Hollywood and the War Machine

As linked from LewRockwell.com. Video promo below. (Will post if figure out how to see whole video online.) From the written promo:

War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public. The Pentagon recognises the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars.

What does Hollywood get out of this 'deal with the devil'? Access to billions of dollars worth of military kit, from helicopters to aircraft carriers, enabling filmmakers to make bigger and more spectacular battle scenes, which in turn generate more box office revenue. Providing they accept the Pentagon's advice, even toe the party line and show the US military in a positive light.

So is it a case of art imitating life, or a sinister force using art to influence life and death - and the public perception of both? "Empire" (television program) will examine Hollywood, the Pentagon, and war.

Jesus, DADT and "Christian" Exodus from Military

Here on Christmas eve, some thoughts from this former Christian. I fell from the faith in 1964 at age 16 under the influence of Ayn Rand, the Beatles and my own spring breeze-inspired mystical experience of the unity of all reality. My opinion of the true Christianity is that based on the Sermon on the Mount - not on the Revelation of John (which John still unknown) on the Isle of Patmos who wrote (or has been interpreted as having written) that Armageddon must start in the Middle East in order to hasten the End Time, the return of Christ, and the death and/or damnation of all Jews and gentiles who don't convert Christianity. Those who emphasize Revelation are really John-ists. And that is just what most Evangelical Christians are. John, not Jesus, is their Christ.

Evangelical Christians joined the military en masse during the presidency of evangelical George W. Bush, and were promoted to higher and higher positions in the military. A lot of them really were itching to go on a crusade against infidel Islamists - great way to start Armageddon, since Muslims surround Israel.

Has the end of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in the military saved us from these people? According to Senator John McCain, conservative Christian ministers and others the recent declaration that homosexuals need not hide their sexual preferences any more means that many Christians may leave the military as soon as they can, or refuse to enlist in the first place.

Good riddance! That's one way to shrink our the U.S. Empire's military! And I bet the real Jesus, and all his manly disciples, would say the same thing! The U.S. is the new Rome, after all. But going broke a lot faster than the Roman Empire which last 500 years. The U.S. Empire is on the way down after only 65 years. I give it another five to ten.

Now if only we knew Jesus REAL birthday so Christians could celebrate it then, instead of co-opting the solstice holidays!

Bag Checks on DC Metro - OI! OI!

One can avoid getting groped by TSA agents by not flying, but it's harder to avoid using public transport in DC if you don't have a car, or don't want to drive everywhere. And now the DC metro has instigated random bag searches. Police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using ionization technology as well as K-9 units trained to detect explosive materials. Yeah, right. When I come sauntering in in my kefiyah carrying my Don't Bomb Iran bomb, they will NOT randomly choose me. Am researching how much you can opinionate to them while their equipment is sniffing my bags without getting arrested. So many consciousness raising things to say - so many snotty ones that probably will come out. OI!!!!

"Not all secessionists are bad" (New Republic)

From my blog at Vermont Commons site:

That according to the headline of a New Republic slideshow of good ones, including East Timor, Kosovo, South Sudan, Tibet and the United States (in 1776). This, of course, is a response to the "Secession Ball" marking the 150th anniversary of South Carolina. In publicizing and defending it, once again some southerners prove they don't get it - slavery was bad! They won't admit that in 1860 the south should have freed the slaves, given them just reparations and THEN seceded. And they won't admit today that slavery was a really big issue for most of the states, many of which called themselves the "slave states."

But are the neoliberals at The New Republic really that much better? (Let's not even start on their nefarious reasons for supporting several of those secessionist movements.)

Doubtless a certain percentage of attendees at or supporters of the Secession Ball, like liberals, neoliberals, conservatives and neoconservatives, reject the right of black neighborhoods, communities, cities or counties to secede from the white dominated federal and state governments that screw them at every turn. States that make sure that a large portion of black men are incarcerated or on parole or have criminal records for crimes for which whites are far less frequently prosecuted, not to mention incarcerated.

See this video about a Mom and Grandma in jail for 9 years! for trying to steal a purse when they were drug addicts. Absurd!

That is the black slavery of today that most of the political spectrum - except libertarians and anarchists - support.

So let's make sure we know who the real racists are - people who support federal and state drug laws, don't complain at all that they are overwhelmingly used to enslave African Americans (not to mention kill them freely claiming "he had a gun/it was an accident"). And most would send the military in to engage in free fire if African Americans decided it was time for large majority black communities to secede from the union. (The same for Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgenders who decided they'd had enough phony tolerance and tokenism from the straight world.)

So blah blah blah on you liberal/conservatives, old and new, who proclaim you oppose all those racist secessionists (even Vermont hippies and entrepreneurs) and assure us your motivations for opposing any and all sorts of secession on American soil are ever so pure. (And have nothing to do with your big corporate-state paychecks and expected pensions.) But then, get Sarah Palin in there as president, and suddenly a lot of liberals will be back to talking secession, like they did under Bush after the 2000 and 2004 elections!

Veterans arrested at the White House

December 16th I missed another good one. Luckily these two videos were produced to show everyone what they said and what they did.

50,000 + years of celebrating solstice... yoo ha!

According to the Behavioral Modernity article on the sometimes pretty good wikipedia: One theory holds that behavioral modernity occurred as a sudden event some 50 kya (50,000 years ago), possibly as a result of a major genetic mutation or as a result of a biological reorganization of the brain that led to the emergence of modern human natural languages. Proponents of this theory refer to this event as the Great Leap Forward or the Upper Paleolithic Revolution. Thus my guesstimate of 50,000 years of solstice celebrations. Take that you recentist patriarchal religions! Repetition being so important to making your point, here's a couple of my relevant music videos.

Prisoners strike in Georgia - opposing racism nonviolently

With all the talk of racism in this country, and now with a black president, it remains disgusting how high a percentage of prisoners are black men, a large percentage victims of the war on drugs, nonviolent users or small time dealers. "Crimes" for which they are disproportionately arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned. In Georgia, where almost 30 percent of the population is African American, more than 60 percent of prisoners are; 12 percent of the state's population is in jail, on parole or being prosecuted! (Lots of work for government prosecutors, bureaucrats and unionized prison employees, of course!) Prisioners are now doing a nonviolent strike against unpaid work, poor food and medical attention, lack of education, etc. But the main stream media, which did manage to notice when blacks protested bus and restaurant segregation, just ignore mass segregation of African Americans in the prison system. One more reason for blacks especially to secede from the white male dominated union!

So many leaks, so little time!

As tempting as it may be to focus on a certain wikileaker's condom use/caddishness/rape allegations, it's hardly the most serious issue to wikileak's survival, since other wikileakers will carry on.

So let's not forget the real news is all the evil things the U.S. government has been up to in Iraq, Afghanist and worldwide. Try to focus. What really outraged you the most so far from the Contents of the United States diplomatic cables leak? Just looking at the list erases my memories of shock as things have dripped out; my mind is numb from all the information. Little of it terribly surprising and in the end I say - Yeah, dozens more reasons to get that nonviolent radical decentralist secession movement going. After the solstice holidays...

In fact the main issue still rattling around my mind is: Are denial of service attacks where you overload a server "terrorism" or just nonviolent protest like a sit-in." As opposed to true destructive hacking which obviously is usually a crime, but let's not start on issues of if it's to save lives, etc. Too early in the A.M. for such weighty nonviolence theory debates.

Imagine No Countries...

I missed blogging John Lennon's 70th birthday, but will remember the 30th anniversary, and trauma of, his death here by linking to his most immortal song. Also quoted in intro to this blog above. (Unfortunately I couldn't find the video on any of his official pages.)

New Book: "Why Liberty?" Libertarians Speak, including me

Libertarian Marc Guttman has had published a book of short libertarian autobiographies called Why Liberty: Personal Journeys Toward Peace & Freedom. The Amazon.com review reads: All across the world individuals have learned that only by interacting peacefully can we achieve a more harmonious, prosperous, healthy and tolerant society. To these ends millions have optimistically involved themselves in a global liberty movement. These libertarians, while seeing the promotion of individual rights a worthwhile goal in itself, also believe that a free society is a universally beneficial one. Consider the stories of the diverse contributors who share with you the reasons that they were convinced to embrace freedom and the idea that men and women should govern themselves. Fifty-five authors from fifteen countries collaborate in this venture. Included are philosophers and physicians, economists and judges, military officers and environmentalists, police officers and soccer moms, lawyers and small business owners. You can read about the paths to understanding of people like well-known journalist John Stossel or Susette Kelo who fought all the way to the Supreme Court to try to keep her home from being confiscated and delivered to a private business. From Africa, from behind what was the Iron Curtain, Europe, Asia and Africa, and North, Central and South America there are dozens of tales of why these diverse people came to similar conclusions: freedom is best for all.

My 10 page entry is called "Consciousness, Community and Liberty." You can learn just a few of the details of my fascinating life. And it's not over yet! (Knock wood.)

Bomb Shelters from the Bad Old Days

I have a draft of nuclear bomb/war related articles I've been procrastinating on finishing. And that was before North Korea started bombing South Korean islands and I read a recent article on China's growing military. (Still tiny compared to the U.S.'s - of course ours might collapse without their money!) Anyway, ran across this RussiaToday video about the bad old days when everyone worried about it all the time; as opposed to the bad current days when not enough people worry about some incident escalating into an all out nuclear exchange. At least President Obama is pushing the new Start nuclear treaty.

Stripping down to speedos for TSA

Makes me more confidant about wearing my my see-through black dress and a tiny black thong through the line. Har har...

Drunken government agents driving nukes in trucks...

I guess no one gave them a pat down!!

Only sheep can fly the airlanes...

Or even take trains or subways in the near future? According to TSA Fuhrer-in-Chief John (what a pistol!) Pistole.

No self-respecting person will accept the choice of going through a scanner spewing radiation of unknown levels of danger vs. being groped by high school dropouts who can't get any better job - I mean TSA agents. And heavens forbid you have a medical condition leaving some strange little trace on the scanner image - you get the pat down anyway. Yes, patting your genitals is required.

Who the hell wants to take the chance. And all for what? A 2001 attack that government agencies were repeatedly warned was coming, but couldn't bother to interpret correctly. (Unless they were secret agents of the country that planted the explosives that brought down the twin towers and building #7.) A bunch of alleged terrorist plots that never happened? To ensure people busy killing their own people in their own countries don't come over here and kill a few of us?

At some point enough people are going to realize that US dominance, protecting Israel and making profits for the military-industrial-media complex ain't worth having to drive five days across country when a loved one only has four days to live.

Just add it to the Declaration of Independence's list of "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism" which so many of us are creating for modern times. This just puts us that much closer to the next efforts for independence of the American people. Let's make it a nonviolent revolution, boys....

TSA sucks big ones....

No Nations - No Nukes!

Ah, to be 34 again! Photos of our left-right libertarian alliance in June 1982 to protest nuclear weapons at the big NYC rally. See photos, including in music video of my song that was our "No Nations No Nukes" group "theme-song." What a rush it was singing that as our contingent of 30 odd anti-authoritarians marched by the United Nations. That's me in pink.

Prosecute Bush for War Crimes

George Bush has had the balls to come out and say in interviews about his new biography: Yes, I ordered TORTURE but my lawyers said it was ok. So even if it is a violation of international law treaties that the U.S. signed, hey, you can't prosecute me.

That may be sufficient defense in Corporate-State-Military-Industrial-Media Complex America, but don't expect Bush to be traveling to many other nations in the coming years. Some of them doubtless will be willing to arrest and try him as the war criminal he is. (Launching wars on other nations - for whatever reason, not to mention phony evidence - still a war crime, George.)

See: ACLU request he be investigated. Amnesty International's similar request. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) also has requested same. And this all in just a week since book released. I must get my lazing butt to the next demo demanding an investigation!

P.S.: A while back I complained about a left wing Democratic Party Bernie Sanders-type anonymous blogger flashing the original of this graphic at me on his blog. Just so there isn't any confusion, when a man throws balls in a woman's face it's sexism. When a woman makes fun of a macho male leaders balls, it's satire. True students of bigotry know that. Dirty tricks political operatives are too dumb to get the distinction.

Vermont Secessionist Candidates Go the Mile...

The Vermont Secession state candidates who announced in January 2010 were joined by a number of other independents friendly to the idea so that 40 ended up on the November 2nd ballot. See details at Vermont Commons blog. And pre-election day news story below.

All the little Obama agencies

While overall I think Glenn Beck is an idiot, occassionally he's on point on economic issues. Like this video comparing Roosevelt's agencies (created over 4 terms) with Obama's agencies created in the first year.

Elections didn't change anything

As usual I have had many opinions on many things that I haven't bothered to include here. So here's Reason Tv's excellent video on why demopublicans won't solve economic problems, end wars or end restrictions on our personal freedom.