W's Absurd Support of Jeb.

Last week I referred to Peter Kirsanow, a US Civil Rights Commissioner who predicted people would call for internment camps should Arabs be blamed for another attack on America. Today's SF Chronicle describes some of the backlash.

The civil rights community wants Peter Kirsanow's head.

The drums of war are beating. Our pResident in chimp plans to bring down the US in total bankruptcy by the end of his term. 250000 thousand troops are a lot of collateral for screw up from Daddy and his forgetful predecessor.

Profound Effect on U.S. Economy Seen in a War on Iraq

"When a politician won't let go of a proposal that, by any normal calculation, should be completely off the table, you have to wonder."
Krugman, of the NY Times has been doing a lot of wondering lately (like the rest of us). He has opened the main stream media doors to Bush's back door dealings (finally). He is deciding to take alternative press and journalism more seriously. With Chimp's past (the Harken story), this privatizing of Social Security is still being pushed for a reason. Read on... (requires free registration)

The Private Interest

But wait! First: -- who is "The Enemy"? It's all very well to mutter about conspiracies of the Establishment. Discussion of abstract enemies such as "the state" will get us nowhere. I am not oppressed (or alienated) directly by any concrete entity called the state, but by specific groups such as teachers, police, bosses, etc.

Capitalism creates separation. Ideally, Capital would like to discorporate entirely and retreat into the cyberspace of electronic wealth (and electronics as wealth) -- of pure speed, pure representation. The infinite "growth" which is Capital's concept of immortality will indeed exceed all limits once economics becomes a matter of digitalized data, or spiritualized knowledge, or "gnosis".

I don't see Capitalism vanishing overnight like Communism -- it's too organic, too closely linked up with "what's really going on". Marxism fell because it had entered a state of abstraction and denial -- failed to embrace the Spectacle as the true site of power -- but Capital didn't make this mistake. Capital will disintegrate rather than undergo sudden implosion. The signs of disintegration will become more and more obvious to experience. The murky clouds in the crystal are starting to drift and clear.

Capitalism only supports certain kinds of groups, the nuclear family for example, or ``the people I know at my job,'' because such groups are already self-alienated & hooked into the Work/Consume/Die structure. Other kinds of groups may be allowed, but will lack all support from the societal structure, & thus find themselves facing grotesque challenges & difficulties which appear under the guise of `` bad luck.''

(``Well, I can't live without a job!'').

Yes, perhaps it's true we can't ``live'' without a job--although I hope we're grown-up enough to know the difference between life & the accumulation of a bunch of fucking gadgets. Still, we must constantly remind ourselves (since our culture won't do it for us) that this monster called WORK remains the precise & exact target of our rebellious wrath, the one single most oppressive reality we face (& we must learn also to recognize Work when it's disguised as ``leisure'').

The rat-bastard Capitalist scum who are telling you to ``reach out and touch someone'' with a telephone or `` be there!'' (where? alone in front of a goddam television??)--these lovecrafty suckers are trying to turn you into a scrunched-up blood-drained pathetic crippled little cog in the death-machine of the human soul (& let' s not have any theological quibbles about what we mean by ``soul''!). Fight them--by meeting with friends, not to consume or produce, but to enjoy friendship-- & you will have triumphed (at least for a moment) over the most pernicious conspiracy in EuroAmerican society today--the conspiracy to turn you into a living corpse galvanized by prosthesis & the terror of scarcity-- to turn you into a spook haunting your own brain. This is not a petty matter! This is a question of failure or triumph!

On inward,
Derek

Peter Kirsanow is a member of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission since being appointed by W last year. In what seems like preemptive scapegoating, he is predicting that Americans will demand internment camps for Arabs should another attack on America be attributed to Arabs. It's so convenient for him to claim he doesn't support or envision such camps, so long as the propaganda machine begins to imprint the unacceptable notion into the minds of those who can then later irrationally call for such action. Add this guy to your list of officials to ouster from office.

Full story.

Nader dives into the "assumptions of a capitalistic system" and our inability to act against corporate crime. "Corporate crime, fraud and abuse have become like the weather; everyone is talking about the storm but no one seems able to do anything about it," he states. Funny, one can really make a case of this with the pResident and global warming...

He presents the details of what he was attempting to say on CNN's CrossFire the previous night amid constant interruption from the Right's young pup, Tucker Carlson. Nader barely got anything in edgewise, with very little support from the exuberant pro-Clinton, Paul Begala. Nader looks like a man on his own beating down the Right's attacks and scorned by the Left in party politics. Tucker's constant badgering and comments like these- "We'll be right back to ask Ralph Nader if he is going run again and ruin another Democratic candidate hopeful's chance of winning!"- truely takes the fun out of a constructive discussion.

Enjoy.

'Corporate Socialism' (washingtonpost.com)

Just yesterday the news was that the House Republicans were restoring to the Homeland Security Bill each of the departments removed by committees.

Full story: House Leadership Bows to President on Security Dept.

Now today they make the committees out to be sovereign so their tax-evading corporate friends can continue to receive the benefit of government contracts, despite the Bermuda loophole.

Full story: House Takes Up, but Drops, Bermuda Corporation Issue

This hypocrisy can not stand.

And yet again...

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - A judge Thursday ordered the U.S. government to explain within a week why it is holding prisoner an American-born man who was captured with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan

Full article.

Here's another person stepping up with a challenge. Gilmore v. Ashcroft was filed today in Federal Court for the Northern District of California. The outcome is irrelevant. I'm probably only 70-80% on board with Gilmore's points. Its the fact that the battle is engaged that strikes me as important. The more people see that, the more people realize what Parrish notes below: you are not alone.

Read more.

Geov Parrish wrote a piece today in Working For Change that had some good cheerleading for those trying to figure out how to play their part in turning things around. The first half of the article didn't interest me all that much, but in the second half he makes these three points:

1. You are not alone.
2. You must go beyond preventing the bad and create ways and means for improvement.
3. It is doable.

I say the power of optimism should not be underestimated. Consciously choose to channel it.

Read the article.

Questions to contemplate...

Does capitalism still work in a democratic system? It is time to evolve. We do live in a society that is increasingly controlled by corporate "welfare." That fact that capitalism, as prescribed by the likes of Adam Smith, who proposed his early ideas as a relatively certain extension of democratic values, has evolved into a corrupt oligarchy is proof indeed. Its relationship with a democratic republic has been tainted. The examples are obvious. The modern day Republic needs to better facilitate the democratic idea. People are constantly commenting that Capitalism is the better economic system to be fused with a Democratic State. But has anything really changed since the beginnings of the mighty USA? Are the ideas of Locke and Rousseau still valid in our corrupt corporate government? Reform is on order for these systems. We are at the point that these two systems, economic and socio-political, are so convoluted that true evolutionary reform is the best way for our society.

So how do we change it? In a recent conversation with my significant other, she confidently stated, "We have had enough outrage, what can we really do to act and change?" It is where we are, right now. The old ways of 60s activism are failing, just as our economic and political systems. The present ideologies are complicated and don't represent the majority of free peoples. Are we striving for a true democracy, one that is facilitate fairly by the Republic and gives access to economic endeavors to all? Or are following the path most traveled, that led to the fall or many powerful once democratic states?

The concepts are lost in the mass of complacency and mediocrity. "We have lost control of our public lands, airways, and public companies," stated Ralph Nader last night on CNN's Crossfire. "Publicly-traded corporations are not controlled by their investors and employees, they are controlled by a board of directors" that only think for themselves...

And, yes, Derek's comment- "I say tolerate chaos and the only time to fix it is when it’s not broke."- may have certain validity, because most people are happy and seem more tolerant of change during good times. But, economic prosperity gives license to those who go unchecked, as one adage states: I don't want a bigger piece of the pie. I want my own pie! Unchecked, because the Almighty dollar breeds apathy and manifests greed. And, with greed, comes corrupt Capitalism and a comprised Democracy as the rich strive for more power, leaving the rest behind. This is inherently flawed. The goals of this oligarchy is not that of its people. Utopia only comes to the few, but for a democratic society, it never was really an option for the rest of us, was it?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it would not participate in a new Justice Department program that encourages millions of American workers to report suspicious activity they see while doing their routine work.


full article


Every time an extreme Ashcroft or Bush proposal gets contested or struck down, we have something to celebrate. These occasions give us an opportunity to point to patterns. This path must lead to the removal from office of both men. Visit www.extremeashcroft.com.

Dear antiMandate,

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
Abraham Lincoln, 1864

To quote economist Kenneth Arrow in many situations “we must simply act fully knowing our ignorance of possible consequences.” I realize now what it means to be granted your fifteen minutes of lame. Breakfast lunch dinner ice-cream next exit. It’s time we started to establish if we are different or not. Differences like: Webster and a Dictionary: both small and can fit in a backpack, both breathe words, but only one knows how to spell “Popadopolis.” Ironically this ethic fosters a bureaucratic culture supposedly the last bastion protecting us from the encroachment of our American lives. A manager is not a leader. A leader is someone who manages to get by at all costs. Tolerating the mundane stuff of life is a survival instinct that really seems to dominate the need for risk. That’s gibberish. There are only two types of situations: WIN-WIN and WIN-LOSE. Only two personality types: Once-Born and Twice-Born. Yet there was only a single song called “Once Bitten Twice Shy.” And when Hitler and Stalin linked up Socialism with incompatible software like Nationalism and Totalitarianism they fucked up the programming. It was not so long ago that Bert Lance President Jimmy Carter’s budget director and confidant declared, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” I say tolerate chaos and the only time to fix it is when it’s not broke.

“A nation never falls but by suicide.” EMERSON

Where do we go from here? We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with “now.” Take Democracy seriously. Talk about it frequently and seriously enough that others will listen. As corporate power expands to control much of the government itself, your constitutional right to vote outside the workplace becomes increasingly meaningless as well. As a struggling artist and writer I wrote to George W. Bush “You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.” The spectacle seduces me by endowment of sympathy for I stand under a bridge wet from the rain windy from the train: troubled by a carnival Texan masked green violent and pink.

Absolve me,
Derek

Ivins states: "The market fundamentalist doesn't understand that when capitalism is not regulated, it screws up with monotonous regularity..."

That Watchdoggie in the Window | Molly Ivins | July 2002

Thanks Molly, for your vigilence. It is important to continue applying pressure until the wound stops bleeding.