Who's the lesser evil now, bitches?

Republicans are good for something after all!

update: by the way that article is a fucking goldmine of information about how pathetic congress is. like:

A third Texan, Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, said the negotiators had “never seriously considered any alternative” to the administration’s plan, and had only barely modified what they were given. He criticized the plan for handing over sweeping new powers to an administration that he said was to blame for allowing the crisis to develop in the first place.

duh.

and:

Supporters of the bill had argued that it was necessary to avoid a collapse of the economic system, a calamity that would drag down not just Wall Street investment houses but possibly the savings and portfolios of millions of Americans. Moreover, supporters argued, a lingering crisis in America could choke off business and consumer loans to a degree that could prompt bank failures in Europe and slow down the global economy.

right, and if we don't invade iraq we'll all be speaking arabic if we aren't nuked first. fear fear fear!!

The former Treasury Department official who predicted another House vote this week said that before there could be another vote, he would expect Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader, to approach members with seats in safe districts and tell them, in effect: “You’ve got to do this. The fate of the country hangs on your vote.”

fear fear fear!!! also, fuck you nancy and john. fuck you and whatever dirty tricks you pull out of your sleeve to stop your stupid little minions from accidentally doing the right thing for once in their pathetic lives.

rant with no capital letters

so congress is all set to work together and sing kumbaya and fuck the country out of a gagillion dollars. the poor will be forced to pay this to the rich, while the government fucks laugh at everyone and pretend that they aren't laughing at everyone. same shit as iraq - make up a bunch of scary monsters that will kill everyone unless you do something that seems incredibly stupid on its claimed merits, and nobody can say shit about it cause then they're evil terrorists that hate america, a nation of poor fucking saps who richly would deserve hatred if they weren't so fucking stupid and pathetic. and so they're just sad, and they'll be paying out their asses until they die, which will be pretty soon cause none of them have healthcare coverage because the government won't provide it because they only have trillions of dollars for war and wall street, not for regular sick people. up here in canada i just sit and get angry and rant about it, and wonder when everything will fall apart.

Nader

I saw this video at Dennis Perrin's blog and figured my little sister would appreciate if I posted it here. I'm not posting this to support Nader's candidacy, though the basic critique is a message that really needs to be spread.

Just a reminder

The United States Government is the world's most deadly and powerful terrorist organization. Keep that in mind whenever you read anything said or written by an agent of the USG.

Juan Dixon signs with the Wizards

To note an NBA story that doesn't piss me off, my boy Juan is going home.

I don't know how well Juan fits in with that team, but he's a local hero so it makes sense for the Wizards to sign a proven contributor at a modest price tag. And he can definitely put some points on the board, filling in as a starter or off the bench. With Gilbert's health a perpetual question mark, guard depth is a good thing for the Wiz, and Juan should get some opportunities to play.

Best of luck to Juan!

ballers and blood-drenched tyrants

So, yeah, I'm pretty disgusted with how stupid sports coverage is. And pro sports in general. This doesn't help.

I fucking hate this shit

I fucking well knew better than to keep following this inanely stupid story. From the first post I said I didn't want to, but I did it anyway like an idiot, to the point where yesterday I was trading emails with Mark Cuban trying to figure out how he can justify what he said. This article by Stephen A. Smith is about the dumbest thing yet. Blame the victims!!

Whether or not Howard is sensitive to whatever plights exist regarding African-Americans is not for me or anyone else to say definitively, because none of us are flies on his wall. In Howard's world, he may think he's being sensitive to black people and what plagues this community, and that may have been what he was aiming for in spewing his rhetoric.

But what Howard doesn't seem to get -- and he's joined in this by some members of the hip-hop and entertainment community, or anyone black willing to disseminate and perpetuate perspectives devoid of facts -- is the damage their moments of exasperating expression ultimately costs the very people they believe they're looking out for.

In other words, even if Howard feels oppressed, he isn't allowed to say it. Why? Because somehow saying it will hurt black people, presumably from a backlash of idiocy. And everyone is content to blame Howard for this, instead of blaming the people who do the oppressing. Why? Because our simplistic idiotic mindset is that America is good. No matter what you cannot question this. Anyone who says otherwise is bad, evil, probably a terrorist. Howard said America isn't good, so Howard is bad. This asinine mentality has infected just about everyone, at least any idiot that Walt Disney owned ESPN would hire. Anyone that implies America is racist is most certainly bad, to be silenced and denounced.

And so we have the ridiculous spectacle of condemnation of Josh Howard, a modern version of a lynching. I fucking hate every single person who participates in this bullshit, who justifies it in one way or another. These fuckers who write racist emails to Cuban telling him to "fire that nigger", Cuban who says that what Howard did was wrong, Abbott who calls it an abuse of free speech, Smith who tells Howard to shut the fuck up. I hate them all. Fuck, no, I don't hate them. I hate what they're doing and I hate the fucking system that has conditioned them to act this way, but they're victims of it too. I can't stand this shit.

Mark Cuban on Josh Howard (updated)

Josh realizes his comments were wrong, he understands why people are upset. He knows he has made a mistake, has apologized and will work with us.

Fuck you, Cuban. There was nothing wrong with Josh's comments, and he shouldn't apologize. Its just a fucking song, and someone refusing to mindlessly respect nationalistic symbols is actually refreshing. And there are a million tragic reasons why black people especially wouldn't be swelling with American pride. But I guess the uppity negro must be silenced.

update: In an email, Cuban told me that Howard was just messing around with friends and wasn't being serious. He seemed to imply that if Howard had meant those comments to express a serious political opinion, he'd be supportive of him. Since he wasn't serious, his "mistake" was saying something highly inflammatory without thinking about it. This is the same point Abbott made to me in emails as well. I think it might be worth going back and looking at what they said and seeing if they criticized the message itself, which I think they did. Hopefully they're backtracking on that. Too tired now to think more about it, but figured I ought to make that update since I've come down pretty hard on these guys.

more Josh Howard (updated)

Alright well I still kind of don't want to get too much into this, but I can't help making a few more comments about Josh Howard. Specifically, it seems to me that this is the exact same thing as Jeremiah Wright. A black man (or woman too I assume) in America is not allowed to be angry about the abuses black people face. If such anger comes out, it must be attacked. He is running his mouth off! He's an angry black man! Denounce him!

Henry Abbott, NBA blogger for ESPN.com called Howard's comments "mishandling of his freedom of speech." He went on to explain why his comments were so bad with this gem:

And we know Josh Howard speaks his own version of the truth (which is admirable) even if the timing and general lack of coherence undermine his cause (which is not). By being a celebrity, and addressing incendiary issues of civil rights around a microphone, fair or not he risks presenting himself as an actual civil rights leader. Like the 2008 Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King Jr. He's a really nice guy, and his heart is in the right place, but he must not let himself get confused with a civil rights leader.

Are you kidding me? Every black person with an opinion about prejudice that isn't a civil rights leader needs to shut up so they don't get confused for a civil rights leader? What the fuck kind of logic is this? And what is the lack of coherence of saying he doesn't celebrate the national anthem because he's black? That makes perfect sense to me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Speaking the truth is only "admirable" if it is the officially-sanctioned truth that America is great and wonderful. Expressing something else is irresponsible, especially for a black man, who we all know are already prone to irresponsibilities like smoking marijuana (but, hey, grab me another beer while you're up).

The only "danger" of being mistaken for MLK that I can think of is that if dishonest asshats go on to paint everyone who criticizes the system from a black civil rights perspective as a some goofy weed-smoking jackass like that one NBA player. But the proper response to this "threat" isn't to make every celebrity with an opinion shut up. It is to address the dishonesty when it arises. Or, like Abbott, you can demand that people just shut up and not express their non-jingoistic opinion unless they have a doctoral thesis they're ready to present to back it up. That puts a gigantic burden of proof on oppressed people to prove their oppression, and gives the oppressers a free pass. (I've pointed all of this out to Abbott in a email exchange much more politely worded than this bluurg post and I hope he considers revising his statements.)

In the comments to the last post, David points out that a CNN poll says a majority of voters think Howard should be punished for expressing his opinion, and goes on to say that he should love America because he couldn't make as much money elsewhere. So I guess the uppity nigger should just shut the fuck up and be glad for the freedom that we gave to him.

Fuck you, America. Fuck you.

update: Abbott posted a link to this, which I suppose is a good start.

In support of Josh Howard

Josh Howard, a very good NBA player for the Dallas Mavericks, has caught some shit recently because he openly admitted to smoking weed. This is supposed to be a scandal or something. Then recently, this happened. Basically he was "caught" on tape saying something to the effect that he doesn't celebrate the national anthem because he's black, and then seemed to make a disparaging remark about Obama (not sure about that part, it might have actually been a pro-Obama comment, where his support for Obama came from anger).

I don't intend to follow this story closely or anything, but it is pretty typical of what a fucked up retarded place America is. Drinking is perfectly fine but smoking a joint is some major transgression. The realities of racism and the disadvantages black people have always faced in America are undeniable, but when a black man actually acknowledges this in front of a camera, he's "running his mouth" or something.

I've often thought that a high-profile athlete could be a great advocate for important political issues, since they have the attention and respect of so many young people. Of course they're all millionaires with endorsement deals from corporations, and they benefit hugely from the existing social structures, so it is hard to expect them to do much to meaningfully change things. Sure they'll give money to charitable causes and take field trips to Africa to see the poverty, but they never address the structural characteristics that cause the poverty. You never hear Michael Jordan speak out on political issues do you? He's making too much money from sweatshop-manufactured apparel to worry about that stuff.

So, I'd love to see Josh Howard stand up and defend his lack of patriotism. Why should a black man celebrate the national anthem? Fuck the national anthem! Fuck Obama! Say it again, Josh. Why should the government have the right to tell me what I'm not allowed to smoke? Why would I celebrate a government that does that? But, he'll be under pressure to just say the politically expedient lies and hope people forget about the rare glimmer of truth that crept out.

Happy Anniversary, now wake the fuck up

If 9/11/2001 changed anything, it seems to me that it was that the US Government realized it no longer had to be subtle about its atrocities.

Today you should read this from Chris Floyd, which I'll copy here in its entirety. Then you should watch the video at the end and think about it.

There is, apparently, to be no end to our falling. No bottom to the pit of moral nullity through which we keep plunging, no act of evil which we will not accept, and countenance, and even cheer.

At one time, it required great lies -- elaborate, monstrous deceits, wrapped in myths of goodness and light -- to disguise the brutal machinations of raw power. Otherwise, it was thought, the people might rise up in anger at the crimes being committed in their name, thus threatening the primacy and privilege of the elite.

But this proved to be unnecessary in the end. The foulest deeds could be done in broad daylight, in full view of the world, before the eyes of our children, without the slightest consequence for the perpetrators. The crowd would applaud, or, at worst, simply shrug and move on.

Actions and policies drawn from the horror stories of history -- things which the people had been taught to abominate from the day they were born -- were freely and openly embraced.

The Nazis launched unprovoked wars of aggression and despoiled whole nations. So do we now; who cares? The Gestapo and the KGB snatched people from the street and held them without charges in secret prisons, tortured them with brute force and with exquisitely calibrated techniques approved by the highest authorities. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets spied without qualm or restraint on their own people, no warrants needed, no evidence required, just a nod from some faceless official in the security organs. So do we now; who cares? The Nazis believed that the national leader is beyond the law, that any order he gives is rightful and just and cannot be punished, simply because he has given it. So do we now; who cares? The Soviets and the Nazis treated protests against the established order as security threats and acts of terror, and repressed them with mass arrests and police violence. So do we now; who cares?

All of these things, and many more besides, have been done and are being done by the government of the United States today, with either the full-throated approval or the meek acquiescence of the political opposition and the nation's institutions. The people too seem largely in agreement, or completely indifferent. We have just finished a primary campaign in which tens of millions of people voted for candidates who support the system described above in almost every particular -- quibbling about some of the details and tactics perhaps, but expressing absolutely no dissent from its basic premises.

The two major candidates left standing after this appalling process are as similar in policy and philosophy as it is possible to be and still maintain a semblance of "choice" in the election. Both support the continuance and expansion of the "War on Terror." Both pledge to use massive, lethal, violent force, at any time, anywhere in the world -- with no options, not even the nuclear one, taken "off the table" -- in the service of ever-nebulous and self-defined "national security" interests. Both support the warrantless surveillance of American citizens, and immunity for vast conglomerates that collaborate with the state in blatantly illegal activity. Both believe that even those who have not committed murder can be executed by the state. (And neither has said a single word about the shame of America's prison system: more than 2 million people behind bars, more than any other nation on earth, in both sheer numbers and proportionately, and rivalled historically in those numbers only by the Stalin's gulag at the height of the purges.)

Both support a continuing American military presence in Iraq, under one euphemism or another. Both mouth pieties about opposing torture and upholding the rule of law, but neither of them applied their considerable powers as senators -- or their great personal popularity -- to make the slightest move to bring the perpetrators of the White House-approved torture regime to justice. (McCain has even voted explicitly to allow the CIA to torture captives.) Both have just finished conventions at which American citizens seeking to exercise their constitutional rights of free speech and free assembly were herded by armed police into wire pens (dubbed, with sinister irony, "free speech zones"), harassed, arrested, in cases beaten, invaded, and charged with thought crime and terrorism. Both support, and are supported by, the same corporate interests whose predations and corruptions have shredded the social and civic fabric of the nation and are now leading millions into penury.

Where are the hands, as in Rilke's poem, that can hold up all this falling? There are none. And so we keep falling, down and down and still farther down.

When something is truly deserved

"Every so often this just has to be said: Fuck you, George Bush."

Why bother? (Surely I must already have used that post title by now?)

In mid-June I sent this email to a bunch of family and friends:

"The inferno…is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space." -Italo Calvino

This essay by Chris Floyd documents how Iraqi civilians in Fallujah are suffering high rates of miscarriage, birth defects ("These infants include many with heart defects, cleft lip or palate, Down's syndrome, and limb defects."), and cancer, because of the illegal use of chemical and radioactive weapons by US forces in the siege of that city in 2004. The public health crisis was certainly not helped by the illegal targeting by US forces of medical clinics and personnel for destruction or capture, or by the illegal intentional disruption of water and electricity services. These massive war crimes are never reported by the US corporate media, but they outrage the rest of the world along with the few Americans who are able to access such information through alternative sources. And they've destroyed countless lives of Iraqis.

By the standards of the Nuremberg Trials, a war of aggression is the ultimate international crime, considered to encompass the whole of all the evils it contains, like the evils mentioned above. As such, civilian and military leadership, including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, and others should be on trial for war crimes for their roles in launching this war. But in the US, the impeachment charges brought up by Dennis Kucinich are barely even acknowledged, except as subject of ridicule, even by the purported opposition party. And so criminal prosecution is unthinkable, making mockery of any concept of law or justice.

Part of my decision to move to Canada was because I wanted to morally disassociate myself from the actions of the US Government and political class. I don't know if crossing an imaginary line really achieves that or not, but my feelings of outrage and disgust aren't likely to improve even if my conscience does. And so I'll continue to "seek out what is not inferno" and share my thoughts with my family, in the fleeting hope that it will make some kind of difference somehow.

- Adam

I received barely any response. I can count on one hand the number of people who have even acknowledged that I sent it. Email is a tricky medium, and we've all seen that people have trouble replying even to messages with very clear requests or instructions. And I don't suppose many people welcome receiving unsolicited politically charged mass emails (even if they are personally composed by a family member or close friend, as opposed to a forward of unknown origin). So I don't know that I should interpret the deafening silence in response to this missive of informative despair as complete disinterest. But it is hard not to do so.

I bring this up because another Floyd essay is tempting me to repeat this exercise. I guess something about the combination of US military violence and child suffering and death makes me want to reach out and... and what? Try to make it stop? See that someone else gives a shit? Torture myself over my own guilt? Force people to confront things they'd rather ignore? I don't know. I wonder how many of the people who read the email gave more thought to why I sent it than to the overt content it contained. I suspect that any time spent on either could be measured with the second hand of a watch, and recorded with one digit. I suppose I should be envious.

Biden on prosecuting Bush: "Don't worry my conservative friend, not a fucking chance!"

Mentioning this on Trakker's blog would probably get me double-banned, so I'll do it here. As I said recently, there's no fucking way these blood-drenched Democrats will prosecute the blood-drenched Republicans. This has been obvious for a long time.

To be more straightforward for those of you who don't like clicking on links, Chris Floyd wrote this last November:

No mainstream Democrat will ever allow full-fledged criminal investigations and prosecutions of Bush II officials for torture and the war crime of military aggression. You know and I know that's not going to happen. We will get, at most, some soaring rhetoric about "healing national wounds" and "coming together again" and "moving on." (With the outside possibility of a few small fry being offered up as sacrifices, to let the Dem president preen as the "restorer of the rule of law" -- and also purge the Republicans, and Bush, of the worst taint: "Hey, it was a few bad apples, and now they're gone. We've got a clean slate!")

A few days ago, internet liberals got all excited because Biden made some vague hypothetical comments somewhere about pursuing criminal investigations. A few days after that, Biden rushed to Fox News to correct the record on this matter:

Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends raised that issue with Biden on Thursday morning, asking about "a report that if you guys are elected ... you're actually going to pursue criminal charges against President Bush's administration and different people that served there."

"That's not true," Biden immediately replied. "I don't know where that report's coming from. What is true is the United States Congress is trying to preserve records on questions that relate to whether or not the law has been violated by anyone. Anybody should be doing that."

Biden emphasized that "no one's talking about President Bush. ... I've never heard anybody mention President Bush in that context." He noted that "there's been an awful lot of unsavory stuff that's gone on ... but I have no evidence of any of that. No one's talking about pursuing President Bush criminally."

Biden concluded his comments by explaining that possible misdeeds are
"being looked into now, just so it never happens again in any other administration. ... The Obama-Biden administration is not going to start off saying, 'God, let's go take a look at what this --.' The American people want to know what we're going to do, not what happened."

But internet liberals will ignore this, or somehow convince themselves that Obama/Biden just had to say that for political reasons, but really in their hearts they want to prosecute, and we'll see that once they get elected. If Obama gets elected, this will also be proven wrong, but McCain is going to win now anyway so they'll forget all of this.

I will prosecute myself for my crimes

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said earlier this week that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Hahahaha, yeah right. Will they also pursue criminal charges against themselves for repeatedly funding Bush's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Distractions

Explaining his exasperated voicing of a desire to shut down his blog, Dennis Perrin writes:

This fucking election is killing my mind and stomping my soul. American political reality is as bad as I've ever seen it, and I suspect we haven't reached bottom yet. Maybe we never will. Maybe we're destined to float down the shit stream indefinitely, splashing, sinking, swallowing mouthfuls of sewage. Hard to tell. All I know is that I'm sick of the rancid taste, and would much prefer a healthier diet, or at least something with a fresh lemon scent.

I kind of feel the same way, and I'm not evening watching TV coverage (don't even have TV) or reading mainstream news. I read 2 articles in an Ohio newspaper this weekend and nearly went crazy. Everything said by politicians is full of lies, and all coverage of political events is full of lies. It is truly disgusting, and it kills my mind and stomps my soul.

In one hour my first class starts, an undergrad course that I'm TAing, Evolution and Human Behavior (here's the syllabus if you're interested). I'm taking two class as a student, Contemporary Problems in Psychology and a Statistics course, which start next week. I kind of hope that maybe I'll just tune out the entire worthless world for a semester and just focus on study and research. I doubt it will happen but it is kind of a nice idea.

Top notch work, McCain

Your next Imperial Vice-Manager: