tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64529513005684831122024-03-05T13:00:40.837-08:00Anosognosia"The condition in which a person who suffers illness or disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her illness/disability; may include unawareness of quite dramatic impairments, such as blindness or paralysis." Or Fucktard/wackloon GOPhuxism.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.comBlogger628125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-63444354974327680722018-03-12T08:33:00.003-07:002018-03-12T08:33:25.569-07:00Choose Yer "Pizen."<img alt="Image result for fox news channel" src="https://normal2016.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/reagan-murdoch.jpg?w=600&h=750" /><br />
<br />This, to yer ol' perfesser, is what's called a "<i>specious</i>" argument.<br />
It LOOKS reasonable and rational, but the premises don't follow.<br />
First, and foremost: <br />
<b><i>All "news" is essentially and effectively propaganda.</i></b><br />
Any account presented through the media, of any description, always already (as the old Marxists usta say) has been spun to SOMEBODY's advantage.<br />
Faux Nooz egregiously takes advantage of it, but they are not the only offender.<br />
<b><i>Also</i></b>: <br />We cannot "outlaw" or "forbid" lying in the Press, because the Constitution prohibits a priori prohibition of any speech by the State.<br />
And, <b><i>for the record</i></b>, "Cable TV" killed the Fairness Doctrine, which in practice had ALWAYS done more to SUPPRESS controversial speech than it EVER did to promote it.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-85551193449162935812017-12-28T13:04:00.001-08:002018-03-12T08:33:55.164-07:00Our Time Has Come; Take Notes.<img src="https://okobserver.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Grover-Norquist-600x431.jpg" /><br />
They call this "foreshadowing" in LitCrit:<br />
"Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared." – Grover Norquist @ CPAC (Feb. 2012)<br />
<b><i>Mission: Accomplished.</i></b><br />
<img src="https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/59b00154dc78b04c20588b10/master/w_900,c_limit/Embed05-1017-VF-6HIS571-01_sq.jpg" /><br />
<br />
See, also: “As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” — H. L. Mencken, July 26, 1920<br />
(<span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; color: #b1b0b0; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Illustration by André Carrilho</span>)Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-6529044815351254332017-11-20T06:04:00.002-08:002018-03-12T13:55:14.516-07:00The Rudiments of Evidence<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="5sdnb" data-offset-key="8rer1-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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Cut & Pasted from "J Chris Cochran":<br />
Ok, I think it’s time for a brief lesson on evidence, because I have read a lot of posts recently from folks who clearly don’t understand <i>what is and what isn’t evidence.</i> Ok, here goes: <br />
The fact that four individual women don’t know each and, yet, have eerily similar stories, is <i>evidence.</i> It’s circumstantial evidence; but circumstantial evidence is admissible. Indeed, some cases can only be proven by circumstantial evidence. <br />
Second, a person’s general reputation in the community is also allowable evidence. Evidence of the general reputation of a person affords the basis for an inference as to the person’s actual character; for behind a bad reputation usually lies a bad character. Thus, when former co-workers state that it was common knowledge that someone dated high school students when he was a grown man — a prosecutor — <i>well, that is evidence</i>. Reputation evidence. <br />
The fact that these four individual women told others the same thing in the past is also admissible evidence. <i>It is NOT hearsay</i>. In fact, under 801(d)(1), a prior consistent statement is admissible if it is offered to rebut an express or implied charge of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive. Thus, when an alleged perpetrator accuses his victims of lying, being improperly influenced or having an improper motive, the prior consistent statements are admissible as evidence of the veracity of their stories.<br />
You know, like, if someone accuses four individuals of lying, being bribed or having a political motive, then the prior consistent statements are admissible as evidence to prove the stories are not recent fabrications. Next, <i>one would then weigh this evidence against the evidence offered in opposition to it. </i><img src="https://www.edutopia.org/sites/default/files/styles/responsive_1400px/public/content/82/brunsell-claim-evidence-reasoning.gif?itok=eQg_ZnAj&timestamp=1397382476" style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;" /><br />
So, the alleged perpetrator’s own statements are also evidence. If an alleged perpetrator made a statement like, “I don’t remember it... but if she says I did it, I wouldn’t deny it.” That is evidence. If the alleged perpetrator later, when not being subjected to questioning, states, “I deny it.” <i>That is also evidence</i>... Evidence that is wholly inconsistent with his previous statement. <br />
The fact that his current untested statement is wholly inconsistent with his earlier tested statement is also evidence in and of itself. It is evidence as to the credibility of the alleged perpetrator. The fact that an alleged perpetrator stated, “I did not buy alcohol for a minor, because it was a dry county,” is also evidence. Indeed, the fact that he didn’t say, “I did not buy alcohol for a minor, because I have never bought alcohol for a minor,” <i>is also evidence</i>. <br />
The fact that the County wasn’t actually dry at that time is, you guessed it, also evidence. The fact that the alleged perpetrator then immediately stated, “anyway, I think I remember that she was 19”’is also evidence. You see, <i>the fact that the alleged perpetrator wants the listener to believe that he thinks he remembers that the underaged girl was actually the legal drinking age at the time evinces a consciousness of guilt. </i><br />
One must ask why the alleged perpetrator would suggest that the underaged girl might have been of legal drinking age at the time, if he really had not tried to ply the underaged girl with alcohol. <i>This is also evidence</i>. The fact that the alleged perpetrator later stated, “you have to wonder why these women are coming forward now for something that happened 30 years ago” <i>is also evidence</i>. <br />
You see, his own statement betrays him... for in his own statement hides the truth. What is that truth? Something that happened 30 years ago. Something. That. Happened. Something that happened to at least four individual girls who didn’t and still don’t know each other, girls who have different political beliefs, girls whose stories are eerily similar, girls who told other people the same thing in the past, girls who the alleged perpetrator said, “If they say we did it, I wouldn’t deny it.” <br />
You see, Something actually happened to them. <i>This is all evidence</i>. Now, you get to decide what to do with it. If this evidence does not cause you any pause... then it does not cause you any pause. That is fine. But stop saying you need evidence. It isn’t true. <br />
<i>Just be honest and say, “no amount of evidence would change my mind... I live in a black and white world... there is no grey... there is no room for questions... there is no room for empathy... I can’t handle the truth.”</i><br />
<br />
<img src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/535bcb2fe4b05fe61b320c51/t/553da26be4b0771c9978abe8/1430102643243/" />Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-52810262456629427292015-01-27T10:26:00.000-08:002015-02-03T07:58:42.829-08:00Obotic Fantasies: The Deficit<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Attention, Shopperz: </span></b><br />
For some reason this stupid, fucking Obot meme keeps appearing.<br />
It is wholly and totally misleading.<br />
The deficit is reduced by only two means:<br />
1) <i>Increase revenues</i><br />
2) <i>Decreased expenditures</i>.<br />
Revenues haven't increased, because the Congress will not pass legislation that includes revenue-increasing features--i.e., taxes.<br />
That means that the deficit mainly has been reduced by reductions in federal spending.<br />
Which means: The deficit was reduced on the backs of the most vulnerable citizens, by reducing and/or cancelling services to poor, the elderly, the young, veterans, disabled people, and by attacking vital Govt. agencies like NOAA, CDC, EPA, etc.<br />
That was and is properly called "austerity." Remember the "sequester?" It ain't OVER!<br />
Raise your hand if you're PROUD of the reductions NOW, dickwadz!
You should Be FUCKING THANKFUL, you fucking ingrates<br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">This is such optimistic poppycock! Such hopeful blather! Such unimaginable codswallop! At the risk of appeearing churlish: It simply nauseates yer ol perfesser for its utter, gibbering, an-historical naivete!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Humans are tribal creatures in our social dealings. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We BEGAN as SEPARATE entities in SEPARATE tribal chains of kinship.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We were NEVER "all one" tribe or family or race or species. There was no dissolution of some archaic oneness. There never was some grand unity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Tribalism's head isn't ugly. It's how we are. Life is competitive; humans organized in tribes in order to further their competitive advantages for food territory and mating. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">We're not large or strong enough to be solo hunters, like leopards or tigers. We're not numerous enough for the protection that herds/schools/swarms afford. Tribes "work," and that's how humans evolved. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There is a word in all indigenous, North American languages that designates fellow tribal members; it always translates as "the People," or 'the Humans,' obviously (lexically) excluding 'Others' from common humanity. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">There are ALWAYS "insiders" (indigenes) and "outsiders" (exogenes), and it has required "civilization" to overcome the tribal distances and resistances, and allow (compel) competitors to cooperate. </span><br />
<br />Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-81553443884552773722014-11-04T14:23:00.001-08:002014-11-04T14:23:10.281-08:00Myth and Magic of Presidential Reach<img src="http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/94/ec/c4/94ecc49b4a4d8ec067048bb335edbf51.jpg" /><br />
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<br />
The Meme Ranger rides again! (These things just keep appearing, like mushrooms!) That maundering pack of rabid Obots at Politicus hoisted out the familiar purplish hue of their adulation, declaring:<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Open Sans', Arial, serif; font-size: 21px; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 23px; text-align: justify;">Obama’s America: Low gas prices, soaring stock market, record private job growth and growing manufacturing:</span><br />
<a href="http://www.politicususa.com/2014/11/03/obamas-america-gas-prices-soaring-stock-market-growing-manufacturing.html">People, give it a rest.</a><br />
Yes, he's a good father, a loving husband, a good provider and a fine citizen.<br />
BUT: You're applauding his pursuit of the One-Percenters' agenda. What kind of sense does THAT make?<br />Neither 'gas prices,' nor the 'soaring stock market,' nor 'record private growth," nor 'growth in manufacturing' are matters over which the president--ANY president--has any control. They are, however, all VERY good news for the <i>Oligarchs</i>, whose loyal and attentive tool ThePrez has been.<br />
Yes, gas prices are down...Primarily due to seasonal fluctuations in demand and refinery capacity..<br />
Yes, the "soaring" stock market has "soared." And it has gotten the 1-5% much wealthier. But, surprisingly, it hasn't 'trickled down' yet in any noticeable amount to the poor, elderly, young, ill and/or disabled, veterans, and other vulnerable citizens whom his "austerity" programs like the 'sequester,' have butt-fucked.<br />
And yes, most of the jobs (7-9 MILLION) that the oligarchs killed in 07-09 are 'back.' At least in raw numbers.<br />But the jobs that have been re-created are predominantly the low-wage, part-time/temp, no benefits-no future kind.<br />
AND, between then (2007) and now, more than 11 MILLION NEW workers have joined the labor force, and there are pretty much fuck all jobs for them.<br />
"USer" industries won't "come back" until USer workers have gotten a lot MORE desperate, compliant, and hungry: willing to do ANYTHING, under ANY conditions, for ANY wage..<br />
So, though Pres Lowbar may be a nice guy, a good father, an admirable husband and a fine citizen, as president, he's been a convenient help-meet and available scapegoat for the Righturds, and--because he has turned out NOTHING like what the "brand" promised when he was elected--also a serious and major distraction to the "Left"--such as it is...</div>
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Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-211306827200407102014-10-21T07:19:00.001-07:002014-11-04T14:04:32.685-08:00Compare & Contrast: Both Huxley and Bernays Are Explaining the Same Thing<img src="http://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/clip_image004_thumb1.jpg" /><br />
<br style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 18px;" />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 18px;">Edward Bernays, Freud's favorite nephew saw it clearly, already in the '20s, 30 years before Huxley. At that time, neither Bernays nor anyone else thought it was exceptional that the "best" minds would do all the thinking, and didn't regard it with anything other than calm pleasure:</span><br />
<i><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 18px;">"“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of </span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 18px;">the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.” </span></i><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 18px;"><b>It is interesting to consider these two leading thinkers' (Bernays and Huxley) explanations of essentially the same phenomenon: The "manufacture of the consent of the governed."</b></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #141823; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.800000190734863px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-85173392653857869262014-10-14T09:07:00.002-07:002014-10-14T09:07:27.581-07:00Sen. Yertle's Both Symptom and Source; LowBar's NEVER Been A "Promise."<img src="https://scontent-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10419603_10152531299428138_9045970989956208461_n.jpg?oh=ed1480f6846303731bf8329f26c99a25&oe=54BA8A22" /><br />
<br />
How yer ol' perfesser Seezit: Sen Yertle's behavior as an active agent for the Corporatz' and Oiligarchs' agendae is approved--likely heartily endorsed--by his constituents, because it is so successfully camouflaged by/as racism, both his own and the culture's. He can and does frame his lickspittle fealty to the Corporatz' anti-worker. anti-democratic, anti-humane agendae in the guise of an attack on that "Damn NEGRO in the Whitehouse."<br />
<br />
Framed like that, there's is NOTHING those "Saltine-Murkins" won't excuse.<br />
<br />
This is consonant with my theory that those same constituents are willing, indeed delighted, to bear a small inconvenience or deprivation if by doing so they can assure the denial of ANY benefit to those whom they view and detest as inferiors.<br />
<br />
Re: Prez Lowbar and his "promise?"<br />
<br />
Woody'z sad to hafta tell ya, at this late date: "Obama" was NEVER a "promise."<br />
<br />
He was ALWAYS a brand.<br />
<br />
His campaign won an award that year for the 'best new brand."<br />
<br />
He was NEVER what the rhetoric pretended he'd be.<br />
<br />
The GOPhux threw the election to put this cypher in office, but he was NEVER gonna be anything but a political palate-cleanser, an interval between successive bouts of "sanitary" GOPhux fascismo.<br />
<br />
How could anyone with the intellectual acuity of a sponge NOT have known that the Owners of the country would NOT turn the management of their operations over to ANYONE who posed the tiniest SCINTILLA of a chance of CHANGING anything?<br />
<br />
Really!<br />
What the fuck WERE they thinking?Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-82539006503768692832014-10-09T07:22:00.000-07:002014-10-09T07:23:41.803-07:00Barry Brought Boxing Gloves to Bare-Knuckles Brawl<img src="http://api.ning.com/files/PITcqz*43RkAZZc3gY3AJ8ztzxVE5Iz*yBnzkldDVkUc*ehRJk1B-1wNTp2xU00CIp3ZYwAWk3g1ZXMkrnGpUjAPfAEEgQ1B/JoinTeaPartyNation.jpg" /><br />
<br />
Yer ol' perfesser thinks Pres. Lowbar didn't understand the "all-out, no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles, tooth-and-nail, no-quarter, gouging-and-biting, hair-pulling, I'm-gonna-fuck-you-up" nature of the opposition arrayed against him, their ferocity and ruthlessness. And their glee!<br />
<br />
Prez Lowbar unaccountably din't ever actually seem to foresee and imagine that the GOPhux would so totally abrogate the underlying ethical/political principals which had mad 'democracy' work for the previous 200+ years. He was, somehow, naively, unprepared for it. For some reason, I think HE thought they'd play fair. Wrong-o!<br />
<br />
Lowbar's misadventujres basically just illustrate how fragile had the system been. It had ALWAYS been "possible" for some faction to tyrannize the rest of the system; it had just never been "thinkable." There had been intimations during the Newtster's furious attacks on "Clenis" Bill Clinton. That impeachment fiasco was nothing but a power play.<br />
<br />
But with America's First Black President in the White house, suddenly, not only was it THINKABLE, but it was DOABLE. In his presidency, because of the simmering, barely repressed rage of disentitled White voters, and their barely suppressed fear and loathing of the growing, non-White demographic, the Righturds had an unprecedented opportunity to pursue their long-term (remember John Birch?), historical, anti-democratic, anti-popular, anti-social agenda under the cover of (acceptably) attacking the "illegitimate," dark-skinned "pretender." It was "the perfect storm."<br />
<br />
Interestingly, it was never--as the mobsters inna Godfather mutter as they strangle the life out of a rival--"poysonal; jis binness, youse knows?"Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-67334250719217212642014-09-29T15:13:00.003-07:002014-09-29T15:13:37.814-07:00Class Privilege!<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/p526x296/9742_733890426677591_5945423559992908219_n.png?oh=3aab8a5327c50117344006e5584291d4&oe=54C6B900&__gda__=1422881158_83b11278681c5c479d5f6f1002600607" /><br />
The fundamental issue is structural.<br />
<br />
Ya know why and how THE FUCK the GOP can get away with 252 filibusters in only SIX years? How they can subvert the entire system on a whim? Bring the wheels of gummint grinding almost to a halt, at least where the most vulnerable are concerned? Halt Climate Change mitigation efforst in their fuuking tracks?<br />
<br />
Yer ol' perfesser sez it's NOT merely because of Prez Shamwow F. Lowbar, though that is (no small) part of it--they did it with Clenis Clinton, too.<br />
<br />
You prob'ly got it by now: It's a "class" thang...<br />
<br />
It's cuz the GOPhux are the SENIOR (legislative) partners in the "old firm," regardless of their numbers.<br />
<br />
The Dims are, by default AND by definition, the 'Junior" members. Probationary. Perennially.<br />
<br />
They're not (<i>and never gonna be</i>) "vested." They're always gonna be "juniors." They don't and won't have the 'status' to act like such total dicks. <br />
<br />
You can ONLY do that when yer the nominal representatives of the "Owners." Representing "nigras an' messkins," other minorities, poor folks, the ill and injured, the homeless, the despised like the Dims A9are supposed to) do, doesn't get you ANY of the RIGHT kind of "F*CK-YOU" juice. <br />
<br />
You cannot act like the Party of Petulant Pricks if you're (allegedly) representing the poor. <br />
<br />
Only when your prime constituency is the Oligarchs can you get away with that kind of crap.<br />
If the "second-rate" Dims tried it, they'd be pilloried on EVERY CorpoRat media in the country.<br />
<br />
Only consider the ways public treatment of Louis Gohmert and Allan Grayson varies. Gohmert, who babbles like a prairie snake-handler, never hears a word of censure from the mass of the SCUM/MSM/CorpoRat "press." Grayson, on the other hand, is handled as if he were from outer space.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-831259495899018122014-09-01T05:54:00.006-07:002014-09-01T05:56:16.615-07:00Lincoln on Labor<img src="http://cdn.acidcow.com/pics/20131211/you_never_wouldve_guessed_these_happened_around_the_same_time_08.jpg" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">From A. Lincoln's 1861 "Address to Congress" (a precursor to the SOTA):</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: large;">"It is not needed, nor fitting here [in discussing the Civil War] that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions; but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effect to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor, in the structure of government.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them, and drive them to it without their consent.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Having proceeded thus far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Now, there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights."</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: large;">Marx recognized in Lincoln a "fellow traveler" and wrote him a congratulatory letter from London when AL won re-election in 1864. It had not arrived yet, by April 15, 1865, when Lincoln died.</span>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-79902417280452278032014-08-14T16:50:00.002-07:002014-08-14T16:50:56.616-07:00Sharpton's Not A "Race Hustler."<img alt="Al Sharpton (Fox News)" src="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/fox_ff_sharpton_140814a-615x345.jpg" /><br />
<br />
In recent broadcasts, the utter, doddering dolts of <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/14/fox-finds-a-way-to-blame-al-sharpton-for-ferguson-people-continue-to-riot-if-he-comes/">#IgnorantFukStix</a> (aka Faux Nooz) have been eager to deflect attention away from the stench of racism which pervades the events in Ferguson, MO.<br />
<br />
They have therefore resurrected the "race hustler" canard and tried to smear Rev. Al Sharpton.<br />
<br />
In yer ol' Perfesser's humble opinion, unlike Sean Hannity, Falaffel Bill-o, Roger Ailes, The Rupe and the rest at #IgnorantFukStix, Sharpton actually is a member of an oppressed minority and speaks with some authority on such matters.<br />
<br />
He has actual, lived experience with the easy, confident racism of supremacist whites.<br />
<br />
He has EARNED to right to comment and be critical about the vicious, ever-present racism of Whites in Murka.<br />
<br />
He gets shit from mainly cracker/redneck/asswhole whites who are made (even unconsciously) uncomfortable by their complicity in the perpetuation of white supremacism.<br />
<br />
He is NOT a "race hustler"; he's the despised conscience of the witless, blind, but nevertheless culpable White Majority.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-26863507982030374622014-08-05T09:10:00.001-07:002014-08-05T09:11:03.104-07:00Astro-physicist =/= Plant Biologist...<img src="http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/gmo-patent-pending-01.jpg" /><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">While stopping short of accusing the illustrious Dr/Prof Tyson of conscious intellectual dishonesty, still--no matter how smart he is--Tyson's in exactly the same position as Reich and Krugman vis a vis economics: they cannot be heard to say that the official orthodoxy is in any way "false," or insufficient or incomplete.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Tyson's got "permission' to be a gadfly, but not to attack the firmament of commercial mythology. He's (possibly unconsciously) bought the party line.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The primary danger of genetically engineered crops is not to the digestive systems of thye consumers, it is to the reduction of the range of plant genetic diversity.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">As Upton Sinclair observed 100 years or so ago: It is hard to get a man to see that which his paycheck depends on his being ignorant of.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">The salary at that Planetarium is NOT insubstantial...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">(P.s.: Bennett's hand is unmistakable, innit?)</span>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-65418890994299671662014-08-01T17:34:00.004-07:002014-08-01T17:34:57.806-07:00The Presidency.<img src="http://globalzebra.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/obama_bush_mask_off_on_horizontal.jpg" /><br />
<br />
<br />
Prez Lowbar is #44.<br />
<br />
On 42 previous occasions, 'power' has passed from predecessor to successor, without violence, civil unrest or rebellion--Lincoln's 1860 election being the exception.<br />
<br />
We're the envy of the political world, for our constancy, our peaceful--'bloodless' is the term often heard--transitions of power.<br />
<br />
But it implies something important to recall: There is an essential constancy in the 'institution' of the Presidency. So far, since 1860, nobody has ever won the office who posed a serious challenge to the bedrock assumptions about the power of the owners and oligarchs. And no future President can be expected turn over the traces, either.<br />
<br />
The Presidency is NOT a succession of unique individuals, it is a continuum of like-minded, similarly predisposed, educated, and experienced place-holders, installed to give the appearance of legitimacy to the system which upholds privilege, and weath at the expense of every other attribute of 'culture.'<br />
<br />
The apparent ease with which power apparently transfers actually signifies how little of it actually changes hands.<br />
<br />Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-82630722566080258582014-07-27T05:41:00.004-07:002014-07-27T06:12:11.188-07:00Sing a Song of "Progress"<img src="http://img.rt.com/files/usa/news/france-fracking-us-disasters/image-crisiserablogspotcom.si.jpg" /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">FRACK-lahoma,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Where the landscape moves beneath your feet,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And the fluid spills</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Can move whole hills,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">While a pipeline dribbles in your street...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FRACK-la-homa,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Where the water tastes like methane gas,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And the flaming spigots</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bemuse the bigots</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">While the people take it in the ass...</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We know we belong to the Kochs.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And those Kochs folks got no time for 'jamokes.'</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">So when we pray</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">"O baby Jeebus yer okay!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We're really sayin':</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Get me the fuck outta here, please!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Frack la-homa, go "Way!</span><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</blockquote>(<i>With all due apologies to Mess'rs Rogers & Hammerstein.</i>)
<img src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/p526x296/10488020_339926606158366_1380510185977826972_n.jpg" />Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-63404501308872280552014-07-08T08:32:00.002-07:002014-07-08T09:55:11.573-07:00Blaming Victims, Prez Lowbar Calls for "Excellent Teachers"<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF83BCrJBdH3WBeRBymVr8LTBT7W5TEnymIyZbEbgHmd7UcZW1N1dQ4Bvjr5OpuUkrBrAgzQXD9vebjKBzAjElJuLSwLuhnRW0iRjAuLT3JKqv8fN3kHXRw9ou1w9nTxgkEE0cQXZd-92D/s1600/Teachers_Scapegoats.jpg" /><br />
<br />
Yer ol' Perfesser worked in the Teacher Ed field for 15 years, so I feel supremely confident when I call "BULLSHIT" on Prez Febreez S. Lowbar and his ass-whole pal, Arne Duncan, the dyed-in-the-wool corporatist stooge and lackey of the privatizers, for this cheap fucking trick. Nothing is beneath them!<br />
<br />
By putting the onus on teachers, he transfers responsibility from the 'institution' of schooling'--to which the ECONOMIC forces contribute far more than academic ones--onto the persons most vulnerable and easiest to scapegoat: teachers..."Access to excellence" is just another fucking PR gimmick to blame teachers for conditions over which they have no fucking control.<br />
<br />
There are exceptions, but in general, beyond elementary school, no individual teacher has any (enough) exposure to the VAST majority of their students beyond the hour or so when they're in class.<br />
<br />
Yet the Obama/Duncan Ed Dept--at the behest of Broad, Pearson, Gates, and the rest--wanna blame teachers for ALL the social failures that descend on unfortunate kids.<br />
<br />
I'm positive/SURE that this camouflages another attack on teachers' unions...GayronTEED chers.<br />
TEACHERS are NOT the "PROBLEM."<br />
<br />
TEACHERS are NOT the "SOLUTION," either.<br />
<br />
But focusing on teachers is a very useful stratagem for blaming the least powerful members of the educational equation for the problems which thje wider ECONOMIC culture will NOT address.<br />
<br />
The ONLY thing Lowbar S. Febreez is worried about, now, is his "legacy."<br />
<br />
That is gonna depend on the MSM/SCUM press's assessments of his performance.<br />
<br />
And that's gonna depend on how closely he cleaves to the requirements of the oligarchs like Gates, Broad, Pearson and the rest of the privatizers.<br />
<br />
One can NEVER go far wrong if you impute the basest of motives to the grandest proposals of the Ed. Dept/CorpoRat deformers. One may NEVER be too cynical about this.<br />
<br />
They DON'T care about "students" except as profit centers.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-85805306282629468462014-07-05T04:56:00.006-07:002014-10-13T09:29:08.039-07:00Winners & Losers.<span style="line-height: 16px;"><img src="https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/1939485_4726673582649_1813095317421784228_n.jpg?oh=5a5fcf06fabc6b1f3a3aa48b78c00593&oe=54C68B66" /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Woody'd only note, however, that the majority of those achievements were accomplished BEFORE the ascent of the Raygoons; many, indeed were "won" in the 19th Century or in the New Deal, and are steadily being rolled back. The record, lately, is far bleaker:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives opposed single payer health-care.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><i>Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives opposed extending unemployment benefits.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</i><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives opposed equal pay for equal work.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives oppose closing Gitmo.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives opposed regulations on campaign spending.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives oppose immigration reform.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives proposed reducing SNAP.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives opposed VW unionization in Tennessee.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives proposed reducing EPA funding and cutting inspection.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives proposed gutting the Voting Rights Act.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives proposed MORE restrictions on women's choice.</span><br />
<i style="line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Conservatives won/Liberals lost..</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives propose privatizing public services, including schools.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives are winning</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives oppose thye separation of Church & State.<br /><i>Conservatives are winning</i></span><i><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives support private prisons.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives won</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives oppose taxing the wealthy.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives win</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives opposed prosecuting banksters for the 2008 "crash."</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives won</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives support corporate personhood.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives won</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">.</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Conservatives support GMO farming, oppose GMO labeling.</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Conservatives won</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">/Liberals lost</span><span style="line-height: 16px;">...</span></span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Shall I go on?</span>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-76062685266999244552014-05-14T18:53:00.001-07:002014-05-14T18:53:14.498-07:00You Thought Surrealism Was Dead? Hah! Behold!This is as close to surrealism as Jarry ever got...<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="390" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Of2HU3LGdbo" width="640"></iframe>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-10164558897912341632014-03-26T06:40:00.003-07:002014-03-26T06:42:13.537-07:00The Way We "ARE"!Here's how propaganda works, in less than three minutes. Everything you ever wanted to know. Do you feel great yet?<br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2YBtspm8j8M" width="500"></iframe>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-80470364733560225312014-02-14T13:43:00.000-08:002014-02-14T13:51:15.832-08:00The Road to Skye...In Scotland, the back-roads are almost all one-lane wide, with turn-outs about every quarter mile. On-coming traffic races one another to get past the closest turn-out before the auto coming from the other direction does, thereby forcing them to stop and wait for you. That's where this guy, former world F-1 and Indy champion, Jackie Stewart, learned to do it. This video, which I don't own, and claim only fair use consideration for, features Stewart narrating<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrburgring"> a tour around the "old" Nurburgring</a>, in the hills and forests of the Rhineland, south of Bonn. This is the track which Stewart , himself, memorably named"The Green Hell." Growing up on Scottish roads would have prepared him well. I attended races there in '65 (Jim Clark won) and '66 (Jack Brabham), and in between got to drive the circuit--it's public roads, or it was then--in a speedy little Fiat coupe...<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="365" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_AiHekdM3A0" width="520"></iframe>Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-4430318493737721212014-02-14T07:36:00.002-08:002014-02-14T07:36:57.004-08:00Welcome To The NFL: Not Sams' Club?How Woody Seezit: The Dallas sports guy, Hansen, <a href="http://gaw.kr/bMkSGBb">has got it spot on</a>. Bingo. Cha-Ching.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Olc5C4SXAYM?feature=player_embedded" width="540"></iframe><br />
But, unfortunately, I believe the NFL will exact a punishment on Sams, for making an "issue" of his sexuality, and making the league face the issue head-on. He holds up a mirror to the league, and they don't like how they look. By his announcement, Sams made the NFL "look bad." <br /><br />That's because "The League" (really, a single, corporate entity with 30 franchises) would rather not have to deal with this. Their dilemma is that by accepting Sams, they risk alienating a pretty large portion of their "fan base," many of whom are of the same persuasion as those cracker asswholes who murdered Matthew Shepard a decade ago and hung his body on a fence like vermin. They'll balk at paying to watch "faggots" on the field, and it would hurt revenues.<br />
<br />
But if they don't accept Sams--named and widely acknowledged the BEST defensive player in the BEST conference in the country, the SEC--then they look like the intolerant cracker asswholes--which. of course, they consumately are--but that sort of admission, even de facto, will generate acres of bad press, too.<br />
<br />
So Sams coming out put the "League" in a "no win" situation, and they can be expected to extract some sort of vengeance.<br />
<br />
Which is why I think there's a high probably he will NOT be drafted at all, and almost CERTAINLY not in the high rounds, where his signing would be seen as a signal of at least tacit approval.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-68125913629786973662013-12-31T10:03:00.001-08:002013-12-31T11:34:50.956-08:00The Breitbartian Taint: Snowden, Greenwald, and Secrecy<img src="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/espionage.istock-e1320220931371.jpg" /><br />
<br />
Woody has been remarkably and commendably circumspect about Edward Snowden and Greenwald's free-lance espionage escapades to this point. Much of interest has been revealed, much more--one suspects--has not.<br />
<br />
As you'd know, if they still taught history when you were in school, our government has been doing shit like this since at LEAST the 1870s. Only then it was the Wobblies, or the nigras, or the Irish, then Italian immigrants, or the socialists, or suffragettes, or the Mexicans, or some other acceptably marginalized group (civil rights workers, student activists, more recently), so that the good burghers didn't feel imposed upon. Now those complacent burghers feel like they're being cast with the ni**ers and the rest of the undesirables, and they don't like it; their tits are in the wringer, and they're squealing.<br />
<br />
But it's too late for that. That ship done sailed...<br />
<br />
For now, many, many people have very, very much different stuff invested in the Greenwald version of the story. It seems to be a huge cudgel to wield against o'er-weening power of the State. But Greenwald's a libertarian bomb-thrower, and I doubt his allegiance to principle of any kind other than self-interest. Though he's a brilliant self-promoter, you have to give that to him...<br />
<br />
And, I've felt all along like something about Snowden "clanged." Something was "off," something was "not right."<br />
<br />
It turns out <a href="http://pleasecutthecrap.com/updated-snowden-is-a-fraud-and-so-is-greenwald/">there may have been quite a LOT was and is "off</a>," about both of them AND the story. Its author, Milt Shook, is not an unimpeachable source, either, being accused by detractors of indiscriminately fellating the leadership of the DLC, upon occasion.<br />
<br />
Still, I have said and felt since Day 1 of this affair that there was always the troubling whiff of the dissembling, Breitbartian provocateur about Snowden and about the whole proceeding, like Jamie O'Keefe and ACORN, the skeevey little shit "proving" a fallacious point just to create shitstorms of trouble for ideological foes. Greenwald's enough of an opportunist to exploit (or even plot) it.<br />
<br />
So I do not give perfect credence to EITHER account. I have my own confirmation bias to deal with; but, I believe I stand confirmed in my doubts, if we may believe this report in any of its particulars...<br />
<br />
Which is debatable, of course. Indeed, someone inquired why I should believe this account, or give it more credence than reports by Snowden's coworkers as to his "humble brilliance?"<br />
<br />
I said, I see no reason to "believe in" the persona Snowden's projected 'at work,' where, he has as much as admitted he was working as a mole.<br />
<br />
Yes indeed, the revelations may spawn a necessary "national dialogue"--though it should have happened generations ago. It was a common-place among the members of the counter-culture for their business to be reported by moles and impostures. We complained. It didn't stop.<br />
<br />
I'll gladly, NOW, admit the need for 'dialogue" on the subject, though it is altogether, utterly unlikely to result in significantly curtailing intel-gathering and analysis activities <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community">of all 16 federal bureaus</a> and 2000(+) private corporations doing the Gummint's snooping and analysis. (and arguably, dangerous in a world where EVERY nation possesses and deploys all the intelligence-gathering resources they can afford to posses in pursuit of the same goals).<br />
<br />
It may be that am too cynical, but I'm not sure what's gonne result from this "national debate."<br />
We have 'em all the time, and they're generally fruitless:<br />
Guns, Choice, Wars, Safety Net, Banks/Markets, Corporat Personhood?<br />
We are supposed to have had robust, national debates about all of those. Yet pretty much, the status quo ante obtains.<br />
<br />
And, as the FISA/Church Act reforms demonstrated in their failure to prevent the expansion of the Intel mission, the exigencies of global real-politik will compelled (within the epistemic structure of the institution) them to "stretch" and even break the law. As the "State" is the natal ground of the ends-justifying-means rationality, it is a bit hypocritical to blame it for that means of being, no matter how much we abhor it.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies">Here's a list of the the countries</a> which have espionage/intel agencies. Many are maintained by nations which are adversaries and/or enemies of the US Empire. For a nation and empire--the largest, richest, most powerful, most despised, most dangerous in history-- which stands (still) atop the pyramid of global power, unilateral disarmament on this front would be as foolhardy, as dangerous as unilaterally disarming the military.<br />
<br />
And that's NAGAHAPUN, either.<br />
<br />
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Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-34837184980097654942013-11-27T12:13:00.000-08:002013-11-27T12:13:58.618-08:00A Danielson Evaluation of Thanksgiving Dinner<img src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTsL5kZwJ4PnB4xKtRLraMtnmPs4ohkTflCPACb--RQWrfuvxcU" /><br />
<br />
Woody'z gotta Holiday Treat for those teachers of his acquaintance-- PE Nolan, Suzanne Farley, Suzanne Libourel, Ellen Jampole, Susan Huddleston Edgerton, and all the rest.<br />
(For non-teachers, The Danielson Guide is a notorious teacher-evaluation "rubric" which permits the disguises of evaluators' biases behind glossy glossaries. Here's your monthly "eval.")<br />
<br />
The Danielson Guide to a Highly Effective Thanksgiving:<br />
Unsatisfactory: You don’t know how to cook a turkey. You serve a chicken instead. Half your family doesn’t show because they are unmotivated by your invitation, which was issued at the last minute via Facebook. The other half turn on the football game and fall asleep. Your aunt gets into a fight with your uncle and a big brawl erupts. Food is served on paper plates in front of the TV. You watch the game, and root for the Redskins.<br />
<br />
Needs Improvement: You set the alarm, but don’t get up and the turkey is undercooked. 3 children are laughing while you say grace. 4 of your nephews refuse to watch the game with the rest of the family because you have failed to offer differentiated game choices. Conversation during dinner is marked by family members mumbling under their breath at your aunt Rose, who confuses the Mayflower with Titanic after third Martini. Only the somewhat nice relatives thank you on the way out. Your team loses the game.<br />
<br />
Proficient: The turkey is heated to the right temperature. All the guests, whom you have invited by formal written correspondence, arrive on time with their assigned dish to pass. Your nephew sneaks near the dessert dish, but quickly walks away when you mention that it is being saved until after dinner. You share a meal in which all family members speak respectfully in turn as they share their thoughts on the meaning of Thanksgiving. All foods served at the table can be traced historically to the time of the Pilgrims. You watch the game as a family, cheer in unison for your team. They win.<br />
<br />
Distinguished: The turkey, which has been growing free range in your back yard, comes in your house and jumps in the oven. The guests, who wrote to ask you please be invited to your house, show early with foods to fit all dietary and cultural needs. You watch the game on tape, but only as a video prompt for your family discussion of man’s inhumanity to man. Your family plays six degrees of Sir Francis Bacon and is thus able to resolve, once and for all, the issue of whether Oswald acted alone.Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-28339564396848785432013-10-05T07:39:00.003-07:002013-10-05T07:39:45.370-07:00Once Upon A Time in Philadelphia: Moonbats in Beards, 2005<img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/96/3665/800/Beardness1.jpg" />Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6452951300568483112.post-17445078947495266932013-08-27T15:10:00.000-07:002013-08-27T15:10:28.974-07:00Citizens' Dispatch: "Why Spy?"<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="415" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SQSlDl9I95A" width="520"></iframe><br />
<br />
Here's a question for those who want to shutter the NSA: Objectively, in the "REAL WORLD" of Nuclear politics and Big Money, why WOULDN'T ANYBODY bug everything and everyone they could? Especially when knowing that EVERYBODY is trying to bug YOU?<br />
<br />
That's pretty much how ALL intel gathering works: scoop up everything and hope there's something useful. Back in my day, we used antennae which were pointed where we wanted to listen, and that's what we heard. Today, satellites only point DOWN, and down there, everything is available<br />
<br />
"Real-politik" is all about power. It's a bitch if you're on the business end of it, and there is this bit of "real politik/Intel"to consider: <i>Knowledge really is power</i>, especially in state-craft. <i>Information is the raw material of knowledge</i>. You wouldn't want YOUR 'State' to have an information deficit in its dealings with other 'States," would you? You wouldn't want the Govt. NOT TO KNOW what the Russkis are doing, what the Iranians are up to, or whom the Israelis are screwing. NOT KNOWING would be foolishness, where the fate of the world/'civilization' is, often quite literally, in the balance. Ignorance is right on the brink of irresponsibility because, in fact, the world really IS a pretty dangerous place.<br />
<br />
So: Everybody spies on everybody else. How could it be otherwise? Johnson knew, via "illegal" phone taps, that Nixon and Kissinger were sabotaging the Paris Peace talks in '68, but "couldn't" reveal it cuz it was "illegally" obtained information, or <a href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/03/newly-released-secret-tapes-reveal-lbj-knew-never-spoke-out-about-nixons-treason/63188/">so it is often alleged</a>. So, too, I imagine that Carter, via the same expedients--"illegal surveillance"-- probably knew that William Casey and GHW Bush were engaged in illegal negotiations with the Iranian mullahs to pre-empt an
October Surprise, but "couldn't/wouldn't" blow the whistle on the Raygooners treason.<br />
<br />
So: Nobody's really unhappy when the Govt spies on "enemies," "antagonists," etc. No worries. It just gets "tetchy" when you begin to feel like you're the object of the power.<br />
<br />
And, NSA spied and spies on EVERYBODY!
That's its job, mission, and purpose.
In the super-power world of "real-politik," it's just not possible to
run an Empire without nearly total supervision and surveillance,
domestically and abroad. And it won't stop, despite all the lawz, regulationz, and rulez Congress can make--there'll STILL be room for plenty of "exceptions." The "law/rule/reg-makers" themselves will see to that. <br />
<br />
Remember "Total Information Awareness," from the bad, old days? It "went away" after being exposed, right? Only it was just renamed something more innocuous.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2013/06/07/u-s-never-really-ended-creepy-total-information-awareness-program/ The Govt just completed a multi-billion-dollar/multi-million square foot 'information processing' facility in the Utah desert. What does anyone suppose they're going to do there? Have rodeos? Soccer matches?<br />
<br />
Technically, I suppose, "spying" on your own people is ethically questionable. But states/Governments do NOT have "morals." The US Govt has been spying on its own citizens since the Gilded Age, in the 19th Century. Mostly, the targets have been on the margins of society: Wobblies, Communists, Anarchists, labor movements, civil rights activists, etc. Until recently, nobody much complained. Now some (but not all) "every-day" citizens are feeling the pinch of marginality, and are uncomfortable...<br />
<br />
Welllll: Pay-back's a bitch, innit, hippies?Woody (Tokin Librul/Rogue Scholar/ Helluvafella!)http://www.blogger.com/profile/09205896988142798901noreply@blogger.com0