2011-11?op=1

ON ALL THE MARK SCHATZGERS OF THE WORLD

Forgive me, those opposed to OWS, for being so vulgar as to have to make a rather obvious point. I'll get to it in a moment.

Now, every society has at least one or two very stupid ideas that even otherwise intelligent people often believe, for whatever reason. In earlier days it may have been the divine right theory of kings, or that people couldn't handle any measure of democracy, or that one race had a right to own another.

In our present age, we entertain some very stupid ideas about rich people. In other ages people were stupid about priests or aristocrats, but ours is stupid about the capitalist bourgeoisie.

Now you may have heard about the recent flap over Governor Rick Perry of Texas mistaking a fictional satirical character ("Jeremy, 38") for an actual Occupy protestor in Toronto. Jeremy is a creation of anti-Occupy satirist Mark Schatzger, and here is what Schatzger (via Jeremy) had to say:

“It’s weird protesting on Bay Street. You get there at 9 a.m. and the rich bankers who you want to hurl insults at and change their worldview have been at work for two hours already. And then when it's time to go, they're still there. I guess that's why they call them the one per cent. I mean, who wants to work those kinds of hours? That's the power of greed.” – Jeremy, 38

Now you can see what Schatzger is getting at. It's designed to play on those old deeply anchored puppet strings of guilt and shame those of us who are not millionaires have woven into us from an early age. Not that we are ashamed of not being millionaires, necessarily, but we are deeply ashamed to question (wait for it . . .) their right to all that money.

That's right. You don't question what a millionaire did for his money -- whether he actually earned it or not. But of course, the reason why we are so programmed into not asking such a question is very real: the truth about the rich is very embarrassing to them -- so embarrassing that many of them, even, do not want to know it about themselves. They have some very tenacious delusions about themselves, that is for sure. And their egos defend these delusions with the ferocity of a drowning man whose life preserver is being stolen.

Oh the righteousness of the indignant ego! Oh the beleaguered rights and reputations of bankers!

Never underestimate just how much of the mumbo-jumbo people are fooled and intimidated into accepting is just sheer bluff. It's really quite astonishing. An even half way honest person will every day of her life feel like the little child in the famous "Emperor's New Clothes" fairytale who can see the Emperor is indeed naked. Will she have the self-confidence, the moxie to say, "dude, your dick is flapping in the breeze. Put some fucking clothes on." Or will she cower and not trust her own eyes and assume the Emperor (or Mark Schatzger, or the class he toadies to) really is wearing something, despite the evidence of her own eyes?


In Canada, the top 1% owns about one third of the property. It's even worse in the U.S. Now tell me, you defenders of the rich, please, and this brings me to the vulgar and obvious point I started saying I simply must make: show me your evidence that 1% of Canada does approximately one third of all the work. Does this enquiry not simply flatten all claims to the "justice" of the 1% owning so much? They would not only have to be the hardest working people in the country, they would have to outstrip the average Canadian many, MANY times in industriousness.

Ah, but I'm sure there is some rationalization. But we don't hear it so much, do we, because the challenge to the "right" of the rich to so much wealth is so seldom made in the first place.

Until now.

BTW: How did Mark Schatzger get his job? Did he put in long hours? Take big risks? Well, whatever he DID do, I can tell you what he DIDN'T do once he got that job: think. It is possible, for all I know, that Mark Schatzger busted his ass to get his job, but one thing is for sure: he doesn't bust his ass doing it.

THE DAYS OF THEIR POWER ARE NUMBERED

I AM GETTING ANGRY

Okay, I started writing this post a couple of days ago and had to stop because I thought I might to too far.

So now I've cooled down a little.

But I am still pissed off about the increasing strong-arm tactics used by the police. Check this out with regard to recent activity in Denver, but you can find more easily enough.

I wonder what is going on in the hearts of these cops. Is it some inner, tragic conflict between following orders and being human, or is this all in a day's work for them?

Maybe they should try to put being men and women before being instruments of the corporate owned state. They have a duty to take from us the temptation to see them as things, as subhumans, as objects without souls.

Or is it possible that that is the strategy?

MILITARY BRAVERY

As a person who has taken a great interest in military history over the years, I have noticed that a multitude of sins will be forgiven a soldier -- even one who willingly fights for an evil cause -- as long as he fights bravely.

But bravery, of itself, it nothing. It's what you do with it and why that counts.