| Paul is Dead at the End of the World - Pt. 1 |
[Jul. 21st, 2009|11:05 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | aleister crowley, brian jones, conspiracy, d.u.m.b., deep underground military base, kenneth anger, lucifer rising, nibiru, paul is dead, paul mccartney, planet x, tara browne, the beatles | ] |
I've recently decided that as an artist, my perfect medium is "large head cartoons with clipped, synthetic voices".
So, without any further ado...
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| Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean that they're not trying to poison you |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|05:34 pm] |
It seems as if someone's up to no good.
Unless you've been under a rock the past few days, you're probably somewhat aware of headlines such as this:
You may even be aware of the fact that this particular flu, that is threatening to become a pandemic, "combines genetic material from pigs, birds, and humans in a way researchers have not seen before"
What you're probably not aware of is that a company called Baxter was recently caught "mistakenly" doing just that.
And by "just that", I mean that Baxter was mixing bird flu and human-infecting swine flu.
And by "mistakenly", I mean deliberately.
And by "recently", I mean less than two months ago.
Virus mix-up by lab could have resulted in pandemic
March 6, 2009
"It's emerged that virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realised. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.
Last December, the Austrian branch of US vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 (SWINE) flu, altered so it couldn't replicate, to Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, also in Austria. In February, a lab in the Czech Republic working for Avir alerted Baxter that, unexpectedly, ferrets inoculated with the sample had died. It turned out the sample contained live H5N1 (BIRD) flu, which Baxter uses to make vaccine. The two seem to have been mixed in error.
Markus Reinhard of Baxter says no one was infected because the H3N2 was handled at a high level of containment. But Ab Osterhaus of Erasmus University in the Netherlands says: "We need to go to great lengths to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen."
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses could have resulted in dire consequences. While H5N1 doesn't easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people."
But wait - it gets even better!
You'll never guess which company has been contracted to produce a vaccine to stop the current swine flu outbreak.
No, really. You'll never, ever guess, so I'll just tell you.
Illinois-based Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu outbreak in Mexico
By Associated Press
9:22 PM CDT, April 25, 2009
DEERFIELD, Ill. (AP)
"Specialty drug maker Baxter International Inc. will work with the World Health Organization to develop a vaccine that could stem an outbreak of a deadly swine flu strain in Mexico.
Baxter spokesman Christopher Bona said Saturday that the Deerfield, Ill.-based company has asked the WHO for a sample of the flu strain.
He says Baxter has patented technology that allows the company to develop vaccines in half the time it usually takes — about 13 weeks instead of 26.
There have been 20 confirmed deaths in Mexico of the swine flu, with nonfatal cases also confirmed in Kansas and California.
Humans don't have a natural immunity to swine flu strain that emerged in Mexico in March. Officials have warned the outbreak could become a global epidemic."
Now, if you're thinking that this confluence of events and circumstances is all just a wacky coincidence, and that conspiracy theories are crazy, and that I'm just a paranoid, unpatriotic asshole, I would like to respectfully ask you to fuck off, because the period where we trust governments and corporations to NOT infect us for profit are fucking over, ok?
Because that's exactly what they've been doing for quite a while now.
If you don't believe me, watch this:
This:
Or this:
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| One and one and one is three |
[Feb. 19th, 2009|10:37 am] |
Who is the person pictured below?
How about this guy?
What about this chap?
If you answered Paul McCartney for all three of the above photos, I don't think that anyone would have a problem. Especially if all three of the photos were published in a Beatles periodical like the one below. After all, if shown a person who looks like Paul McCartney, in a context where one is expecting Paul McCartney, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that the person is Paul McCartney.
In fact, the first three photos in this post are indeed from Issue #61 of The Beatles Book (shown above), which was published in August of 1968.
As you might expect though, it's not quite that simple. Otherwise, I wouldn't be bothering with it, would I?
I've actually cropped the first three "McCartney" images from this one:
The photo above is from a yacht trip around New York City in 1968 when Lennon and McCartney were in town for the launch of their new company, Apple.
Here is the photo as it appeared in the Beatles Book, published in 1968:
So who are these three people? Why are there three different people on this boat who look a lot like Paul McCartney?
Is it just a coincidence that three people, who all bear a striking resemblance to McCartney, just happened to be aboard this yacht?
Or was Lennon trying to tell us something in Come Together?
"One and one and one is three
Got to be good looking, 'cause he's so hard to see
Come together
Right now
Over me"
I think that maybe "good looking" means that we need to open our eyes and examine things more closely.
I see three Paul McCartneys on that boat.
What do you see?
Incidentally, have a look at this post for more evidence of multiple Pauls.
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| Chased by Buttermaker |
[Feb. 18th, 2009|02:43 pm] |
It's extremely rare that I remember my dreams for more than a few seconds after waking.
Last night, however, I dreamt that I was being chased by Walter Matthau on a bicycle. Well, that's not 100% true. More specifically, I was being chased by Walter Matthau as Coach Buttermaker from The Bad News Bears. Oh, and Walter was the only one on a bicycle. I was running, but in that very specific, treadmillesque dream style, where based on the energy put forth, you really should be running a lot faster than you are, but you're barely moving.
Another oddity (assuming anything in a dream can actually be considered odd) is that there was no speaking. I mean, why dream about Walter Matthau if his voice (one of his more distinguishing characteristics) is not featured?
Lastly, his expression never changed. It was like he was either a cardboard cutout, or had been lobotomized. Both of these scenarios make the bike riding seem very questionable, though.
Perplexing.
1. What does this mean?
2. Why on earth is this the dream I remember?????
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| The Money Masters |
[Feb. 17th, 2009|10:52 am] |
| If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks...will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. ... The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating. -Thomas Jefferson | 
| History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance. -James Madison | 
| If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations. -Andrew Jackson | 
| The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. -Abraham Lincoln | | | |
A few weeks ago, I posted the video series Money As Debt, and strongly suggested that you all watch it.
I have recently come across a 3.5 hour video called The Money Masters, which is Money As Debt ON STEROIDS.
Please, please, please watch it.
If you do, the current state of the world will make much more sense to you. I promise.
Watch it here
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| A note about your owners |
[Feb. 12th, 2009|02:26 pm] |
I was going to write about slavery in the modern world.
I was going to point out that you all voluntarily accept it, while mistakenly believing yourselves to be free.
I was going to mention the state of constant war over the past 60 years.
I had planned on explaining that the United States (and every other country with a Central Bank) borrows money AT INTEREST in order to pay for this state of constant war.
I wanted to clue you in to the fact that the debt associated with this borrowing is THE REASON for the unconstitutional income tax that you are forced to pay, and that if you'd do a little research, you'd find out that the income tax was only introduced after the unconstitutional creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913.
I was going to steer you towards the idea that your birth certificate is used by the United States government AS COLLATERAL, and that the government's line of credit with the Federal Reserve is tied directly to your expected future earnings.
I thought it would be useful to remind you that former C.I.A. Director and noted "boating accident" victim, William Colby once famously said that "The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media". I was going to encourage you to think long and hard about that and to seriously consider the ramifications of such a reality.
I was going to bring to your attention the fact that JFK was planning to issue a silver-backed currency to compete with the ponzi scheme, inflationary Federal Reserve notes that are making the international bankers filthy, stinking, uber-powerfully rich, and I was going to strongly suggest that you consider THAT to be the real reason for his assassination.
I thought that I might ask you to seriously consider the high probability that the "impending global economic collapse" that we are facing has been carefully engineered by the same people who took care of JFK, due to the fact that this particular economic system (and perhaps even the United States itself) has played itself out and requires a reboot of some sort .
I was going to spend a lot of time and effort on this piece, using bold text for especially important passages, and including several links to "reputable" sources when I remembered that I'm not famous, don't write for a "real" publication, and most importantly, I'm not on TV, and as such, I'm nothing more than a "crazy conspiracy theorist".
With this in mind, I'm going to hit you with some George Carlin, who is/was famous, and did appear on TV. It seems as if he managed to figure it all out before he left us, and actually dared to spill some of the beans.
The text of his statement is below the video...
"There's a reason education sucks and it's the same reason why it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never gonna get any better...don't look for it. Be happy with what you got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now...the big, wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice . . . you don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying . . . lobbying, to get what they want . . . Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want . . . they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that . . . that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want obedient workers . . . Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it . . . they’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fuckin' place. It’s a big club and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in The big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-working people . . . white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means . . . continue to elect these rich cocksuckers who don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t give a fuck about you . . . they don’t give a fuck about you. They don’t care about you at all . . . at all . . . at all, and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on.
The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth. It’s called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it . . .”
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| Lions Eating People |
[Feb. 10th, 2009|01:10 pm] |
What the fuck is going on?
How, exactly have people been convinced that they like the atonal, non-melodic, idiotic posturing that now somehow passes for music?
"Art" has become THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES, on Red Bull.
I defy anyone, and I do mean any_fucking_one to explain to me why they like this worthless piece of shit called (of course) Swagger Like Us.
And don't even attempt to say something like "oh I guess someone's getting old", or "gee, it looks like someone got up on the wrong of side the bed today", because this has nothing to do with generation gaps or my current mood. It has EVERYTHING to do with my general intolerance for stupidity, arrogance, and outright condescension masquerading as art. No, I take some of that back. There's no longer even an attempt to masquerade. The fucking emperor no longer even believes in the clothes. He's just standing there, naked, smacking you in the face with his dick, daring you to prove that it's not the goddamn mic stand.
And yes, I DO realize that the above metaphor is somewhat unwieldy, but you'll think it works because I'm telling you that it does.
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| Money As Debt |
[Jan. 28th, 2009|12:40 pm] |
Holy fucking shit.
It's been almost two months since my previous post, and that one was really just a fun diversion (for me) away from the rest of the mind-bogglingly stupid fake reality that I SHOULD be writing about.
My reason for writing about the replacement of Paul McCartney was to put the idea into your heads that your reality is manipulated, and that you can't trust anything that you've been told. That in fact, NOTHING IS REAL. It's also a subject that I find endlessly fascinating, so I hoped that I could write something enjoyable, and still make an important point without subjecting myself to the extreme cognitive dissonance that comes along with trying to wake people up to a reality that they flat out refuse to wake up to.
With each passing day, I get closer and closer to grabbing people by their collars and screaming at them.
Your goddamn fantasy baseball team doesn't matter! It didn't even matter DURING THE ACTUAL FUCKING SEASON, let alone now that the season's over. Your ability to reel off Matt Holiday's slugging percentage for the past 3 seasons makes me want to repeatedly ram your head into the green fucking monster!
Really, people. WAKE THE FUCK UP.
Sports, TV, the fake news, the fake criticism of the fake news (Meet The Press/John Stewart/Face The Nation, etc), movies, video games, internet porn, your 8 to 10 hour per day job.
All of this stuff exists to make money for bankers and corporate shareholders, and to keep you so fucking entertained that you would never think to question anything, and so busy that if by chance you did actually think to question something, you wouldn't have the time or the energy to investigate it.
Matt Holiday's slugging percentage DOES NOT MATTER.
What DOES matter is that the world is run by international bankers, and Central Banks like the United States Federal Reserve are the mechanism for this is hidden rule.
I wrote an extremely detailed piece about the ponzi scheme known as fractional reserve banking in my old blog, but it was deleted by Google. In fact, there's not even a record of its existence in the wayback machine, which tells me that this is very important information that you're not supposed to know.
I'm too fucking exhausted to attempt to recreate that piece now, but I'm BEGGING you to forget about Matt Holiday's batting statistics, and Lost, and The Daily Show, and hope, and change, and Miley Cyrus, and buying that new Blackberry for 50 freaking minutes, which will give you enough time to watch Money As Debt.
At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I believe that this may be the most important 50 minutes of your life, because this is the system that has LITERALLY enslaved humanity for hundreds of years. This is the system that creates national debts, inflation, and causes virtually every war. Yes, INCLUDING the one the Messiah is ramping up again in Afghanistan.
Literally NOTHING else matters if you don't understand the concept of money as debt.
So please.
Pretty please.
Watch it.
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| YOU say GOODBYE, and I say HELLO |
[Dec. 9th, 2008|09:58 pm] |
"I am he,
as you are he,
as you are me,
and we are all together"
If one were to mirror the words LONELY HEARTS on the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album, one would see the following:
I ONE IX HE<>DIE
or broken down...
I ONE = 11
IX = 9
So, in European parlance, we have 9/11 HE DIE, with a DIAMOND pointing up, directly at the blue-suited Paul.
Now, I'm not going to waste your time with the HOURS UPON HOURS of evidence indicating that something strange has been going on with Paul McCartney since at least September 11, 1966.
I will mention however, that there are lots of people who believe that the original James Paul McCartney died in a car crash on 9/11/66, and was replaced in time for the "Penny Lane" single, which was released on February 17,1967.
There are others who believe that James Paul McCartney did NOT die, but was replaced at this same time, for other reasons. It gets very, very complicated, and can entail cloning, reincarnation, the Tavistock institute, MI6, Venus, Aleister Crowley (who is on the Pepper cover, btw), the solar deities (Horus, Apollo, Jesus, etc), Lucifer, ancient Egypt (Beetle = Scarab), and much, much, more. Regardless of the specific details, though, just understand that the PWR (Paul Was Replaced) crowd believes that the original James Paul McCartney AND his replacement(s) have been playing the role of Paul McCartney since 9/11/66.
So as I said, there are theories, and there are theories, within theories, within theories, and it can all get a bit out of hand if one tries to absorb it all in one sitting (or in one month, for that matter). In fact, the phrase "a mystery wrapped in an enigma" could have been invented specifically to describe the PWR phenomenon. With that in mind, I'm going to dip the newcomer's toe into the shallow end of this pool with a few easy to digest physical clues indicating that there may have been multiple Paul McCartneys, and you, the reader, will be left to make of it what you will.
Ready?
On November 16, 1979, Paul McCartney released a Christmas single titled "Wonderful Christmas Time". There's a very brief moment in the video where two Paul McCartneys find themselves face to face with one another, and damned if it doesn't appear as if one of them is wearing the face that he keeps in a jar by the door. You'd never even really notice it without the ability to pause, rewind, play, pause, rewind, play again, etc, but that's what Youtube is for, isn't it?
Here's a still of the "money shot" that I pulled from the video. Pay special attention to the nose, ears, and sideburns.
And to put the still into context, watch the video below. The 2-Paul sequence begins at around 1:54.
I think it's pretty obvious that one of the following is going on:
1. These are two different, although remarkably similar looking people.
2. The "Paul" on the right is wearing prosthetics in order to appear *almost* exactly like the "Paul" on the left.
3. The "Paul" on the right is a 1979 version of a special effect. What I mean is that he's really the same person as the "Paul" on the left, but for some weird reason, his appearance has been doctored to make him look slightly "off" (the nose, ear, and sideburns).
I submit to you that all of these possibilities beg one question.
Why?
Why not just use a special effect to insert the "real Paul" opposite himself? After all, they're only on screen together for THREE seconds, and again, I don't think there were too many people taping this video in 1979 and meticulously going over every second of it in order to spot the subtle differences between the two Pauls.
This is, very simply, a very strange sequence to have included in this video. To me, it smacks of someone who's pulled the wool over everyone's eyes and has been getting away with it for so long that he's gotten brazen enough to just hide the deception right out there in plain sight. He's messing with us. After all, nobody's going to notice, and even if someone DOES notice, 29 years later, they'll just seem crazy if they try to point it out. I mean, c'mon, this is Paul freaking McCartney we're talking about here!
I DO realize that this is a hard pill to swallow, and I'm not here to twist anyone's arm. Believe what you want to believe, but I submit to you that at the very least, there has been some VERY strange stuff going on with not only Paul McCartney, but the Beatles as a whole, and they've gone to an awful lot of trouble to leave a breadcrumb trail of clues in all of their work from 1967 through the present day. This particular glass onion is something that you'll need to peel slowly, and on your own. I think that if you put in some time though, you'll find that the layers of this onion might just turn out to be the "kaleidoscope eyes" that Lennon told us about in "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", and the world may never look the same to you again.
If you find yourself intrigued by the notion that one of the most talented and instantly recognizable human beings of the past 100 years could have been replaced, then you should pay a visit to the splendid NOTHING IS REAL forum.
If, on the other hand, you find this idea completely ridiculous, well...then pretend you never met me and step away from the blog slowly...
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| Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies! |
[Dec. 8th, 2008|03:56 pm] |
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When I was a really little kid of about six, I was already a really big music fan, but on a very limited scope. My parents (my Dad, really) used to enjoy listening to fifties rock in the car, where the radio dial was always tuned to a terrific Philadelphia-based station called WFIL. Sadly, it's now a Christian station, but in in the seventies, it was the perfect top 40 station, complete with goofily named DJs (Doctor Donald D. Rose), and hammy station IDs between commercials. Some of my earliest memories are of sharing the back seat of our cigarette smoke-filled, shit-brown, 1975 Mercury Montego with my brother. He's four years older than me so he was bound by Pennsylvania law to refer to me as either Moron or Idiot at all times, and to keep my head stored in the crook of his arm while punching the top of it.
The glorious '75 Montego
Anyhow, in addition to the top 40 of the day, WFIL also played a perfect selection of oldies. This ruled really hard, because it was the only place in my town where you could hear stuff from the fifties, and I may never have been exposed to it otherwise. Some of my favorite songs from the Montego days are “Cara Mia”, by Jay and the Americans, "Little Darlin", by The Diamonds, "You Cheated", by The Shields, and "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On", by Jerry Lee Lewis, or THE KILLER, as my father used to say as he played drums (badly) on the steering wheel, while my mother had fake panic attacks and growled "Jesus Christ, Barry, just drive the friggin car." I loved this music so much that it made me look forward to our Sunday drives, even though they also included the aforementioned sibling torture, enough second-hand smoke to strip the enamel off of your teeth, and a front seat populated by two people who could barely tolerate the sight of each other.
Cara Mia, by Jay & The Americans
Before long, I was craving music all of the time, so my parents taught me how to use their old console record player, which was made of real wood, was approximately the size of a walk-in freezer, and so amazingly cool looking that I would almost literally kill to have it now.
Neither of my parents have ever truly been music fans. I mentioned earlier that my Father liked to listen to fifties rock, but only in the car, and my mom has never cared about music one way or another. I think for my Dad, it just reminded him of when he was a kid in the fifties and had a cool car, a D.A., and used to cruise up and down main street trying to score chicks. In any event, the point I'm trying to make is that even though they had a boss record player, they only had ten or fifteen albums, most of which were either Neil Diamond, Three Dog Night, or Elton John. I was probably seven or eight at this point, and became Neil Diamond's biggest fan when I heard "Song Sung Blue", which I thought was "Song SONG Blue", and I proceeded to walk around singing the wrong chorus continuously for about six months straight. Another important Neil Diamond song for me from this period is "I Am I Said", which has a line guaranteed to compel any seven year old: "And no one heard at all - not even the chair". This line is just dynamite. My most favorite Neil Diamond song of all time though, and one that made me dance around like an idiot on mushrooms even at that young age is the live version of "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show", from the Neil Diamond GOLD album. It's from 1971, when Diamond was still young, ballsy, played guitar on stage, and pushed his voice to the top of its range. If you've never heard this record before, then you probably have absolutely no frame of reference for what I'm talking about, because this is so far from "Love On The Rocks", or "Forever In Blue Jeans", that it might as well be a completely different person. Every time I play it for friends they are completely blown away, and that is why I am posting it here.
Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show, by Neil Diamond
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| B(a)RAND OBAMA |
[Nov. 21st, 2008|10:47 am] |
"I honestly look at [Obama's] campaign and I look at it as something that we can all learn from as marketers," To see what he's done, to be able to create a social network and do it in a way where it's created the tools to let people get engaged very easily. It's very easy for people to participate."
~ Angus Macaulay, VP-Rodale marketing solutions
B(a)RAND Obama Won!!!!
He didn't just beat McCain, either.
He whupped all comers. Including, according to Ad Age, Apple, Nike, and Coors.
Ad Age Poll - How they voted | Marketer | % of votes | | Obama | 36.1% | | Apple | 27.3% | | Zappos | 14.1% | | Nike | 9.4% | | Coors | 8.7% | | McCain | 4.5% |
This really shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, considering that Obama spent a cool $339.8 MILLION on "media" during the 2008 election cycle.
For the sake of perspective, I'll provide a few comparisons:
John McCain spent $118.8 Million
Ralph Nader spent $2.0 Million
Cynthia McKinney spent $78.7 Thousand
You were told that you wanted CHANGE.
You were told that you wanted HOPE.
Then you were told over, and over, and over again, that Barack Obama represented that change and hope. You were told this by newspapers, and magazines, and t-shirts, and signs in people's windows, and on the radio, and on stickers on people's cars, and most importantly, on TV.
Then, you probably heard people talking about it at your places of business. I know that I did. I'd walk into our little kitchen and hear people saying things like "You know, the Republicans have had eight years to screw things up; we need change".
 I'd hear statements like this and just shake my head, astonished at how open most people are to suggestion. It's very similar to the way that people will say things like "I'm lovin' these fries", or "but Fox is fair and balanced", or "those towers came down because the jet fuel burned so hot that it melted the steel beams", or even "these aren't the droids you're looking for".
You know, I was just considering the relevance of that last quote, and I almost deleted it. The more I think about it, though, the more it seems to be the most accurate description of the phenomenon that I'm attempting to describe here.
Marketing really is a lot like the "old Jedi mind trick" that Obi Wan Kenobi used so brilliantly in Star Wars. Instead of mind-fucking stormtroopers though, we get brainwashed into thinking that America is in Iraq in order to spread democracy, that it's anti-Semitic to criticize the government of Israel, and that Barack Obama represents change and hope.
The parallels run even deeper than that, though, as the stormtroopers in the clip linked above seemed to have no idea that they were being manipulated. If there's a strormtrooper version of the water cooler, my guess is that there'd be lots of conversations about how silly it is that those wacky Jedi Knights think that they're able to influence the weak minded, when in reality, everyone knows that the Jedi mind trick doesn't work at all...
And THAT is the brilliance of both the Jedi mind trick AND propaganda.
Oops. I almost forgot that we only call it propaganda when it happens OUTSIDE of the United States.
Sorry.
What I  really meant to say was...THAT is the brilliance of both the Jedi mind trick AND advertising.
After all, how many people do you know who would admit to being influenced by advertising?
How often do you hear one of your friends say something like this:
"I saw a poster the other day that subtly, but beautifully combined the noble visage of Barack Obama with the colors of the American flag and an all caps version of the word HOPE. Even though it presented nothing more than a slickly designed, but intellectually empty platitude, it convinced me that he has my best interests at heart. It probably has a lot to do with its resemblance to that totally boss Che Guevara poster that I had over my bed when I was in high school."
I'm guessing that you NEVER hear any of your friends say anything even remotely like that, and yet MILLIONS of dollars were spent on exactly this sort of poster, which seemingly led to millions of people repeating the Obama Hope/Change meme INCESSANTLY, and voting him into the (arguably) most powerful position in the world, despite the apparent fact that he does NOT represent hope, change, or the best interests of normal people (READ: people who are NOT politicians, bankers, or corporate CEOs).
It's always "the other guy" who falls for the swindle. You're too smart for that, though.
So, why then, are billions upon billions of dollars spent every year on advertising?
The answer is BECAUSE IT WORKS.
It works on the other guy, and it works on YOU, too. If you really think that Barack Obama represents any kind of real change, then you're in dire need of a wake-up call.
Barack Obama voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act.
Barack Obama voted for the FISA legislation that gives immunity to the telecom corporations that cooperate with the Bush Administration's illegal wire-tapping.
Here's how the ACLU describes the FISA bill:
“an unconstitutional domestic spying bill that violates the Fourth Amendment and eliminates any meaningful role for judicial oversight of government surveillance"
Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office called the bill “a Constitutional nightmare” and noted “with one vote, Congress has strengthened the executive branch, weakened the judiciary and rendered itself irrelevant.”
This past August, Barack Obama reversed his original stance against off-shore oil drilling.
Obama believes that "the death penalty is appropriate in certain circumstances."
He is planning to INCREASE troop levels in Afghanistan.
Obama will NOT rule out the continued use of private security firms, such as Blackwater, in Iraq.
Regarding the EXPANSION of the United States military, Obama had this to say in January, 2008:
“I strongly support the expansion of our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.”
He flip-flopped on his primary election ANTI-NAFTA stance, once Hillary Clinton was gone and it became useful to do so.
As I recently pointed out, Obama had this to say about former President George H.W. Bush and his foreign policy team (Including Sec. of Defense, Dick Cheney):
“You know, one of the things that I think George H.W. Bush doesn’t get enough credit for was his foreign policy team and the way that he helped negotiate the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us $20 billion dollars. That‘s all it cost. It was extremely successful. I think there were a lot of very wise people.”
~ (Larry King Live 3/23/08).
Obama voted IN FAVOR of the taxpayer funded $700 billion Wall Street bailout, which brings me to what is perhaps the most important issue of all. Obama has been deafeningly silent on the legalized pyramid/ponzi scheme known as fractional reserve banking, and the Federal Reserve Bank, which, combined with all of the other world's Central Banks, is the engine that drives the world's WAR MACHINE. I've never heard Obama come anywhere near a discussion regarding the abolition of the Federal Reserve, despite the fact that under the Fed system, the U.S. government is forced to BORROW, at interest, every single dollar it spends (your tax dollars actually go directly to paying the interest on this debt). THIS insane mechanism is the root cause of inflation, and is also the reason why the United States is over 10 TRILLION dollars IN DEBT.
I plan to devote a lengthy essay to this very topic in the not too distant future. I assure you, however, that you will NEVER hear Barack Obama talk about it.
The reason is simple. It's because he doesn't care about CHANGE, or HOPE, or YOU.
Unless, as I said earlier, YOU happen to be a politician, a banker, or a corporate CEO.
As Chuck D. once famously opined:
"Don't believe the hype"
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| Please, Do Not Leave Dirty Dishes In The Sink |
[Nov. 20th, 2008|02:20 pm] |
I finished eating my lunch today (delicious leftover chicken and rice), and entered the office kitchen in order to wash my Tupperware container.
And it's actual Tupperware, incidentally. I'm NOT just lazily calling it that because I've been successfully mind-fucked by their branding strategy into referring to any plastic-like food storage container as Tupperware. You do have to hand it to them, though. Apart from Kleenex, I can't think of a more successful binding of product with brand.
This actually reminds me that I wanted to write about "Brand Obama", and compare phrases like "Hope" and "Change" to "New" and "Improved", but that will have to wait for day when I'm less busy.
Anyway, I walked into the office kitchen today to wash my Tupperware, and this is what I saw.
Obviously, it was too good to pass up.
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| The Great Swindle |
[Nov. 19th, 2008|10:50 am] |
I was thinking about the current economic situation this morning and I think I've managed to reduce it down to its essence.
The very short version:
1. The government made it legal for bankers to gamble with YOUR money.
2. Bankers gambled with YOUR money and lost.
3. The "government" stepped in to "save" the bankers by giving them more of YOUR money, so that they could loan it BACK TO YOU at interest.
Although there's a certain elegance to the very short version, I feel like I need to flesh it out a bit.
So...
The slightly longer version:
1. Under the fractional reserve system, banks are allowed to create money out of thin air. The mechanism for this fortuitously begotten loot is actually DEBT, as banks are permitted to loan out roughly $10.00 for every $1.00 dollar they have on deposit.
Example:
A bank has $10.00 on deposit.
The fractional reserve system allows them to loan out $100.00, even though they really only have $10.00. The extra money just sort of pops into existence via a handy, dandy journal entry.
On top of this ability to create money out of thin air, the banks also have been blessed with the ability to charge INTEREST on the money they are loaning out, which, remember, didn't exist until they created it in order to satisfy the loan request.
This demonstrates how DEBT is the mechanism for the creation of currency, and it also explains why banks are so eager to loan you money. After all, they've basically been given the legal right to conjure money out of the ether in order to loan it out. On top of that, they're allowed to "earn" more money from this miraculous act through the charging of interest. And finally, the money that they just created and loaned out will inevitably come back to them as future deposits, which will again be loaned out, at interest, at a ratio of 10/1, etc, etc, etc...
Great work if you can get it, right?
2. Since bankers apparently didn't feel like the deck was already stacked high enough in their favor, they, and their political allies, decided that it would be awesome to do away with regulations that existed since 1933, preventing commercial lending banks from acting like investment banks. The Glass-Steagall Act (A.K.A. The Banking Act of 1933) was designed to prevent banks that HELD YOUR SAVINGS AND MORTGAGES from gambling that money on risky speculation. The major impetus for this law was the prevention of another great swindle, erm...I mean depression, like the one the country (and the world) had been going through at the time its passing.
Glass-Steagall worked, too. For 66 years, commercial lending banks were mostly prevented from playing craps with your money, and leveraging themselves further than the 10/1 that we discussed in the beginning of this post. Your savings and mortgages were (relatively) safe. In 1999 however, that all changed when Glass-Steagall was repealed by Bill Clinton's signing of the bipartisan Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This act allowed for the consolidation of commercial lending and investment banks, opening the doors for the current version of the great swindle (ahem) economic collapse, that we're enjoying at the moment.
3. Since the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the commercial lending banks have been gambling with your money in many creative ways that had been illegal from 1933 to 1999. I'm not going to descend into all of the sordid particulars here, as the sub-prime mess requires a much more detailed explanation than I'm prepared to get into in this piece. I'm hoping that we can all just agree for the moment, that the deregulation of Gramm-Leach-Bliley, coupled with the bakers' wanton need to improve on their already criminally enviable 10/1 leverage ratio has led us to the current crisis, and move on.
(NOTE: For a highly detailed account of sub-prime, read this)
4. We now find ourselves at a point where banks are collapsing due to their own government facilitated greed. This is a very big problem, because the world economy is dependent on credit for its very survival. If banks aren't able to lend, then payrolls are not met, and bills don't get paid, which means that cargo ships don't sail, and freight trucks don't transport goods, and crops don't get planted, and store shelves don't get stocked, and people don't pay their mortgages. This is the path we're on right now, but thankfully (sarcasm), we're lucky enough to have bankers who understand the problem (Paulson and Kashkari) in charge of a rescue (scheme) plan, designed to save the banks.
Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, and former CEO, Goldman Sachs
Neel Kashkari, Asst Secretary of the Treasury, and former VP, Goldman Sachs
Their plan is to take money FROM YOU, either directly via taxation, or indirectly through the hidden tax of inflation. This inflation is the direct and unavoidable byproduct of magic-wanding hundreds of billions of dollars into existence for the purpose of all of these "capital injections" that are "saving" the very people who caused the problem to begin with.
So, like I said at the beginning of this piece, the government is basically taking money FROM YOU and giving it TO THE BANKS, so that they can LOAN IT BACK TO YOU.
At interest.
And when I say "government", I really just mean bankers who have temporarily infiltrated the government, for the express purpose of robbing you, before they go back to being bankers again. This will most likely happen the millisecond their APPOINTMENTS end.
Oh, and you don't get a chance to vote for appointees. That's part of the beauty of the whole thing.
Well, that's it.
That's what's going on.
I just wanted to get it all down while it was fresh in my noggin.
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| In Praise of GHWB, or, The REAL Barack Obama, Part 1 |
[Nov. 18th, 2008|03:52 pm] |
On March 20, 2008, Barack Obama appeared on LARRY KING LIVE and said this:
"By the way, I would reach out to the first George Bush. You know, one
of the things that I think George H.W. Bush doesn't get enough credit
for was his foreign policy team and the way that he helped negotiate
the end of the Cold War and prosecuted the Gulf War. That cost us
20 billion dollars. That's all it cost. It was extremely successful. I
think there were a lot of very wise people. So I want a bipartisan
team that can help to provide me good advice and counsel when I'm
president of the United States."
There's just so much wrong with everything in that statement.
Every.
Single.
Thing.
For the moment, however, I'm just going to focus on the part emphasized above in red, and point out that Obama must not have been including in his cost, the 175,000 (approx.) U.S. soldiers who have been suffering from Gulf War illness for the past 15 years.
Gulf War illness is a "complex of multiple concurrent symptoms" that "typically includes persistent memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, widespread pain, gastrointestinal problems, and other chronic abnormalities." The illness may also be potentially tied to higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) -- more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease -- among Gulf War veterans than veterans of other conflicts. The illness is identified as the consequence of multiple "biological alterations" affecting the brain and nervous system.
Awesome, huh?
Obama probably wasn't including these people in his "cost", because until yesterday, just about everyone in the U.S. government was too busy pretending that Gulf War illness didn't exist, and if it did, it certainly wasn't caused by the soldier's MANDATORY exposure to harmful chemicals that were supposed to protect them from the "enemy's" harmful chemicals .
The report identifies two Gulf War "neurotoxic" exposures that "are causally associated with Gulf War illness." The first is the ingestion of pyridostigmine bromide (PB) pills, given to protect troops from effects of nerve agents. The second is exposure to dangerous pesticides used during the conflict.
So yeah, George H.W. Bush and his "foreign policy team" deserve more credit for their efficient, cost-effective prosecution of the first Gulf War. I suppose this includes his Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney, as well.
I guess we can all line up behind Barack Obama to give them all a pat on their collective back.
What a dick.
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| The Sacred Battle Grounds |
[Nov. 16th, 2008|04:02 pm] |
The holidays are rapidly approaching, which means that I’m getting super-anxious about having to go home to face my insane family and my culturally barren hometown. I grew up in West Reading, PA, which is the suburb of a decently sized city called Reading (pronounced Redding, as in Otis). You may know of it from the board game Monopoly, where the once mighty (but now defunct) Reading Railroad is one of four major rail systems that one can purchase for a mere $200.00. It's also possible that you're aware of its claim to the title of "Pretzel City", which is a well-deserved nickname, if only for Unique Splits, which have been scientifically proven (not literally) to be the tastiest savory snacks known to man. More likely though, you know Reading as the "Outlet Capital of the World". This is the place where you can still get two pairs of Wrangler jeans, six pairs of boxers, and a dozen pairs of socks, all for about 45 bucks. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that I'll wear Wrangler jeans until the day I die, because:
A. They haven't changed the cut in at least 25 years, which means that I don't even have to try them on before purchasing them. This is awesome.
B. I pay $12.00 a pair for them. Isn't that stupidly cheap? Don't you feel like a moron now for spending $40.00 for a pair of freaking jeans?
C. They last a really long time.
D. They have a soft cotton strip around the inside of the waist. This is actually the best feature and I really don't understand why this hasn't become the industry standard.
So anyhow, when I first moved to NYC and people asked me where I was from, I would always preface my answer by saying something like "Oh, some small town in Pennsylvania that you've probably never heard of", and then after I said “Reading”, they’d say "No way - my parents used to take us to the outlets there once a year to do back-to-school shopping! You used to live THERE?” This weirded me out for years, partly because I had no idea that Reading was that well known, but mostly because I’ve always hated where I came from, and desperately wanted people to be unaware of any of the bass-ackwards, cultureless, conservative-beyond-belief specifics of the place that I escaped.
Reading is one of *those* places in Pennsylvania that you’ve heard about, but didn’t believe still existed. The antichrist (A.K.A. Rick Santorum) owes his two Senate terms to Reading and places like it. To this day, Readingites still ask me “so how’re things up in JEW York?” I am NOT kidding. They actually say those words - in that order. And they’re not being “ironic” or hyperbolic in order to make the point that prejudice is a bad thing. It’s quite terrifying, and depressing, and infuriating all at the same time. This is why I turn into an anxiety-ridden mess every year around the middle of November.
Thankfully though, this year’s been a little bit different. I think the fact that I had a positive visit home a few months ago (I avoided my family, slept at my good friend’s house, and stuck to the four or five places that DON’T drive me batshit) has enabled me to think about Reading in a positive way for the first time in a really, really long time. This has led to the realization that it was sort of a cool place to be a little kid.
When I was around twelve, the aforementioned railroad tracks became center stage for all sorts of shenanigans. In a previous post, I wrote about train-hopping (jumping on to a moving train), which was simultaneously one of the dumbest and most exhilarating things I’ve ever done, and that’s just one of the incredibly dangerous activities that the railroad and it’s surroundings provided for adventurous young kids whose parents both worked and didn’t get home until 6:00 PM on weekdays. The railroad ran (and still does – it’s just owned by Conrail now) along the Schuylkill (pronounced School-KILL) river, which separates West Reading from the city proper. So, the tracks don’t run through the center of town like you might have been imagining. They occupy a sort of desolate no-man’s-land between the town and the river.
My friends and I (collectively referred to going forward as “we”) used to call this no-man’s-land “The Sacred Battle Grounds” and we were all hyper-aware of the fact that this was the place where you absolutely, positively, weren’t supposed to play, lest you get molested by bums (politically incorrect term used by my parents to describe homeless people – a better word probably would have been “hobos”), stabbed by drug dealers, or beaten up by “city kids” (a parental euphemism for African-Americans). Not that these weren’t all valid concerns, because there WERE bums, drug dealers, and yes – even the odd pugnacious city kid, but we all managed to share the area without conflict. Besides, we all carried slingshots and/or wrist-rockets (more powerful and accurate version of a slingshot) and could have opened a big can of whoop-ass on anyone who tried to take liberties.
Wrist Rocket:
The reason we carried slingshots and called our play area "the sacred battle grounds" was because one of the more ridiculous things we did when we were there was have slingshot battles. Don’t get excited, we wore protective goggles (liberated from the school wood shop) and pinky-swore that we would never aim above the letters (baseball term for the area where a man’s/boy’s nipples are). Besides, we were twelve year old kids who really never stopped for even a second to consider the possible consequences of shooting rocks at one another at significant velocity, and I believe that this is exactly why none of us ever got (seriously) hurt. To this day, I firmly believe that activities like this only become dangerous to people who have actually considered the idea that they are, in fact, dangerous. For example, if I were to engage in a slingshot battle tomorrow, I’d most certainly get hit in the face within the first three minutes, and would be mortally wounded within the first ten. Of this, I am most certain.
Some of the best times I’ve ever had in my life, however, occurred while being shot at by my friends. One time in particular was when Brendon McCulloch came as close as one possibly can to death without getting hurt at all. We were having a two on two slingshot battle. It was Bobby and me against Brendon and Don. We had no idea where Don was, but we were pretty sure that Brendon was crouched down on one of the platforms that used to support an old railway bridge (before the bridge fell into the creek). We knew that if you climbed over the edge of the platform that there was a narrow secondary ledge about three feet down. This ledge was one of the few things that scared me when I was a kid, and I would NEVER climb down onto it for the following reasons:
1. It only jutted out about two feet, so if you sat on it with your back against the part of the platform that didn’t face the 150 foot (wild guess) drop, there was barely enough room to accommodate your ass and let your legs dangle over.
2. As I mentioned above, the drop was enough to make a person extremely unhappy if that person were to fall.
3. This platform was really old and derelict, as demonstrated by the previously mentioned fact that the bridge had long before fallen off into the creek. In fact, the concrete was cracked and crumbling in several places.
4. I just had a bad feeling about it. Every time I got to within about three feet of the edge, my testicles would do that fight-or-flight thing where they would shrink up into my abdomen (sorry girls, I’ve only ever been a boy), and my sphincter would tighten up like a hatch on a submarine.
But getting back to the story, Bobby and I were pretty sure that Brendon was hiding on the secondary ledge of the platform, but we were uncertain of Don’s whereabouts, so we came up with a plan. Bobby would approach the platform (which was in a clearing) and I would hang back about thirty feet at the edge of the brush in case Don was waiting to ambush Bobby when he entered the clearing. Of course, I was the one who came up with the plan, mostly because I didn’t want to get anywhere near that platform. As it turned out, we didn’t need to be worried about Don, because he’d gone home to get something (possibly firecrackers, but I’m not sure), and left Brendon alone, on a really high ledge, to be stalked by two of his best friends, who were planning to shoot him with slingshots.
Bobby crept forward slowly with his weapon loaded and ready to fire, just like on Simon & Simon. He got to within about fifteen feet of the ledge when Brendon suddenly stood up from his crouch, exposing the top half of his body, with his slingshot cocked and ready to fire. There was an incredibly brief moment (that seemed like an hour) when they just stared at each other, paralyzed by indecision, and then Bobby shot Brendon in the hand. Brendon was wearing gardening gloves so it didn’t cause any injury to speak of, but it did make his slingshot fly out of his hand in exactly the way that Lee Van Cleef’s gun was shot out of his hand by Clint Eastwood at the end of The Good The Bad and The Ugly. Actually, now that I think about it, this was probably the most extraordinarily cool thing I’ve ever seen in real life. In addition to dropping the slingshot though, Brendon also lost his balance and began to pinwheel his arms in order to keep from falling to certain death. Meanwhile, I was crouched behind a log at the edge of the woods wondering if the creek’s current was strong enough to carry Brendon’s body into the river and just what the fuck was I going to say to my parents when they found out I wasn’t really playing home-run-derby at Schlegel Park?
Below is an "artist's" rendering of Brendon's precarious situation.
(NOTE: The fence and the bridge are new and were NOT there during the battle)
After about 2.7 seconds of pinwheeling, Brendon did fall. Luckily for all concerned though, he fell forward into the part of the platform that faced AWAY from the drop, where he grabbed hold of a thick weed sticking up out of the ground and steadied himself. Thirty seconds later, Bobby and I pulled him up to safety, where he proceeded to put Bobby in a headlock and tell us that we were both dicks. Other than that, we never really discussed it. Oh, when Don got back fifteen minutes later we told him what he missed, but by then it was already just a crazy, funny story, because again, we were just kids and we were pretty much invincible.
Incidentally, here's the Drop that Brendon Faced:
Yup.
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| Thought-stoppers, or Uncle Tom's Mindf*$k |
[Nov. 7th, 2008|05:15 pm] |
It occurred to me recently that our social paradigm is governed by rules, or laws, very similar to the laws of physics.
The laws of physics lay the foundation for everything that happens in the physical world. These laws were discovered and defined by people who have become very famous. After all, everyone’s heard of Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein, right? These are the people who very publicly get the credit for concepts such as the heliocentric (sun-centered) universe, gravity, and relativity, which provide the backbone for our knowledge of the way things work in the physical universe.
These concepts not only explain why things happen the way that they do, but they also explain why certain things can NOT happen. In other words, certain actions are PREVENTED from occurring because of the way these laws govern physical existence.
As I said above, the social paradigm operates according to its own set of rules as well, and unfortunately, I’m finding that our interactions are INCREASINGLY being governed by rules that, like the laws of physics, often PREVENT certain types of communication from happening. These rules not only dictate which words/phrases we can and can’t use, but they also prevent us from discussing in any real way, immensely important topics like racism, sexism, foreign policy, and even our system of government .
Obviously, these rules are very powerful, but unfortunately, nobody is stepping up to take the credit (or blame) for having created them.
Why is it anti-semitic to criticize the government of Israel, or to mention that U.S. foreign policy is often heavily influenced by AIPAC?
Why is it that anyone who criticizes an African American is called a racist?
When, exactly, did it become UNpatriotic to question the people who WE elected to represent US????
How is it sexist to question the judgment of a female politician?
I’ve recently been referring to these rhetorical measures as THOUGHT-STOPPERS, because it seems to me that all intelligent debate STOPS the second any of these tactics are utilized. This has become the method of choice for preventing any criticism of individuals who happen to belong to certain demographic groups, or "races" of people, even when the criticisms are demonstrably valid, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the group, or race, the person belongs to.
Who is responsible for the creation of these thought-stoppers, and how is it that they have become universally accepted laws of our social paradigm?
I think that this is a VERY important question, because these thought-stoppers are turning the human race into a bunch of unthinking imbeciles, too concerned with fake politeness to actually interact with one another in meaningful ways, about the very issues that are dividing us into increasingly hostile demographic groups, so easily conquered by those (from BOTH parties) who have been steadily usurping our constitutional rights while we’ve all been too busy watching the idiotic left-right, partisan mindfuck on the latest episode of “Who Wants To Be The Next President?”.
A friend of mine recently posted an interview with Ralph Nader on his blog. This interview contains a TREMENDOUS example of a thought-stopper, and perfectly demonstrates the way it instantaneously halts any real, intellectual debate.
Nader was being interviewed on Fox News because he just ran another unsuccessful presidential campaign, and the interviewer (Sheppard Smith) wanted his views on Barack Obama's successful election to the office of President of the United States. In the interview, Nader said this:
"To put it very simply, he is our first African American president; or he will be, and we wish him well. But his choice, basically, is whether he's going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country, or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations."
Smith reacted EXACTLY according to the new laws of the paradigm. He gave Nader a stern, "principal scolding the trouble-making student" stare and said:
"Really…….(long, dramatic pause)……Ralph Nader…….(eyes narrow)……..what was that?"
To which Nader responded by listing ACTUAL EVIDENCE to support his implicit claim that Obama in fact, DOES have a track record of supporting corporate interests, to the detriment of the poor and powerless people in this country (of ALL colors) who he claims to represent.
Watch it here:
As you can see, while Nader makes an intellectual argument, suggesting that Obama's ACTIONS, which are ON RECORD, show that he supports corporate interests, and NOT the interests of the everyday people he claims to support, Smith cuts him off to chide him once again, saying:
"You talk respectful, and you utter the words 'Uncle Tom'. Are you kidding me?"
Smith doesn't speak to any of Nader's supportable claims, and then resorts to ad hominem attacks on Nader for the remaining 90 seconds of the interview, even calling him “irrelevant”, which I’m pretty sure is on page one of the handy “News Anchor's Guide to Marginalizing All Third Party Candidates” playbook.
Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I don't know that "Uncle Tom" is a pejorative for a black person who is perceived by others as behaving in a subservient manner to White American authority figures.
I DO know this. Everybody knows this, but uttering that term doesn't automatically invalidate all of the thoughts and ideas that follow it.
Is it an unfortunate term with lots of historical baggage? In general, yes.
Does it make people uncomfortable? Of course it does, but sometimes unfortunate terms that make people uncomfortable also happen to be factually accurate, and when applied to an African American man who is being heralded as a savior to his people, all while he’s been working diligently to support the corporate mechanism that is undercutting those very same people, I'm afraid that it's an all too accurate characterization.
And please, don’t discount this because the interview was on Fox News. All of the criticisms of Fox as being a right-wing, partisan mouthpiece are well documented, so spare me all of the “progressive”, holier than thou, “but you can’t trust Fox” bullshit.
This wasn’t a piece criticizing a “liberal democrat” in order to protect a right wing ideologue. It was a piece protecting the STATUS QUO against its most dangerous enemy; a third-party candidate who would threaten what has become a two-headed CORPORATOCRACY. You can find these types of pieces, using these exact same thought-stopping tactics on every single one of the network news broadcasts, as well as all of the cable news channels. The reason for this is that they are all owned by corporations whose goal is to PROTECT the status quo at all costs, and that status quo involves MAXIMIZING CORPORATE PROFITS.
Period.
And calling out an African American politician for supporting these corporate interests, again, TO THE DETRIMENT of the very same people he claims to represent, isn’t racist. Not even when the phrase “Uncle Tom” is used. In this context, it’s simply an accurate criticism of AN INDIVIDUAL (not of an entire race), whose actions demonstrate that he IS indeed behaving in a subservient manner to White American authority figures (the corporate elite).
In other words, the shoe fits the individual, and THAT is the important thing. NOT your need to demonstrate your moral superiority by lynching the "racist" strawman that Nader has suddenly become by failing to realize that The Department of Language Security has apparently added "Uncle Tom" to the list of banned phrases. Hopefully their next step won't be to burn the book.
Don’t stop thinking. Even if you’ve been made uncomfortable by someone having the unmitigated gall to have broken one of the new laws of the social paradigm by attempting to have an honest discussion about an important issue, and using one of the new forbidden words.
They want you to stop thinking and to start fighting. It keeps us divided and easily controlled, ensuring that the majority of the people will never figure out that it's all a show, designed to keep you from looking behind the curtain.
Don’t fall for it.
Look behind the curtain.
In an upcoming essay, I'm going to examine who and what you might find there.
Stay tuned.
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| The Doomed Assume |
[Nov. 1st, 2008|09:14 am] |
Some idiot almost ran me over this morning while I was walking the dog. I won't get too into the details, but I will say that the incident made me wish that the car manufacturers could come up with an easier way for a driver to indicate to others that a turn is about to be made. I mean, how can people be expected to grasp the concept of flipping the little switch UP for a RIGHT turn, and DOWN for a LEFT turn? Where the hell else does UP equal RIGHT and DOWN equal LEFT? I'm getting confused even now, and I've just typed it twice. The entire procedure just seems unnecessarily complicated to me.
It's no wonder then, that most people forgo the exhausting maneuver entirely and just turn without ever signaling.
I guess the main reason for my completely unreasonable expectation regarding the use of turn signals can be traced back to my high school Driver's Ed class. My teacher's name was Mr. (Ducky) Rausch, and in addition to beginning 70% of his sentences with the phrase "In looking at", he was also a master of the scare tactic.
Examples:
"In looking at fiery death..."
"In looking at twisted steel..."
"In looking at decapitation by means of the steering column..."
Mr. Rausch also used to suggest that we practice skidding. No really - he told us to skid our cars in empty parking lots, so that we would know how to do it properly in order to avoid "idiots" (one of his favorite words) who turned in front of us unexpectedly (e.g. WITHOUT signaling). In looking at this advice in retrospect, it seems possible that Ducky wasn't exercising the best possible judgment. I understand the concept of preparing for the worst, but teachers probably shouldn't instruct their sixteen year-old students to use the Kmart parking lot as a skid pad. Is just seems like a bad idea.
But moving on, the much-ballyhooed highlight of Ducky's class was the annual screening of SIGNAL 30, which is basically the SCARED STRAIGHT of the driver safety realm. The film gruesomely shows (in full color!) the aftermath of a number of car accidents, while an emotionless narrator says things like:
"He had moved from a side road onto a main highway with no regard for oncoming traffic. The three or four seconds he tried to save cost him his life for his failure to yeild the right-of-way. He is sprawled on the ground, already showing the pallor the doomed assume."
The doomed assume.
Indubitably.
Signal 30, Part 1:
Part 2
Part 3
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| Halloween |
[Oct. 31st, 2008|11:02 am] |
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It's Halloween and I'm at work, wearing my mom's chemotherapy wig (relax - she's in remission, so she doesn't need it). It's a totally boss wig though, in that it's the same color as my natural hair (used to be), but it has the extra added bonus of being the exact style of every 70's TV cop - think David Soul in Starsky and Hutch and you’ve got it. Anyway, I'm getting great reactions from my co-workers, because I normally look much more like Yule Brynner or Moby, due to my natural lack of hair. It's funny how people can insult you while they think they're complementing you. They keep saying things like, "oh my god, you look great with hair", and "oh, what a shame - you're gorgeous with all that hair". Or maybe their just being passive aggressive? Either way, it's made me do something I haven't done in a long time; miss my hair.
Frommynoggin as "Hutch"
In any event, I thought it might be fun to list my 25 favorite horror movies here, so that when I'm arguing with Jedophile three years from now, he can always just email me the link and say "See, asshole, you said right here that "Martin" is the 23rd best horror movie of all time", to which I would reply: "No, shit-for-brains, I said it was my 23rd FAVORITE horror movie of all time. There's a big goddamn difference between BEST and FAVORITE". Aside from the top five, I'm not going to put them in any particular order, because that would just be stupid. Even if I had the next month to compile such a list, there is simply no way to realistically differentiate between my 17th and 18th favorite horror movies. I WILL stipulate, however, that this list will represent only movies that have NO aspirations to be anything other than horror movies. That means no Evil Dead 2, or American Werewolf In London, or Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which are all 20% comedy, at least. I'm talking about movies that are simply trying (and succeeding) to scare you.
Ok?
FROMMYNOGGIN'S 25 FAVORITE HORROR MOVIES:
01_DAWN OF THE DEAD
GENERAL: Dawn is the best of Romero's dead series, and depending on my mood, my favorite movie of all time. I think I first saw this movie in around 1980, so I was eleven or twelve at the time, and I fell in love with the idea of living in a shopping mall with an ice skating rink. I'd like to say that I was completely aware of the zombies as social commentary on mind control and consumerism, but alas, I don't think I seriously began to consider such ideas until later. It must be said that Night of the Living Dead may be equally as good, but I happen to identify with Dawn a lot more because I grew up in the 70's and 80's, in suburban Pennsylvania, and as such, was more impacted by the proliferation of shopping malls and parking lots than I was by racism and the civil rights movement, which is arguably the most important symbolic aspect of Night. BEST LINE: "Wake up, sucker, we're thieves and we're bad guys...that's exactly what we are". BEST MOMENT: The elevator doors open to reveal the zombie version of Flyboy. Brilliant!
02_THE SHINING
GENERAL: The trailer for The Shining completely wigged me out when I was eleven. I'm pretty sure that the first time I heard anything about this movie was while watching Saturday Night Live. I'm almost 100% certain that The B52s had just finished performing "Rock Lobster" and I was laughing and having a good time, and wondering if Fred Schneider was gay (and what did that really mean, anyway?) when suddenly, there was a disheveled man limping across a dark, snow-covered landscape, carrying an axe, to the accompaniment of Symphonie Fantastique, which is definitely music to cower to. It was a commercial for a new horror movie and I instantly knew that I'd be seeing this movie as soon as it came out. No more than a week or so later, I was at the movies (I can't remember what I was seeing), and saw the theatrical trailer, which is still the simplest, most effective horror movie trailer I've ever seen.
Observe:
BEST LINE: "You've had your whole fucking life to think things over, what's a few minutes more going to do you now?". BEST MOMENT: Danny is riding his bigwheel around the hotel and we're seeing things from his perspective, through a fish-eyed lens that gives the scene a great claustrophobic feel. He rounds a corner and comes to a screaching halt because standing in his way are Delbert (or Charles?) Grady's twin daughters, who look like they stepped right out of a Diane Arbus photo. They intone in a dreamy, harmonized monotone that would frighten even Dick Cheney, "Come and play with us, Danny...forever, and ever, and ever". 03_HALLOWEEN
GENERAL: Halloween was the first horror movie I ever saw in the theater. I was nine, and my mom was wacky, if not completely irresponsible to let me and my friend Bobby see it. BEST LINE: "I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply...evil". BEST MOMENT: The sequence begins when the mask of Michael Myers appears suddenly in dim blue light over Laurie's shoulder, and continues as he very calmly (too calmly) chases her down the stairs, through the kitchen door (literally), out of the house, and across the street back to the Doyle's locked house, where her babysitting charge is asleep upstairs. Laurie forgot the keys, so she needs to wake the sleeping Tommy Doyle in order to be let into the house before Myers crosses the street and carves her up just like he did to Bob, Annie, and Linda across the street. This is probably the most perfectly constructed suspense scene that's ever been created. I have seen this movie 25 (?) times, and this scene brilliantly sustains a fever pitch of absolute panic for a good three minutes. I squirm like a seven year old girl every time I watch this scene.
04_TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
GENERAL: I saw this on video in 1981 or 82. The crappy little town where I grew up had absolutely nothing of any cultural worth except for a privately owned video store (an extinct species these days) that was within walking distance of my house, and had an awesome selection of horror movies. The place was owned by two middle-aged, magnificently mustachioed guys who were probably president and vice president of their high school A.V. club. Those guys are the reason why I saw every movie on this list, or at least every movie on this list from pre-1988. BEST LINE: "That's the last goddamn hitchhiker I ever pick up" BEST MOMENT: When the hitchhiker is sitting in the back of the van and he takes out his straight razor and cuts his own hand. First of all, I'm always struck by how small and dangerously confined a moving van seems when a person suddenly morphs from a pretty creepy guy into a really creepy guy with a straight razor. Second, I HATE straight razors. They absolutely terrify me, and I can trace it back to when I was a little kid at the barber shop. One of the barbers (I forget his name) had a really bad scar on his neck that made him look like he'd had his throat slashed at some point. In addition, he was the only barber at this shop who didn't use electric clippers to shave the back of my neck. Instead, he used a straight razor, and this combined with the scar just freaked the mother-loving shit out of me.
05_JAWS
GENERAL: Ok, we all like to hate on Steven Spielberg, but Jaws is just a terrifyingly good movie that also happens to be quite terrifying. BEST LINE: "You go inside of the cage...the cage goes into the water...the shark's in the water...our shark. Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies…" BEST MOMENT: Quint's "Indianapolis" monologue. It still blows my mind that Robert Shaw wasn't even nominated for an Oscar for this performance, because there's never been a more spell-binding 3.5 minutes committed to film. There's really not much else to say, but awesome.
And in no particular order, here are the rest of my 25 favorite horror movies:
Day of the Dead Night of the Living Dead Phantasm Rosemary's Baby Alien Peeping Tom The Wicker Man (original) Carrie Videodrome
Suspiria
The Dead Zone Psycho Martin Salem's Lot Last House On The Left Near Dark Assault on Precinct 13
Black Christmas The Fog Scanners |
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| Embrace the Silence |
[Oct. 30th, 2008|10:29 am] |
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I was talking to a co-worker a few weeks ago, which is actually a story in itself, as I usually just sit in my cube with headphones on and a "i'm most likely not interested in anything you have to say, so just keep on walking" look on my face. It's not that I have anything against the people I work with. Well, that's not exactly true. I suppose that there are quite a few people at my place of business who annoy the fuck out of me, but in those instances, the decision was made on an individual, case by case basis. I'm pretty much indifferent to most of the rest of the people, though. I guess it just comes down to the fact that I've worked in offices long enough to know that 95% of the conversations deal with banal shit that I have absolutely zero interest in, such as network television, fantasy sports leagues, and celebrity gossip. Further, I have no desire to engage in pointless small talk simply because most people seem to find it more comfortable than silence.
I'm happy as a clam with silence and actually find it far more uncomfortable to be in situations where people with nothing in common are desperately trying to interact while they're waiting for the microwave. Seriously, I'm pretty sure that the top 300 most pathetic conversations I've ever heard all took place either in the office kitchen or the copy room. People can't just stand there and quietly wait the 40 seconds until their Cup 'O' Noodles ™ is done. Instead, they're compelled to say something like "did you sign up for the flu shot?", or "do you have any big plans for the holidays?” neither of which is any of their goddamn business, quite frankly. I always want to say "erm...I'm an orphan, so I usually just get drunk and watch amputee porn over the holidays. How about you, hoss?”
So anyway, my original point was going to be something completely different, but I have a little bit more to say on this topic, so I'm just going to run with it. In order to not go completely bananas, I've developed my very own brand of preemptive small talk, specifically designed to completely throw people off of their game before they get the chance to ask me something stupid that will make me want to kick them in the kneecap. The general idea is to seem like I'm just a bit *off*. Not dangerous or anything like that; just strange enough to scare people away. For example, if I happen to be waiting for the elevator and someone approaches and stands next to me, I look them dead in the eye and say: "Whatcha doin' - waiting for the elevator?". Their response is usually something to the effect of: "umm...well - yes". After a suitably dramatic pause, I say: "Well, you're certainly in the right place", at which point, they invariably look at me as if I just asked if I could borrow their spleen for a few weeks, and then they press the elevator call button that's obviously already been pressed. It's obvious that it's already been pressed because it's already lit, and a lit call button is a sure sign that it's already been pressed and doesn't need to be pressed again. Pressing it again doesn't make the elevator come any quicker - it just makes the button-presser look stupid, so don't do it.
It's not that I don't like people, because I have a small, but great group of friends, and a pretty satisfying social circle. I just have no time for bullshit and few things are more full of shit than some person I'm vaguely familiar with yammering mindlessly to me because they're trying to fill an "awkward" silence. Listen up, chief, it doesn't have to be awkward. Just shut up and embrace the quiet. It won't make you explode, I promise. Companionable silence is a beautiful thing and I'm certain that you'll find it far less exhausting than constantly reiterating that "yes - it is raining…very hard, in fact…it’s most definitely coming down in sheets, the rain…it has been since last night………….pretty much".
Nobody needs to have THAT conversation ever again - ok? That's all I'm saying.
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| An inch is an inch |
[Oct. 28th, 2008|02:42 pm] |
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Hell on earth. A.K.A. The Strip Mall:
I rarely wear underwear around the house. I'm not bragging about this, just stating a fact. This becomes somewhat of a problem during the autumn and winter though, as my normal cold-weather loungewear includes socks, slippers, a sweatshirt, a smoking jacket (acrylic robe riddled with cigarette burns), and pajama bottoms. Anyway, I recently determined that the frontal "area" of my old white and blue flannel pajama bottoms were far too urine stained to make it through another winter. These stains are due, of course, to my refusal to wear underwear around the house. Well, that and the fact that no matter how careful I am about shaking the last drops of urine out when I'm finished peeing, there always seems to be a bit more lurking in the pipeline, and without the buffer zone of manties, there's nothing to prevent the gradual yellowing of my pj bottoms. Regular laundering helps, but it really only dulls the yellow, and after a couple of years of buildup, I'm beginning to look like the guy on the F Train at 3:00 AM, who’d be passed out if he could just stop vomiting.
It was with this in mind that I set out on a trip last weekend to the nightmare world of suburban New Jersey, in search of a Target, or a WalMart, or even a K-Mart, at which to purchase cheap but comfy pajamas and slippers. For the life of me, I can't remember which Northern Jersey town I ended up in, but does it really matter? I AM reasonably certain however, that this particular Target was within a javelin's throw of several other large, indiscriminate, beige buildings, and that walking through the parking lot was simultaneously the most soul-crushing and most dangerous thing I've done in months. I’m generally not a violent person, but almost getting run over by a banana colored vehicle originally designed for transporting armed troops across desert battlefields made me realize that there’s a fine line between pacifism and taking a crow bar to the goateed face of a guy who’s too engrossed in turning up the bass and talking on his goddamn walkie talkie to notice that two full-grown adults are in the crosswalk, directly in front of him, and have the right-of-way.
The Suburban Hummer. Masterpiece of ridiculosity:
But moving on… I actually managed to get into the store alive and I immediately noticed that they were selling corduroy pants for $19.99. I’d recently been thinking a lot about adding some cords to my wardrobe and this was a good price, so I began to look for my size. I was mildly shocked when I found that they did have my size (30” x 30”) in stock, as I generally have a very hard time finding pants that fit. My blood began to boil however, when I held the pants up and noticed that they were more than a little too big for me, and I’m not talking about the style, either. The problem wasn’t that these were “relaxed cut”, or “urban cut”, or some other stupid euphemism for “baggy enough to conceal several weapons”. The problem was that the label indicated that the waist and the inseam of these pants were both thirty inches, but they were clearly more like thirty-two or thirty-three inches, which I really can’t wrap my brain around. I mean, I can sort of understand the practice of up-sizing the sizes so that a modern day “small” is really the same size as a “large” was fifteen or twenty years ago. After all, “large” and “small” are really just subjective terms, and it’s a scientific fact that people can’t even go to the movies any more without consuming a bucket full of cheese-covered nachos, a half pound of bbq spare ribs, and a cauldron Pepsi. Inches, on the other hand, are a standard length. If they weren’t, then feet, yards, and miles wouldn’t be standard lengths either, and that would fuck up just about everything. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that universal agreement on the length of an inch is one of the things that separates humans from tigers, and it pisses me off that multi-national corporations are messing with such important standards in the interest of making really stupid fat people think that they’re not as fat as they really are, so that they’ll feel good about themselves, and possibly purchase more pants.
Am I being too bitchy? |
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