Stay Thirsty My Evangelical Friends

WEEKEND GUEST POST by Todd Palin

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One of the great mysteries of my deeply religious life concerns one of the elixirs of life, beer.

I have been consumed by the thirst for knowledge, even as I quenched one of my other thirsts, yes, you guessed it, I too have been consumed with the mystery of the origin of beer.

I am quite certain, after a decade of deep and lasting research, that beer did not originate at my favorite "Kroger Grocery Store" (depicted in the Wizard of Id cartoon in this post), where I go when the deep, mysterious, but ever present thirst of an ancient blogger manifests itself in my psyche as an equally compelling thirst for Bud Lite.

You probably have noticed, as I have, that some of the Dredd Blog links are to ancient writings which we now call the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, etc., where I have avidly searched for the answer to this ancient riddle of things Sarah says about me, while imbibing the ancient liquid of the campaign trail lite of life.

I recently had a eureka moment which I need to share with you.

It happened while I was reading an article that may just have satisfied a part of my thirst for election knowledge as well:

Enkidu does not know of eating food; of beer [šikaram] to drink he has not been taught. The prostitute opened her mouth. She said to Enkidu, “Eat the food Enkidu, [it is] the luster of life. Drink the beer as is done in this land.” Enkidu ate the food until he was sated; of the beer he drank seven cups. His soul became free and cheerful, his heart rejoiced, his face glowed. He rubbed ... his hairy body. He anointed himself with oil. He became human.

(Did The Ancient Israelites Drink Beer?). There are moments in life when we reach the "Enkidu moment", a short span of time when the lite shines through:

Ancient Israelites, with the possible exception of a few teetotaling Nazirites and their moms, proudly drank beer — and lots of it. Men, women and even children of all social classes drank it. Its consumption in ancient Israel was encouraged, sanctioned and intimately linked with their religion. Even Yahweh, according to the Hebrew Bible, consumed at least half a hin of beer (approximately 2 liters, or a six-pack) per day through the cultic ritual of libation, and he drank even more on the Sabbath ...

(ibid). Well, that does explain a lot of my religious experience, but still the question lingers: "why aren't most of my friends, fundamentalist evangelicals, human, like Enkidu was?"

My sense, after spending so much time with them on the endless campaign trail, is that they are either banksters (counterfeiters) or teetotaling Naxirites (counterfeiters) like Joe The Plumber.

But I do have an open mind, so please put in your two cents worth, or million bucks worth, and mail it to Sarah For Queen 2012, P.O. Box 54321 Boom, Wasilla, Ak, 99654.

If we win the case against the Fed we will find out many mysteries just before the next to last election, which some say is the upcoming election.

If you do so, you will be sent information that will explain the reason for my tazer luv for my Sarah Sarah.

-later,
Toddy

Titanic Mistakes Using The W Compass

The microcosm, the allegory, the metaphor, and the like are constructs or tools which teachers, writers, and others use to illustrate or get a handle on various concepts, so that those concepts may be shared with other people more clearly.

So many subjects tend to look a bit different from a different angle, from one facet of that subject to another facet.

In order to comprehensively cover such a subject, it really works better sometimes to offer a broad analysis.

For example, for a century now the story has been told of the sinking of the Titanic, but it may have been mythical in substantial part.

The saga of the Titanic now takes a new turn, with the benefit of the viewpoint of a family member of one of the officers who was on the Titanic:

Two different [steering] systems were in operation at the time, Rudder Orders (used for steam ships) and Tiller Orders (used for sailing ships).

Crucially, Mrs Patten said, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another, so a command to turn 'hard a-starboard' meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other."

She said when the helmsman, who had been trained in sail, received the direction, he turned the vessel [to the right] towards the iceberg with tragic results.

Mrs Patten has worked the story of the catastrophe into her latest novel, Good As Gold.

She said that while Charles Lightoller was not on watch at the time of the collision, a dramatic final meeting of the four senior officers took place in the first officer's cabin shortly before Titanic went down.

There, Lightoller heard not only about the fatal mistake, but also what happened next up on the bridge.

While the helmsman had made a straightforward error, what followed was a deliberate decision, she claimed.

Lightoller was the only survivor to know that after the iceberg was hit, Bruce Ismay, chairman of Titanic's owner, the White Star Line, persuaded Captain Smith to continue sailing [causing the ship to sink quickly].

The truth of what happened on that historic night was deliberately buried, she said.

(BBC News). That recent revelation, hidden for a century, can be used to look at the current political structure of the USA.

Experts and laymen alike see danger ahead at a time when we have two different ways of steering (liberal, conservative), at a time when we have the notion of full steam ahead, stay the course, no matter what.

Likewise, our government and our press are prone to covering the real facts up with spin or propaganda, which does little if anything to alleviate the problem.

The Titanic example shows us that taking a wrong direction, or not changing a loosing game, can end in a tragic catastrophe.

Dredd Blog thinks that the Obama Administration made a mistake by steering to the right, and by staying the course the Bush II regime had set.

The double entendre is another construct that can boost the ability to grasp a subject.

For example "the drug war in Afghanistan" can mean the opium war or the oil war, because the meaning of addiction has been expanded.

Finally, a poignant example of the results of global warming can be illustrated by the story of Devils Lake:

The goal posts of the former high school football field here stand as buoys in a marshy swamp, marking the edge of a burgeoning lake that was nine miles from this town just a decade ago.

Devils Lake, which for years sat dormant on the outskirts of the city with the same name, has nearly tripled in size after more than a decade of wet weather in the enclosed basin. It has gobbled up farmland and forced people to move their homes.

Now a 14-mile, $28 million outlet to divert some of the water is nearing completion — but officials in Canada are calling for a delay until an independent board can determine if it would pollute water north of the border, including Lake Winnipeg.

(US Fight With Canada). The rising water of Devil Lake is a microcosm for the rising oceans, which can and will continue to strain relations as friends end up fighting with friends.

As the effects of global warming and global climate change expand to affect all nations around the globe, as civilization's drug of choice runs out, many literary techniques will be needed to offset government propaganda used to cover up their solution to civilization's problems.

The next post in this series is here.

GOP Conspiracy To T-Bag Federal Courts

Recall that Dredd Blog pointed out some time back that our federal courts now, during the time of the Great Recession, are more right-wing than they have been at any time since the 1930's, the era of the Great Depression.

Why is it that "great" economic disasters show up at the same time that more and more right-wing judges are placed in the federal courts?

The answer is that stuffing the judiciary with wing-nuts like Jay Bybee, who advocated torture while in the DOJ, happens when right-wing extremists (GOP wingnuts / Tea Baggers) are in the White House and when they control the congress.

The evidence for this argument is the Bush II regime's performance while the Senate and House were controlled by a Republican majority.

They brought us disastrous wars and disastrous economic practices that we are still struggling to get out of ten years after the bushies took office, and a couple of years since they left office.

One writer puts the judicial nominee machinations of the GOP this way:

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet on Thursday with an agenda that includes consideration of nominees for federal district and circuit court judgeships who have already been approved by the committee once, or even twice.

They are going through the process again because Senate Republicans refused to allow a vote by the full Senate and then, having dragged things out, insisted on returning the nominations to the White House. They then invoked an obscure Senate rule that required the judicial candidates to be re-nominated. (Yes, these are the same Republicans who used to loudly demand that every one of President George W. Bush’s nominees get a vote on the Senate floor, regardless of their qualifications.)

(NY Times, emphasis added). This GOP hypocrisy is not the end of the story, it is more like the beginning of the story.

The end of the story is that there is a GOP conspiracy to undo Civil Rights, undo Abortion Rights, and undo the voting power of the American electorate.

The Cuckoo's Egg Hatched Again

A while back in the post Ye Olde Drone Hackers Ride Again Dredd Blog pointed out that military and corporate computer systems have been successfully hacked from their beginning.

Dredd Blog provided a link to the free book The Cuckoo's Egg, a story about how a young hippie was given a national medal of honor for proving that many military and defense contractor sites were actively being compromised at that time.

A new era in hacking is emerging as hackers become even more sophisticated, to the point of being able to bring down nuclear and other power plants:

Cyber security experts say they have identified the world's first known cyber super weapon designed specifically to destroy a real-world target – a factory, a refinery, or just maybe a nuclear power plant.

The cyber worm, called Stuxnet, has been the object of intense study since its detection in June. As more has become known about it, alarm about its capabilities and purpose have grown. Some top cyber security experts now say Stuxnet's arrival heralds something blindingly new: a cyber weapon created to cross from the digital realm to the physical world – to destroy something.

(Christian Science Monitor). The media and government generally disregard the threat this has posed for decades to U.S. elections.

Dredd Blog pointed out the reality of this threat in the post "Election Conspiracy Theory Confirmed?".

With all the wackos winning elections these days, perhaps it is time to revisit this subject with a sober analysis instead of the tired old "it can't happen here" naive bias.

The next post in this series is here.

Is The Empress Taking Off Her Clothes?

As democracies die one of the clear indicators of the final impending doom is the institutionalization of "this is what you shall think because it is the official truth".

An incredible microcosm / allegory of this phenomenon, known by professional rescuers, is the inexplicable but common act of taking off one's clothes when one is freezing to death.

Dredd Blog chronicled that in the post Phases Of An Empire Freezing To Death, where we likened inexplicable government behavior to this phenomenon called "paradoxical undressing", well known by professionals in that field.

Professor / Author David Ray Griffin has documented a recent episode of the empire having no clothes in his recent book:

"In the United States today, the phrase `conspiracy theory' functions as a sort of giant cudgel, used to scare us out of talking openly about a broad (and ever-growing) range of scandals that the powerful cannot afford to let the people comprehend. In this new book, David Ray Griffin takes devastating aim at that repressive tactic, exposing it for what it really is. All those who cherish democracy, and intellectual freedom, owe it to themselves to read this brave analysis---and owe its author their sincerest thanks." --- Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Culture and Communication, New York University

(Cognitive Infiltration, emphasis added). A Dredd Blog post "The Empire Strikes Back" also focused in on the temptation of government to begin militant propaganda infiltration campaigns.

The "clothes" of the U.S. democracy is its constitutional law encapsulated in the Bill of Rights.

That must be coupled with unimpaired, honest elections, where the people exact accountability upon government officials.

The Big Brother ideology of Cass Sustein of the Obama Administration is a clear and present danger to the ideals of freedom we cherish.

As Dr. Griffin's book points out, the empress, who is freezing to death, has taken off her clothes by advocating nothing less than State Crimes Against Democracy.

That book by Dr. Griffin purposefully focused on:

Former Chicago and Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who in 2009 was appointed by President Barack Obama to direct an important executive branch office, had in 2008 co-authored an article containing a plan for the government to prevent the spread of anti-government "conspiracy theories." Arguing that such theories are believed only by groups suffering from "informational isolation," he advocated the use of anonymous government agents to engage in "cognitive infiltration" of these groups in order to introduce "cognitive diversity," with the aim of breaking them up.

Noting that Sunstein's proposal has evoked condemnations from across the political spectrum -- not least because it, being similar to the FBI's COINTELPRO of the 1960s, would be illegal -- David Ray Griffin focuses on the fact that Sunstein's primary target is the conspiracy theory advocated by the 9/11 Truth Movement. Examining Sunstein's charge that this theory is both "harmful" and "demonstrably false," Griffin uses both satire and overwhelming evidence to show that this twofold charge applies instead to what Sunstein calls "the true conspiracy theory" about 9/11-namely, the "theory that Al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11."

(Amazon, emphasis added). When constitutional illegalities become government policy, SCAD has been institutionalized by naked authoritarianism.

The next post in this series is here.

A Homeland Tale Of Two Securities

When Bush II, then high-priest of the GOP as well as High Priest In Chief of the U.S. military, said "childrens do learn" as well as "See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda", many thought such ruminations could never be topped.

But when Bush II wrote a letter to President Chirac of France explaining High Priest Bush II's Biblical reasoning as the backdrop for invading Iraq, on official White House government stationery no less, those doubters had to admit they had misunderestimated High Priest In Chief Bush II.

Yes, no one really thought that one republican bumpkin could bring down the U.S. economy by shipping it off to two dubious wars, alienate the world, then make fear the number one government product in the good ole USA.

As it turns out they were "spot on", as the British say, because it finally took the whole Republican Party to do it, led by the neoCon neoFascist infestation, which is now morphing into the Tea Party ideology of cacophony.

Their neoCon high priest doctrine needed new packaging, a Version 2.0, if you will, so the twin pillars, Sarah Palin & Todd Palin were used to re-plumb the propaganda sewers with the help of Joe The Plumber.

Evidently they seem to think they won the presidential election in 2008 because they are making the same lame deja vu arguments all over again.

They are planning to sell that same product in November of 2010, 2012, and evidently from then on.

They have become criminally insane, thinking that Americans want to pollute the earth, to drill in deep, dangerous waters, to torture people, to give endless amounts of money to banks, to let corporations outspend individuals 1000 to 1 during elections, to get rid of social security, to elevate priests over civilians in government, to ever increase military spending, to engage in endless wars, to have no minorities in government, to hate those of other religions, and to become habitual liars.

The stark truth is that the republican right is wrong, and that Bush II was the First Sarah Palin:

"We cannot let terrorists and rogue nations hold this nation hostile or hold our allies hostile.''

"Mr. Vice President, in all due respect, it is — I'm not sure 80 percent of the people get the death tax. I know this: 100 percent will get it if I'm the president."

"You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. Little did I realize we'd get the trifecta."

"This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base."

(Click Here For The Top Ten). If George Bush can become president, so can Sarah Palin.

If the republicans take control of the House, the Senate, or the White House in the near term, it will prove The Dredd Blog Thesis.

State Crimes Against Democracy - 5

One of the things Candidate Obama did not make clear became one of the first things President Obama did make clear.

Obama made clear that there would be no accountability in the United States for state crimes against democracy (SCAD) committed by the Bush II regime.

Obama used, as the rationale for his de facto pardon of Bush II and Cheney I, the meaningless phrase "we must move forward", as if traditional accountability means "moving backwards".

I think one of the many reasons why Obama said and did that was because he was not sure his administration would not also commit SCAD.

During the transition from the Bush II regime to the Obama administration regime, Obama chose to keep as his own certain members of the Bush II regime.

For example the pro-war Secretary Robert Gates.

Soon President Obama's financial team included elites from the Wall Street gang (Geitner, Brown, and others) who were elevated early on in the Obama regime to perpetuate the Bush II TARP and other big-bank bailouts.

Thus the massive economic SCAD was followed by a massive increase of troops in Afghanistan, which perpetuated even more SCAD.

Dredd Blog pointed out the direction the country was going, the very small minority of Americans that believe we are going in the correct direction, and the vast majority who believe we are going in the WRONG direction.

Since then things have become worse even as the Obama regime pumps out propaganda that makes the bushies proud, urging us to think things have gotten better, now even inexplicably emphasizing "the differences" between him and the bushies in his cabinet and the bushies in his White House.

"We could go back to bailing out rich folks and increasing war efforts if the republicans are let back into office" he glibly reads from the Teleprompter, while conveniently forgetting that "his people" will still be in the cabinet and in the White House once he is gone, just as they were before he slicked in.

Our series on SCAD, beginning with State Crimes Against Democracy, then proceeding prior to this current post to State Crimes Against Democracy - 4, primarily concerned the formidable psychological machinations which people must hurdle in some types of subject matter before they can even allow such concepts to enter their mind, much less make unbiased conclusions or observations.

That is not as difficult now, when it comes to the economy, following the widely unpopular bailouts of the wealthy banksters.

A great many people see the banking "industry" (banksters) as criminals, so when those banksters get into government the notion of State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD) is easier to swallow.

When those crimes are linked to the Afghanistan war, which the Obama regime has tripled, especially in the context of the corrupt criminal regime there in Afghanistan, it is also easier for the people to swallow the notions of SCAD.

To the public (wee the people) it is a SCAD when government lies to them, a SCAD to send their children to die for dubious reasons, a SCAD to send their hard earned tax dollars to foreign nations while at the same time they loose jobs, homes, hope, and health here at home.

Furthermore, as they lose faith in "their" government here at home, other SCAD evidence will become easier for them to swallow.

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