Friday, December 31, 2010

Open Thread






Happy
New
Year
Open
Thread








Big Brother turns into Big Bother.

State Judge says use of a satellite & GPS device surreptitiously placed on a citizen's vehicle without a warrant is a violation of law.

Link To Court Opinion musing about Orwellian dangers ... and holding that the use of a GPS to track without a warrant violates the Delaware Constitution.

A Federal Court Muses About Orwell Too, but says Orwell is cool under the Federal Constitution's 4th & 5th Amendments.


Expect the Supreme Five to cast their votes on this GPS issue in the coming months or years ...

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Why MOMCOM Is Not Seen As The Beast

Our gifted guest blogger disaffected recently did a guest post entitled "The Beast".

In the comments section to that post disaffected pointed out that the metaphor "The Beast" was used because it is a powerful metaphor, used even by those who penned the Bible.

Regular readers of Dredd Blog know that I use the metaphor MOMCOM, along with the image of "a beautiful, intelligent, witty, and entirely competent creature" (see Jabber The Whut?) which is entirely at odds visually, it would seem at first blush, with the metaphor disaffected used in "The Beast" post.

I will now explain why MOMCOM is the metaphor of official Dredd Blog posts, instead of The Beast.

For those familiar with the apocalyptic imagery of the Bible, and especially the metaphor of "The Beast", the metaphor does not end with "The Beast".

No, the full picture is a woman riding a beast:
There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries.
(Book of Revelation, King James Bible). This type of writing comes from the viewpoint of those outside "The Beast", from its "enemies" as it were.

To the contrary reality, MOMCOM is us; our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and our neighbors; in our own good nation.

MOMCOM is not our enemy, she is our misguided amygdala, as has been pointed out ad nauseum on Dredd Blog System posts.

To understand, think of the Pogo principle: "we have met the enemy and it is us".

The reality is that MOMCOM is not a strange beast from another part of the world, no, MOMCOM is those we love and fight for here at home and abroad.

That is why our system cannot defeat our problem, that is why our system's eyes cannot even see our problem for the most part.

We of MOMCOM are our own worst enemies because we love and fight for the wrongs that are destroying us (remember "America, love it or leave it"?).

The ultimate conclusion is that "The Beast" is what the world sees in us.

If MOMCOM was "The Beast", in our own eyes, we could demonize it with massive applications of propaganda, then attack it and destroy it.

Since MOMCOM is not "The Beast", but is instead us, we cannot defeat it with our usual imperialistic, political machinations.

That is why MOMCOM is far more dangerous to us than "The Beast" is - we do not want to "hurt" ourselves by "hurting" MOMCOM now do we?

Notice how suicidal this hypnotic mantra really is, and why it is likely to stay that way until the end:
America is on a collision course with itself ... what will become a pitched battle for the soul of American politics ...

As in many countries, conflicts over public morality and national strategy come down to questions of money. In the United States, this is truer than ever. The US is running an annual budget deficit of around $1 trillion ...

The problem is America's corrupted politics and loss of civic morality ...

The result is a dangerous paradox ... after three decades of elite fiscal rule in the US that has favored the rich and powerful. Since Ronald Reagan became president ... the richest 1 percent of American households now has a higher net worth than the bottom 90 percent. The annual income of the richest 12,000 households is greater than that of the poorest 24 million households ...
(Jeff Sachs, Huffington Post, emphasis added). As President Obama reads up on Reagan, MOMCOM gets the mine & the citizenry gets the shaft.

Meanwhile back at The Circle W Ranch, no one dares to question the vast economic and moral waste of imperialism via a vast U.S. Military welfare system grown bigger than the rest of the nations' military budgets combined.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Is The Empress Taking Off Her Clothes? - 3

We have asked this question before, because there are enough preposterous little local realities in this day and age to fill a book or so.

The Keystone Komplex of MOMCOM is but one of many complexes found in the encyclopedia of preposterosity authored by homeworld "security" propagandists ("I can see security from my house").

Their attention to gore, blood & guts, hate, mass murder, and deceit 24/7 keeps us busy, since it makes it hard work for anyone to keep focused on that preposterous realm.

That is especially true of the MSM, the preposterous propaganda-pabulum realm that really isn't trying to do journalism anyway.

Our MOMCOM series shows how the war college industry partners with the MSM industry (the propaganda arm of MOMCOM), to whoop it up for the home team:
The U.S. military now has more people in its marching bands than the State Department has in its foreign service — and that’s preposterous.
(The Big Taboo, NY Times). Can you imagine, more high school type marching bands (notice they have even attached "marching", a military concept, to high school bands) than those who work for good "foreign relations" in the U.S. State Department.

The betrayalized general intellectual warmongers voice a philosophy constantly these daze, an ideology that is a la neoReaganism (a.k.a. paingyrics, a.k.a. panegyrics), which fundamentally wants to make "government" small enough "to drown in a bath tub".

Note, in bold words, that "government" in their mind does not include the military, it only includes the judicial, legislative, and administrative branches of "the gummit".

BTW, I read somewhere that Obama is reading up on Reagan (The Age of Reagan by Sean Wilentz perhaps?) over the xMass holiday vacation.

I am reading an xMass gift, a book, also written by Sean Wilentz, a noted American historian, entitled "Bob Dylan In America".

Obama shows us, by doubling down on the W compass, a.k.a. "doin' thuh Reagan", that he runs a front - yes, a coverup of his "real politik".

Take for example his inviting Bob Dylan to perform at the White House.

Then afterward he studies up on Reaganomics and waronomics, like he is reading a script from that old useless relic the Schizophrenic Dance of the Doomed, instead of the American Tradition which Bob Dylan has now mastered.

I only wish Dylan had performed Masters of War instead of The Times Are A Changin when he sang at the White House, because the fundamental 800 lb. gorilla in the room issue for this era is:
We face wrenching budget cutting in the years ahead, but there’s one huge area of government spending that Democrats and Republicans alike have so far treated as sacrosanct.

It’s the military/security world, and it’s time to bust that taboo.
(The Big Taboo, NY Times). The author of that NYT post, Nicholas D. Kristof, says we spend "almost" as much on warmongering as all the other nations put together.

Regular readers of Dredd Blog know that we believe that we spend more than all of the rest put together, not just "almost as much", because the gigantic spy industry is part of that "it".

As we pointed out recently, nobody knows where the edges of that spy realm are (are there any?), nor does anyone know where all the bank accounts of that realm are or where they "end".

In closing, remember that this nation could have avoided "gore, blood & guts, hate, mass murder, and deceit 24/7", together with endless doom-bringing deficits, by listening to Dylan instead of taking off the nation's constitutional clothing:

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

(Masters of War, Bob Dylan). In his post, Mr. Kristof called American Imperialism "sacrosanct", which is just another way of saying "jihad", which means "holy war".

Who was it that said "Those who live by the sword will die by the sword"?

Peace.

The lyrics to this song are here.


Queen Jane Approximately - Take 2 (Aug 02, 1965) Complete from Skinny Moo on Vimeo.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

eMail From Michael Moore To Dredd Blog - 2

The Keystone Komplex is at it always ... our pal M. Moore read one of the WiggyLeeks "State Department" cables from bushie paranoia land ... the land duh under:


Friends,

Twice within four days, my name has popped up in the Bush-era secret cables uncovered by WikiLeaks. Lucky me. Though nowhere near as earth-shattering as the uncovering of American misdeeds in Iraq and Afghanistan, these classified cables provide a stunning and bizarre peek into the paranoid minds of the Bush White House when it came to the subject of one Michael Francis Moore.

And considering how WikiLeaks has released only 1,826 cables of its planned drop of 251,287 -- and I've already played a starring role twice -- I can only say I await with bemused anticipation how the moi-storyline will play itself out.

The most recent secret cable revelation is in today's Guardian newspaper of London. It's entitled, "US Intervened in Michael Moore NZ Screening." Oh yeah, baby! New Zealand! That's where we'll stop Moore and his band of evildoers!

The date was July 30, 2004. 'Fahrenheit 9/11' was already a huge hit in the United States. Just to give you an idea how huge, it had hit #1 at the box office, the only documentary to have ever accomplished this feat, and had made more on its opening weekend than 'Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.'

But it was no easy path to get there. Disney (which owned Miramax) was apoplectic when they saw the final cut. So they pulled the film from its theatrical schedule. Then they put a permanent block on its release, insuring no one would see it. But then the New York Times, in a front page story, reported that the real reason Disney hated 'Fahrenheit' was they were worried about the tax breaks it got in Jeb Bush's Florida for Disney World. This caused some embarrassment, so Disney then sold 'Fahrenheit' to the Weinstein Bros., who said they'd spend their own money to distribute it.

The release of the film caused concern at the White House, as this was the re-election year. They hired a pollster who told them the film might tip the election. That was enough for them to swing into action. Much of July was a nonstop barrage of attacks on me and the movie. But that just resulted in more tickets being sold.

Which brings us to Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. There are few nations on earth further away from us. A local chapter of the ruling Labor Party apparently had decided to do a fundraising screening of 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' It was to be hosted by the Prime Minister's Cabinet Secretary for the Environment.

Well, when the U.S. Embassy in Wellington got word of this, it was like all heck broke loose. America was offended! Phone calls were made to the Prime Minister! Then to the Cabinet Secretary! We ... are ... not ... happy!

Apparently, the Kiwis backed down and the Cabinet Secretary withdrew as the host. A sigh of relief whiffed its way through the American embassy. Moore stopped! The cable back to Washington showed the embassy had no problem taking credit for putting the kabosh on yours truly:

"... it is probable that this potential fiasco may only have been averted because of our phone calls -- it is apparent to us that neither the Minister nor anyone else in the Labour government seems to have thought there was anything wrong with a senior Minister hosting such an event."

So here's my question:

Really?

I mean, seriously -- really? This is how the Bush State Department was spending its time -- on a single screening of 'Fahrenheit 9/11' in freakin' New Zealand? Or maybe ... was this kind of interference happening just to New Zealand? Call me crazy, but I gotta feelin' it doesn't stop there. Just as a health insurance executive has now come forward as a whistleblower to reveal the millions spent to smear 'Sicko,' I can't help wait for that day when the whistleblower from the Bush White House comes forward to tell the fascinating tale of how the Bush team believed they had to do something -- anything -- to stop 'Fahrenheit.' Or worse (like the "Plan B" the health insurance companies discussed -- to "push Michael Moore off a cliff."). I didn't want to think about what the Bush Plan B would be. Just wasn't worth the crazy-making. So I ignored the things I'd hear, kept my head down and motored on.

But, it does make you wonder. And I ask you, is it fair to pose the question: If they were this focused on some insignificant screening in New Zealand, what else were they up to? And I don't mean in regards to me. I mean anyone who was on their enemies list ...

I can't wait to read more classified cables.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Of course, given the false claims the State Department made in the other "secret" cable about my movie 'Sicko,' I guess anything was possible.

P.P.S. Don't miss the REAL revelations from just the first batch of WikiLeaks cables. For instance, the Obama administration worked together with Republicans to kill an investigation by Spain into Bush's torture. Pfizer hired a private investigator to dig up dirt on the Attorney General of Nigeria. Bush's ambassador to France planned to "retaliate" against the country for standing up to Monsanto. And we're less than 1% of the way through ...

See also eMail From Michael Moore To Dredd Blog

A Letter From Michael Moore

And don't forget dub and dubber: The Circle W Cowboys - 3

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Jabber The Whut? - 5

We can thank MOMCOM for all of the study taking place that tells us more and more about fear.

The "intelligence" agencies, which might be better known as the fear agencies, study the nature of fear in the War Colleges 24/7.

Of course they also fund scientists around the globe who like to study such nice subjects as what makes your skin crawl, and what stands up the hair on the back of your neck:
Researchers have identified two neuron populations in the brain that work together to control fear impulses.

The findings, published this week in a pair of complementary papers in Nature, may someday facilitate the development of better therapeutic interventions for psychiatric illnesses such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.
(How Fear Flows Through The Mind, Science Daily). Oh yeah, we all know they are only using this stuff to do good deeds, not to manipulate and control the population. Wink. Wink.

Sometimes those playing the game forget to be afraid when they are out in public implementing the "science":
One would think — nay, hope — that Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano's assurances that her department is working "364 days a year" to combat terrorism would be the most embarrassing part of Diane Sawyer's three-way interview with Napolitano, Chief Counterterrorism Advisor John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, which was taped Monday but aired on ABC World News last night. But look, that was just a slip of the tongue. Napolitano briefly forgot how many days are in a year. Sometimes we forget how old we are. It happens.

Much worse though was when Sawyer asked Clapper about the arrests of twelve terror suspects in London (and, she didn't mention, other British cities) earlier that morning — the country's largest terror sweep since April of 2009. His answer consisted of a confused side-glance and a few uncomfortable moments of silence before being bailed out by Brennan. Later in the interview, Clapper offers no explanation for how he could have been unaware of such a significant and widely reported development.
(Director of National Intelligence Forgets To Fear). We all know that the Keystone Kops take themselves seriously, even though they are not as smart as a fifth grader:
The amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the brain involved in emotional memory and learning, has historically been considered key in processing fear impulses, but researchers at the California Institute of Technology wanted to understand the process at the level of cells. "Ultimately, we'd like a mechanistic understanding of how specific circuits, not only regions, generate brain functions like fear," said Wulf Haubensak, a postdoc and first author on the first paper.
(ibid, Science Daily). Dredd Blog has focused on the amygdala too, in Etiology of Social Dementia - 3 and Jabber The Whut? - 4.

Check it out.

Is The Empress Taking Off Her Clothes? - 2

The "clothing" metaphor means the constitution and laws of an empire, as we pointed out in the first post of this series Is The Empress Taking Off Her Clothes?

In that post the weakening of the U.S. Constitution is the empress taking off her clothes.

In that post we compared this metaphor to a person, an individual, taking off their clothes when they are freezing to death, even though such behavior is exactly the opposite of what common sense would dictate.

But as professionals know, as we pointed out in that post , the mysterious and inexplicable "norm" is for individuals to take off their clothing when they are in the final phase of freezing to death.

In this current post today, the specific event we are using as a backdrop for this extension of the metaphor is the new attack on Internet free speech and freedom of expression.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has become the lap-dog or rubber stamp of the communication companies (one of the M's in MOMCOM), as AT&T leads the way:
For the first time in history of telecommunications law the FCC has given its stamp of approval to online discrimination.

Instead of a rule to protect Internet users' freedom to choose, the Commission has opened the door for broadband payola - letting phone and cable companies charge steep tolls to favor the content and services of a select group of corporate partners, relegating everyone else to the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

Instead of protecting openness on wireless Internet devices like the iPhone and Droid, the Commission has exempted the mobile Internet from Net Neutrality protections. This move enshrines Verizon and AT&T as gatekeepers to the expanding world of mobile Internet access, allowing them to favor their own applications while blocking, degrading or de-prioritizing others.
(Obama FCC Caves On Net Neutrality, Huffington Post). This is the first shot fired across the bow of "the blogosphere" which challenges the propaganda flow from MOMCOM.

It seems like the Obama Administration, like those before it, functions like the classic Trojan Horse more often than not, which is becoming the new "norm" as the empire goes into full on burlesque mode.

In the U.S.A., now deep into this Criminal Epoch, during elections the people are offered a panoply of goodies packaged as a gift Trojan Horse, but when the election is over the band of Judas emulators enter the White House and Congress, then soon all manner of burlesque begins once again.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Who Needs WiggyLeeks

The Washington Post has another bombshell series about Big Brother spying on Americans.

Their first series shocked the MSM so much no one mentioned it very much.

This one should do the same thing.

As regular readers know, in many posts Dredd Blog has focused on the government's obsession with spying on Americans then lying about it incessantly.

We focused on the Washington Post work in Destroy The U.S. In Order To Save It? - 2 and The Spawn of MOMCOM is Death.

Anyway, the Post says:
"... the United States is assembling a vast domestic intelligence apparatus to collect information about Americans, using the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military criminal investigators.

The system, by far the largest and most technologically sophisticated in the nation's history, collects, stores and analyzes information about thousands of U.S. citizens and residents, many of whom have not been accused of any wrongdoing.

The government's goal is to have every state and local law enforcement agency in the country feed information to Washington to buttress the work of the FBI ...

[this spy system is ] one that has grown so large, unwieldy and secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or how many programs exist within it."
(Top Secret America, Washington Post, emphasis added). First of all, congratulations to the Washington Post for a wonderful piece of journalism, yes, a wonderful piece of American Journalism!

This secret, incredibly costly spy system that the Washington Post and WikiLeaks are exposing, is part of the renegade MOMCOM, which Dredd Blog maintains spends more on imperialism, including this type of spy lunacy, than the rest of the nations combined.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Beast

This post entitled "The Beast" is a guest post by blogger disaffected.
The fascist corporate capitalist government has created fear in the people of the "other." This is nothing more than a classic reapplication of totalitarian methods perfected throughout the 20th century, but vastly enhanced through the application of 21st century communication and media technologies. In this case “the other” is called terrorism, but that's really a catch all term that applies to anything or anyone who threatens "American / the state’s interests” (also a catch all term).

The fascist government reserves the exclusive right to define both terrorism and American interests, and generally speaking, broader definitions are always preferred.

Once the definition of terrorism and/or American interests is expanded - almost always with a corresponding increase in parasitic bureaucracy - it can never be – nor was it ever intended to be - contracted to previous levels. Whether or not the original threat has been eliminated, the national paranoia and parasitic bureaucracy it generated must be maintained in perpetuity at all costs!

The ultimate goal of fascist corporate capitalism is an all-encompassing centralized national security apparatus (hereafter called "The Beast") that projects total fear all of the time, while offering itself as the only possible salvation against that fear.

The rationale for The Beast is ruthless and total enforcement of fascist business interests at all costs, including a complete redefinition of overall social welfare (hence the creation of the derogatory term, “the welfare state”).

The philosophy of The Beast is that all things, both physical and intellectual, are “ownable” (capable of being assigned property rights) and exploitable (capable of providing economic profit to its owners). “Free markets” are universally capable of assigning value to these things, and will by definition always result in their ownership (more importantly, the monetary profits taken by) by the most deserving parties. The fact that The Beast “secretly” mandates that “free markets” are never actually allowed to be truly free is unspeakable. The Beast reserves the right to define all official terms of expression.

The organization of The Beast is inherently hierarchical. Private interest is an illusion perpetuated by The Beast in early stages only to perpetuate its growth. Ultimately, all interests, both public and private, are first subordinated to and then appropriated by The Beast. In this “winner take all” process, all resources, assets, and profits undergo a gradual usurpation by higher and higher orders within The Beast, until all is gradually appropriated by the highest level. The Beast will thereby be gradually recognized as the physical manifestation of the Godhead and revered/feared accordingly.

The means of The Beast is a national security state that dominates every sphere of national / regional / world economic, intellectual, and social life, all enabled by a strategy of malignant expansion into the commercial economic sphere. The Beast exists as both a rationale for commercial development and as the prime beneficiary of that development. Only then can true “entrepreneurial” development be allowed to exist on its own terms.

The core programming of The Beast is exponential growth (malignancy), initially accomplished by value-added product creation, followed closely by ruthless exploitation of labor to reduce costs / increase profits, and eventually by elimination of labor components altogether and outright theft. All of this is initially enforced, then downright enabled by the use of brute force provided by The Beast’s various enforcement arms, including – but certainly not limited to – the military as traditionally defined.

The attraction of The Beast is as the ultimate winning “team.” The Beast aligns itself with commercial sporting interests to define and perpetuate the memes that “winning is everything,” “God (always loosely defined, as specific religious loyalties can easily trump The Beast if given free reign) is always on the side of winners,” and “The Beast is therefore the ULTIMATE WINNER.”

The hook of The Beast is that as it grows, it literally becomes vital to the nation's / region’s / world’s economy, as it eventually crowds out all other commercial sources as a supplier of meaningful employment. The Beast exists first as a parasite and then gradually morphs into the host itself.

The product of The Beast is death, destruction, and misery for all of those who oppose it, and momentary, albeit totally intimidating, prosperity for those who embrace it.

The scope of The Beast is universal. Should The Beast ever conquer the entire planet – as it now appears is inevitable – it would face an existential crisis (how can it continue to exploit that which has been exhausted, and is thus no longer exploitable?), barring new found extra-terrestrial worlds to conquer.

The highest expression of The Beast will eventually be as a virtually autonomous sentient “being,” subservient to no one. The Beast will literally dominate over the men who created it, and will itself become a virtual Godhead to those who remain to serve it.

The nature of The Beast is malignant. The Beast is literally a cancer of men’s souls. It is the ultimate attempt at physical domination of the corporeal universe and eventually the conscious or unconscious attempt to project that domination to ever higher levels of being. The Beast offers itself as a siren’s song of immortality, but in fact, universally results in physical and spiritual death.

Friday, December 17, 2010

GWOT: In The "Eye" Of The Beholder? - 2

When the first episode of this series was posted, WikiLeaks was not so famous or infamous as it is now.

There is a division of opinion as to whether Julian Assange and Army Pfc. Bradley Manning are demons or are angels.

Interestingly, once again, many of those calling for them to be publicly shot, hung, or both, claim to be against those types of Big Brother government acts.

For example, one of the military branches (that claims to fight for "American values") ... (free speech and a free press???) censored its computer system by blocking anyone who has published WiggyLeeks information, such as the New York Times.

Meanwhile, others openly support the efforts of those who expose government corruption via whistle blowing activities.


THE GOVERNMENT
SHOULD BE AFRAID OF THE PEOPLE

smile

THE PEOPLE SHOULD NOT FEAR
THE GOVERNMENT

V 4 Vendetta

The next post in this series is here.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Famous Last Words

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke's last words were reported as "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan".

The legal system of Americans allows death-bed testimony that would not otherwise be admissible.

That is because when a person knows they are dying they are considered to be more serious than at any other time of their lives.

The Obama administration (evidently seeking to gloss over the implications of everyone knowing Holbrooke and V.P. Biden were/are against the insane perpetuation of that ill fated war zone) said Holbrooke was just joking.

The world is turning upside down they must think, when actually they are the ones who have turned upside down.

It reminded me, for some reason, that the BP officials were on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig celebrating the completion of a safe operation when the oil rig blew itself and 11 souls to smithereens. Some of those BP executives were injured, but none died.

Those are the kind of folks the Obama Administration seems to like to hang with.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

eMail From M. Moore To Dredd Blog

Why I'm Posting Bail Money for Julian Assange (A statement from Michael Moore)

Tuesday, December 14th, 2010

Friends,

Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail.

Furthermore, I am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars.

We were taken to war in Iraq on a lie. Hundreds of thousands are now dead. Just imagine if the men who planned this war crime back in 2002 had had a WikiLeaks to deal with. They might not have been able to pull it off. The only reason they thought they could get away with it was because they had a guaranteed cloak of secrecy. That guarantee has now been ripped from them, and I hope they are never able to operate in secret again.

So why is WikiLeaks, after performing such an important public service, under such vicious attack? Because they have outed and embarrassed those who have covered up the truth. The assault on them has been over the top:

**Sen. Joe Lieberman says WikiLeaks "has violated the Espionage Act."

**The New Yorker's George Packer calls Assange "super-secretive, thin-skinned, [and] megalomaniacal."

**Sarah Palin claims he's "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands" whom we should pursue "with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders."

**Democrat Bob Beckel (Walter Mondale's 1984 campaign manager) said about Assange on Fox: "A dead man can't leak stuff ... there's only one way to do it: illegally shoot the son of a bitch."

**Republican Mary Matalin says "he's a psychopath, a sociopath ... He's a terrorist."

**Rep. Peter A. King calls WikiLeaks a "terrorist organization."

And indeed they are! They exist to terrorize the liars and warmongers who have brought ruin to our nation and to others. Perhaps the next war won't be so easy because the tables have been turned -- and now it's Big Brother who's being watched ... by us!

WikiLeaks deserves our thanks for shining a huge spotlight on all this. But some in the corporate-owned press have dismissed the importance of WikiLeaks ("they've released little that's new!") or have painted them as simple anarchists ("WikiLeaks just releases everything without any editorial control!"). WikiLeaks exists, in part, because the mainstream media has failed to live up to its responsibility. The corporate owners have decimated newsrooms, making it impossible for good journalists to do their job. There's no time or money anymore for investigative journalism. Simply put, investors don't want those stories exposed. They like their secrets kept ... as secrets.

I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.

But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?

But back then only a few people had access to that document. Because the secret was kept, a flight school instructor in San Diego who noticed that two Saudi students took no interest in takeoffs or landings, did nothing. Had he read about the bin Laden threat in the paper, might he have called the FBI? (Please read this essay by former FBI Agent Coleen Rowley, Time's 2002 co-Person of the Year, about her belief that had WikiLeaks been around in 2001, 9/11 might have been prevented.)

Or what if the public in 2003 had been able to read "secret" memos from Dick Cheney as he pressured the CIA to give him the "facts" he wanted in order to build his false case for war? If a WikiLeaks had revealed at that time that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction, do you think that the war would have been launched -- or rather, wouldn't there have been calls for Cheney's arrest?

Openness, transparency -- these are among the few weapons the citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. What if within days of August 4th, 1964 -- after the Pentagon had made up the lie that our ship was attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin -- there had been a WikiLeaks to tell the American people that the whole thing was made up? I guess 58,000 of our soldiers (and 2 million Vietnamese) might be alive today.

Instead, secrets killed them.

For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.

Might WikiLeaks cause some unintended harm to diplomatic negotiations and U.S. interests around the world? Perhaps. But that's the price you pay when you and your government take us into a war based on a lie. Your punishment for misbehaving is that someone has to turn on all the lights in the room so that we can see what you're up to. You simply can't be trusted. So every cable, every email you write is now fair game. Sorry, but you brought this upon yourself. No one can hide from the truth now. No one can plot the next Big Lie if they know that they might be exposed.

And that is the best thing that WikiLeaks has done. WikiLeaks, God bless them, will save lives as a result of their actions. And any of you who join me in supporting them are committing a true act of patriotism. Period.

I stand today in absentia with Julian Assange in London and I ask the judge to grant him his release. I am willing to guarantee his return to court with the bail money I have wired to said court. I will not allow this injustice to continue unchallenged.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. You can read the statement I filed today in the London court here.

P.P.S. If you're reading this in London, please go support Julian Assange and WikiLeaks at a demonstration at 1 PM today, Tuesday the 14th, in front of the Westminster court.

The Supreme Five Will Ride Again

The five "conservative" justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are the "supreme five", and those who watch the court know that it has been that way for a long time, at least since Bush v Gore.

Many people think Bush v Gore was an election that happened a long time ago, which is true in a sense, but most don't remember it was also a Supreme Court case where The Supreme Five voted to elect Bush II over the majority popular vote.

In that election 50,999,897 Americans voted for Gore, while 50,456,002 voted for Bush II (Gore got 543,895 more votes than Bush II; see Wikipedia).

The Five Supreme votes were worth more (50,999,897 / 5 = 10,199,979) than the 50,999,897 American majority who voted for Al Gore.

Thus, The Supreme Five each have a vote worth at least 10,199,980 other American votes, because they are exceptional, perhaps because they misunderinterpretated "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion" (Article IV, Section 4).

The next Bush v Gore was Citizens United v FEC (Bush v Gore, II), which affected the recent landslide election, for neoCon conservatives (the congress which had 438 + 100 = 538 votes, were outvoted by their 5 votes).

The Bush v Gore, III case is headed to the Supreme Court, and should get there in about a year, more or less, under the Conservatives vs. Obama Health Care cases.

Two courts have ruled in favor of the legislation, one against, and one is pending in Florida.

The basic thrust of these cases is that the federal government does not have authority to make people buy health insurance on pain of some penalty.

The states have forced people to purchase insurance for decades, and will put a citizen in jail for not driving with insurance, for example (i.e. not having insurance is not a privilege).

Likewise, banks force people to purchase home owner insurance as a condition of getting a mortgage.

Even though The Supreme Five (Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas) are well oiled, they need to be normalized.

If not, it is likely that they will hold Obama's Healthcare provision, which compels American citizens to have health care coverage, unconstitutional.

Monday, December 13, 2010

The Ground Zero of Ground Zeros

People who call themselves "Christian" make up the largest group of religionists (~2.3 billion).

Second to that are those who call themselves followers of Mohammed who is said to have founded "Islam" (~1.7 billion).

Nevertheless, a very tiny religion by comparison, Judaism, (~15 million), controls the city where they all focus their religious sentiments: Jerusalem (a.k.a. Ground Zero in this post).

And those sentiments are hard core:
Israel's leader on Sunday dismissed a call from a key government partner to share the holy city of Jerusalem with the Palestinians, a reminder of the obstacles facing already troubled peacemaking efforts.

Conflicting claims to east Jerusalem lie at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The dispute over the area, home to sensitive Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy sites, has derailed past peace talks and spilled into violence. Palestinians claim the sector as the capital of their future state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reaffirmation of his intention to hold on to east Jerusalem drew criticism from the Palestinians and was likely to increase friction with the Americans. The White House Mideast envoy is scheduled to arrive this week in another attempt to push peace efforts forward.
(Raw Story). I suppose it is more accurate to say that a tiny minority of a tiny religious minority controls the dialogue at Ground Zero, and thereby the prospects for peace or war.

That is so Washington, and so dysfunctional in the sense that both nations call themselves democratic, but invade other sovereign nations to bring "democracy" to them.

The Ground Zero, at least in the middle east, has heart strings that reach around the globe, so, should the hatred and warmongering persist and increase by feverish political rhetoric masking an under-the-covers religious fervour, there is a broader danger which implicates more than the mid east alone.

The secular Oilah Akbar religion wafting over, above, under, and through the states of oil around Ground Zero, absolutely armed to the nuclear teeth, add to the weighty danger lurking in those crude religious surroundings.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Open Thread



Weekend open thread ...



White House won't compromise with progressives on Bush II tax cuts.

So They Only Compromise with Republicans?
Secret Banking Elite Rule by Their rules
Halliburton Solution To Bribery Charges Against Cheney: A Larger Bribe
The Gulf between the truth & government statements
about condition of the Gulf of Mexico grows ...
The Oppressive 1917 Espionage Act used to suppress the free speech right
of those opposed to WWI may be used against anti-war movement by Holder?

The neoSupreme Five would support such actions against free speech,
like the good old boy court did back in the day.

Friday, December 10, 2010

The Circle W Cowboys - 3

In the previous episodes of this series, "The Circle W Cowboys - 2" for example, we expanded upon the theme set forth in "A 'W' On Every Compass Point" to show how a myopic meme complex is born and raised in Washington.

The name that has stuck to that meme complex is "business as usual" (BAU).

The White House, Congress, and the Judiciary are full, and seemingly permanent, members of the BAU meme complex, even though from time to time they seek to repudiate their membership in BAU, campaigning on that premise incessantly.

But for the most part BAU captivates and changes them so they never change BAU, as their campaign rhetoric promises would indicate.

We can see it for absolutely certain in The W Tax Cut scenario, which is now a raging bull, a heart-throb part of BAU over at The Circle W.

The script, talking points, or shall we say meme complex mantra from the BAU says that if we don't do the tax cuts for the rich, we could go into recession again.

Listen you self-hypnotized BAU zombies, these tax cuts combined with runaway war spending, combined with borrowing from Japan & China caused the recession in the first place.

Your proposal, Mr. W Obama of The Circle W BAU, adds over a Trillion Dollars ($1,000,000,000,000) to what is already a gigantic mindless deficit.

When you say it stimulates the economy, I agree.

It is just that this tax cut proposal for the rich, by the rich, stimulates the economy in the wrong direction, the destructive, mindless W direction.

The sane direction, the proper medicine, is cutting mindless war spending instead of more of the same idiotic poisons.

Get real and lose the denial.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Deciders: Nancy Pelosi & House Democrats - 2

In the first post in this series we noted that civics 101 counsels us to realize that the House of Representatives is still controlled by Democrats, and that Nancy Pelosi is still Speaker of The House.

The reason that is critical is that the House has the first say in budget matters under our federal constitution, and they must agree with the Senate, or no bill gets passed then sent to the President.

In that regard, we suggested that the Obama Tax Deal with the Republicans was not a done deal, because the House would be the final decider.

Evidently the House Democrats want no part of the Obama deal:

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is unlikely to bring up President Obama's tax cut deal to the floor for a vote in its current form in light of the Democratic caucus' rejection of the package Thursday morning, according to a key lawmaker involved in the discussions.
(Huffington Post). Good, now the President should do what he should have in the first place, and try to convince the 7 Democrats in the Senate (53 agree with Pelosi) to do the proper thing, instead of playing footsie with the Republicans to do the wrong thing.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Indispensable Nation For Global Nihilism

Mrs. John Edwards (Elizabeth) passed away yesterday on Pearl Harbor Day.

It was the day the President announced that the warsters and plunder barons had convinced him to help them plunder the people's treasury some more, like the harbor was plundered decades ago, and like Elizabeth was plundered by runaway growth (cancer).

Today is John Lennon's birthday, whose life was ended by an American who had passed his own personal peak of sanity, and had passed into a dark realm.

Meanwhile, Cancun is hosting a meeting between nations to talk about something, which I think ought to be called "global nihilism", the source of global warming, global climate change, and global weather weirdness:
ni·hil·ism: (nahy-uh-liz-uhm) –noun.

1. total rejection of established laws and institutions;

2. anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity;

3. total and absolute destructiveness, esp. toward the world at large and including oneself ...
(Dictionary). The Warlords of Civilization are in rebellion to the established laws of the Earth, institutionalized in the ecosystem around us.

The laws that allow biological life to continue so long as those laws are obeyed, so long as the Earth is respected.

The anarchy, terrorism, and other revolutionary activity, in furtherance of the war against Earth life, will bring and is bringing total and absolute destruction to civilization as we know it.

Meanwhile some of those warlord nihilists suffering from nationalistic exceptionalism as well, have gone on to say:
“Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets. Many governments — some governments — deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation.
(NY Times, emphasis added). How is that viewpoint working out for establishing international relationships?

You need me, I am indispensable, you are not.

Can there be any wonder about why, as Mr. Secretary Gates also said, that our neighbours "deal" with the U.S.A. "not because they like us, not because they trust us"?

That is why the climate change conferences, like Cancun, "work" the way they do, why "peace" talks "work" the way they do, and why Washington "works" the way it does.

Egomaniacal control freaks imposing their bad will on others through the vehicle of imperialistic oppression never leads to a normal way of life.

It leads, instead, to the nihilistic "global weirding" way of death.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Deciders: Nancy Pelosi & House Democrats

The recent Dredd Blog post "Obama: The Republican Candidate in 2012?" will seem less far fetched today after President Obama caved in to rich republicans and agreed to tax extensions for two years for the daddy warbucks 2% over us.

What everyone seems to be forgetting at the moment is that the House of Representatives is still controlled by the democrats.

The House is still led by Nancy Pelosi, and thus, the House members are the deciders as to whether to give the tax cuts to the rich or not to.

In fact, they have already voted against it, voting instead to extend only the tax cuts for those making less than $250G a year.

So Obama may call it "bi-partisan", but since the House Democrats aren't part of that "bi", he must be calling the Senate Republicans & the House Republicans a "bi-partisan" group.

More than that, the democrats who lost their seats will cast a vote on whether or not to continue to lower the taxes of the rich, and they have nothing to loose.

They may have a little pay back for Mr. Obama in mind.

That is as it should be, since he seems to be going masochistic and needs to get it from both sides one would guess.

Sometimes the politicians are blown off course by their own bloviating so they forget their civics 101, forget that the congress is bi-cameral, and forget that budget bills must originate in the House of Representatives according to our Constitution (last time I checked anyway).

Thus, the President is dissing the House of Representatives, and specifically those of "his own party", by doing the bidding of the Republicans.

Call your representatives and tell them to shut down Obama's Stockholm Syndrome suffering with some good old fashioned House medicine.

Yes we should.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Cancun: "More Than Previously Thought"

I read and hear the phrase everywhere all the time.

It has now been applied to a vast area of the U.S.A., the interior of Alaska, which is about the size of the central plains of the lower 48 states - a huge area.

The phrase I am talking about is "more than previously thought".

The phrase must echo off the walls down in Cancun, Mexico, where national environmentalists are getting together again to try to agree not to destroy civilization.

Cancun is near the area where, about 65 million years ago, an asteroid impact destroyed 90% of land animals, created a 120 mi. wide crater, and spread the K-T extinction layer materials all around the globe.

"The phrase" has now applied to Alaska again, a phrase that is heard more and more in this epoch of criminal insanity, and heard probably more that any other phrase in climate science:
Climate change is causing wildfires to burn more fiercely, pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a new study to be published in Nature Geoscience this week.

This is the first study to reveal that fires in the Alaskan interior -- an area spanning 18.5 million hectares -- have become more severe in the past 10 years, and have released much more carbon into the atmosphere than was stored by the region's forests over the same period.

...

"These findings are worrisome because about half the world's soil carbon is locked in northern permafrost and peatland soils. This is carbon that has accumulated in ecosystems a little bit at a time for thousands of years, but is being released very rapidly through increased burning."
(Science Daily). It is like the old war spending propaganda, or the Bush II pharmaceutical law calculations, in that "it will cost this much" sooner than later becomes "it will cost more than previously thought".

After hearing or reading it about a thousand times one comes to the conclusion that scientists are trying to understate the case of global warming & global climate change, so the herd does not stampede.

One of the reasons is that the national lizard brain gets all mavericky and rogue when reality implicates and stimulates the reptilian fear of death mechanism:
Put simply, people's beliefs about reality provide a buffer against the anxiety that results from living in a largely uncontrollable, perilous universe, where the only certainty is death.

...

A recent paper by the biologist Janis L Dickinson, published in the journal Ecology and Society, proposes that constant news and discussion about global warming makes it difficult for people to repress thoughts of death, and that they might respond to the terrifying prospect of climate breakdown in ways that strengthen their character armour but diminish our chances of survival. There is already experimental evidence suggesting that some people respond to reminders of death by increasing consumption. Dickinson proposes that growing evidence of climate change might boost this tendency, as well as raising antagonism towards scientists and environmentalists. Our message, after all, presents a lethal threat to the central immortality project of Western society: perpetual economic growth, supported by an ideology of entitlement and exceptionalism.
(Convergence - Fear of Death Syndrome, emphasis added). Publishers are very aware of the lizard brain mechanisms which trigger mobs with pitch forks and other ugly behavior.

That is probably why the article about fires in the interior of Alaska ends with a comment from the editor:
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Science Daily or its staff.
(ibid). The chicken little club of the world has subconsciously formed the united states of fear, fed voraciously by the fear mongers in the united states of war, who have a stronger lizard brain mechanism than the fear of death: denial.