"INVISIBLE HAND" IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING PULLS WOOL OVER COUNTRY'S EYES

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has webbed feet, molts, gives birth to ducklings, and looks like a hunter's decoy, forget the lips. Read this article: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/laura-poitras-snowden.html?pagewanted=1&hp

If Edward Snowden was so misguided, how was he able to ferret out the one individual already experiencing the harassment and intimidation he feared government secret surveillance programs would unleash?

I'LL TAKE "PATRIOTS" FOR 100, ALEX.

Final Jeopardy answer: In countries with corrupt governments, patriots, rather than traitors, face criminal prosecution.

Q: Who are, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and Edward Snowden?

That's correct!

OR GET OFF THE POT

Republican politicians, rather than spending all their time and energy trying to take Obama down, ought instead to devote some of that vast intellectual capital to constructive pursuits. Politics in America has devolved into nothing more than a pissing contest where neither party wins and only the public gets wet.

THEY TAKE DRIVING TESTS, DON'T THEY?

I live in a college town and, like all college towns, it supports a diverse community. As my landlord said so long ago, referring to the different cultures represented here, "The school brings 'em in."

I see a lot of people in the course of a day and am at liberty to observe how they interact with one another. It is unfortunate that no one was there to observe George Zimmerman on the night of February 26, 2012. 

Everyone knows who killed Trayvon Martin, and why. The man who shot him to death was acquitted because to convict him we would have to admit to the George Zimmerman in ourselves. Fortunately, we have devised a Rube Goldberg for the purpose of obscuring ugly truths, like the individual and collective responsibility we bear for the society we (actively or passively) create. We call our Rube Goldberg "the Legal System", and it never disappoints. 

I've thought of a test by which we may learn something about ourselves, with respect to racism. I urge every member of society to take it. The test is this (and I use "black" and "white" because it is the classic form of racism in Western society):

If you are "white" and whenever you meet a "black" person, you think, "This is a black person", but whenever you meet a "white" person, you don't  think, "This is a white person," guess what.
Own it.

CROW EXPECTED TO JOIN THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST AS REPUBLICANS GIRD THEMSELVES FOR A FEAST

The apparent success in New York of the Affordable Care Act has Republican leaders scampering for place settings, and the rank and file struggling to find a champagne that goes well with feathers.

"I knew this would happen", claimed one insurance broker. "How can my family pork down prime rib when they know I'm dining in the aviary? Huh? Answer me that, Edward R. Murrow." 

Deeply concerned over how he was going to live on 15% of one-third the premium, he added, "All because the whiney-ass public doesn't think it should foot the bill. Thank God my wife owns sixteen-hundred thousand shares of Oneida."

American consumers, however, jubilant now that the fix is no longer in, are taking an interest in that which the 1% (and their brain-washed parrots) have derisively termed, "Obamacare." 

"The proof is in the pudding, and the pudding is in the pie, and the pie is all over your face, mutherf . . ." a 99%-er is reported to have told a 1%-er. Unfortunately, the pie makes the crow almost palatable. Yes, Virginia, the light shines on the just and the unjust.

FORMER INDIANA GOVERNOR EXPOSED AS FASCIST PIG

It's one thing to call Howard Zinn a grandstanding, leftist fanatic. It's quite another to use the office of head of state to circumvent the First Amendment.

Enter "Stilt" Daniels, Purdue President and former Indiana Governor who sought to use his elevated stature as Governor to cut the 6' 4" Zinn down to size. That he would stoop so low was nothing short of tiny, little smallness. "Who does he think he is? Governor of Indiana?", remarked an upset alumnus.

Daniels' self-aggrandizement is not to be overlooked. Small abuses of power, left unchecked, lead to big abuses of power like those of former Presidents Bush and Clinton: gutting Social Security to ramp up a war machine in order to launch a world-wide campaign of murder and destruction on an unprecedented scale, and extra-marital affairs. I shudder to think of the devastating consequences another extra-marital affair would have on perceptions of America.

SENATE FREES HOSTAGES!

The American public got a last-minute reprieve today as Senate Leaders agreed to foster the appearance of consumer protection. 

The public, beaten down and narcotized by the banking and pharmaceutical industries, is expected to have forgotten about it all by the time football season rolls around.
"They should be ripe for another sucker punch by spring," said Former Presidential hopeful, John McCain. "Please remember, I spent six years as a prisoner of war. I believe the good people of America could have taken it up the wazoo a while longer. But who am I to argue, so long as the GOP comes out on top."

Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, when tapped for a response, stammered a moment, then lapsed back into a coma.

All in all it was a good day in Washington, as some of the guys got their picture in the paper and everyone had a good laugh when an intern brought up the bailout.

A Word on Fracking

May 1

Wouldn't it be something if the same companies that are shoving hydraulic fracturing down our throats are also designing transportation that runs on natural gas? The same people who tell us that fracking will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, fail to mention that it poisons the very ground we live on, grow food in, and draw water from. Fracking amounts to nothing more than revenue at the expense of plants, animals and humans.
Of course, no one can force people to use natural gas, no matter how ingenious the marketing or how punitive the legislation. Survival in a market economy depends on who controls the market. Fortunately, the consumer has the power. Unfortunately, he doesn't know how to wield it. The vast majority of consumers, inundated by a veritable avalanche of profit derivatives,

 lacks the time and opportunity to organize any resistance. 

We don't have to let oil companies poison the Earth. They won't frack it if we won't buy it.

Consumers (people) need to question the media and political rhetoric. Any time anyone appeals to your sense of patriotism in an effort to get you to do something, remember, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." (Samuel Johnson)

ICAGAS

If We Ruin Our Environment, It's Game Over

April 30

Three facts and a suggestion.

FACT 1:

The United States, Canada, and Mexico have more technically recoverable natural gas resources than the combined total proved natural gas reserves found in Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, and Turkmenistan.
http://www.energyforamerica.org/inventory/

FACT 2:The Environmental Protection Agency has dramatically lowered its estimate of how much methane gas escapes into the atmosphere during hydraulic fracturing.

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/04/28/epa-lowered-estimates-of-methane-leaks-during-natural-gas-production/

FACT 3:

Living things cannot survive without water.

common sense

Please read carefully and thoughtfully the articles found at the links above. Then watch the documentary "GasLand", which is available via Netflix on DVD or instant streaming.

We must not allow corporations to destroy Earth in order to make money. The only way to stop that from happening is to deny corporate lobbyists access to politicians. We, the people, need to take our country back. "One shareholder, one vote" has got to go.

ICAGAS

A Word on the Gun Control Debate

April 26

Whether you come down on the right side or the wrong side of the current gun control debate, one thing you can be fairly certain of is that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Conspicuously absent from the debate is any mention of ordinary citizens forming an alliance to protect their constitutional right to freedom, which is what the Second Amendment is all about. The Founding Fathers considered even Federal government potentially hostile to freedom. A standing army was seen (back then, anyway) as a potential threat, due to both the expense of maintaining one (taxes), and the convenience it might afford a totalitarian political regime. That's how it was. Back then. A well-regulated militia was the Second Amendment's answer to government oppression. When you think about it, that kinda makes Abbie Hoffman look like Little Bo Peep.

Restated, the Second Amendment assumes a well-regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state, and confers upon ordinary citizens the right to keep and bear arms to that end. Dig deeper, and you find that many states mandated males older than eight years of age purchase or be provided arms, and be trained to use them. Preservation of freedom, not personal protection, was the objective.

Personal protection was mentioned in some of the preliminary drafts submitted by the states, but was not included in the draft ratified. This can only be interpreted to mean that, after consideration, personal protection was deemed to lie outside the scope of the Second Amendment. What people needed personal protection from, two-hundred-and-twenty-five years ago, was Native Americans and wild animals, perceived as nearly synonymous. Back then. Forget about whether the Second Amendment applies to guns used for sport or hunting. Duh. That's how people fed themselves.

There are two camps on gun control, each with their own agenda. The problem is that neither contemplates holding gun owners accountable for collateral damage. For example, when a child gets ahold of a gun and accidentally kills himself, or herself, or kills someone else, why isn't the gun owner (the father, the neighbor, the candle-stick maker) charged with negligent homicide?
When an adult with a gun maims or kills another human being, by what logic is the gun's registered owner absolved of all responsibility?
Whether by theft or legitimate sale, the person from whom the gun was obtained is (to some extent) responsible for what happened. It must be so, for without accountability there is no incentive to stop and consider the consequences of one's actions. Guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people. And until gun people are held responsible for the weapons that pass into or through their hands, the pile of dead kids will continue to grow and grow.

Consider this: I have been a Post Office* Window Clerk for seven years. I've sold postage to hundreds of people applying for carry permits - old, young, male, female, purple, green, well-dressed, pungent. But when one of them asks me how to address the envelope (? they're already addressed, sir, all you have to do is write your return address - on those lines there), or where to put the stamps (? see that little box where it says, "Post Office Will Not Deliver Without Proper Postage"?), when I realize that you just never know who's packin' heat - maybe everybody - I get a really bad feeling about it.

*Opinions expressed are entirely my own and have nothing whatsoever to do with the U. S. Postal Service or any of the fine individuals who work there.

The only reason I can think of why blatant abuses of power (see NYT, April 10, 2013, page 1, "For Former Regulators, a Home on Wall Street") don't arouse a well-regulated militia, is that corruption has become so pervasive in our society, so commonplace, that it has no shock value any more. We need to understand that the present situation exists only because we allow it to. 

A Word on Insurance Costs

January 30

I was shocked to discover, looking at my 2012 W-2, line 12 DD, that my employer paid $15,914 for my health care coverage last year. That's $15,914 of my money, which, had they given me, I could have used to buy the coverage of my choice for less money and pocketed the difference - $6218. (ASCAP offers almost identical coverage for $808/ mo). That's right, sports fans. Don't be surprised if your employer spends 30% of your money on your health insurance.

Look at it this way: the first 2 hours and 25 minutes of my work day, every work day, is spent robbing Peter to pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
Or, how about this: my wife and I have a six-year-old 1800 sq ft home with a two-car garage. Our house payment is $798/mo. and our groceries average $325/mo. Obviously, health insurance is more valuable.

Blue Shield was originally conceived by the U. S. government as a means to compensate doctors who'd worked long hours during WW2, often without pay, their ranks diminished due to 18% enlistment while demand for care skyrocketed as a result of war-related diseases and trauma.
Blue Cross, originally a separate entity, conceived by the U. S. government to compensate hospitals for caring for people who couldn't afford to pay, came into being shortly thereafter.
After the war ended, the doctors who'd served returned home to practice, and in the natural course of things disease and trauma rates diminished. Blue Shield and Blue Cross, having outlasted their respective mandates, but having proven themselves valuable to the medical profession, merged in order to survive, turning, not to the health care professionals they served, but rather, to the public at large for capitalization. Through a combination of artful politicking to enact favorable legislation, and slipping between the sheets with employers and pharmaceutical companies, Blue Cross/Blue Shield has managed not only to to survive, but to grow, and grow huge. The reason we'll never see universal health care in America is because Goliath holds all the stones.

GOD SAVE THE RICH: conservative Republicans come to the aid of their country's elite.

December 22, 2012

Inarguably, a vote to allow tax breaks to expire only on those earning more than $1 million a year does seem unfair - if you ignore two things: the income threshold at which freedom and independence becomes possible for the common man, and the income threshold at which tax dodges become an entitlement. Besides, it isn't against the law to subjugate those less fortunate.
Seriously, folks, did we ever really think there was a snowball's chance that those who write the laws would pass legislation permitting higher taxes only on themselves!? It doesn't take an actuarial scientist to see that that would be inconsistent with equal treatment under the law. After all, shouldn't all Americans be subject to the same rules and regulations? Shouldn't all Americans be eligible for full retirement after just two years? Shouldn't all Americans have franking privileges? Shouldn't all Americans have free health care, travel, staff, personal protection . . . hold on. I think Homeland Security is at door.
I don't know exactly how or when the term "conservative" came to be a badge of honor. Strictly speaking, to be "conservative" means to "preserve the established order". Even I can see how, having gotten one's tax ducks all in a row, one would want to preserve the status quo. But no civilization has ever progressed by staying the same. Theoretically, in service to that end, terms like "tradition" and "values", etc., conjure up an appearance of respectability. But perhaps it isn't enough to aspire to the appearance of respectability.
I'm jus' sayin'.