Hippie News & Stuff: Beaten, but Unbrowed

In Which Y'r Ob'd't S'v't observes that, while the rightard/fuckloons have indeed led the country down the "primrose path" toward rankest, loathsome authoritarianism (at best!), they had plenty of assistance, encouragement and eager compliance from folks to whom you, hippies, are probably related.

Katrina van den Heuvel, in a WaPo column I the other day, heaped scorn and obloquy on "the right wing" for "browbeating their fellow citizens" into submission with their "scorched womb/school/union/senoirs/health (etc) policies" (my phrase) camouflaging their odious, militantly anti-social/anti-democratic (small d) agenda as an almost sacred crusade "battling" against the "moral crises" of gay marriage, social safety nets, contraception, green energy and organized labor.

Quoth the outraged Katrina: "The real crisis of public morality in the United States doesn’t lie in the private decisions Americans make in their lives or their bedrooms; it lies at the heart of an ideology — and a set of policies — that the right-wing has used to batter and browbeat their fellow Americans."

C'mon. Puh-LEEEEZ!@ I mean, I buy the indictment, but, really:

The thug/gunsel wing of the GOP didn't have to browbeat everybody.

They had PLENTY of willing acolytes, lusty volunteers, enthusiastic foot-soldiers and spear-carriers. You're probably related to a few:

All those Reagan Dims, among others.

And what about the "religious" rightloons, theocrats, and Cristards?

And the growing legions of anti-science homeschoolers, eager to eliminate the secular influences of public school?

And the welfare/immigrant/colored-people haters.

Take all the groups to whom the thugs like "Widow's Peak" Ryan, Orange Boner, Sen. Yertle, and Eric "The Man With The Six-Pack Jaw" Cantor have drawn from for their constituencies, and add to that the Limbaugh ditto-heads, and they started with fair plurality of ready allies.

Not to say that the "morality" of the bottom line is not, prima facie, itself immoral, or that those who cleave to it aren't psychopathic narcissists who should be shunned by decent folks and sent to isolated, primitive islands; but to claim they "forced" their toxic ideology upon us is a bit of an exaggeration. Many swilled the kool-aid.

Even with the calamities of the last Congress, close to HALF of the people, probably, STILL approve of the frontal assaults on the safety nets as long as it's sold as making lazy loafers go back to work, or denying "privileges" to the undeserving; MOST, most likely, if they thought that the people whom they detested as inferiors were suffering more than they as a result.

I fear this is stupid of the sort even the Ocean can cleanse. We can try, when I see you at the beach, chers...PAZ!

Back to your good self, Winstone, and the wonders of Hippie Central!

Dr. Woody's Fabulous, Fascinating Factoid, # 5: Sex Is Sex Is Sex Is Sex Is...

In Which Y'r Ob'd't S'v't observes that, yes, in fact, humans are the only species capable of homosexuality since we're the only species with a word for it.

Every now and then on Facebook or some other forum, some good-hearted and well-meaning soul will post one of those provocative proclamations endorsing tolerance for gay people with the assertion that, really, "MORE THAN 400 species practice homosexuality."

I don't have a dog in this fight, but it got me thinking, cuz I do have a dog; have had lots of 'em, and I gotta conclude: Well, NOT EXACTLY...
.
Actually there is only ONE species which does.

That's us. No. Really! Dogs don't see a couple of male dogs humping and go all "Ewww, Fag-dogs!" do they? No, they don't. Only humans do that

"Homosexuality" is a word.

Afaik, humans are the only species known for using words. Thus, humans are--at least as far as we can discern--the only species to practice "homosexuality."

No other species knows what the fuck "homosexuality" means. So WE are the ONLY species which CAN 'disapprove of' it...

I can tell Budreaux, the pit-bull, that humping the the neighbor's dog looks "gay," but he doesn't know or care what the HELL I'm talking about; he just smiles and keeps on humpin!--not that he humps every dog he sees, either, by the way. Just sayin!

But the point is, to all the rest of them, them other 399 species--or however many there are--among members of which occasions of same-gender sexual encounters have been recorded, what we herald or deride or even just describe--in those seven intriguing syllables, and 13 letters, complete with neologisms, and acronyms, and all the rest? GAY! LESBIAN! HOMO!@ etc...???

To the other 399 species who do it, it's just sex.

No, really.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hippie Newws & Stuff: Taken Precautions

...


Mebbe in the last little while you saw this cartoon? It reminded me again of the "Precautionary Principle." Why do we take "precautions?" To forestall any possible, foreseeable, but in principle, anyway, preventable consequences to acts which could have profound, life-altering consequences.

Like pregnancy.

Or eliminating genetic diversity in food stocks.

Humans, unlike pretty much all other species, do just plain silly things, because we CAN DO them. And what we AND Do can cause immense, immeasurable, and irreversible DAMAGE, with genetic engineering, chemicals, weapons, and diseases. When a vagrant gene or microbe could colonize the whole world in a matter of weeks at most, via global transportation corridors, the silly things we CAN DO potentially have vast implications

Recognizing this, about 20 years ago, a bunch of biologists and ehticists had a conference, in Rio, and cobbled together a rule which they thought, if it were honored even a little, could possibly mitigate the effects of unbridled, unthinking "can-doism."

They called it "the Precautionary Principle." Just to review: Precaution is "caution in advance," "caution practised in the context of uncertainty," or maybe informed prudence. Just like in the back seat of that Chevy...The idea itself has several iterations: There are two key elements in all of 'em:
1) It constitutes a REQUIREMENT that so-called "decision-makers" to try to recognize and anticipate harm before it occurs; under the precautionary principle it is the responsibility of an activity proponent to establish that the proposed activity will NOT (or is very unlikely to) result in significant harm before proceeding.

Secondly, if the level of harm may be high, it creates conditions of positive obligation, for action to prevent or minimise potential harm even when the absence of scientific certainty makes it difficult to predict the likelihood of harm occurring, or the level of harm should it occur. The need for control measures increases with both the level of possible harm and the degree of uncertainty.

Despite it being just about the epitome of common sense in a crowded, technology-laden, polluted, and dangerous world, the precautionary principle is just about unknown.

I view it as the technological equivalent, on the social scale of the physicians' Hippocratic oath to their individual patients: First, do no harm.

You wouldn't let a doctor work on you who didn't believe they had a positive obligation to try not to hurt you. Why do you/we let companies dealing in life-changing technologies get away with less?

There'll be a test when I see you at the beach...

Citizen's Dispatch: They Fuckin' Wicha!

In Which Y'r Ob'd't S'v't endeavors to unpack the implications of the systemic, officials' denials that HR 347 is aimed at and meant to interfere with forecast protests during the campaign/Occupy season, and demurs.

Hola, Hippies of the WORLD!! Paz a nosotros toda, el mundo entero.

Hello! I'm John Konopak, a citizen journalist in Albuquerque, New Mexico with a "Citizens' Dispatch"!

Recently, with uncharacteristically little public notice, the O'bomber signed into law a certain "HR Three Forty Seven."

Now, in case you have NOT been hanging on every post in the Left Blogosphere for the last two weeks, and instead have been enjoying the beguilements of an actual life--a job, a family, hobbies, you know, that kind of thing--and never heard of HR 347 (or it's Senate companion, S 1794), Well, that's why I'm here. Just something more to worry about...

HR 347 is the legislative shorthand identifier for the piece of legislation given the inocuous title, the "Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011." It raised hackles and red flags all over "our" side, since it involved restrictions on citizens lawful movement in areas where the Secret Service exercised its protective authority, and what was in fact lawful.

Just in time for the onset of what--with the elections, conventions, Occupiers, resistors and other insurgencies--is gonna be a LONG year of seeking redress of grievances, St. Barry the Timid and the gutless, gormless, feckless COngress up-graded an obscure law to make it possible for the forces of "law and order, peace, justice, and the American way" to fuck wicha more efficiently, if you cherish the temerity seeking redress in the old fashioned way: by making PUBLIC trouble for them with a little creative trespassing, at a Convention, say, or a rally where the participants are "under the protection of" the Secret Service.

The bill, which Obombster quietly signed March 8,changed some of the terms of a previous measure pertaining to the definition of criminal trespass under certain "security" conditions, the conditions under which a crime may be prosecuted, and the penalties which could be assessed for such behavior. It grants certain, additional discretionary latitude to the Secret Service, too.

Everybody--all the "serious" people of the CorpoRat/SCUM "commentariat"--said it was nothing. Even the ACLU: a well-placed spokesflak, Gabe Rottman, was at pains to paint a placid, reassuring picture. It's nothing to worry about, they say. As in: if we--the ACLU--are undisturbed, you oughta just relax... (Firedog Lake has a somewhat different take). There are links on my blog: www.blogito-ergo.blogspot.com. But the predominant message was to chill.

And so you might, unless you look at what did change in the newest version, and look t it in the light of the upsets and turmoil occasioned hitherto and invisioned for the future as the season advances. The question is: If it changes nothing, then why'd they change it? Well, they explain, it only changes a couple of leetle, teeeny weeny bitty lil thangs, a couple of words here and there. Housecleaning. It's nothing. Really.

(Aside) I cannot say how it is where you are, but here in the USofA, our Congresscritters are always real busy doing whatever it is that they need to do RIGHT NOW to fuck with us. So they rarely have or make time revisit anything. And so they only ever seem to revisit laws when they want to make it easier to fuck with you even more, and have some new ideas. Notice that? You START with rights, and liberties, and freedoms, and shit, but every little change takes another nibble, and pretty soon, shee-it! Habeas Corpus is GONE! And that's the kind of change this is.

HR347 broadens the discretion of prosecutors and the Secret Service to detain people, and makes it easier to convict 'em.

Hitherto, under the original language of the law, you had to act "willfully and knowingly" when committing the crime. In short, you had to know your conduct was illegal. Under H.R. 347, you will simply need to act "knowingly," which here would mean that you know you're in a restricted area, but not necessarily that you're committing a crime. That's not a small change. That's a BIG difference. And it won't expire with the current incumbent, either.

Under the revised law, all they have to prove is that you "perps" KNOWINGLY violated the prohibited zone. It's a felony. And even the ACLU agrees that the Law "is part of the set of laws that make (the risibly, so-called Free-Speech" Zones) possible, and should be seen in this context." Well, duh...

Now, let's get this straight, from the jump. The WHOLE POINT of such laws as this one is to provide warrant--what they call "grounds"--to interfere with, detain, arrest and CHARGE "unauthorized" people making trouble for the Secret Service security by exercising their rights. The purpose is to up the stakes on demonstrations, and to fuck with the demonstrators civil liberties.

Though the Secret Service and the Congress--which passed it goddam nearly unanimously--will claim its purpose is to improve security, that's a charade. In the real world, "improving security" always means "fuckin' wicha": screwing with somebody who wasn't being screwed with before. ALL the changes were aimed at prosecuting violators, not at preventing acts.

This revision seems to have been enacted for the purpose of ensnaring MORE demonstrators and protestore--CITIZENS--in MORE violations which are EASIER to "prove" and win coinvictions for...

An' if that ain't fucking wicha, well--like the ol blues goes: Then chicken ain't poultry, and grits ain't groceries and Mona Lisa Was a MAN, hippies.

As The Cookie Crumbles: Ozymandi-US?

In which Y'r Ob'd't S'v't speculates upon life within the unfolding trajectory of the decline and fall of the American Empire, from the entirely justified (from his view) presumption that such has in fact already begun and, in the way of such things, is irreversible and irrevocable; and then offers on his prognosis on the prospects for a progressive polity under those circumstances; i.e., nil.

Restore America? Really? Get a FUCKING CLUE, folks. NAGAHAPUN

The USer empire is in decline. It is only just beginning (relatively speaking), its effects are still minimal, but it is irreversible and inexorable. Inevitable. Our "exceptionalism" won't save us from this one. China will surpass us ecvonomically in fewer than five years. And they're gonna go back to the moon,too. Study Mandarin (or what used to be called Cantonese, the other major dialect; or both, to be safe.

No. Really! Think I'm kidding. Ni Hao! Hello!)

Historically, all declining empires have made the same mistake. They have channeled their resources into their military superstructure to preserve the appearance of their invulnerability, while neglecting, even cannibalizing, their own public infrastructure and diminishing their populations' already shaken 'national loyalty' by investing WAY too much to holding, even ENLARGING, the frontiers.

The GOPhux, of course, lead the chorus. But there are an almost equal number of imperial DIms--including the Conceder-in-Chief--who will harmonize on the 'patriotic' parts, and thereby hold on to the ensemble feel of the activity. Hell, St. Barry even sings a little lead vocal, donne?

Despite the fact that, once they have passed their zenith of influence, empires NEVER recover their past glories, no matter how hard they try, and/or how much they spend, how many innocents they slaughter. It just doesn't happen. Shelley didn't think Ozymandias is just one fella's name:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Pretty soon, if it hasn't already begun, the political rhetoric of the Right will start to resound with fevered, passionate, biblical-sounding appeals to "restore Murka to her former GLOO-RAY!"

"Only the LOVE of GAWD, and devotion to the BayBay JEEBUS," unbridled CAPITALISM, rapacious 'development,' and voting Republican will save us.

We'll be called on to "sacrifice" the residues of our liberties and remains of our 'treasure' in the struggle to "bring back" our "former GREATNESS."

This will be accompanied with fiercely bellicose appeals to out "warrior" God, for justification, and strength to RETAKE Jerusalem, or Bagdhad, or Kabul, to re-affirm our status, and to rebuke the doubters.

This will become the battle-cry of the Christo-fascisti as well as the willing drones and dullards who dutifully carry spears for the Oner/Owners.

Recovering America will not come cheaply, though. It will come (well, it won't, but we'll be told--and the dullards and drones will believe--it will), through the sacrifice of the REST of our ruined environmental and shredded social safety nets. It will provide jobs, perhaps, but they will be of the sort necessary to fight for our "rightful" place: At the HEAD of the Table.

Until the white majority darkens and loses its numerical edge, that is; though even with smaller numbers, whites will retain a financial 'advantage' for some time.

Anyway, that's the agenda as I see it for the next 50 years or so, from down here at the beach, hippies...I'll see ya down here...

Hippie News and Stuff: Aromas...

Hola Winstone, Hippies: PAZ en nuestro Barrio; lo mismo, el conejo!!

The days are lengthening and warming and demonstration/"Occupy" season apparently is once again dawning, and with it will come the waves of jolly coppers intent of disrupting them.

It is therefore worth remembering that signal wisdom from the 60s: Cops in riot gear are fucking pigs.

(In fairness, I'll stipulate: Not all of 'em, and not all the time. But EVERY CITIZEN should have the experience of being seriously BUSTED, where they're no longer a citizen but a perp. Everybody should know how that feels, and what they authorize by not exercising critical oversight of the police...Sumpin' else I learned in the 70s, along with the taste of teargas--but I digress. I was discussing pigs..,.).

No, really! If they are only standing there, it is because they are waiting for the excuse to fuck with you. They're primed and ready.

They seem almost GLADLY to seize on ANY pretext, any act of defiance to law, as an excuse to kick your fucking ass. It's what they LIVE for, maybe what gives their sacrifices meaning. They seem to take extra pleasure in kicking "hippies'" (protestors of any kind) asses.

They wouldn't BE cops if they didn't love it.

So, if the shrill cries of protestors and the concussions of the rubber-bullets on defiant flesh soon echo on the erfumed zephyrs of Spring urban springtime, delicately scented with the aromatic reminders of repression--tear gas and/or pepper spray-- remember to keep a camera along to record EVERY event in which you witness cops in action. Make notes. Save details. Ask names of witnesses. Just like "real" reporters.

Remember: Cops feel like they GOTTA make an impression. They often feel like soldiers in enemy territory (They don't call 'em patrol cars for nothing.) Hurting people makes an impression. So they hurt people. It's just what they do...

Be wary, hippies. If you're gassed, I hear a bottle of maalox is a good thing to have. I hope ya won't need to bring it to the beach. And (DRAMATIC GESTURE) Back to Winstone in Hippie Central!!!

Woody's Fabulous/Fascinating Factoid, #3: It's NOT A Sin To Tell A Lie

Hey, Hippies. Hola! It's that time again, for Dr. Woody's Fascinating Factoids: #3--It's NOT a Sin To Tell A Lie

What about the The TEN COMMANDMENTS, you ask, querulously?

Them THANGS sher get a lot of press for what were, in essence, and in their time, basically a Bronze-age punch-list for running a theocratic, human collective. And a very SPECIFIC one, at that.

But anachronistic irrelevance to the current age notwithstanding, some folks--hell, some goddam Presidential candidates!--declare them to be our natural laws.

Depending on how you count, the only ones that might apply outside of that, particular, bronze-age, theocratic, camel-herding collective are the last five. The first several have to do with worshipping the Lord properly. They are irrelevant in the discussion of a secular collective. In any case, what "lord?"

Another one requires taking a day off, every once in a while, every week, say?; while yet another admonishes respect for your elders, on the theory that mere survival is often one of those 'res ipsa loquitur'-kinda things...

Only five of the "10 Commandments" (depending on how you count) are might be actually practicable for all (well, most) people in all (well, most) times. Sensible precautions for a functioning social order.

These are the prohibitions against murder (and presumably assault, too), theft, slander (not "lying" per se, cuz everybody lies sometimes; what's forbidden is speaking falsehoods about neighbors), and covetousness, generally--material and sexual. Oh, yeah. And forbidding adultery. (In that context, it is even more interesting that you can lie your ass off to cover your butt, about anything, as long as you don't lie about somebody else.)

Anyway, those are sensible, social "virtues" required for the preservation of ANY civil society.

Add to those the golden rule (Kant's "categorical imperative," Aristotle's Golden Mean, etc): Do unto others as you would be done!

Leave out the "god" stuff and you could live like that...mebbe at the beach? Paz!

ATCC: In Re, Rush--Redux

G'day, hippies. Paz en nuestro barrio! With your indulgence, I shall return, just this one last time, the the Stain Of Slimeball.

Folks in the leftie blogosphere are feeling triumphal over the travails of Rush Limbaugh with his advertizers, in the wake of Rushbo's studiedly intemperate remarks about Sandra Fluke, birth control, and women in general.

It is true that "national," high-recognition names are dropping off the program logs. But national advertizers fleeing Limbaugh's rhetorical execrescences does NOT, in my always humble estimation, betoken an impending danger to Rush's perfusion in and domination of THAT market.

In the first place, there are HUNDREDS of advertizers ready and willing to step right up to fill eht empty air. I read that the "Hook-up"/dial-up adultery site, Ashley Madison, was willing to buy up all the national space that comes available.

But the REAL bread and butter is the LOCAL ads. Our local shitball/righturd outlet, (Clear-Channel, KKKOB, 770 AM) is still as busy as ever.

He is still heard on close to SIX HUNDRED radio stations in markets ALL OVER the country--that's more than TEN PERCENT of all AM licenses...Two stations announced last week they were dropping the show, one in Hilo, HA, and another in Pittsfield, MA. Otherwise, .....CRICKETS....

If STATIONS begin to fall away in large numbers, THEN he might be in trouble. But they won't, because there are STILL, and always will be, several scores of millions of Angry White Male, knuckle-dragging, troglodytic, mouth-breathers who can't say at home, at work, or in public, anymore, what they think and what Rush says on the radio, when they're out alone in the company truck or the rental car.

Sorry to wet-blanket the happy-happy-joy-joy, but...the fact is that it DOESN'T MATTER if the "big" national advertizers are jumping ship. They're just the lagniappe, the "repectable" icing on the cake.

What matters is the LOCAL ads on the LOCAL stations. That's where the real influence is. And he's still on nearly 600 radio stations, in EVERY market in the country, and on several stations in some, bigger markets.

The demographic he addresses--angry, white, male, 18-75--is ubiquitous and still the largest single niche market in the country. They're not rich, but they use Gold Bond Crotch Powder, and auto-glass companies, fly-by-night Insurance companies, and Goodies headache remedies, and they set every preset in every rental car to Rush's local outlet.

That "target" demographic is not shrinking, so there will ALWAYS be a demand for Rush; and as long as there is demand--and that demand is RABID--the market will supply it.

Rush's place on the dial is secure until and unless LOCAL stations start to drop him, wholesale. And even if one station drops him--in any medium to large market--another will ALWAYS pick him up, because the AUDIENCE for him is large and doesn't go away, is loyal, and spends money...

The Ditto-heads may not be a "majority" (though I think they are pretty close to one). But they are incredibly numerous, they are fanatically loyal, and they spend money LOCALLY.

The ONLY way Rushbo leaves the airwaves is if he dies...and even then, they'll play him in reruns. Short of his physical expiration, ala Andrew Breitbart, Rushbo's not going anywhere. Sadly...

I may be wrong about Rushbo's prospects. It HAS happened before, me being wrong, that is, though rarely. Yet in this case, I don't think so. But if it so happens, (and I would be glad of it), there will assuredly be another, equally repellant or worse dickwad to take his place. The Ditto-heads WILL be served.

Then you can make fun of me at the beach, hippies.

ATCC: Something Fishy In Lake Albert

Lately, the blogosphere, as well as the CorpoRat/SCUM "press," has been abuzz with comment and opinion about a video about 'exploited, child soldiers' in Uganda and efforts by a whitre/western missionary group with shadowy connections to the Fundie/homophobic Rightards who are urging Uganda to make homosexuality a capital offense. The original vid, "Kony 2012"--slickly produced, tightly edited, one-dimensionsal--"KONY 2012", went "viral," collecting some several millions of hits in the first week on YouTube, and raising a firestorm if indignation and missionary zeal and donated CASH to GET KONY, the Monster of upper Uganda!

It reeked of SCAM from the first breath, to me. I am irredeemably skeptical about doo-gooders anytime, but white do-gooders in Africa? The last time that worked well was with Albert Schweitzer.

I said similar things on FBook, over the weekend, and earned the fierce rebuke and blockage from several one-time friends, who were avid supporters of the group in question, "Invisible Children." And I have not been dissuaded of my opinion that it's a piece of white-boy/Xian/Fundie/Murkin "feel-good" fund-raising exploitation of the victims for an agenda which is not at all transparent, by subsequent efforts by the group and founder Ben Keesey, to further gild the lily. It's a "viral" version of the "missionary of the week," the folks who travel from parish/congregation to parish/congregation raising money to bring jeevbus to the heathens, only with better production values and a veneer of sophistication. But it's plainly made to attract sympathy and donations.

Far be it from me to pronounce, but there are no end of clues, hints, and tells as to the disingenousness, if not outright mendacity of project.

One, probably the major one, and probably most significant for having been left entirely OUT of the KONY chase case being made in public, is that Uganda's newly proved oil reserves and industrial claims happen to be conveniently located in the region where the 'missionaries' are encouraging international military intervention to "get Kony, and the remnants of the LRA (Lord's Resisttance Army). According to Ugandans, themselves, The LAST TIME Kony/LRA posed a danger to Ugandans was more than 5 years ago.

But the region he's supposed to infest is, by coincidence I'm sure, a region where the Central Govt (of the hated dictator, Museveni) in Kampala wants to militarily strengthen its grip, and dampen resistance because of the recent revelations about oil reserves along and around and under Lake Albert, on the Sudanese and Congo borders. Kony is of the Acholi people who inhabit the region, and who are intenslely hostile to the Museveni Government in Kampala. And he returns their sentiments.

And, if what they say is still true, to militarily" take out Kony, they're going to have to kill a lot of the kids they say they're trying to save.

Imho, the whole thing's a scam, designed to exploit the tragedy of the victims for the 'spiritual' and material aggrandizement of the 'missionaries," and/or their sponsors. It preys on white messianic/philanthropic guilt. The setting is perfect: a long way away. There's a perfect villain: a wild-looking, dangerous-looking, threatening-looking black man. And there's children at his mercy.

The only thing that would be better would be if the children were white and/or female. But you can't have EVERYTHING in your neo-imperialist fantasy, now, can ya, hippies...

Dr. Woody's Fascinating Factoid #2: The US Chamber Of Commerce Isn't

Hola, hippies. Guess what!@ It's TIME for Dr. Woody's Fabulous Factoid, Number TWO: The US Chamber of Commerce Really ISN'T!

It's worth remembering:

The US Chamber of Commerce is a privately owned, international business lobbying corporation. Nothing "more." It has no State patent. It possesses no MORE authority to speak for, to, or about the USofA, nor to represent it's people, than would a sing-bird vendor in Kowloon!

Yes it is hugely powerful. So powerful, in fact, that it probably changed the course of USer history. With the adoption and application of the advice proffered to it by THEN shrewd tobacco lawyer, and soon-to-be-Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, the Chamber became the most powerful "institution" in the COUNTRY that was NOT officially or constitutionally PART of the actual government.

Look up The Powell Memorandum. It changed EVERYTHING! In 1972...THAT's how long this "business coup" has been has been running.

The USCoC should be forced to register as an agent of foreign governments, except that it is an agent for what are essentially non-government, global, financial interests, which it does whilst maintaining the subterfuge, facade and pretense, with its moniker, that it's just like home-town America.

It AIN'T, Hippies. No way. Any questions, tell me when I see you at the beazch...

Hippy News: Tweet Dreams

If you want to completely and viscerally comprehend the cell-phone phenomenon, next time you go to any zoo, be sure to visit the monkey house.

The first thing will note in the Monkey House (apologies, acknowledgment to the late Mr. Vonnegut, as for so much)--In the Monkey House...the noise is fuukin DEAFENING.

Every monkey in the place is shouting, and stomping, and flying around, striving with all its might and main to be heard and or noticed by others of their kind. Desperately. Insistently. Unendingly. The cries echo: "WhataboutMe-ME-ME-ME-Me-memememe-ME?"

For humans, but for pretty much ALL the primates, the essential, life-preserving task is to assure yourself of both your membership in and proximity to, but also your STATUS within, the troop/tribe or group. It's primal.

And that is where the tweet/twitter/talk/text capacity of these latest hand-held communications devices attaches to humans' most tender, sensitive, and least articulated emotions: down, deep, at the spinal chord level, the old lizard brain. That unspoken terror: "Don't Leave ME! I'm WITH you guys....Please!" Cuz as individuals, we're pretty puny beasts, and we know it...or we'd better. Alone we stand NO chance.

The stories of all our intense human relations, it seems to me, bear the hallmarks of the centrality of those two determinative principles: membership and status. The very survival of the individual depends on their success in ensuring their association with the group. It's Manichean it the very basest level: in or out? Living or dead; Diner or dinner...

Then, the next--but no less consequential--thing is status. Where do you STAND in the social order--because social order is pretty much sine qua non for collective living. If confirming your membership is a "first nature" task and accomplishment, then accurately assessing your status in the group is the "second nature" equivalent.

Status, of course is not an absolute, like being or not. It's always subject to change, and such changes are significant in your life in the troop/tribe/group. So it behooves us to reassure ourselves.

And that's what our "communicators" do for us.

Once, when we got out of view and or ear-shot, were were lost and alone. But no longer. So we keep talking, very loudly, all the time, with people we know, like big bees, doing an audible, pheromonal buck-and-wing on the doorstep of the hive.

Where a false step can be fatal. I'll do MY dance fer ya when I see you at the beach, hippies...Bzzzzzak to you in Hibbbzzzzzzz Central, Winstone...bzzzzzzzzzz

As the Cookie Crumbles (3/8/12): Bums' Rush..

Ol' Dr. Woody's been aware of, dismayed by, and wary of the "attractions" of Rush Limbaugh since about 1986, when I first heard him in syndication on a talk radio station in Baton Rouge. Reagan changed the Fairness Doctrine to allow Rush and his ilk to propogate and (as you'd expect, if you understood "public relations" the way Bernays, Lippmann, Hitler, and Goebbels did) with predictable consequences.

Rush has been rebuked before, and survived quite nicely, thanks. But lotsa folks are apparently now expecting the furor over Rush Limbaugh's "intemporate"--that is, calculatedly offensive, deeply stupid, and criminally uninformed--comments about women's reproductive rights, contraception and birth control pills to have some restraining and/or "negative" effect on him and/or his broadcasts.

NAGAHAPUN, folks. Rush-bo's place on the dial is secure. A few--hell, even a few divisions of--righteously infuriated women aren't gonna matter.

No, really.

The whole, entire, female population of the USofA could be incensed, infuriated, disgusted, and revulsed by the odious pig-man, and it wouldn't make SHIT for difference...

Just as millions of women are (rightfully and righteously) pissed at Rush, and it won't matter...Why not, you demand!

Well, sadly, because his audience is NOT among "women." his audience is that vast, malignant, sweating, stinking, farting company of very angry, frustrated, often misogynist, WHITE males, 18-75.

We could call them, for want of a better term, the Ditto-DICKHEADS!:

It's a HUGE demographic--the largest, wealthiest, most influential in the land, and it won't be affected by his "sexism." Unless to laugh heartily, and to enjoy the spectacle of the women fuming.

Indeed, The Ditto-Dickheads celebrate it. They relish it. They revel in it.

Why?

He says--out loud, on the radio, in public--what they CAN'T say anywhere anymore without opprobrium falling on 'em.

But, you say, what about Glenn Beck? "We" got rid of him, dinwe?

Beck was a whole 'nother issue: A wackloon crank. His was the "TEA-BAGGER" demographic which, though substantial, is only one WING of the larger Ditto-DICKHEAD contingent.

Rush, on the other hand, is "mainstream."

I know you don't wanna hear it, but they're not at ALL comparable.

Rush is the essential, distilled spirit of whit males angry cuz they can't say the N-word or the SP-word, or the CH-word and the C-word for women, anymore, and they RESENT it, goddam it!

Beck's maybe the voice of the tea-party loon-o-sphere...

But Rushbo's the SOUL of White/Murkin resentment.

He is very, very, very, very, very popular among the patriotic proles who compose the "other" ranks of our military. They believe he is "one of them," pylonidal cysts, Section 8, and everything. and

And, with his attitudes about women and rape and brutality, he probably IS closer to the ingrained, ineradicable military attitudes about women than to civilian ones...

Semper FI, Rush, baby!

The MOST objectionable thing about Rush's invulnerability is that he is on AFRTS, and is therefore supported by USer tax dollars to spew his bile and vitriol TO USer troops (as well as, embarrassingly, anyone else with a radio in the vicinity of an AFRTS broadcast facility.

Did I mention that Rush is VERY-VERY-VERY-VERY-VERY popular among the "troops." Ever since being installed on Armed Forces radio, by the Chimperor, early in his regime, his audience among military listeners is just as avid as his civilian admirers, if not even more so, given Rush's bathetic, exceptionalistic "patriotism," and the general level of ILL-education among the troops...

But Rush won't depart AFRTS anytime soon, either. For the same reasons he'll persist on Clear Channel: A significant number of drooling drones, troglodytes and knuckle-draggers want to hear what he says, and feel that he speaks for them. If that don't make you quake a little, I dunno what will.

Demographics will eventually prevail. Rush will die (the sudden, welcome, but unexpected decease of Andrew Breitbart last week gives me hope), and the rest of the Angry White Males will slowly pass from the scene (unless there is a physical catastrophe of unimagineable scope which acts more suddenly).

A NEW--female, non-white, i.e.--demographic will eventually emerge. That demo MAY even prevail, in 50 or so years, when--absent that aforementioned catastrophe--the actual NUMBERS flip a bit.

But not until then, I'm pretty sure...

The AWM demographic (which includes a LOT of their wives and children) will provide the direction of the USer culture for another generation or two...and will only GRADUALLY fade...

Like they usta say in the war: "Sorry 'bou' dat..."

We can commiserate--and await the inevitable tsunami--at the beach, hippies...

Hippie News & Stuff: Puzzle Merchants/Factoid #1

As it stands, now, a large amount of the "tarsands" oil the Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to carry goes to Texas, where the oil is to be fefined, and then loaded on tankers and sent around the world - for bigger oil company profits-- and more greenhouse gas...

Still, notwithstanding these additions to the supply, oil prices are more likely to go up than down, in BOTH the long AND short run, according to the Bloomberg folks.

NONE of the Keystone oil is earmarked for either Canada or the USA use. It will all be sold, on contract, to buyers around the world, India,and China, especially.

Drill, baby, drill is good for the "binness" of oil companies and their investors and speculators; for the actual inhabitants of the U.S. or on the rest of the planet, mmmmmm....not so much.

Still, under presidential prodding and promises, the U.S. is drilling more and more, and deeper and deeper for 'energy security, even though we are using less gas than in past years.

Here's the dirty secret: If "energy self-sufficiency" were TRULY vital to "national security," the whole energy industry--from exploration to retail, gas, coal, and nuke, everything--would be nationalized!

Seriously! I mean, the global CorpoRats no longer profess even pro forma national loyalty. They are truly global; and because they have bought out governments, they can be powers unto themselves. Or they hire private armies of their own. They don't NEED you, anymore, Joe & Mary Cheesecake America! Their loyalty is NOT to the USA. Don't delude yourselves.

So, if our national security depends on our energy "security," WHICH implies that we SHOULD command, within our own borders, sufficient energy resources to secure our national interests against competitors and or enemies, why do WE entrust OUR national security to the tender mercies of corrupt, conniving, fuel merchants?

If the issue really IS "security," how can WE be "SECURE" if WE have to BEG and BARGAIN with international conglomerates for oil to run our ships, planes, and tanks, and the vehicles of out domestic economy? How is that "SECURE?"

Well, you know the answer, hippies. We can chat it up down at the beach...


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Dr. Woody's Factoids:

On an historical note: Tomorrow--Mar. 6--marks the anniversary of the "fall of the Alamo," a day on which Texans and others celebrate the 'heroism' of the 'sturdy frontiersmen and patriots' in holding off the Mexican Santa Ana's army outside San Antonio. Texicans and other "hyper-patriots"--John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc--get all misty-eyed about it.

It's a myth, though, that the Alamo was fought for "Freedom?" You know that, right.

It wasn't.

It was fought to defend slavery.

Travis' men died to prevent Mexico--the first official action of which as a sovereign nation was to sign the international treaty prohibiting slavery, in 1820--from outlawing slavery there, to keep slaves in Texas, that is, from STOPPING slavery in Texas.

The only man left alive inside the Alamo on March 7, 1836, who'd been inside on the morning of Mar. 6, 1836, was Travis' slave. He was freed.

So you COULD say (though the Tejanos HATE it) the battle was fought to free one unjustly enslaved individual, and that the REAL humaintarian heroesa of the day were Santa Ana's army...

History's just fascinating, ain't it hippies? Back to Winstone in Hippie Central...

As The Cookie Crumbles: Sir Barry, Item-ized

This graphic just pisses me the fuck off. It's the SMUGNESS of the unctuous flunkies that just get RIGHT UP my backside.

It's another of theose over-heated, over-wrought, overstated paeans promulgated by those O'bots who think St. Barry, the Timid, America's First Black president, doesn't get the credit he deserves for his accomplishments.

But this list is, at BEST, composed of half- and third- and even quarter-truths?

Item: Both the claimed health care and financial regulation "reforms" are basically bandages on sucking chest wounds.
Item: Why is turning the world against Iran a good thing? For whom?
Item: Same with "three new trade agreements? That's GOOD? For whom? Usually it just means more USer jobs and industries going overseas.
Item: I'm not sure that I'd BRAG about firing thousands of federal workers ('reducing govt') in the teeth of the worst economic times in modern memory.
Item: Why is he PROUD of deporting more immigrants?
Item: Why are FEWER federal regulations on binness and industry a GOOD thing? Again I ask, for whom?
Item: With Europe and the Euro teetering on the very brink of catastrophe, isn't it a bit of a stretch toi claim he "saved" the world economy?
Item: I don't think I'd brag about killing off foreign leaders and destabilizing their countries, either.

Now, in fairness, I'll grant that he has accomplished a few things for us. But what the fuck: We PAY him more than half a million dollars a fucking year to do things for us. But now here's a few things Woody DIDN'T do the first three years at my last job:

Item: I didn't send drone bombers into Central Asia to indiscriminately kill brown people who were not and could not possibly pose any threat to the country.
Item: In the wake of the worst oil-spill disaster in history in US waters, I doidn't okay MORE drilling in coastal waters.
Item: Judging the catastrophe of the destroyed Nukes in Japan, I did NOT authorize MORE nuclear plants be started.
Item: I didn't foment bloody revolution in a stable, settled country and overthrow their elected leader.
Item: I did NOT propose the nation increase reliance on "clean coal."
Item:I didn't buckle to a large campaign contributor and let British Petroleum scam the people of the Gulf into thinking the spill was 'repaired," when all it was was disguised. Yeah, no tax-payers money was exended. But the Clean-up wasn't worth a shit, either; ask ANYBODY on the water down there.
Item: I did NOT appoint virtually the WHOLE (largely failed) economic team of my predecessor--which was mainly responsible for the largest criminal clusterfuck in HISTORY to the same positions in my administration.
Item: I didn't broker the reduction of vital revenues necessary to preserve and maintain Social Security.
Item: I didn't put MONSANTO executives in charge of the Agriculture Dept.
Item: I didn't put charter-school privatizers in charge of the Education Department.
Item: I didn't put a cattle-rancher with mining claims in charge of the Interior Dept.
Item: I didn't give the larcenous, mortgage bankers a mil-on-the-dollar wrist slap for ass-fucking MILLIONS of consumers for their mortgages.

Oh, and he quit smoking? Big Whoop! Do that on your own time, cully!~

I'm sure you can add more, hippies... Feel free to contribute your own when I see you at the beach, hippies....

Hippie News & Stuff: Puzzle Merchants/Factoids

As it stands, now, a large amount of the "tarsands" oil the Keystone XL pipeline is supposed to carry goes to Texas, where the oil is to be fefined, and then loaded on tankers and sent around the world - for bigger oil company profits-- and more greenhouse gas...

Still, notwithstanding these additions to the supply, oil prices are more likely to go up than down, in BOTH the long AND short run, according to the Bloomberg folks.

NONE of the Keystone oil is earmarked for either Canada or the USA use. It will all be sold, on contract, to buyers around the world, India,and China, especially.

Drill, baby, drill is good for the "binness" of oil companies and their investors and speculators; for the actual inhabitants of the U.S. or on the rest of the planet, mmmmmm....not so much.

Still, under presidential prodding and promises, the U.S. is drilling more and more, and deeper and deeper for 'energy security, even though we are using less gas than in past years.

Here's the dirty secret: If "energy self-sufficiency" were TRULY vital to "national security," the whole energy industry--from exploration to retail, gas, coal, and nuke, everything--would be nationalized!

Seriously! I mean, the global CorpoRats no longer profess even pro forma national loyalty. They are truly global; and because they have bought out governments, they can be powers unto themselves. Or they hire private armies of their own. They don't NEED you, anymore, Joe & Mary Cheesecake America! Their loyalty is NOT to the USA. Don't delude yourselves.

So, if our national security depends on our energy "security," WHICH implies that we SHOULD command, within our own borders, sufficient energy resources to secure our national interests against competitors and or enemies, why do WE entrust OUR national security to the tender mercies of corrupt, conniving, fuel merchants?

If the issue really IS "security," how can WE be "SECURE" if WE have to BEG and BARGAIN with international conglomerates for oil to run our ships, planes, and tanks, and the vehicles of out domestic economy? How is that "SECURE?"

Well, you know the answer, hippies. We can chat it up down at the beach...


######################################################################
Dr. Woody's Factoids:

On an historical note: Tomorrow--Mar. 6--marks the anniversary of the "fall of the Alamo," a day on which Texans and others celebrate the 'heroism' of the 'sturdy frontiersmen and patriots' in holding off the Mexican Santa Ana's army outside San Antonio. Texicans and other "hyper-patriots"--John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, etc--get all misty-eyed about it.

It's a myth, though, that the Alamo was fought for "Freedom?" You know that, right.

It wasn't.

It was fought to defend slavery.

Travis' men died to prevent Mexico--the first official action of which as a sovereign nation was to sign the international treaty prohibiting slavery, in 1820--from outlawing slavery there, to keep slaves in Texas, that is, from STOPPING slavery in Texas.

The only man left alive inside the Alamo on March 7, 1836, who'd been inside on the morning of Mar. 6, 1836, was Travis' slave. He was freed.

So you COULD say (though the Tejanos HATE it) the battle was fought to free one unjustly enslaved individual, and that the REAL humaintarian heroesa of the day were Santa Ana's army...

History's just fascinating, ain't it hippies? Back to Winstone in Hippie Central...

As The Cookie Crumbles: Before Your Very Eyes

Dr. Woody was shocked...SHOCKED, I tell you...to discover, here in the all-new, hopefully changed, post-racial AMERICA, home of Americas First Black President ("AFBP," hereafter), such an egregious example of blatant judicial bias and disproportionate sentencing discrimination as this one appears to be.

Mebbe you heard about it. Tanya McDowell, (pictured here) a homeless, poor, broke, single mom in Bridgeport (Connecticut), accused of fraudulently enrolling her kindergarten-age son in a Norwalk (Conn) school and "stealing" thereby more than $15,000 in educational services from the district has pleaded (sic: "pled") guilty, and was sentenced to TWELVE years in prison.

McDowell (pictured here) attracted national attention last year when the desperate, homeless single mother tried to get the best deal she could for her child ("just like a white person," some would say), registering for school in a false address. She later was arrested and charged with larceny for placing her child in an upper-middle class school system in the tourist mecca of Norwalk, instead of the system designed for the likes of her poor, black ass in back in Bridgeport, where she belonged! (The sentence included time for admitted for possession and sale of cannabis.) Her son, now in first grade and who lives with his grandmother, thinks his mother actually stole the money. Six-year-olds lack something in the way of subtlety.

Well, McDowell (pictured here) broke the law, you'll say. She's got to pay.

Okay.

But now, here's an surprisingly similar, parallel case for your consideration:

Between 2001 and 2004, then-Sen "Shitnjizm" Santorum (pictured here) enrolled FIVE of his children in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School. Since Pennsylvania law requires school districts to pay for students who live in their district but enroll in cyber schools – and since Santorum claimed his residence was a house in Penn Hills, Allegheny County – the Penn Hills School District paid $100,000 for the Santorum children’s tuition.

Now here's the funny thing: It turns out Rick Santorum (pictured here), his wife, and their children don’t and didn't, actually live in Penn Hills...in Allegheny County...or even in Pennsylvania. They actually live in a big house he owns in Leesburg, Virginia, outside DC, throughout the whole period.

So, here's the big question:

What is the difference between Tanya McDowell (pictured here) and Rick (Sen. Shitnjizm) Santorum? (pictured here)

It's right in front of your eyes...

There's links to all the pertinent stories on the blog/site.

We can talk about while we're working on our tans at the beach, hippies...PAZ!