I mourn for the notion of free thought. Entire civilizations have been predicated upon the death of uninhibited, unmolested thought.
Our minds are tainted with a toxic concoction of corporate sound bytes, rhetoric, and cancerous fumes.
There's something more worthy to live for, yet what that may be is deliberately clouded and convoluted until their dreams become our own.
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is apt to spread discontent among those who are." -H.L. Mencken
12.23.2008
11.05.2008
Historic Day in America
To quote Young Jeezy, "Mr. Black President, yeah Obama for real, they gotta put ya face on the 5,000 dollar bill.", and I couldn't have said it better myself.
However, regardless of the great hope an Obama Presidency provides for this Nation, it is unlikely he or anyone else can salvage the plundered infrastructure of America.
Times are likely to get worse before they get better.
The greatest benefit of this election will be the restoration of America's global image.
The American ideal, which was so throughly raped by the previous administration, was revived by this charismatic politician.
It truly is a new day of hope, optimism, and change. While the Obama Presidency is likely to be less entertaining than that of McCain, America has paved the way for dreams once thought to be unattainable.
However, regardless of the great hope an Obama Presidency provides for this Nation, it is unlikely he or anyone else can salvage the plundered infrastructure of America.
Times are likely to get worse before they get better.
The greatest benefit of this election will be the restoration of America's global image.
The American ideal, which was so throughly raped by the previous administration, was revived by this charismatic politician.
It truly is a new day of hope, optimism, and change. While the Obama Presidency is likely to be less entertaining than that of McCain, America has paved the way for dreams once thought to be unattainable.
9.04.2008
Vote For McCain
Typical stupid bullshit being spewed forth by both sides, with each offering the same old in a world that is already beyond reparation.
To potential voters of America; Vote for McCain.
Obama may be the voice of change, and whatever blather you're willing to swallow, but McCain offers more in the way of entertainment value. And by entertainment I mean the unfettered use of American military hardware.
Who wants to see four second news blurbs about peace treaties?
I wanna see bombs raining down a world of shit on some far away land. I wanna see embedded troops dodging mortar fire live on CNN. And most of all I wanna see deposed politicians being plucked out of rat holes to a choirs of clicking cameras.
McCain, and his lingering PTSD gives us 'Mericans the best chance of seeing our very expensive military in use.
So I say, F' Obama and his baby Mama, and vote for McCain and that crazy Alaskan bitch, cuz it will be a whole hell of a lot more entertaining than peace...
To potential voters of America; Vote for McCain.
Obama may be the voice of change, and whatever blather you're willing to swallow, but McCain offers more in the way of entertainment value. And by entertainment I mean the unfettered use of American military hardware.
Who wants to see four second news blurbs about peace treaties?
I wanna see bombs raining down a world of shit on some far away land. I wanna see embedded troops dodging mortar fire live on CNN. And most of all I wanna see deposed politicians being plucked out of rat holes to a choirs of clicking cameras.
McCain, and his lingering PTSD gives us 'Mericans the best chance of seeing our very expensive military in use.
So I say, F' Obama and his baby Mama, and vote for McCain and that crazy Alaskan bitch, cuz it will be a whole hell of a lot more entertaining than peace...
6.26.2008
The Reptilian Brain Always Wins
Perhaps my higher brain functions are just too weak to contend with the influence of my more primitive biological processes.
Anyways, I suppose the reptilian functions of my most highly evolved organ have served me well thus far. I'm still kicking after damn near a quarter century of existence, thats gotta mean something...
Anyways, I suppose the reptilian functions of my most highly evolved organ have served me well thus far. I'm still kicking after damn near a quarter century of existence, thats gotta mean something...
11.29.2007
The End of Modern Society, Wal-Mart and the Invasion of Iran
The impeding U.S. military action against Iran will usher in a new era of hardships for the western world. Besides disrupting vast shipments of crucial petroleum supplies from the middle east, the invasion will also impact the fundamentally important shipments of various plastic items from China, destined for Wal-Marts' across the globe. Once the Wal-Mart supply chain is disrupted, as predicted in certain revisionist versions of Revelation, the Apocalypse will be ushered in as millions are unable to cope with a lack of cheap tupperware and other key plastic products that modern life in the U.S. depends upon.
This era will test humankind as never before. How will modern society cope without Wal-Mart? Does the end of Wal-Mart equate to the end of the world? Interesting times we live in as human beings face annihilation from lack of affordable, quality, plastic crap.
This era will test humankind as never before. How will modern society cope without Wal-Mart? Does the end of Wal-Mart equate to the end of the world? Interesting times we live in as human beings face annihilation from lack of affordable, quality, plastic crap.
4.27.2007
70 years of 'shock and awe'
The 1937 air raid on the Basque city of Guernica ushered in the modern concept of total war.
By Mark Kurlansky
SEVENTY YEARS AGO, on April 26, 1937, at 4:40 in the afternoon when the stone-walled, medieval Basque town of Guernica was packed with peasants, shoppers and refugees for its Monday afternoon market along the riverfront, a church bell rang out. The townspeople had heard the warning before. It meant that enemy planes were approaching.
Since ancient times, Basques had gathered in this town under an oak tree to reaffirm their laws. Even today, the elected head of the Basque government travels to Guernica to take his oath of office under an oak tree, "humble before God, standing on Basque soil, in remembrance of Basque ancestors, under the tree of Guernica…."
This tree, a few thousand residents, the people who had come to the market and thousands of refugees from other parts of the Basque provinces who had fled the ongoing Spanish Civil War were the only targets. Oddly, the oak tree survived.
Because Guernica had no air defenses, dozens of planes from the German and Italian air forces, including the newest experimental warplanes, were free to come in low in daylight, dropping with great accuracy an unusual payload of incendiary and splinter bombs chosen by the Germans for maximum destruction of buildings. People who fled were chased down by planes with heavy-caliber machine guns. The planes came in so low that there are still eyewitnesses who remember seeing the pilots and who note that they looked like Germans.
Three hours later, the planes were gone, the historic town had been reduced to burning rubble and the Basque government estimated that 1,645 civilians were dead out of a population of 7,000. It's hard to know just how accurate that number is. The only ones who had a chance to accurately count the dead were the rebel troops of Francisco Franco — on whose behalf the German and Italian planes had swept in in the first place. They at first denied that the attack had taken place; later, they admitted to only 200 deaths. The records of what they actually found have never been released. But given the intensity of the attack, reports of survivors and the number of missing relatives, the Basque government figure has been recognized as at least being closer to the truth.
Two days after the attack, London Times correspondent George Steer's eyewitness account was published in the London Times and the New York Times, and the world responded with outrage at this new type of warfare — randomly attacking civilians from the air on a large scale. It was widely seen as a crime that should never be allowed to happen again.
It was not the first time civilians had been bombed from the air; not even the first time in the Spanish Civil War. Gen. Emilio Mola of Franco's pro-fascist rebel forces had vowed to destroy the Basque province of Viscaya for its fierce opposition to the insurgency. "Starting with the industries of war," he had said. But instead he started with the rural town of Durango, a town of ancient churches, rambling cobblestone streets and no industries of war. Next was Guernica.
Durango had passed with little notice, but Guernica did not. Pablo Picasso, who had been commissioned by the Spanish government to paint a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris World's Fair, chose Guernica as his subject, and his stark depiction of mayhem and destruction permanently fixed this image of war in Western culture. To many previously apolitical Americans and Britons, it was the bombing of Guernica that convinced them of the brutality of fascism.
Historians argue whether the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" was first used about Guernica or Hiroshima. Steer wrote in the Times: "In the form of its execution and the scale of its destruction … the raid … is unparalleled in military history." But 70 years after Guernica — after the bombings of Coventry, London, Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, Hue, Beirut and Baghdad — it has become clear that modern war is fought from the air and that the greatest number of casualties are civilians.
Guernica was destroyed with 1937 state-of-the-art weaponry, the latest in German and Italian attack aircraft. But, of course, those weapons are primitive compared to what was unleashed on Baghdad for "shock and awe" at the start of the Iraq war. Shock and awe had also been the intention of the fascists in Spain. But such attacks on civilians today are met not so much with the outrage of 1937 but with casual television viewing.
On this, the 70th anniversary of the destruction of the little Basque village of Guernica, it would be good to contemplate the direction the world is going in and whether we want to continue or alter the course.
By Mark Kurlansky
SEVENTY YEARS AGO, on April 26, 1937, at 4:40 in the afternoon when the stone-walled, medieval Basque town of Guernica was packed with peasants, shoppers and refugees for its Monday afternoon market along the riverfront, a church bell rang out. The townspeople had heard the warning before. It meant that enemy planes were approaching.
Since ancient times, Basques had gathered in this town under an oak tree to reaffirm their laws. Even today, the elected head of the Basque government travels to Guernica to take his oath of office under an oak tree, "humble before God, standing on Basque soil, in remembrance of Basque ancestors, under the tree of Guernica…."
This tree, a few thousand residents, the people who had come to the market and thousands of refugees from other parts of the Basque provinces who had fled the ongoing Spanish Civil War were the only targets. Oddly, the oak tree survived.
Because Guernica had no air defenses, dozens of planes from the German and Italian air forces, including the newest experimental warplanes, were free to come in low in daylight, dropping with great accuracy an unusual payload of incendiary and splinter bombs chosen by the Germans for maximum destruction of buildings. People who fled were chased down by planes with heavy-caliber machine guns. The planes came in so low that there are still eyewitnesses who remember seeing the pilots and who note that they looked like Germans.
Three hours later, the planes were gone, the historic town had been reduced to burning rubble and the Basque government estimated that 1,645 civilians were dead out of a population of 7,000. It's hard to know just how accurate that number is. The only ones who had a chance to accurately count the dead were the rebel troops of Francisco Franco — on whose behalf the German and Italian planes had swept in in the first place. They at first denied that the attack had taken place; later, they admitted to only 200 deaths. The records of what they actually found have never been released. But given the intensity of the attack, reports of survivors and the number of missing relatives, the Basque government figure has been recognized as at least being closer to the truth.
Two days after the attack, London Times correspondent George Steer's eyewitness account was published in the London Times and the New York Times, and the world responded with outrage at this new type of warfare — randomly attacking civilians from the air on a large scale. It was widely seen as a crime that should never be allowed to happen again.
It was not the first time civilians had been bombed from the air; not even the first time in the Spanish Civil War. Gen. Emilio Mola of Franco's pro-fascist rebel forces had vowed to destroy the Basque province of Viscaya for its fierce opposition to the insurgency. "Starting with the industries of war," he had said. But instead he started with the rural town of Durango, a town of ancient churches, rambling cobblestone streets and no industries of war. Next was Guernica.
Durango had passed with little notice, but Guernica did not. Pablo Picasso, who had been commissioned by the Spanish government to paint a mural for the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 Paris World's Fair, chose Guernica as his subject, and his stark depiction of mayhem and destruction permanently fixed this image of war in Western culture. To many previously apolitical Americans and Britons, it was the bombing of Guernica that convinced them of the brutality of fascism.
Historians argue whether the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" was first used about Guernica or Hiroshima. Steer wrote in the Times: "In the form of its execution and the scale of its destruction … the raid … is unparalleled in military history." But 70 years after Guernica — after the bombings of Coventry, London, Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, Hue, Beirut and Baghdad — it has become clear that modern war is fought from the air and that the greatest number of casualties are civilians.
Guernica was destroyed with 1937 state-of-the-art weaponry, the latest in German and Italian attack aircraft. But, of course, those weapons are primitive compared to what was unleashed on Baghdad for "shock and awe" at the start of the Iraq war. Shock and awe had also been the intention of the fascists in Spain. But such attacks on civilians today are met not so much with the outrage of 1937 but with casual television viewing.
On this, the 70th anniversary of the destruction of the little Basque village of Guernica, it would be good to contemplate the direction the world is going in and whether we want to continue or alter the course.
12.16.2006
9.22.2006
9.18.2006
9.16.2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)