Death and Death and Death

Death and death and death and death, death and death and death. It's everywhere. All the time. It must be the going thing. It's been the going thing since WW2. This government, our government has not stopped killing people all over the world since World War 2. They must really like it.

Yep. They've got a real appetite for it. It can't be denied.

Take Vietnam for example. Two to three million Vietnamese people died in our Vietnam war, though our government will tell you that they didn't count the Vietnamese dead, just like they say they don't count the Iraqi dead. They don't like counting much I guess. It's a drag. Counting takes time away from killing. Killing innocent civilians.

There is a nagging problem with that. People matter. When they die it matters. It matters a lot to the people dying. It matters to their children and families, their spouses, their communities, and don't forget their careers and other involvements. If human beings matter, and they do, then when they are killed we're supposed to be sad about it. We're supposed to care. At the very least we're supposed to count the dead. After all it's not like we're exterminating cockroaches. We don't count dead cockroaches, but we do count dead people.

I think it sends a very clear message around the world that our government cannot be bothered to count the dead on "the other side". A hell of a message too. It's shameful. But it does make it perfectly clear that our government does not respect human life. It does not care about innocent people dying. And of course, once it gets to that point, where it is clear that innocent people dying are no concern to the guys with the bombs and the tanks and the guns, that we have to ask ourselves what they're over there doing.

The claim is that we are delivering another order of Freedom and Democracy, as if it were pizza. Only instead of pizza there is death. Death and death and death and more death. Endless death. And at the end of all that death we're supposed to find a shining pot of golden Freedom and Democracy.

Well, who is it exactly they are so concerned about being free and having democracy? If they don't care that innocent people make up the bulk of all that death and death and death, then they don't care about taking care of those folks political needs. It really doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

What does death and death and death and death have to do with anything? All that does is get a lot of people dead. For all the billion human beings who have died at the hands of an aggressor throughout time, has there ever been a shining reward at the end for those who died? Isn't it true that all of the reward goes to whoever it is doing all that killing and killing and killing? Yes, I do believe that is the deal. All the booty, all the pillage, the raping and the torturing, those are all the bonus rewards of the ones left standing after the smoke clears.

The main reward of course is a great deal more. It usually means that place and everything in it, including what's left of the population is yours now. Your property. Yours to do with as you please. All of the natural resources are yours to take and cash in on. And if the resource happens to be hot on the market you stand to make yourself a tidy bundle. And if it's in very high global demand, such as oil for instance, then you can play all kinds of games towards making other nations dance to your tune in order to get some of that for themselves.

All in all this killing stuff looks to me like a grand con game for profiteers. It's exactly the same thing as a street mugging, only on a larger scale. Someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet; they take it then shoot you anyway. What's the difference?

Even though the facts all point to that, it is never what we are told. When they need us to pay up and buy all the weapons and bombs and troop transports and uniforms and guns and food and boots and bullets and tanks, and then also get INTO those uniforms and go over there and do all that killing for them, they always say it's because the bad guys are coming to get us.

Now, we're usually totally clueless that there even were bad guys because they're not around us. They haven't been sighted. They aren't in the news and we don't bump into them. In fact they're flat nonexistent here in the home land. But they will tell us all about the bad guys and even explain how bad they are and the fact that there aren't any around here up to now won't matter because they'll also tell us they're under our beds and more are on the way.

But if this government is good at anything, it's good at lying its ass off. It has been able to vilify and demonize people all over the world and tell us we need to go get them before they come get us. What's odd is that it's never other countries with nuclear bombs or any record of being generally aggressive or blood thirsty. It's always peasant people, struggling poor people, people who can't defend themselves, who are non-aggressive and who frankly, couldn't find a way to even get here to cause us a traffic delay.

They demonize ordinary people usually at the exact moment they are doing something to make their little nation free and prosperous, which means they are blowing off the big fat rich corporations. That is their crime. That is the reason our troops head out and go kill and kill and kill and kill and kill. It is not allowed by the Western Imperialist Mafioso to say no to our corporations when they want your stuff. When you say no, we come over and prove how bad you need protection.

We're shitty people in the eyes of the world. At least that's how our government is seen. A lot of people who have borne the brunt of our criminal "foreign policy" understand that most Americans are completely clueless about it. They also understand that when bullies are in charge it doesn't matter what the people want. They understand what it's like having domineering, brutal, dishonest thugs and liars in power. That little bit of grace is what keeps those people in far away places able to welcome us when we travel abroad, instead of killing us the second we set foot on their soil. We are very lucky that people in other countries have a hell of a lot more common sense than we do.

Look again at the Vietnam war. Let's go over this briefly, without the propaganda. It's much quicker to cover that way, and much easier to see it clearly.

The largest, most heavily equipped, most modern, most expensive military on Earth (that would be us) had to protect itself from Vietnamese peasant people.

Vietnamese civilian peasant people who didn't have a pot to piss in. Who didn't own appliances. Who ate what they could pick, grow, or fish out of the local stream. Who owned oxen. Who weren't even armed. Who were minding their own business, in their own country, saying nothing to us, doing nothing to us. They had no plans to come here and get us. They don't even have any boats. How are they supposed to get here? Dog paddle?

Millions of dog paddling Vietnamese peasant farmers that you could see on satellite, swimming across the pacific ocean towards America in swarms; each one of them holding a knife in their teeth to use on us when they get here. Our generals would be pointing at the satellite photos spread out on a big table in an underground war room somewhere saying, "Dammit Jim I'm a general not a doctor! They're coming to kick our asses! Look! They all have knives in their teeth too! They're serious about doing us in. We must prepare to fight!"

And the Navy is picking it up on radar too, these huge slow-moving blips coming towards America at 1,000 yards a day and they're saying, "Holy Cow, what the hell are those things? Some kind of new dolphins?" "No son, them are COMMIES. And they're coming for our freedom and democracy. We're toast if we don't do something about it pronto. GOD I hate commies!"

That didn't happen. Nothing happened. Vietnam couldn't have hurt us if they wanted to.

So how did this government's propaganda machine manage to turn these simple peasant farmers into a threat so scary that the mightiest nation on Earth had to stop everything and go over there and stomp the crap out of those people? What could we possibly claim to have been so afraid of? We were lied over there, just like we were lied into the Middle East. Why don't we know better than to fall for such blatant garbage?

How is it that 300 million educated Americans swallowed whole lies that obvious?

This government used all of the identical slimy lies and emotionalist patriotic hypocritical political mouth spew back then on the American people as they are using now. It's identical. The same exact crap. The same lies. Only they had to go kill peasant strangers over seas not to protect this enormous country from terrorists, but to protect us from communism.

Now don't miss the fact that this was another war against an idea, not a thing. Not a monster, not a Godzilla, not a physical three dimensional thing. It's an idea. A huge bloody war to go kill an idea.

What business of ours is it what people 10,000 miles away are thinking about? How would we know what they're thinking about anyway? And why should we care? It has nothing to do with us.

Why do we feel so much fear and loathing over other people's thoughts that the only possible response is to go kill them all? Isn't that a tad unreasonable?

What about, oh, I don't know, having a chat? Maybe you could change their minds instead of blowing their minds into a million pieces. Nicer. Cheaper. Easier. Quicker. Smarter. Saner. It's all thumbs up from my perspective. But no. This government can't stand anyone anywhere having thoughts it does not like. To them that is worse than an armed rebellion at home. If that happens they can just shoot us in the streets, no problem. But if they don't know what we're thinking they get all hinky and paranoid and start tapping all the telephones and capturing all the emails and faxes and cell phone calls and medical records and library records and bank records and school records and work records and grocery store records and shopping records and then they use this massive secret software technology to recreate a virtual-mini-America where every last one of us is represented and reconstructed by this program using all that data they stole about us. Then they extrapolate who we are. Why? Because they want to know what we're thinking.

We're paying for all that too you know. They just don't like to talk about it much. I wonder why. It is such a joyous thing after all, who wouldn't be delighted to know our privacy has been demolished and we're all standing naked in front of Uncle Sam being scrutinized for any sign of potential unapproved thoughts or behaviors?

If that's how they feel about us here at home having mysterious unknown thoughts, just imagine how they feel when people 10,000 miles away are having mysterious unapproved thoughts. They have to stop it immediately.

If they didn't go kill a few million innocent people in Vietnam and poison their pristine natural environment so profoundly that children being born today are still being born with horrendous birth defects, if they didn't go make that sacrifice for us, then surely communism would have marched right over here and eaten us up like a big hungry wolf. Ahoooooh! Ruff!

Is there anything more retarded than that? I can't think of anything.

Was this a variation on the Little Red Riding Hood story? Is America a little innocent girl in the woods going to Grandmas house when the big bad Vietnamese peasant civilians jump out from behind a bush and gobble her up? Is that what we believe?

We should establish that probably, because I think it's pertinent. We really need to stop and find out exactly how fucking stupid we are. All who believe that we are Little Red Riding Hood and the whole world wants to eat us up raise your hand.

Okay. Those are the people who literally to this day still look under their beds at night before going to sleep to make sure Osama Bin Laden isn't under there waiting to get them.

If you are one of those people, you are a stupid person. I'm sorry, but it's true. Only a true pal would have the nerve to tell you the truth. Only if you know the truth can you fix what's broken. I'm only trying to help.

These people were exactly no threat to the United States. Vietnam is 9,665 miles away from us and they had problems of their own. Like trying to free themselves from France who was acting like they owned Vietnam.

A lot of Western countries have this strange form of Alzheimer's Disease. They see little countries all over the world and accidentally think they own them outright. Just because they say so. It's a form of brain damage perhaps, or just imperialism gone wild. Regardless of the reasons for this amazing stupidity, they don't own any of these little countries. At least according to the people who live in them.

What was Vietnam's sin? They told us it was communism but there is communism everywhere, this place least of all should have worried us. No, their sin was refusing to lie down like good little peasants and be slaves for France. That's why America needed to hurry up over there and start the mass slaughter of innocents. It is not all right to refuse to be owned and controlled by imperialist nations who want your stuff. You must comply. If you refuse you will be punished. To death.

That's why we went there. And that's why over 55,000 American boys got killed. To put defenseless people in their places, which is on their knees, to us. That's who we are folks. It's high time we all caught on to it. We have done this over 65 times to dozens of countries since WW2 ended. We just cannot get enough.

Now I know what you're saying, you think it's not possible that our government is a bunch of thugs and thieves who are part of a global crime society. But I know why it's hard for you to believe. You've simply never heard it before. The government never told you anything about that. But dear one you have to realize, that when bad people do bad things and you ask them, "Are you doing bad things?", they always say NO. You do get that don't you?

Now let's take a look at Iraq. We have almost entirely destroyed that little country, and we have credible reports that over a million innocent civilians have been killed in the name of freedom and democracy. Some two million have been displaced and are roaming homeless, desperate and having a damned hard time of it. Their country has been blown to smithereens so that they could be free. They didn't want to be that free. Not so free that they're floating around with no safe place to be, and no home, and no food and no clothing. That's a little too free.

Imagine what it would be like if the tables were turned and it was us who needed to be rid of a horrible dictator. (That's not too much of a stretch is it?) Now imagine that UN troops came pouring into our country one day and they surrounded Washington DC and burned down the White house and the congress and the senate and disbanded our military and told them all to go home. They let go all the police too and told them they weren't needed anymore. Then they sent in their neo-con financial guys who immediately located our Constitution and flushed it down the nearest black hole. Then they take control of all the money in the country by having all of the banks give it up to them, so now they have all of our money and all of the guns and we have no military, no police, no national guard. Got the picture?

Now the news reports say that these guys are swell heroes, and they are here to set us free, but wait, they already set us free when they burned down the capital. So, why are they still here? And why are they going to California and bombing the snot out of it? And why are they also doing that in Texas, and Virginia and New York and Iowa and a whole long list of other places? And why have they killed 18 million of us? They are calling us terrorists now. And when their mercenaries come plowing down our streets in big tanks with bazookas and smoke bombs and hand grenades and they are running over our grandmothers and uncles and school children as if they didn't exist, and we start getting unhappy about it, they bomb the holy snot out of Chicago and say it's crawling with terrorists.

Then to top it all off they say they don't count how many innocent civilians they kill because it just doesn't matter to them.

How long would it take you to get seriously tired of that situation? Do you think five years would about do it? How about 5 days? I'd think so. But wait, it gets better. They also want to write our new constitution, and they want to split our country apart into 101 different little countries who would never be able to defend themselves or fight back against any forces for the rest of known time. And as they continued to slowly bomb us into the stone age and we starved and lost our homes and families would we be thrilled and delighted to know they are just here to get rid of the bad guys? Or might we just want them to go home now?

A war on terror is a non-thing. It can't exist. You cannot fight a concept. It would be like calling a war against gutter balls at bowling alleys. We have to be specific about such things, and they have to exist, in real time and be happening so that we can look at it and say, "There goes one now, let's go get it!". But to just go from bowling alley to bowling alley and size up people in rental shoes and torture them to tell us where the people throwing all the gutter balls are hiding out, that's just nuts. That's criminal in and of itself. We don't need that.

People from far away places or from right here at home who are so angry and so distraught and so at the end of their rope that they feel the need to kill innocent people in an act of violence are people who have more than likely been screwed over. If we were responsible for doing that screwing over, isn't it the decent thing to do to sit down and talk with them about it and see what the problem is? Doesn't that make a lot more sense than just getting our whole army, navy, air force and marines shipped out with half a trillion dollars worth of things that explode, and just go kill anything that moves?

I just think dialogue goes a whole lot further toward understanding other people and closing in on the real potential of making amends, making friends and then living in peace.

But I don't make the rules in this country, and frankly neither do you. So who are these guys in charge of our nation and why are they such bloodthirsty vampires that want to make war on something that doesn't even exist? The simplest answer usually covers it: they like it.

DEMOCRACY NOT! The Crisis of Global Media Propaganda

On March 21, 2007 Democracy Now's Amy Goodman gave the following short report at the start of this trusted, alternative news hour. At first listen it would easily slip into your brain unhindered and get swallowed whole without a single thought. But in this true crisis of truth in media, as painful as it is to face, we have to swallow the bitter pill of reality. Even our trusted non-corporate media is not always what it appears to be.

It's left gatekeeping. A controlled opposition. A way to keep the other side from ever achieving any significant success, and to keep them from hindering those in control in any meaningful way. And in this case it's been used for blatant shilling to push a government agenda, pushed sweetly down your throat without a struggle because of who is pushing it.

Here's the little report Amy gave today.

"Former Vice President Al Gore is heading to Capitol Hill today to testify before a pair of house and senate committees about global warming. Meanwhile, grass roots groups around the country are taking up the issue of global warming. Hundreds of environmentalists rallied in front of the capital Tuesday for the first ever climate crisis action day. In Massachusetts activists are walking across the state this week to raise awareness about global warming. In New Hampshire over 134 cities and towns have passed resolutions asking the federal government to address climate change and to develop research initiatives to create innovative energy technologies. And planning is underway for the first national day of climate action on April 14th. 950 events and rallies are already scheduled. Organizers are predicting that April 14th will be the country's largest grass roots environmental protest since Earth Day 1970."

Like wow, right? It sounds like this global warming thing is for real! Go environment! Happy happy, joy joy. Except... on just a little teeny closer bit of examination it doesn't hold up. Come with me while I pick it apart and see what you think for yourself.

Sentence One: This is the kicker, and the reason for the whole rest of the story.
"Former Vice President Al Gore is heading to capitol hill today to testify before a pair of house and senate committees about global warming."

You don't say. Why? Is he testifying under oath? Has he been called to give this testimony? Who's idea was this? Which committees will he be addressing? What are they trying to determine? Just what exactly is this about? Who is trying to achieve what?

What? No details? Oh shoot. Shucky darns. What's next?

"Meanwhile, grass roots groups around the country are taking up the issue of global warming."

Yeah? Nifty noodles. Which grass roots groups? Who are they? How do you know about them? Did they all contact you last night from all over the country to give you that one sentence update? "Yeah Amy, we're taking up the issue of global warming. Okay? Just wanted to let you know! 'K, bye." Where are they? How many are there? What is it they're doing in their "taking up" of these issues?

What? No details? I guess there's no info, we're just supposed to believe it because Amy said so. Well that's a good enough reason, right? Next...

"Hundreds of environmentalists rallied in front of the capital Tuesday for the first ever climate crisis action day."

Ooh, HUNDREDS of environmentalists! Hundreds! Environmentalists people! Not just your average Joe! They have titles, they are Environmentalists. What is an environmentalist anyway? What do they do exactly? How did they all manage to get together on a Tuesday, in the middle of the week, not on the weekend when real grass roots activists do their thing? Well obviously they are a higher class of grass roots, they're not just activists or protesters, they're "Environmentalists", there to promote "Climate Crisis Action Day", whatever that is. Not a very grass roots sounding name is it? I'm surprised it's not "Operation Climate Crisis Action Day." It's just kind of that obvious isn't it.

But that's not all!

"In Massachusetts activists are walking across the state this week to raise awareness about global warming."

They are? What activists? How many? Where exactly are they? Where are they starting, where are they ending, which direction are they heading in, generally? Is this a daily thing for the whole week? Can they make it across the whole state in a single week? What else are they doing besides walking? Who's involved? Who's paying for it? How do you know about this? Who contacted you with this "information"?

What?? No details? Again??? Geez this is getting ridiculous.

But there's more. Maybe the details are being saved for later, huh?

"In New Hampshire over 134 cities and towns have passed resolutions asking the federal government to address climate change and to develop research initiatives to create innovative energy technologies."

Jeepers, that's like, three states isn't it? Wow, like, is everybody involved with this but ME? I feel so stupid! 134 separate cities and towns, all of them, simultaneously, of their own accord, and no cheating either, they all came up with RESOLUTIONS. Yes they did! Isn't that something? And they all got down on their knees and respectfully asked, requested, very politely, that the federal government PLEASE OH PLEASE PLEASE! address the climate change, pretty please you government guys. And most of all, please please PLEASE tax us so that you can do some very important RESEARCH into "creative innovative energy technologies", and darn it, that's just the way we grass roots types talk. We do too! We always sound like corporate shills! Really!

I wonder why none of them mentioned how the DOD always snags all of the new alternative energy patents as soon as they're filed and slaps a gag order on the inventors and then throws the brilliant new alternative energy ideas into a deep dark dungeon so that Exxon and those people can retain their global wealth sucking monopoly on the world's energy needs? Because I just think stopping that crap would have to help. And it would cut down a lot on "research" funding too. But that's just me.

Last but not least by a long shot:

"And planning is underway for the first National Day of Climate Action on April 14th. 950 events and rallies are already scheduled. Organizers are predicting that April 14th will be the country's largest grass roots environmental protest since Earth Day 1970."

Wowee! That's HUGE! Well gee whiz, April 14th? The day before tax day? That's only three weeks from now isn't it? Kind of short notice don't you think? That's cutting it awful close for the kind of word-of-mouth information sharing that us grass roots types are stuck with. We usually don't get any big media attention when we need to rally the whole country to join us. It takes at least six months advance notice to be able to reach enough people to have just one decent turn out. I guess the "organizers" know what they're doing.

Just who are those amazing organizers anyway, who can schedule and coordinate 950 nationwide grass roots events and rallies, just like that! That's a LOT of work! How many people do they have working on this? We've never seen coordination like this for anti war protests or impeach bush demonstrations, and those are pretty darned critical things to millions of people. We could really use this kind of last minute kung fu coordination!

Imagine knowing such amazing grass rooters who can whip out a thousand damned nationwide events overnight on five cents and a shoe string! Do you think these whiz kids could whip up a National Anti Iraq War day? Or a National Justice Day? Or a National Fair Wages Day? I've got a whole list of "Days" we could really salivate over!!! How on earth did they manage it? Who ARE these people and why aren't they making themselves available to us for other incredibly urgent citizens movements?

Who' s doing this action day thing? Who's idea is it? What's the point of it? Who's paying for all of this? Who is calling Amy Goodman with no details whatsoever about it and getting her to relay this faceless, nameless, unsubstantiated "news"?

Who knows? There are no details, all right? You don't need no stinking details anyway, okay? Just believe it and shut up or else. YOU don't need to know who the organizers and planners are. YOU don't need to know who footed the bill for all of this stuff. YOU don't need to know who or where or how anybody or anything in this story came about. It's a god damned secret all right?!

Isn't all of this literally unsubstantiated "news" nothing more than blatant propaganda? A steaming pile of reeking bull doody? Is it really too much to ask to get some names and dates and organizational titles? Can we get some definitive data to check into these things? We got NO information at all about any of this stuff. Not a fricken detail about a single fricken thing. We can't check into any of it! The ONLY detail we got is the name of our dear, trusted, new friend, the "one of us" good guy, Al Gore. That's all we got.

All of this citizen activity would sure lend a lot of credence to Gore's congressional visit wouldn't it? It needs some credence after all. Why would congress need Gore to testify on environmental issues? He's not a scientist. What kind of input could he give that is critically necessary to congress?

Anyone listening to this little report would get the definite impression that people are everywhere all motivated and crying out for this "climate action" thing, which I've never even heard of until now. We'd think hundreds, even thousands of people are walking across their states, passing resolutions left and right, begging the government to get on board and to please tax us for more research dollars; and if you're not involved then you're just missing out on all of the for real and for true, honest, grass roots activism going on in this real and true, 100% honest "It's all your fault" global warming game. What's wrong with you?! It's the latest thing. Get on board! Hurry up! Believe it all! Believe every bit of it! It's just for sure true! Would we lie to you????

Um...yep.

At least when Amy forces herself to read this cointelpro tripe to her public she does it without a hint of support or enthusiasm. She probably doesn't like having to do it. She always gets this little smirk on her face, especially when it's pro bush lies. But the bottom line is, she DOES do it.

How much more of this kind of thing have we all swallowed without a clue? In this day and age it's just no longer possible to believe anything we hear on TV and we need to never forget that. Take it with a grain of salt, check the facts yourself and if nothing else, train yourself to notice obvious things like no details AT ALL. Because smart IS good.

Think or be eaten.