Found this also on YouTube, just a few minutes ago. It's an excerpt from an episode of "The Simpsons", entitled "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes", which is a pretty funny parody of "The Prisoner", featuring the voice of Patrick McGoohan, "The Prisoner"'s star, as Number 6 himself.
Be seeing you.
27 July 2007
26 July 2007
The Prison Bear
Found this on YouTube last week. It's a spoof of the classic 1967 science fiction-espionage series "The Prisoner", called "The PrisonBear", with stuffed toys taking all of the parts.
Damned good spoof of "The Prisoner", if I may say so, and do.
Damned good spoof of "The Prisoner", if I may say so, and do.
Apathy, Organisation and Revolution
Yep, another re-posted MySpace political rant from Yours Truly.
Skim it if you want, read it if you must, or ignore it entirely. Whatever floats your boat.
If you make it all the way through this, and find anything resembling the ghost of a coherent argument with semi-solid backing, you're either a reader and reasoner of the most heroic kind, or you've been taking some DAMNED good drugs!!!!
Either way, hope it's of some interest.
Here goes.
On Sunday evening, I re-posted a blog entry from a friend of mine about the latest Presidential directive authorising the seizures of money and property belonging to those individuals whom the Administration felt are hampering the war and peacekeeping efforts in Iraq, and, yes, this includes US citizens, Folks.
My friend was, to say the least, more than mildly disappointed that the numbers of responses to this particular post were far lower than to the Harry Potter related posts on her blog.
As for the re-post here, I can tell you precisely the number of comments it got here, and that's ZERO.
Par for the course with most of my stuff, and, while I can find it irritating, am not going to let that get me down, at least not to the point of not blogging anymore.
Anyhow, here's my response to her latest blog entry, containing a number of, yes, guesses, as to why the public response has been so muted to this latest piece of news.
Below that, am going to enclose a few thoughts on revolution, civil war, and what they would mean for you, me, and everyone else living here.
D. : Dunno what to tell ya, except that perhaps, PERHAPS, some of the reason the reception of this news has been so generally underwhelming, is because the Administration very cannily took advantage of the fact that most people don't really pay attention to the news on week-ends, and especially on Sundays.
Please notice when that release was made, and that was on Sunday last.
Some of it as well may be, and I include myself in this camp, attributed to an unwillingness to believe that the arseholes actually mean this, and mean to do it.
On the other hand, have no doubt they do.
Some of it may be general weariness with news about an Administration and its products, mainly the Wah On Tewah(Heh, heh, heh!!!)and the Iraq War, that only keeps getting worse by the second, minute, hour, day, week and month.
Some of it may also be just plain old-fashioned complacency, indifference, and the sense of "WhudkinIdoaboudit??" on the part of many Americans.
There's also the fact that, all rhetoric to the contrary aside, neither the American Left(and yes, I am painting with an extremely broad brush here), much of the American Centre, or the Libertarian Right have the organisation, financing and other resources, the discipline needed, nor the will and commitment to launch much of a tough, victorious, election campaign, much less an armed struggle against the US government and its supporters, if that's what need be.
Organising and maintaining any sort of organisation, particularly when resources are scarce and many of the participants dislike each other on ideological or inter-personal grounds, or both, is a difficult job.
It's not impossible, just damned difficult, and it requires a level of commitment that many people either don't have, nor are willing to give.
During the Maoist era in China, there was a popular saying among the peasants, which was "Under the Guomindang(the Chinese Nationalists), too many taxes; under the Communists, too many meetings", and, particularly in establishing, running and maintaining an organisation of any real size, it takes a LOT of meetings and time spent away from family, friends, hobbies, etc to get it up and keep it going relatively harmoniously.
I don't know what it will take, if it ever does, for many Americans, beyond a relatively small minority of the population, to actually ever develop the desire to get involved, in whatever form, in the political process, if it isn't already too late.
That said, that doesn't mean that those of us who are even somewhat aware of what's going on should give up, go to our local drinkin' places, and start downing liquid anaesthetic.
It means, though, that we're going to have to keep on keepin' on, doing what we do, until such time as we gain even half the results we want.
It means having the tenacity of a bulldog, an iron will to survive and prosper, and, most importantly, well-developed senses of perspective and humour, 'cos, to borrow a saying I got from a radio talk-show host in Reno many moons ago, "He(or She)who laughs, lasts", and, especially given the nature of much of what goes on in politics, that's so bloody true.
Stay strong, hang tough, and don't forget to laugh often and loudly.
Yep, Folks, it's better to organise, mobilise and take effective, non-violent action NOW and in the days to come, rather than let the situation get so bad that violent action's the only feasible way out of this mess.
Why????
Let's be blunt; assuming for one hot second that the various Left groups in this country, as well as outraged moderates, libertarian conservatives, etc, had the financial means, loads of resources, willing, experienced and able people ready to go, and a political, military and economic plan that was sound enough to survive, at least in part, the shocks and set-backs of a revolutionary war here, it would also require the commitment, discipline, and sheer bloody-minded will to see the task through to a victorious end, and I am not sure that these groups, at least at present, have those in sufficient quantity.
That said, what a revolutionary war in the US would mean would be the kind of widespread social, economic, and political disruption that would impoverish large numbers of Americans, and push those already in poverty right into the gutter, if not the grave.
It would mean revolutionary and counter-revolutionary terror of various sorts, whether committed by Regular Army, Reservist or National Guard soldiers, police agencies at every level, or citizen auxiliaries of various kinds and official, semi-official, or unofficial natures on the latter side, or by whatever "regular" or irregular formations on the former side.
It would mean curfews, restrictions on travel of all sorts, arbitrary detentions, arrests, trials and executions.
It would mean massacres, carried out by one side or another, of the other side's partisans, or of even relatively uninvolved civilians.
It would mean sieges of communities of various types and sizes, with all the horrors of privation, malnutrition, starvation, disease, madness, and premature death by a variety of causes.
It would mean looting, burning, rape, torture, mass murder on a scale that would make the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-90 and the Yugoslav civil wars of the '90's look small and tame by comparison, and might even make the current Iraqi conflagration look anemic, and that'd be tough to do, in my opinion.
But, our country and population are large and diverse enough, and weapons are plentiful enough to get, so it's entirely possible that, given the right or wrong incentives, we could quite easily turn the US into a big version of Somalia in a relatively short period of time.
Think social inequality's bad now????? Wait 'til you find yourself living in one enclave or another, held by one of the various sides, and watch the shortages of food, medicine, potable drinking water, and other goods and services pile up one on top of the other.
Those who are either members of one of the various ruling groups or another, have connections to them, or who are in one kind of black market ring or another, are going to have the lion's share of whatever there is to go 'round, and everyone else will have to muddle along as best they can with they have, or go without.
If that means a few hundred, or a few thousand, poor bastards die, so that the war effort, and the ruling elite's control of a given area of the US can go on, that's what happens.
Think the levels of outright lying and other forms of deception coming to you from the government, "mainstream" media and other sources are epic????
Just wait and see the glorious new levels of wartime(and, depending on who wins, extended long into peacetime)censorship of every form of media, and the attempts, some successful, some not, at cutting off any sort of differing opinions than their own by the various elites, and that includes the 'Net.
Have no doubt that at least some of these clowns will take their cues from China's attempts to block various forms of 'Net sites, and other 'Net features that communicate points of view differing with the official Chinese government line, and attempt to implement similar measures of their own.
Ain't gonna say that they'll be entirely successful, but they will try, nonetheless, 'cos we don't wanna have the punters out there doubting whatever our glorious leadership says, now, do we????
You bet yer sweet arse, we don't, Sugar-Plums.
As for lying and secrecy-mongering, well, our current government, like just about every other government in war-time throughout human history, has certainly tried its share and then some, and then some again.
But, in many respects, these jokers really haven't been all that terribly successful at those tactics as they might have been.
In this projected revolutionary war, the various sides may or may not be more successful at it than this current government, but, believe me, they will try their damnedest to be such.
One of the hardest tasks in any country at war, and I think it was George Orwell who first observed this, but I could be wrong, is for so-called ordinary citizens to find reliably truthful information sources in a social atmosphere characterised by tremendous amount of cant, mis-information, dis-information, propaganda of all sorts, and outright lying.
Have found this rule borne out over the past nearly six years, and also have no doubt that, in any revolutionary war situation, the various sides, Yours, Mine, Ours, Theirs, and The Other Guy Way Off In the Far Left Corner's, will also do their very best to bring you, The Little Guy or Gal, the absolutely worst, most un-trustworthy information they can, as long as it serves their interests.
Another thing to consider, and that's the destruction of all kinds of infrastructure, physical and social, that would take place during such a war, because, beginning with Sherman's March Through Georgia during the American Civil War, governments, military planners, and even the urban guerrillas of the 1960's and '70's, have understood that one of the quickest ways to defeat your opponent isn't on the battlefield, but by targeting his physical, economic and social infrastructures, and inflicting on them the maximum possible amounts of damage and destruction, so that yon opponent's war activities cease, because the society, both at the front and behind it, has suffered so much damage that it either barely sputters along, or falls apart entirely.
This means that NO areas of human activity, even hospitals and other medical facilities, churches, synagogues, mosques, whatever house of worship you fancy to name, and similar non-warlike institutions get targeted, and get it, right in the neck, but good.
You want your opponent so entirely and utterly broken that he or she couldn't get up on his or her feet, even if he or she had a hundred people helping.
That's what total war is, and means-TOTAL war, in which every part of a nation's society, and every person therein, is a military target, period.
There are no dividing lines between military and civilian, combatant and non-combatant, the front line, the rear area, and civvy street.
Every area, and everyone in it, are part of a massive free-fire zone, where anything and everything goes.
This observation sure as Hell ain't original to me, as this form of warfare's been practised since at least the American Civil War and has only grown stronger in influence and power ever since.
When the hi-jackers piloted the jets into the Twin Towers in New York City and into the Pentagon on 11th September, 2001, they were practising total war, and bringing it to their most hated opponents-us.
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols did the same kind of stunt to the Alfred P. Murragh Federal Building on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 17th April, 1995, for very similar reasons to those held by the 11 September hi-jackers, and because they believed they were at war with a Federal government that they neither recognised or thought of as their own. So, anything and everything was justified, including the deaths of men, women and children whom they'd neither met, or who had done either one any harm.
Total war means total terror, especially for the enemy and his or her supporters, and it means that, in the end, if your mama's on the opposite side of the barricades from you, and you're ordered to kill her because that's what you've been ordered to do because your superiors have deemed it a military necessity, you waste her, or pay whatever price you'll have to for not doing so.
It means being as ruthless, if not more so, than your opponents, and not just towards your opponents, but to your supporters, immediate, intermediate and subordinate, and the populations beneath them, in turn.
If you have to purge the ranks of your supporters to weed out those who may be traitors or spies, you do it.
If you have to order the deaths of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people, regardless of whatever involvement or non-involvement they have with your opponent's war efforts, you do it, if it will bring ultimate victory to you and yours.
If you have to carry out those orders, you do it, whether you know and understand the reasons why or not.
If not, someone else can always be found to cheerfully do it, and don't think they can't or won't be found.
No one is indispensable in war, especially in revolutionary warfare.
In the end, even if it takes massacring millions of people and turning large portions of the US, or any other part of the world into a wasteland, you do it, and you live with it.
It's been a little over a century since our last experiences of guerrilla and partisan warfare on US soil came to an end at Wounded Knee, the last massacre of the Indian Wars, but, especially during those wars, as well as the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, we had episodes of war-to-the knife, cutthroat partisan warfare that World War Two-era Yugoslavs, Albanians, Greeks and Soviets would have recognised in character, if not form, as not so different from their own styles of making war.
The riots of the 1960's, and, to an extremely limited extent, the urban guerrilla movements of that same period worldwide, gave us a glimpse of what an urban civil war would be like.
Make no mistake, whatever plans and high ideals you have at the beginning of whatever revolutionary struggle you make, those plans and ideals will be changed by the realities of warfare, its changing circumstances and policies, the million great and small compromises and deals that violate your ideals, but need to done along the way to victory, and, finally, the realities of governing whatever areas you have at war's beginning, the ones you take and hold during the war, and, in the end, a nation at peace.
Shattered, busted to bits in every way, and poorer than Hell, but, at peace, nonetheless.
Then, the TRULY hard work starts for you.....
That's why I say that it's better to organise, mobilise, and work for change peacefully now, because, once you pick up the gun, and especially after you use it, there's no "Sorry", no way you can make up for the death, injury and destruction you and your opponents inflict, and surely NO turning back.
If you MUST go down that road, please be aware of these facts and more, and make damned sure you are both prepared and willing to pay whatever price, even your life and the lives of your loved ones and revolutionary comrades, that it takes.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Be seeing you.
Skim it if you want, read it if you must, or ignore it entirely. Whatever floats your boat.
If you make it all the way through this, and find anything resembling the ghost of a coherent argument with semi-solid backing, you're either a reader and reasoner of the most heroic kind, or you've been taking some DAMNED good drugs!!!!
Either way, hope it's of some interest.
Here goes.
On Sunday evening, I re-posted a blog entry from a friend of mine about the latest Presidential directive authorising the seizures of money and property belonging to those individuals whom the Administration felt are hampering the war and peacekeeping efforts in Iraq, and, yes, this includes US citizens, Folks.
My friend was, to say the least, more than mildly disappointed that the numbers of responses to this particular post were far lower than to the Harry Potter related posts on her blog.
As for the re-post here, I can tell you precisely the number of comments it got here, and that's ZERO.
Par for the course with most of my stuff, and, while I can find it irritating, am not going to let that get me down, at least not to the point of not blogging anymore.
Anyhow, here's my response to her latest blog entry, containing a number of, yes, guesses, as to why the public response has been so muted to this latest piece of news.
Below that, am going to enclose a few thoughts on revolution, civil war, and what they would mean for you, me, and everyone else living here.
D. : Dunno what to tell ya, except that perhaps, PERHAPS, some of the reason the reception of this news has been so generally underwhelming, is because the Administration very cannily took advantage of the fact that most people don't really pay attention to the news on week-ends, and especially on Sundays.
Please notice when that release was made, and that was on Sunday last.
Some of it as well may be, and I include myself in this camp, attributed to an unwillingness to believe that the arseholes actually mean this, and mean to do it.
On the other hand, have no doubt they do.
Some of it may be general weariness with news about an Administration and its products, mainly the Wah On Tewah(Heh, heh, heh!!!)and the Iraq War, that only keeps getting worse by the second, minute, hour, day, week and month.
Some of it may also be just plain old-fashioned complacency, indifference, and the sense of "WhudkinIdoaboudit??" on the part of many Americans.
There's also the fact that, all rhetoric to the contrary aside, neither the American Left(and yes, I am painting with an extremely broad brush here), much of the American Centre, or the Libertarian Right have the organisation, financing and other resources, the discipline needed, nor the will and commitment to launch much of a tough, victorious, election campaign, much less an armed struggle against the US government and its supporters, if that's what need be.
Organising and maintaining any sort of organisation, particularly when resources are scarce and many of the participants dislike each other on ideological or inter-personal grounds, or both, is a difficult job.
It's not impossible, just damned difficult, and it requires a level of commitment that many people either don't have, nor are willing to give.
During the Maoist era in China, there was a popular saying among the peasants, which was "Under the Guomindang(the Chinese Nationalists), too many taxes; under the Communists, too many meetings", and, particularly in establishing, running and maintaining an organisation of any real size, it takes a LOT of meetings and time spent away from family, friends, hobbies, etc to get it up and keep it going relatively harmoniously.
I don't know what it will take, if it ever does, for many Americans, beyond a relatively small minority of the population, to actually ever develop the desire to get involved, in whatever form, in the political process, if it isn't already too late.
That said, that doesn't mean that those of us who are even somewhat aware of what's going on should give up, go to our local drinkin' places, and start downing liquid anaesthetic.
It means, though, that we're going to have to keep on keepin' on, doing what we do, until such time as we gain even half the results we want.
It means having the tenacity of a bulldog, an iron will to survive and prosper, and, most importantly, well-developed senses of perspective and humour, 'cos, to borrow a saying I got from a radio talk-show host in Reno many moons ago, "He(or She)who laughs, lasts", and, especially given the nature of much of what goes on in politics, that's so bloody true.
Stay strong, hang tough, and don't forget to laugh often and loudly.
Yep, Folks, it's better to organise, mobilise and take effective, non-violent action NOW and in the days to come, rather than let the situation get so bad that violent action's the only feasible way out of this mess.
Why????
Let's be blunt; assuming for one hot second that the various Left groups in this country, as well as outraged moderates, libertarian conservatives, etc, had the financial means, loads of resources, willing, experienced and able people ready to go, and a political, military and economic plan that was sound enough to survive, at least in part, the shocks and set-backs of a revolutionary war here, it would also require the commitment, discipline, and sheer bloody-minded will to see the task through to a victorious end, and I am not sure that these groups, at least at present, have those in sufficient quantity.
That said, what a revolutionary war in the US would mean would be the kind of widespread social, economic, and political disruption that would impoverish large numbers of Americans, and push those already in poverty right into the gutter, if not the grave.
It would mean revolutionary and counter-revolutionary terror of various sorts, whether committed by Regular Army, Reservist or National Guard soldiers, police agencies at every level, or citizen auxiliaries of various kinds and official, semi-official, or unofficial natures on the latter side, or by whatever "regular" or irregular formations on the former side.
It would mean curfews, restrictions on travel of all sorts, arbitrary detentions, arrests, trials and executions.
It would mean massacres, carried out by one side or another, of the other side's partisans, or of even relatively uninvolved civilians.
It would mean sieges of communities of various types and sizes, with all the horrors of privation, malnutrition, starvation, disease, madness, and premature death by a variety of causes.
It would mean looting, burning, rape, torture, mass murder on a scale that would make the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-90 and the Yugoslav civil wars of the '90's look small and tame by comparison, and might even make the current Iraqi conflagration look anemic, and that'd be tough to do, in my opinion.
But, our country and population are large and diverse enough, and weapons are plentiful enough to get, so it's entirely possible that, given the right or wrong incentives, we could quite easily turn the US into a big version of Somalia in a relatively short period of time.
Think social inequality's bad now????? Wait 'til you find yourself living in one enclave or another, held by one of the various sides, and watch the shortages of food, medicine, potable drinking water, and other goods and services pile up one on top of the other.
Those who are either members of one of the various ruling groups or another, have connections to them, or who are in one kind of black market ring or another, are going to have the lion's share of whatever there is to go 'round, and everyone else will have to muddle along as best they can with they have, or go without.
If that means a few hundred, or a few thousand, poor bastards die, so that the war effort, and the ruling elite's control of a given area of the US can go on, that's what happens.
Think the levels of outright lying and other forms of deception coming to you from the government, "mainstream" media and other sources are epic????
Just wait and see the glorious new levels of wartime(and, depending on who wins, extended long into peacetime)censorship of every form of media, and the attempts, some successful, some not, at cutting off any sort of differing opinions than their own by the various elites, and that includes the 'Net.
Have no doubt that at least some of these clowns will take their cues from China's attempts to block various forms of 'Net sites, and other 'Net features that communicate points of view differing with the official Chinese government line, and attempt to implement similar measures of their own.
Ain't gonna say that they'll be entirely successful, but they will try, nonetheless, 'cos we don't wanna have the punters out there doubting whatever our glorious leadership says, now, do we????
You bet yer sweet arse, we don't, Sugar-Plums.
As for lying and secrecy-mongering, well, our current government, like just about every other government in war-time throughout human history, has certainly tried its share and then some, and then some again.
But, in many respects, these jokers really haven't been all that terribly successful at those tactics as they might have been.
In this projected revolutionary war, the various sides may or may not be more successful at it than this current government, but, believe me, they will try their damnedest to be such.
One of the hardest tasks in any country at war, and I think it was George Orwell who first observed this, but I could be wrong, is for so-called ordinary citizens to find reliably truthful information sources in a social atmosphere characterised by tremendous amount of cant, mis-information, dis-information, propaganda of all sorts, and outright lying.
Have found this rule borne out over the past nearly six years, and also have no doubt that, in any revolutionary war situation, the various sides, Yours, Mine, Ours, Theirs, and The Other Guy Way Off In the Far Left Corner's, will also do their very best to bring you, The Little Guy or Gal, the absolutely worst, most un-trustworthy information they can, as long as it serves their interests.
Another thing to consider, and that's the destruction of all kinds of infrastructure, physical and social, that would take place during such a war, because, beginning with Sherman's March Through Georgia during the American Civil War, governments, military planners, and even the urban guerrillas of the 1960's and '70's, have understood that one of the quickest ways to defeat your opponent isn't on the battlefield, but by targeting his physical, economic and social infrastructures, and inflicting on them the maximum possible amounts of damage and destruction, so that yon opponent's war activities cease, because the society, both at the front and behind it, has suffered so much damage that it either barely sputters along, or falls apart entirely.
This means that NO areas of human activity, even hospitals and other medical facilities, churches, synagogues, mosques, whatever house of worship you fancy to name, and similar non-warlike institutions get targeted, and get it, right in the neck, but good.
You want your opponent so entirely and utterly broken that he or she couldn't get up on his or her feet, even if he or she had a hundred people helping.
That's what total war is, and means-TOTAL war, in which every part of a nation's society, and every person therein, is a military target, period.
There are no dividing lines between military and civilian, combatant and non-combatant, the front line, the rear area, and civvy street.
Every area, and everyone in it, are part of a massive free-fire zone, where anything and everything goes.
This observation sure as Hell ain't original to me, as this form of warfare's been practised since at least the American Civil War and has only grown stronger in influence and power ever since.
When the hi-jackers piloted the jets into the Twin Towers in New York City and into the Pentagon on 11th September, 2001, they were practising total war, and bringing it to their most hated opponents-us.
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols did the same kind of stunt to the Alfred P. Murragh Federal Building on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on 17th April, 1995, for very similar reasons to those held by the 11 September hi-jackers, and because they believed they were at war with a Federal government that they neither recognised or thought of as their own. So, anything and everything was justified, including the deaths of men, women and children whom they'd neither met, or who had done either one any harm.
Total war means total terror, especially for the enemy and his or her supporters, and it means that, in the end, if your mama's on the opposite side of the barricades from you, and you're ordered to kill her because that's what you've been ordered to do because your superiors have deemed it a military necessity, you waste her, or pay whatever price you'll have to for not doing so.
It means being as ruthless, if not more so, than your opponents, and not just towards your opponents, but to your supporters, immediate, intermediate and subordinate, and the populations beneath them, in turn.
If you have to purge the ranks of your supporters to weed out those who may be traitors or spies, you do it.
If you have to order the deaths of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of people, regardless of whatever involvement or non-involvement they have with your opponent's war efforts, you do it, if it will bring ultimate victory to you and yours.
If you have to carry out those orders, you do it, whether you know and understand the reasons why or not.
If not, someone else can always be found to cheerfully do it, and don't think they can't or won't be found.
No one is indispensable in war, especially in revolutionary warfare.
In the end, even if it takes massacring millions of people and turning large portions of the US, or any other part of the world into a wasteland, you do it, and you live with it.
It's been a little over a century since our last experiences of guerrilla and partisan warfare on US soil came to an end at Wounded Knee, the last massacre of the Indian Wars, but, especially during those wars, as well as the Civil War and the Revolutionary War, we had episodes of war-to-the knife, cutthroat partisan warfare that World War Two-era Yugoslavs, Albanians, Greeks and Soviets would have recognised in character, if not form, as not so different from their own styles of making war.
The riots of the 1960's, and, to an extremely limited extent, the urban guerrilla movements of that same period worldwide, gave us a glimpse of what an urban civil war would be like.
Make no mistake, whatever plans and high ideals you have at the beginning of whatever revolutionary struggle you make, those plans and ideals will be changed by the realities of warfare, its changing circumstances and policies, the million great and small compromises and deals that violate your ideals, but need to done along the way to victory, and, finally, the realities of governing whatever areas you have at war's beginning, the ones you take and hold during the war, and, in the end, a nation at peace.
Shattered, busted to bits in every way, and poorer than Hell, but, at peace, nonetheless.
Then, the TRULY hard work starts for you.....
That's why I say that it's better to organise, mobilise, and work for change peacefully now, because, once you pick up the gun, and especially after you use it, there's no "Sorry", no way you can make up for the death, injury and destruction you and your opponents inflict, and surely NO turning back.
If you MUST go down that road, please be aware of these facts and more, and make damned sure you are both prepared and willing to pay whatever price, even your life and the lives of your loved ones and revolutionary comrades, that it takes.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Be seeing you.
25 July 2007
40th Anniversary Newark and Detroit Riots Commemorative Pics
A couple of months ago, I shot the trio of pics below to commemorate the 40th anniversaries of the Newark, New Jersey, and Detroit, Michigan riots.
Can't say I know much about 'em, even in spite of having seen a recent documentary on the Newark riot, Revolution '67, on the PBS series POV a couple of weeks back.
Nonetheless, here they are.
The first pic depicts, and I've long since forgotten where I saw this, the lone African-American Michigan National Guardsman on patrol in Detroit during the course of the five-day long riots.
Considering that one of his white colleagues was quoted as saying that if a potential target moved and was black, he'd shoot, I wonder what that African-American guardsman must have thought and felt while the riots were going on, and after that.
The second depicts an African-American man being detained by two New Jersey Guardsmen during the Newark riot.
The third and final shot depicts an African-American man laying on the sidewalk in Detroit, Michigan, after having been shot.
By whom, well, I'll leave that up to you.
But, at least according to one site where I got names and some personal info about the 43 people killed during the Detroit riots, more likely than not, he was probably shot by either a Michigan National Guardsman or a Detroit police officer.
In closing, am enclosing a small list of links to sites where you can get more and better info on the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967, than the meagre amount provided here.
For starters, let's go to the Wikipedia entries for both, at, respectively, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Street_Riot(Detroit Riots), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Newark_riots(Newark riots, of course).
Then, let's go to the Rutgers University site on both riots at http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/, which provides an detailed, academic overview of the events preceding, during and after the riots.
After that, we'll head over to the Revolution '67 page at PBS. org, so you can see more about the documentary, its creators, and get more info on the '67 Newark riot.
It's at http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2007/revolution67/index.html.
The next link's to Bongiorno Productions', the company that made Revolution '67, site at http://www.bongiornoproductions.com/REVOLUTION%20%2767/Revolution%20%2767.html.
Finally, am enclosing a couple of sites that have a bit more personal takes on the Detroit riots of '67, the first being a site dedicated to, and listing the names and personal stories of the 43 dead in those riots(and from where I got that figure and the info about most of the casualities being caused by police and National Guard fire), Detroit Riot Victims, at http://www.geocities.com/michdetroit/riot1967.html.
The second is to a blog entry by a fella who was a child in the Detroit area when the riots broke out, and their aftermath, and this entry contains his reflections on both.
It's at http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/09/nola-05-detroit-67.html.
The blogger wrote this in September, 2005, and, in the post, he links the various similarities he saw between how the news media covered those riots and the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
As always, the opinions, etc, found on these various sites, aren't the responsibility of, nor endorsed by, blah, blah, blah, Yours Truly, but belong to those who own, maintain and post on 'em.
So, please don't send me any nasty e-mails(not that you've before)about what someone said on their site or blog.
BTW, sorry for the small number of links here. There are a lot more out there, but I'm a lazy sod, so that's why there aren't more.
At the very least, hope they're a good start for whatever 'Net expeditions you may make to find out more about these topics.
Be seeing you.
Can't say I know much about 'em, even in spite of having seen a recent documentary on the Newark riot, Revolution '67, on the PBS series POV a couple of weeks back.
Nonetheless, here they are.
The first pic depicts, and I've long since forgotten where I saw this, the lone African-American Michigan National Guardsman on patrol in Detroit during the course of the five-day long riots.
Considering that one of his white colleagues was quoted as saying that if a potential target moved and was black, he'd shoot, I wonder what that African-American guardsman must have thought and felt while the riots were going on, and after that.
The second depicts an African-American man being detained by two New Jersey Guardsmen during the Newark riot.
The third and final shot depicts an African-American man laying on the sidewalk in Detroit, Michigan, after having been shot.
By whom, well, I'll leave that up to you.
But, at least according to one site where I got names and some personal info about the 43 people killed during the Detroit riots, more likely than not, he was probably shot by either a Michigan National Guardsman or a Detroit police officer.
In closing, am enclosing a small list of links to sites where you can get more and better info on the Newark and Detroit riots of 1967, than the meagre amount provided here.
For starters, let's go to the Wikipedia entries for both, at, respectively, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_Street_Riot(Detroit Riots), and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Newark_riots(Newark riots, of course).
Then, let's go to the Rutgers University site on both riots at http://www.67riots.rutgers.edu/, which provides an detailed, academic overview of the events preceding, during and after the riots.
After that, we'll head over to the Revolution '67 page at PBS. org, so you can see more about the documentary, its creators, and get more info on the '67 Newark riot.
It's at http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2007/revolution67/index.html.
The next link's to Bongiorno Productions', the company that made Revolution '67, site at http://www.bongiornoproductions.com/REVOLUTION%20%2767/Revolution%20%2767.html.
Finally, am enclosing a couple of sites that have a bit more personal takes on the Detroit riots of '67, the first being a site dedicated to, and listing the names and personal stories of the 43 dead in those riots(and from where I got that figure and the info about most of the casualities being caused by police and National Guard fire), Detroit Riot Victims, at http://www.geocities.com/michdetroit/riot1967.html.
The second is to a blog entry by a fella who was a child in the Detroit area when the riots broke out, and their aftermath, and this entry contains his reflections on both.
It's at http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/09/nola-05-detroit-67.html.
The blogger wrote this in September, 2005, and, in the post, he links the various similarities he saw between how the news media covered those riots and the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina.
As always, the opinions, etc, found on these various sites, aren't the responsibility of, nor endorsed by, blah, blah, blah, Yours Truly, but belong to those who own, maintain and post on 'em.
So, please don't send me any nasty e-mails(not that you've before)about what someone said on their site or blog.
BTW, sorry for the small number of links here. There are a lot more out there, but I'm a lazy sod, so that's why there aren't more.
At the very least, hope they're a good start for whatever 'Net expeditions you may make to find out more about these topics.
Be seeing you.
23 July 2007
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Ladies and Gentlemen, courtesy of a MySpace friend of mine, Mr. Gil Scott Heron and his spoken word piece, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
...will not be televised
<msprm name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uTCQSk2l8bc"><msprm name="wmode" value="transparent">
...will not be televised
<msprm name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uTCQSk2l8bc"><msprm name="wmode" value="transparent">
22 July 2007
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law(Re-Post)
Posted this, or rather, re-posted much of this on my MySpace blog a few minutes ago.
Don't know exactly how the Administration' s going to implement this directive, or at whom it'll be targeted. It mayn't work out to anything in the end. On the other hand, it just might.
Text follows below.
Don't usually re-post other people's blog posts here, but, given the importance of the issue, I am, and strongly urge those of you who see this to re-post this entry as well on your blogs.
Thanks for your attention, and thanks to MO for originally posting this on her blog.
Just saw this post a minute ago. Am also enclosing a pair of links, one from truthout.org about this, and a link to the Presidential directive from the White House's own site that I saw a few hours ago.
The links are, respectively, http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072207A.shtml, and http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html.
July 22, 2007 - Sunday
act NOW. Bush moves toward martial law
Please repost this. I took it straight from a bulletin from Active Muse. I am going to try to repost that bulletin here.
Please read this and act now.
Be seeing you.
----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: activemuse
Date: Jul 22, 2007 8:56 PM
NEEDED: 3 More Congress Members to Impeach!!!!
Call, Call, Call !!
Please contact your Congressmen/women to push for impeachment. BE RELENTLESS!!
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has said that if three more Congress Members sign Kucinich's impeachment bill, he will start the impeachment proceedings. (The story was broken tonight by After Downing Street).
Remember, criminal proceedings against Bush, Cheney and others for 9/11 cannot start until they are out of office. Impeachment is the first step.
EVERYONE should call their congressional representatives (especially if yours' are not one of the signatories to Kucinich's impeachment bill) and DEMAND they co-sign. Click here to find your congress person.
REPOST: The dictator criminal Bush and the 5th amendment
From: sache
Date: Jul 22, 2007 11:54 AM
Thanx for posting this. This reminds me of my futile attempts to read the fucking USA Patriot Act. They make this shit incomprehensible with their llabrynthine references to laws by code, and obscurantist kant. Maybe we need to develop an underground core of translators to inform (in plain and comprehensible language) the few amerikkans who are just a tiny bit awake of how they're being raped. AND maybe even wake up a sheeple or two...This is a call to action - volunteers????
Executive Order Overturns US Fifth Amendment
July 20, 2007
Wednesday, the world was a little different. By executive order, the Secretary of the Treasury may now seize the property of any person who undermines efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq. The Secretary may make his determination in secret and after the fact." There hasn't been much media notice of this; the UK's Guardian has an article explaining how the new authority will only be used to go after terrorists.
A CALL TO ACTION: CALL CONGRESS NOW!
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070717-3.html
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 17, 2007
Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution ...
Full Story
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Interview with writer and researcher, Frank Morales. We discuss the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, signed by the President on October 17, 2006, which allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America, without state or local consent, in order to "suppress public disorder". Also discussed are the actions of FEMA in reponse to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the deliberate dispersal of much of the population. First broadcast on January 10, 2007.
listen here...
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law By Frank Morales
March 7th, 2007
http://dissidentnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/martial.png
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1).
It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions.
Public Law 109-364, or the "John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007? (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."
President Bush seized this unprecedented power on the very same day that he signed the equally odious Military Commissions Act of 2006. In a sense, the two laws complement one another. One allows for torture and detention abroad, while the other seeks to enforce acquiescence at home, preparing to order the military onto the streets of America. Remember, the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is "martial law."
Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy."
at dissident news
My Head Explodes
Well, not literally, but pretty damned close at times, especially after receiving an e-mail from a friend, and after viewing several articles from different sources on-line.
First, the e-mail.
This e-mail was a forwarded one giving 14 good reasons to deport all illegal aliens from this country, citing welfare costs, etc, etc, etc.
In short, all the usual baloney I've heard and read a thousand times before, at least.
Quite frankly, I'm damned sick of it, as I am about the whole covertly, but-not-TOO-covertly racialised, debate about immigration that's been raging in this zoo of a country, since at least the 1970's.
This is just another chapter in the same, sad story of American immigration and how politics, class and race are all entangled in the debate over it that's been going on since the mass migration of the Irish here in the late 1840's and early 1850's.
Over and over and over again, the same sort of debate, combined with the same sort of rhetoric, conspiracy theories, etc, have popped up about the Irish, the Italians, the Poles and other Eastern European nationalities, the Chinese, the Japanese, etc, etc, etc, right down to the various Latino immigrant groups, as well as some very occasional mention of the new Eastern European and Asian immigrants coming here as well.
Fear of change, fear of subjugation, fear of having your daughter marrying one of "them", whomever "they" might happen to be, and just plain fear like Mother used to make, combined with economic and social resentments, and various forms of bigotry(I'll let you name 'em, as this essay's gonna be long enough already), are the animating forces behind the disgusting tone of the whole immigration debate saga, and I think it's about Goddamned time that we finally acknowledged that those motivations are precisely what's driving it.
But, most of us don't, or at least, don't want to, because then that means acknowledging at least a part of the darker side of the whole American mythos that we've constructed for ourselves.
"Land of the Free???" Sure, as long as it's just for me, me, me, my family, friends, and everyone else who looks, speaks and acts just like me.
Everyone else had better know their place(usually well below me, me, me, at the very bottom of the social ladder), stay there, and keep their mouths shut, and well outta sight.
If not, well, you can either go back where you came from, or you can get good and dead.
And here's the really disgusting aspect about all this, some of the most outspoken anti-immigrant advocates are descendants of immigrants themselves, like Colorado House Represenative Tom Tancredo, who's also running in the Republican Presidential primary.
Guess of what descent HE is???? If you said Italian, Eye-Talian, Guinea or Wop, you win a cookie, Boys and Girls!!!!!
Yep, the same damned community whose ancestors, even quite recently, were generally treated with the same kind of scorn, derision, discriminatory behaviour, and, at times, subjected to the good ol' fashioned, All-American sport of lynching, as happened in New Orleans, LA, in 1891.
But, then again, a fair number of Italian-Americans also ended up adopting a lot of the racial bigotries of their Anglo-Saxon, Irish and German neighbours, when it came to African-Americans, as did so many other European immigrant groups, their kids and grand-kids.
And so it goes, especially as the generations pass, and the sufferings of those immigrant groups are either forgotten, or romanticised into something "noble" and "up-lifting" by the children, grand-children and great-grand-children of those immigrants.
That's just part of being an American, right??? Inflicting the same, or similar kinds of discrimination, on those who came after you, just like they'd been inflicted upon your ancestors, 'cos why should anyone else get a free ride, huh????
Yep. You betchum, Red Ryder.
Everybody needs a nigger, or nigger-substitute, just so's they can feel better about themselves, and, By God, this country can't and won't work properly without at least one such item in stock, By Cracky!!!!
Combine the current debate over immigration with some recent Supreme Court decisions prohibiting the use of race as a factor in school integration, the whole spate of incidents involving celebrities and their racial epithets of choice, plus the wholesale demonisation of Arabs and Muslims in a fair portion of American elite and popular media, because of the Wah On Tewah(Heh, heh, heh!!!)and the Iraq War, with the radicalising climate that war invariably brings, and, well... you get my drift.
It just seems to me that this country's taking the fond look backwards to the late 19th and early 20th Centuries that we began in the 1970's, and pushing it to its illogical conclusion.
Hell, while we're at it, let's bring back race riots, lynchings, Jim Crow segregation in the South, and de facto segregation in the North, Midwest and Far West, anti-miscegenation laws, curfews and alcohol prohibitions for African-Americans and Native Americans(those people can't hold their liquor, y'know), and, in every part of the mass media, images and words ridiculing, attacking and demonising anyone different from those who own and make mass media products.
Hell, let's bring back criminalisation of sodomy and other un-natural sexual practises, so we can give our hard-working and hard-pressed Boys and Girls In Blue an opportunity to earn some extra money through black-mailing and extorting money from homosexuals, lesbians, and other "perverts".
Let's start calling each other lovely names like "Wop", "Spic", "Kraut", "Kike", "Coon", "White Trash", "Guero", and "Bai Guei Ci", among others, not only in drunken bar-room arguments, prisons, and other similarly unfashionable and decidedly seedy venues, but even in the highest-class boardrooms and bedrooms.
Here're a couple of examples of how that might work in practise:
A senior corporate executive and a junior executive pass each other in the hallway of their company's headquarters one fine morning.
Senior Executive(cheerfully): Good Morning, Mr. Chink.
Junior Executive(equally chirpily): Why, Good Morning to you, too, Mr. Spook!!!!
Or, how about the following lovely romantic exchange between two lovers in a restaurant over a candle-lit dinner:
Boy(soppily in love): Gee, Shoshanna!!!! I think you're all that and a bag of chips, for a Sheenie!!!!
Girl(equally besotted):Oh, Arturo!!!!! You're the nicest Beaner a girl ever had!!!(They kiss)
Yes, Folks, weren't those just delightful, hmm????
You GOTTA be kiddin' me, if you think that actually was.
Folks, it just seems to me that, once again, we keep stumbling over the same old obstacles and creating new ones for ourselves, all in the hopes of somehow hanging on to whatever power, privileges, and bits of nuts for ourselves, while trying to deny them to others, especially by denying the "other's" humanity whenever possible.
We keep doing this and doing this and doing this, and, while we've had a good long run pulling this sort of crap, eventually our luck and chances will run out.
When they do, don't expect those whom we've attempted to de-humanise, repress, exclude or kill outright to be too terribly charitable towards us in return.
One of the sad facts of human history is that, far too often, those who have been oppressed enact, whenever they get the chance, a pretty terrible vengeance on their oppressors, or those they perceive to be their oppressors.
If they don't get the chance to do that, then they take it out on each other, or find some other group to vent their wrath upon.
Either way, it may make for interesting reading for future generations, but sheer Hell for those who have to live through events like those, and a complete waste of time, resources, talent and lives all 'round.
The immigration debate is tied in with a whole number of factors, including American foreign and domestic economic, social, political and other policies, as well as the policies of the immigrants' homelands, and, most fundamentally, the decisions that our and their elites, plus all of us so-called ordinary folks, make about who gets and who don't, and why.
These are tough, sometimes heart-breakingly so, complex issues with often complex and tough answers that need to be addressed.
Stupid, one-sided assertions, lines of "logic", and solutions that end up causing more harm than good that come from the former two, won't solve the problems at hand.
They'll just create far worse problems for everyone involved, and, if pushed far enough, batches and batches of corpses.
I'd like to say that I currently have the confidence that we can, generally speaking, have the guts and the will to sit down and work this process without going completely bananas.
However, I can't.
More's the pity, I think.
Be seeing you.
17 July 2007
17th July 2007 MoveOn.org Counter-Filibuster Demo Pics
Early this afternoon, opened up an e-mail from Nita Chowdury at MoveOn.org, that had the news about a Senate Republican filibuster on a bill in that body that would have again set a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.
Well, I hit the RSVP link in the e-mail, and informed MoveOn that I'd be coming down there with my digital camera to take piccies of the event.
It was scheduled to take place in front of the Federal courthouse in down-town Vegas at 5:00 PM to-day.
Well, I got there 15 minutes or so late, but I went into set-up mode right away, and took pics of the demo, for as long as I was there, which was a little under an hour.
Not much in the way of security personnel presence there, as you'll see in two of the pics displayed below, and the size of our crowd was about 25 people(so I heard one person say. I didn't take a count), and fluctuated a little in size, with some people arriving and others leaving, while I was there.
No counter-demonstrators, either.
Hmmm.
Anyway, after I got home, sat down and edited the following pics for size(making it easier to up-load here), enhancement(mainly because some of the pics were quite dark in the original state, and to make reading some of the sign texts easier on the viewer), and cropping the little things, mainly to cut out extraneous background or side material in the original pics that would have distracted from the main images.
Well, now they're here for you to peruse and see a tiny sliver of what one day will be a very small part of Nevada and American history.
So, on ye go, down, down to the pics below.
Be seeing you.
Well, I hit the RSVP link in the e-mail, and informed MoveOn that I'd be coming down there with my digital camera to take piccies of the event.
It was scheduled to take place in front of the Federal courthouse in down-town Vegas at 5:00 PM to-day.
Well, I got there 15 minutes or so late, but I went into set-up mode right away, and took pics of the demo, for as long as I was there, which was a little under an hour.
Not much in the way of security personnel presence there, as you'll see in two of the pics displayed below, and the size of our crowd was about 25 people(so I heard one person say. I didn't take a count), and fluctuated a little in size, with some people arriving and others leaving, while I was there.
No counter-demonstrators, either.
Hmmm.
Anyway, after I got home, sat down and edited the following pics for size(making it easier to up-load here), enhancement(mainly because some of the pics were quite dark in the original state, and to make reading some of the sign texts easier on the viewer), and cropping the little things, mainly to cut out extraneous background or side material in the original pics that would have distracted from the main images.
Well, now they're here for you to peruse and see a tiny sliver of what one day will be a very small part of Nevada and American history.
So, on ye go, down, down to the pics below.
Be seeing you.
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