Please Save Me From Clean Water & Italian Welders

Once you’ve been able to discard your indoctrinated statist view of the world, it becomes easy to spot statist bias generated by the corporate news media. Just reading a few stories, and sometimes just by scanning headlines, you can readily spot this bias. By statist bias I am referring to the attitude that the state is the great protector of the individual and any private enterprise or free market activity that looks to serve the individual should be viewed with suspicion and even fear.

One such story is this one. The reporter seems amazed that bottled water comes from municipal water supplies (unless otherwise stated on the label). Only a clueless idiot would assume that the water comes from some magic, pure water source. If it did, surely the manufacturer would not hesitate to publicize that fact on the label. The reporter is attempting to create a news story where none exists.

The reporter does admit the value added to the water by bottlers through further filtration and processing. This is a fact any intelligent bottle water purchaser already knows, or maybe does not even care about knowing. But the reporter, of course, believe the masses are ignorant and must be shown what is best for them- for surely they are otherwise incapable of such decisions.

Notice how the reporter attempts to reinforce the myth that municipal water supplies are already acceptable drinking water:

“Dallas water officials point out that city water goes through filtration, chlorination and purification in several stages, too, and is certified safe by both the federal government and the State of Texas.”

Water containing chlorine is certainly not acceptable for drinking water. It is bad for the body and tastes horrible. State provided water also contains a degree of pollutants- enough for millions to judge as unacceptable for drinking water. IQ-reducing fluoride is certainly one significant pollutant. The fact that the water is “certified” by government gangsters is meant as reassurance. But since when is state certification of anything been reassuring or factually accurate?

Instead of celebrating the water bottling companies as true heroes of the marketplace (by providing clean, thoroughly filtered, good tasting drinking water) the reporter attempts to demonize them, peg them with some kind of hidden agenda, while promoting the state’s horrible, unacceptable drinking water.

Another example of statist bias is this story, ironically written by the same reporter and state apologist. It seems that the company contracted to build a new signature bridge in Dallas is using Italian welders. Gasp! Horrors! The implication is, of course, that not just true Amurricans must be hired (in this case, welders) to help build this bridge, but more specifically, Texans must be hired. Why, it just would not be fair otherwise!

Forget the fact that the company contracted to build this bridge certainly knows who should be hired to best do the job. Notice how the reporter is once again creating a story where none exists. He is stirring up sentiments of bigotry and xenophobia to promote the statist, protectionist meme that local workers should be hired to do all local work.

What exactly is a “Texas” welder? How long must a welder reside in Texas to be considered a “Texas” welder- a week, a month, a year? So, a week is long enough? What if one of the Italian welders has already been here two weeks? Is he now more a “Texas” welder than the One Week Texan? Do you see how silly this all is? The reporter is doing nothing more than using names and labels as a screen to cover up blatant bigotry and xenophobia- two attitudes that strengthen state control of industry and individuals.

By recognizing and exposing the media’s statist attitudes and perspectives you learn to quickly judge which information is important and which is just useless drivel. The result is a better informed individual, better armed to defend himself against propaganda, misinformation, and counterproductive prejudices.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“The fall of communism and subsequent neoliberal revolution amounted, in practice, to the collapse of a wall encircling the Soviet bloc, and its replacement by a set of corporate walls surrounding the entire planet.”
Kevin Carson

“The US has violently invaded and taken over a country to which “we” are unwanted, and no wonder. People do not want to be ruled by armed troopers alien in religion, language, history, and ethnicity.”
Lew Rockwell

“The economic incentives provided by private competitive markets where people are left free to make their own choices make bountiful feasts possible."
Benjamin Powell

"‘Finishing the job’ and ‘staying the course’ - they mean the same thing - you can take that to the bank."
Steve Watson

“The military always advertises that it wants the best and the brightest, but the first thing they do is try to break you down and then reprogram you. They want to reprogram you into a person that will follow orders without question; something tantamount to a frontal lobotomy that leaves subjects unable to think for themselves. Well then why do they need the best and the brightest if they are not meant to think for themselves? Given the chaos of battle, to strive to have a force that is not expected to think for themselves is not only ridiculous but dangerous as well yet the military, under the guise of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), regularly prosecutes soldiers who had the courage, intellect and wisdom to do what needed to be done in the field to preserve lives even though they weren’t told to do it. That’s called ‘disobeying a direct order’ from some arrogant, bonehead hundreds or thousands of miles away.”
Don Cooper

“Belief in minarchism is nothing more than belief in the containable and non-threatening nature of a tiger cub.”
B.R. Merrick

“No person can ever legitimately claim the name "libertarian" without first curing oneself of the obsessive-compulsive disease of power lust, commonly known as ‘initiation of force.’ ”
Garry Reed

“It is a special danger to liberty and society when national powers are developed. These are powers in which the national leadership directly controls or influences individual citizens, while bypassing or circumventing other local sources of governance and influence such as parents, families, churches, schools, and local governments.”
Michael Rozeff

“If there’s a God, and if that God is the one the Bible talks about, I rather suspect that He’s still an anarchist and waiting for His people to puzzle out the lesson He tried to teach them so many years ago.”
Thomas L. Knapp

“This peculiar institution known as "the State" is, despite its fervent and often eloquent press releases, overrated, overpriced, and hugely misused. It is overrated in that its necessity, which has been trumpeted by almost all writers on the subject and most especially by the State itself, succumbs to analysis with very little remaining.… The State is misused in that it continually arrogates to itself the right to rule over our very lives as well as our fortunes and our liberties and has all too often (indeed, nearly always, in historical retrospect) ruled to the extent of murdering, torturing, and incarcerating or exiling, as well as robbing.”
Jan Narveson

“The data, real data, over the last one thousand, ten thousand or million years, shows there is no relationship between carbon dioxide and world temperatures or climate extremes. Now we can see that actually the people in charge of data have been fiddling it, and they have been hiding the real decline in world temperatures in an attempt to keep their so called moral high ground.”
UK astrophysicist Piers Corbyn

"Here is my slogan for political reform: Replacement, not capture; then de-funding."
Gary North

“The State cannot even exist without exempting itself from moral laws against violence, theft and murder. Every rule it makes is backed by violence against those who refuse to obey. Every action it takes is made possible only by theft as, unlike the father of a family, it produces nothing.”
Paul Green

****************************************

From the Darkness:

"Supporting the care and development of children is a responsibility the military readily assumes in exchange for the loyalty of their parents in uniform."

Maj. Gen. John G. Meyer, Jr., former Commanding General of the U.S. Army's Community and Family Support Center

"It is in our strategic interests, in our national security interest to make sure that al-Qaida and its extremist allies cannot operate effectively... We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks... It is my intention to finish the job."
B.Obama, commenting on his unending Afghanistan war.

“There’s a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether… but we’ll take that slowly.”
Rupert Murdoch, complaining about Google linking his News Corp’s publications

"When times were darkest, President Lincoln understood that our American blessings shined brighter than ever."
B. Obama, passing on the nonsensical Thanksgiving “tradition.”

“Those who deny climate change science are irritating, but unimportant. The argument is not about if we should deal with climate change, but how we should deal with climate change.”
From “Rules of the Game" - Recommendations to the Climate Change Communications Working Group

"There is only one person in our party with the experience, political courage and unwavering commitment to the values that made our party strong – and that person is Dick Cheney."
Christopher Barron, principal organizer of the Draft Cheney for Presisdent movement.

Image Review of the Week

Impenetrable barrier? Or a minor obstruction to transformation?

20th Century death count, .....

.....a never ending tabulation:

"Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze."

Aime Cesaire

A hopeful sign. Death can even be offensive to professional killers:

The glamour and glitz of the Imperial Presidency:

You must stay constantly stay aware of the gun in the room:

Confused about the message:

"Privacy is not something that I'm merely entitled to, it's an absolute prerequisite."

Marlon Brando

The healing hands continue to stay busy:

Foot soldier- One who performs necessary but basic, often mundane tasks:

The Washington stock exchange- sacrificed livestock......

......traded for pretty rags:

Fuel up for another day of killin’......

......and nationalist rabble rousing:

When people are viewed as animals, ......

......don’t be surprised......

......if they act like animals:

The addiction of the masses- Frenzied consumerism......

......and insipid entertainment:



Street wisdom:



Take notice- A 2012 contender?

It’s Another Obama Miracle!

Imagine that- snow in Afghanistan….. in the winter! Only by a miracle could such an event occur!

One reason I no longer enjoy the “holiday” season is the further politicization and abuse of the meaning of this period of the year. Walmart has joined the holiday chorus of thanking US troops, without whom we, apparently, would have nothing to eat or be thankful for. After all, they “give us” our freedom.

The holiday season has morphed into an obligatory ritual of thanking and remembering those who defend and kill for The Empire. The wisdom and love of the Prince of Peace? Why, that’s just a mindless distraction for goofy peaceniks.

Excuse me while go I throw up.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“Wonderful, is it not, the state is empowered with the unique ability to investigate its own lies and the power of the media and academia to demonize any who would question its veracity, and the support of Boobus, whose livelihood depends on the state’s power to redistribute the wealth of the nation from producers to parasites.”
Michael Gaddy
　
“The foremost or indeed the sole condition required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced, as it were, to a single principle.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

“We'll never see confession and penance from chickenhawks, because they have no guilt. And it's a lot easier to admit guilt than shame. And chickenhawks' shame and cowardice is something they will not, cannot, admit. So they project it onto others.”
Bob Wallace

“Religion has no business being the basis of any rule that is applied to those who do not follow that particular religion. What is "moral" to one religion is "an abomination" to another. Stick with the few rules that predate and transcend religion: Don't initiate or accept force, and don't initiate deceit.”
Kent MacManigal

“Government is overhead. Government doesn't generate a profit or produce any marketable goods or services to willing consumers. It simply redistributes other people's money – or other people's jobs - and ensures the cream is scraped into its own pocket in the process.”
Garry Reed

“What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can’t all be worth dying for.”
Joseph Heller

“Who lines their pockets, and what are their goals? That is what we always want to know for actual political science, let alone Fed analysis.”
Lew Rockwell

"Stay out of the way as government dies and be prepared to fight any new Rulers who arise to "fill the void". Make sure there is not ever a "power vacuum" by keeping power where it belongs: in the hands of the individuals."
Kent MacManigal

"The world is expensive enough just to conquer, let alone subsidize. Pax Americana was never a sustainable system, we run the Jim Morrison of empires, and not a thought is ever wasted for any consequences past the immediate."

C. J. Maloney
　
“I, on the other hand, don’t really give a f*ck.”
Don Emmerich, commenting on the useless hubbub over Sarah Palin’s Newsweek photo.

*************************************

From the Darkness:

“Under the proposal, the U.S. Department of Transportation would do for transit what it does for airlines and Amtrak: set and enforce federal regulations to ensure that millions of passengers get to their destinations safely.”
Washington Post, about the coming nationalization of subways and intrastate light rail systems

“In a globalized world there is no domestic solution.”
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Head of the IMF.

"It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession."
B. Obama [Then why did you help create such a debt?!]

"We have now reached a point where humanity is approaching the brink of disaster."
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, the U.N. Population Fund's executive director

"With conspiracy talk-show host Alex Jones leading the way, one of the most disturbing trends in 2009 has been the resurrection and proliferation of some of the same anti-government conspiracy theories that so riled up domestic extremists in the 1990s.”
From a recent report from The Anti-Defamation League

“Well, I think domestically a threat that we’re facing right now is the dithering and hesitation in sending a message to the terrorists that we’re going to claim what Ronald Reagan claimed. Our motto is going to be: “We win, you lose.” The way that we do that is allow McChrystal to have the reinforcements that he’s asking for in Afghanistan. That sends that message to the terrorists over there that we’re going to end this thing with our victory. We need to start facing Iran with tougher and tougher sanctions that need to be considered.”
Sara Palin, the so-called “Rogue.”

“2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.”
Herman Van Rompuy, EU President.

“The decision to try the 9/11 defendants in a civilian court opens up the likelihood that the defendant's right to what is called "discovery" will require providing the defense team with intelligence that will surely make its way back to terrorist allies. These trials should be held in military courts where no such rights exist. Their crimes were acts of war (didn't we go to war as a result?), not the acts of ordinary criminals.”
John F. McManus, president of The John Birch Society

“Well, all the money is fungible, but I think that would be a stated purpose of adding some additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000. They have done incredibly well and I think that it’s important that we pay for it if we possibly can.”
Carl Levin, contemplating how to pay for the USG’s never ending wars.

"This is something we have to do. We're required to maintain order and keep the peace."
Ozark, AK Police Chief Jim Noggle, defending the use of a taser against a 10 year old girl.

Image Review of the Week

A lowly house servant who is also a President:




X marks the spot for secession:

Terrorists are everywhere:

Useless pomp and ceremony is soooooo tiring:

Militarists are nothing if not fashion conscious:

Conflicting or complimentary messages?

Silent protest through looks of disgust:

Killers For Jeezus just can’t be thanked enough:

Pain is the name of the game:

Is there anything spookier than a military memorial.....

.....where a precious, individual soul is remembered as nothing more than feet that marched, a head that followed orders and a weapon that killed on command?

Dee-Fence:

The size of his lies keeps growing:

“Rogue,".......or Retard? Sage,.......or Sell Out?

What to make of the world? Something to fear or something to embrace?

Statist Art

I noticed this picture hanging on the wall of a local secondary child indoctrination center. At the bottom of the drawing it reads:

“THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE CONTROLS THE NATION”

Goebbels and Goering couldn’t have said it better. What’s ironic is at the moment I was viewing this picture, the indoctrination center was in lockdown while drug sniffing canines cruised the hallways looking for contraband.

So, is it a cradle…….or a prison?

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“Nothing is so dangerous as an army in the midst of an unwarlike nation; the excessive love of the whole community for quiet continually puts the constitution at the mercy of the soldiery.
It may therefore be asserted, generally speaking, that if democratic nations are naturally prone to peace from their interests and their propensities, they are constantly drawn to war and revolutions by their armies. Military revolutions, which are scarcely ever to be apprehended in aristocracies, are always to be dreaded among democratic nations.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

“Civil government is the mortal enemy of humanity and civilization. It cannot be otherwise. The very institution of civil government violates the very principles that civil government is instituted to protect. It is a contradiction and an affront to mankind.”
John Sampson

“The only way to effectively bring about a revolution for the betterment of mankind is to reach the individual. The message is simple: You are freedom. You are peace. You are love. You are truth. You mustn’t wait for anyone else. You mustn’t be afraid. You mustn’t worry that mass murderers are continually lauded as bringers of peace. It will continue.”
B. R. Merrick

“There is effectively no difference in principle between the actions of the Nazis, or communists, or the American government. It’s hardly even a matter of degree anymore; the gap is closing. All governments everywhere and throughout history are essentially the same. Thousands of years of experience have proven they can never be 'reformed.' Their basic nature denies any possibility of such outright. They can only be abolished altogether. The survival and the advance of free humanity depends upon it.”
Alex R. Knight III

“What could be more wrongful, more immoral than that — the intentional killing of human beings in order to achieve a political-welfare goal?”
Jacob Hornberger

“Decision-making by those who risk their own property not only localizes the impact of wrong choices, but allows people everywhere the freedom to copy those who succeed.”
Butler Shaffer

“Money should never be forced on someone. No one should dictate what you 'should' use as your money, nor should they limit you to one type of money. Let the market choose the money that people trust and want. Even if that means some would choose to accept printed paper IOUs backed but nothing but a promise from a group of thieves that the money is 'good', that is their choice. In this case, ‘seller beware!’”
Kent McManigal

“Chaos is but unperceived order; it is a word indicating the limitations of the human mind and the paucity of observational facts. The words ‘chaos,’ ‘accidental,’ ‘chance,’ ‘unpredictable,’ are conveniences behind which we hide our ignorance.”
Harlow Shapley

"The existing nuclear threat isn’t the threat of 'private nukes.' It’s the threat of stolen 'public nukes.'"
Thomas L. Knapp

"There is no way a psychiatrist [Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan] - basically an intellectual desk jockey - shot off hundreds of rounds with two pistols and hit about 40 people without being subdued by someone [at Ft Hood]. Come on! He wasn't a trained assassin or a special ops commando shooting up a mall. He would have had to reload and that means putting one of the pistols down and reloading the other with seasoned combat vets in that deployment center. It only takes seconds to reload, but it only takes a second to subdue him."
Anonymous retired army Capt. who served 7 years in the 173rd Airborne

“We are a society of people who have gone down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter and March Hare and believe that somehow contrary to basic mathematical laws like one plus one equals two the economy can be improved by taking money from one person and giving it to another or by dropping it from a helicopter. Given their drunken social state, it makes perfect sense to them.”
Don Cooper

“New American nations, formed from the seceding United States, would be little pinpoints of light and liberty. If their only guiding principle was to not make the same mistakes that the US government made over the last 150 years, they would be destined for success.”
Russell D. Longcore

“Totalitarianism is therefore not specifically a system of government, but a way of organizing society by means of a powerful, centralized modern state. It requires a mass media, education, and political culture in which the state—that is to say a class of bureaucrats and officials governing a large geographic area—takes over every aspect of civil society. “
Michael Kleen

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
Charles Mackay

“The military is the state's apparatus of murder and property destruction. The welfare state is an instrument of social demolition. They really are complimentary sides of the same debased coin.”
Will Grigg

*************************************

From the Darkness:

"The most important thing, when attempting to overcome barriers, is: Are the nation states ready and willing to give competencies over to multilateral organizations, no matter what it costs?
This world will not be a peaceful one if we do not work for more global order and more multilateral cooperation.”
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel

"It's not that we're celebrating Obama. We're celebrating America living up to it's creed that all men are created equal”
Albert Turner Jr, Perry County, AL commissioner, commenting on proclaiming Monday, November 9 as an official holiday celebrating the election of the nation's first black president. [......well, half-black, anyway.]

“There are tens of thousands of [Nidal Malik] Hasans all over the Western world -- from Brussels to Berlin and from Burgos, Spain, to Birmingham, U.K. For them, Sept. 11, 2001, was a conspiracy cooked up by the CIA and Mossad, Israel's external intelligence service.”
Arnaud De Borchgrave

"Only a president can offer the condolences of a nation. In a moment of crisis and sorrow and anger, only a president can soothe raw emotions, allay fears, elevate a senseless act into a call to action, and offer the assurance that — as his aides put it Monday — no stone will be left unturned.
This is by far the biggest test of Obama's ability to fulfill the role of consoler in chief."
Todd J. Gillman, Dallas Morning News

“Their life's work is our security, and the freedom that we all too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- that is their legacy.”
B. Obama, “honoring” those murdered at Ft Hood.

“The Army is a growth industry.”
Col. Stephen Carney, head of ROTC at Norwich University, Northfield, CT.

"Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that, uh, we see devastation on a daily basis. You don't blame a group."
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley

"The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money."
Anonymous American executive, explaining how trucks supplying US troops in Afghanistan are protected.

"Our national security in the year 2030 is absolutely dependent upon what is going on in pre-kindergarten today."
Rear Admiral James Barnett, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Image Review of the Week

Smiling tyrants = less freedom on the horizon:

Let music fill the fields.....

.....instead of marching armies:

Why not pass on the parade…… and pass on some wisdom?

Carbon capture goes extreme:

Twenty years after one wall came down.....

.....there are more walls than ever:

Leviathan’s favorite cannon fodder:



Obamatrons applaud their health care victory:




Too bad they couldn’t have their weapons when they were alive:




Crocodile tears for the dead meat.....

…..while looking for more recruits to fill the graves:

Bad influences. Don’t let your kids hang out with the wrong crowd.....

.....or rotten babysitters:

Nothing novel on the news front- just historical reruns, .....

.....annoying tyrants, .....

.....and timeless pleas for common sense:

The jackboots haul away our last hope:

Blinded and clueless.....

.....while repeating war chants and mantras:

Militarists are ga-ga over O-ba-ma:

Who next will be consumed by the fiery beast of war?

Listen to your rulers- they know best:

Passing on the meme- Killing and war is just fun and games: