The Price is Right

Long time Dallas County shakedown artist, street gangster, and racial bigot, John Wiley Price has found swarms of FBI jackboots searching his home, office and coworkers this week.

One point of interest (among many) to the federal jackboots seems to be the large number of automobiles the commissioner has at his home. Many of these automobiles, as it turns out, were previously owned by Dallas County inmates, i.e., prisoners of the Dallas County regime who were kidnapped and stripped of their property.

According to the report, “In situations like these, there is a little-known state law that lets county clerical workers to hold secret hearings to establish clear title and rule as they see fit.” In other words, tax parasites get together over lunch and decide who gets to steal what automobile. Easy pickins’ and the price is certainly right!

The state is a criminal syndicate that exists to benefit its members and those loyal partners in crime who choose to associate with it. This is the reason for its creation. This is the motivation for its continued existence. And this is what sparks its growth and expansion. This is true no matter what level of rule (city, county, state, federal), no matter what geographical location, and no matter what culture. This fact is as universal as gravity.

To Petition is to Beg

I’m often invited to assist activists in political action deemed necessary to change an injustice. One such request is this petition offered by Veterans for Peace demanding the impeachment of Emperor Obama. VFP is a fine organization whose mission, according to their website, is “to raise public awareness of the true costs and consequences of militarism and war - and to seek peaceful, effective alternatives.” I certainly can’t argue with that. My only point of contention, in this particular case, is their method of action.

I see political action as a complete waste of time and even detrimental to the success of my objective. Participating in the political scam means confirming that this process is legitimate and gives my consent to be ruled by others. I’m sorry, I refuse to do that. “Petitioning” means asking these self-proclaimed rulers to return what is already mine- my individual sovereignty and innate liberties. “Petitioning” is imploring a ruler to quit behaving in a manner which is immoral or unethical for any civilized individual. “Petitioning” is nothing more than a slave begging a favor from his master.

Do you really think that a government that refuses to quit sexually molesting us at airports is going to give a damn that some peaceniks want to stop their wars? Do you really believe they will take seriously a demand that their benevolent Emperor be removed from his throne?

Political action will never stop the obscenity of war. The game is rigged. Politics, itself, is merely an extension of war (ballots backed by bullets) where the will of the majority mob is enforced by violence. The only effective form of resistance to tyranny is DISOBEDIENCE and NOT GIVING CONSENT!

No! I will NOT fight your fucking wars!

No! You will NOT take my children to fight your fucking wars!

No! You will NOT take my money to pay for your fucking wars!

Yes! I will use every last breath in my body, if necessary, to convince others that this attitude is the only righteous path one can take!

Yes, impeachment of a US warlord is possible, though highly improbable. But by the time this is accomplished, thousands more have died and the demonic apparatus (the state) and its battle ready standing armies of empire remain armed and ready around the world for the next tyrant to command and control. Nothing, repeat, NOTHING, will change!

Note: When discussing war, the ultimate obscenity, it is sometimes necessary to match that obscenity with a coarseness of your own. The reader or listener must have absolutely no doubt as to your passion, steadfastness and resilience to rejecting war, resisting its initiation and expansion, and exposing the morally bankrupt argument of its proponents. Sometimes this requires a salty tongue and an in-your-face attitude. Otherwise, the message seems to get lost under a haze of warmed over, water-downed, sugary platitudes.

911 Redefined

Emperor Obama, in skirting the restraints of the War Powers Resolution, sent a 38 page report to Congressional jackals defending his war of aggression against Libya. According to the NY Times, “the report asserted that ‘U.S. operations do not involve sustained fighting or active exchanges of fire with hostile forces, nor do they involve U.S. ground troops.’”

In other words, Obama does not consider the actions of bombing and killing by his armies (at least, for now, armies of the air) and fellow NATO hooligans as acts of war. If this new definition of war is accepted, can it not also be used to justify and excuse other similar actions?

The 911 attacks on the World Trade Center are constantly referred to by the US Government and its compliant media as an “act of war” and used as justification for the invasion, occupying, and even colonization of numerous Middle Eastern and African countries. But these “attacks” involved absolutely no “sustained fighting.” The attackers were immediately consumed in the fireballs they created. There was no one left to fight. Nor did these attacks involve “active exchange of fire with hostile forces.” You may remember that the entire US military was on stand down at the time of the attack and never lifted a finger in attempt to thwart the attacks. Not a single projectile was fired from a USG owned weapon, let alone any fire “exchanged.” And their certainly were no “ground troops” involved in the disaster.

So will 9/11 now be referred to as a “kinetic military action performed by terrorists?”

If bombing a country is not an act of war than miraculously flying jets into buildings and making them defy the laws of physics by collapsing into their own footprint cannot be identified as such an act, as well.

So if Obama or his cult following are to remain consistent in their Orwellian definition of war, they must reclassify the events that occurred on 9/11/01.

I’ll be patiently waiting for the change.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
"I can’t think of a single dynasty that was put in place due to the acts of a heroic liberator. As soon as a supposed liberator sets himself up as the new king, he then ceases to be a liberator. And if he’s the very rare 'real McCoy,' a real liberator who walks away from power, then there’s no dynasty: his line does not become 'royal blood.' These things are, if not mutually exclusive, then at least in oppositional tension. For every Cincinnatus, there are a dozen Tamerlanes."
Doug Casey

"This is the nature of the system. Police are armed to the teeth... and while their official marketing slogan may be to 'keep people safe', their real function is to be the protectors and enforcers for the political class, all while keeping the people in check so that they know who's boss."
Simon Black

"When an organization has become an end-in-itself (i.e., an institution) liberty becomes a form of entropy to be repressed. This is why no tyrannical regime has ever tolerated the liberty of individuals to speak and act as they choose. Individual liberty – facilitated by the openness of the Internet and other technologies – is what the owners most fear, because it vitalizes human energies to pursue an ever-changing multiplicity of ends. Younger generations can distinguish the cornucopia of options available on the Internet from the suffocating atmosphere of the institutional order and, in so doing, are attracted to less-structured social systems that weaken state power."
Butler Shaffer

"The state itself is and always will be the problem, and so long as it has a military arm, it will be influenced by some private interests or others toward opportunistic warring, and at a minimum manipulated by politicians, even the most supposedly humanitarian and egalitarian of whom have a murderous and diabolical record in deploying its forces and dropping its bombs. Even large business interests can come and go, but the political apparatus itself, the most inherently corrupting of all institutions given its unavoidably coercive and monopolistic nature, will continue to inflict misery and loot the disadvantaged on behalf of the powerful."
Anthony Gregory

"My opinion is that a person cannot voluntarily agree to work in a criminal enterprise without becoming a criminal. (Ron Paul, call your office.) And while we all love a story of a bad boy turned good…or of a missionary to the heathen…we cannot expect government shills to voluntarily bite the hand that feeds them and promote a philosophically opposite concept."
Russell D. Longcore

“So instead of looking on the ‘nationality’ of the state as it really is — as something opposite true community — we have been trained to identify with our captors. Where language and culture have evolved freely and spontaneously without central, hierarchical direction, the state is an inorganic power structure manufactured by the ruling class out of a desire to loot and exploit.”
David S. D'Amato

“One of the major problems of voting as I see it is that those who vote for this, that, or the other, are setting policy that affects all those who voted differently, and all those who did not vote at all. This is democracy or mob rule, the first step toward a socialistic and collectivist system. The reason this is so is due to the fact that we live in a forcibly run dependent society where one can vote to benefit at the expense of another. This truth is overlooked by the ‘I Voted’ crowd, but nonetheless is the lynchpin of redistributive politics.
No one who had any belief in freedom could ever have come up with the idea of voting. Voting by definition and design eliminates the individual in society for benefit of the collective. Individualism epitomizes freedom, while collectivism epitomizes slavery. Voting then is simply mob rule, the bane of freedom, and the fodder necessary for a society based on servitude!”
Gary D. Barnett

“Today’s cops understand that much of what they do doesn’t bear watching – not by the public, that is. They do have something to hide. They know that the more we see of them in action, the more appalled we will be – and the more aware we’ll be of the ugly times in which we live.”
Eric Peters

“The essential human condition is realize progress or collapse. Advance in science, technology and industry or you will soon cease to exist.”
Dr. Webster Tarpley

“If politics is the pursuit of justice, can any position be accurately characterized as ‘extremist?’ Can there ever be too much justice?”
Tom Mullen

“In America today, and increasingly throughout the Western world, actual facts and true explanations have been relegated to the realm of kookiness. Only people who believe lies are socially approved and accepted as patriotic citizens.
A country whose population has been trained to accept the government’s word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.”
Paul Craig Roberts

“The Constitution is an immoral document, and, to paraphrase Lysander Spooner, it is unfit to exist. If it is to exist, a Government should never be based on it. It is a maker of tyrants, and a maker of slaves. If it is to exist, it should be held up for all generations to come as what not to do when deciding on government. It should be left in its pretty guarded glass case only as a reminder that it is wrong to enslave our neighbors, even if we use nice phrases and words like We the People, liberty, and security. The Constitution cannot change what is right and wrong.”
Bill Buppert

“….There is no difference, in principle — but only in degree — between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man’s ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure.”
Chris Date

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

From the Darkness:

“I have been burned, torn and trampled on the streets of countries that I have helped set free. It does not hurt, for I am invincible. .I have been soiled upon, burned, torn and trampled on the streets of my country. And when it’s by those whom I’ve served in battle — it hurts. But I shall overcome — for I am strong.”

From the poem, “My Name is Old Glory.”

“Representative Paul wrote a book called ‘End the Fed.’ ….When I ask the Ron Paul people, ‘what would you replace it with?’ they don’t have an answer.”
Herman Cain  [Duh....]

"When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost in terms of lives and treasure, hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest, and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people...they are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here...Mothers and fathers of fallen soldiers, spouses of soldiers who have lost arms and legs, children of those who lost their lives in your country — they ask themselves about the meaning of their loved one's sacrifice. When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended, and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on."
U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry

"Congress should sort of shut up and not empower [Libyan leader Muammar] Qadhafi. I would take the course that conservatives have been taking for the last 30 years -- The War Powers Act is unconstitutional, not worth the paper its written on. t's an infringement on the power of the commander in chief."
Sen. Lindsey Graham

"There is substantial evidence that some of these fires have been caused by people who have crossed our border illegally. The answer to that part of the problem is to get a secure border."
John McCain, blaming Arizona’s wildfires on migrants. [They’re already the scapegoats for a depressed economy and crime, why not fires?]

“You do the fighting and I’ll do the talking.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron, in response to criticism from Armed Forces’ leaders that Britain’s role in the Libyan war was not sustainable.
 
“If you try to do this, the magnitude of deficit reduction we need--and we need about $4 to 5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next ten years--to try to do that only on spending cuts in parts of the budget would be irresponsible and really not achievable politically. You can't pass the budget without that. So, you need a balanced plan that has modest revenue increases through tax reform as well as some near-term spending savings and long-term entitlement reforms.”
Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner, working to maintain the pillaging

"I've spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position... This is a different time. To tell you the truth, that's one of the many reasons it's time for me to retire, because frankly I can't imagine being part of a government... that's being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world."
Robert Gates

"These people [“climate change deniers”] are evil in what they're doing! I'm not saying their souls are evil, but what they're doing is really, really wrong and it's not the President. It's this corrupt media on the right. You know, it's corrupt media on the right."
Chris Matthews, MSNBC

“We don't want to see a new colonialism in Africa.”
Queen Hillary, when asked about China's growing influence in the continent. [.....and the War Wench is certainly an expert on colonialism.]

"We don't have a precise read on why this slower pace of [economic] growth is persisting."
Ben Bernanke, still trying to work with his head up his rectum

“I don’t like the drift of the Republican Party toward what appears to be a retreat or a move more towards isolationism.”
Tim Pawlenty, dissing the only positive development within the Republican party.

"You should all know that your work has the support of this committee. While there are many issues in which our members have spirited disagreements, the protection of intellectual property is not one of them."
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, crediting Obama officials for seizing domains of sites trafficking in “counterfeit” goods.

“Businesses and the rich must pay their fair share of taxes and become full partners in a whole-of-society effort. True security cannot be funded on the backs of the poor.”
Queen Hillary, announcing the "release" of $300 million to spent on fighting Central American drug cartels

“Whose side are you on?”
Queen Hillary, addressing lawmakers criticizing the U.S. intervention in Libya

Nothing to See Here

I just wanted to pass on this video showing the fine work that our most recent Nobel Peace Prize winner is doing in Libya. Just remember, this is not war, this is not the result of “hostilities,” this is merely collateral damage suffered during a kinetic military action:

 

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
"I've often said that bureaucrats and politicians have an extremely limited playbook consisting of taxation, regulation, and inflation. These three ugly sisters of bureaucracy effectively serve to steal from people, make things more difficult for them, and rob them of their purchasing power... and yet they're dressed up as solutions instead of problems."
Simon Black

“Governments and their intellectual front men believe that nothing unites a population like a war. Actually, that's not quite true. What happens is that during war, governments strike fear into their domestic opponents and silence them through intimidation. The appearance of unity is wholly illusory.”
Lew Rockwell

“True liberty isn’t the result of good government conquering evil by force. Freedom is not a grant of the state and to treat it as such by subjugating ourselves to the state is a logical absurdity. Indeed, a free society first requires a free people to build, sustain, and defend it against the state’s inherent lust for power.”
Michael Roberts

“Everyone knows that in the United States if you’re a robber caught breaking into someone’s house, you’ll be brought to trial, but if you’re caught breaking into someone else’s country, you’ll be free to take to the lecture circuit, write your memoirs, or become a university professor.”
Tom Engelhardt

“The state depends for its existence, and that of its economic system, on tractable, 'civic-minded' subjects, pietistic sheep who will accept without thought “the way things are.” That the state has dominated society so completely and for so long leads most to believe that it ought to exist, that it has won out on the practicality and strength of what it does for us.
Nothing, however, can be accomplished through arbitrary force and compulsion that cannot be achieved through voluntary agreement, trade and cooperation. The important difference between a market anarchist society set free from the state and society as it is today is in the initiation of aggression against the peaceful person.”
David D'Amato

“Money Power depends on the myth of infallibility buttressed by an overwhelming sense of fear. In the 20th century, this worked well. The entire mechanism of global government was put in place and people didn't object. In fact, many welcomed it. But today is another story. With the failure of its many memes (thanks in part to the Internet Reformation in my view), the power elite turned to increasingly to violence – as they always do. But what if violence doesn't work either? What then?”
Anthony Wile

“All talk about 'spaceship earth' is specious and politically motivated. It invokes a military-bureaucratic metaphor -- a spaceship -- to describe the decentralized decision-making of men and the unplanned operations of nature.”
Gary North

“Royals, historically, are basically no more than successful thugs – people with no distinction other than being exceptionally ruthless and effective at seizing power and subduing others with it. The first king in the world was probably an unusually crafty leader of a particularly strong band of thieves who attacked and subdued a more peaceful tribe of early farmers. Instead of just killing the men and children and enslaving the women, he offered them a deal: ‘You give me and my men the best huts, the prettiest girls, and feed us, and we’ll let you all live and keep farming – we’ll even defend you against other thugs like us, if each family gives us a son to train as fighters.’”
Doug Casey

“My four years at Virginia Military Institute (VMI) and, to a lesser extent, my 8 years in the Army Reserves, taught me that I never want to live in an environment in which military officials take care of me, watch every move I make, regulate my every act, and tightly control my behavior. It was a great lesson in learning to despise socialist systems and to love free societies.”
Jacob Hornberger

“To slip so easily from moral obligation to political policy is a dangerous game. In the name of enforcing Christian obligation, you can inadvertently create a nation of thieves and robbers, or those who benefit from thieving and robbery. This is what happens when you ignore the distinction between invasion and invitation.”
Jeffrey Tucker

"Militarists see war as productive, as offering solutions rather than posing problems. They see it as heroic. When wars are romanticized as action-packed tests of a nation’s warriors, cuts to war spending are naturally seen as perfidiously unpatriotic -- as kneecapping those same heroes. Hence our ever-growing ‘defense’ budgets, even as a sledgehammer of a national debt hobbles America’s economic vitality and social security."
William J. Astore

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

From the Darkness:

“We may not be there yet, but we are getting very close, so if you really care about protecting the Syrian people from slaughter, now is the time to let Assad know that all options are on the table. It has gotten to the point where Gadhafi’s behavior and Assad’s behavior are indistinguishable. You need to put on the table all options, including a model like we have in Libya.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, looking to start still another war

"The Texas legislation is designed to showcase the state's independence. But what it really shows off is how some politicians in the Lone Star State will do anything to score political points -- even if it means echoing misinformation and wasting time and money passing legislation that can't practically be implemented and isn't in the best interest of constituents."
Bob Keefe, senior press secretary with the Natural Resources Defense Council, objecting to a law passed by Texas state lawmakers that allows Texans to skirt federal efforts to promote poisonous, florescent light bulbs

“Furthermore, I will not apologize for suggesting once Iraq becomes prosperous, it should consider repaying the United States for the hundreds of billions of dollars spent to liberate them from a tyrannical dictator and helping to establish a democratic government. There’s nothing wrong with suggesting that the people who have benefited from our benevolence should consider repaying us for what we have given them.”
Dana Rohrabacher [To people like Rohrabacher, Shock & Awe and brutal occupation = “benevolence.”]

“The premise Mises pushes in ‘Human Action’ is that if humanity doesn't believe in and act upon the holy writ as laid down by the Austrian school, civilization is doomed. Mull that one over for a second, while the wind rustles through the coconut palms and the crash of the surf works its hypnotic magic on your soul. And pass me another margarita. The Austrians are coming.”
Andrew Leonard, Salon

"Bahrain is a partner, and a very important one, to the United States."
Queen Hillary, pledging a support for a regime that has killed scores of regime protestors since mid-February

"I know people are frustrated. The country has been at war for 10 years [in Afghanistan]. I know people are tired. People also have to think in terms of stability and in terms of the potential of (al-Qaida) reconstitution. What's the cost of failure?"
Robert Gates, showing the willingness to kill thousands more to preserve his legacy

"In the end, this isn't just about the stories, but about having the men and women and their families who serve our country feel the gratitude every day from a grateful nation. If we set this foundation, not just for today but for forever, regardless of whom the president is in office, that this is a part of who we are as Americans and lifting these families up ... then we've been successful."
Michelle Obama, pleading Hollywood to produce more pro-military, pro-war propaganda

“You see, when our armed forces are not firing missiles, they live by an astonishingly liberal ethos — and it works. The military helped lead the way in racial desegregation, and even today it does more to provide equal opportunity to working-class families — especially to blacks — than just about any social program. It has been an escalator of social mobility in American society because it invests in soldiers and gives them skills and opportunities.”
Nicholas D. Kristof, NY Times

“In my book ‘Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America,’ I make the case that liberals, and never conservatives, appeal to irrational mobs to attain power. There is, I now recall, one group of people who look like conservatives, but also appeal to the mob. They're called ‘libertarians.’”
Ann Coulter

“Most government lie to each other. That’s the way business gets done.”
Robert Gates

“I was a libertarian as a teenager, but I emerged from adolescence…”
Ann Coulter [….and submerged into statist barbarism.]

“Having taught management to future public managers for about thirty years, I don't pretend to be objective on the importance of government and public service. I believe that every American should be frightened by the profound and intensifying attack on government and public service.”
Steven Cohen, Huffington Post

'No One Is Illegal'

Using his unique brand of street theater, Charlie Veitch of the Love Police, beautifully illustrates the absurdity and obscenity of arbitrary political boundaries enforced by violence. The most wretched, profane, and tyrannical action the state can execute is to arrogantly declare a free, sovereign human being “illegal” by the fact that his feet happen to stand on a piece of dirt claimed by self-proclaimed “rulers.” Charlie has it right: “Who the hell are these people?”

Delta Gives Discount to Terrorists

A bit of a stink occurred last week when Delta Airlines was taken to task for charging Uncle Sam’s assassins extra baggage fees. This decision by Delta was accompanied by outrage from US loyalists and military cultists who decried such an action as disrespectful to their beloved killers. Here’s the video from two whining saps that catapulted the display of outrage among military devotees and bootlickers.

Apparently, soldier boys (along with their jackboot brethren in law enforcement) hold a much higher spot in the pecking order of humanity by simply being obedient, military slaves. Their special status allows them not to be held responsible for paying the complete cost of their transportation as lowly civilian, tax serfs are expected to do. “Equality” is only for those who scrape and claw an honest, peaceful, and non-coercive living for themselves.

Apparently, the airlines are expected to sacrifice revenue as a righteous act of appreciation for these holy warriors. Is it only airlines who are expected to sacrifice? Are their other potential businesses that are expected to share the same burden? What about grocery stores, pharmacies, taverns, hookers, car dealers, gas stations, and other merchants who may come in contact with these rampaging mercenaries? Are they all also expected to offer discounts and freebies to these arrogant swads? Will they also be considered unpatriotic and disgraceful if they balk at such action?

My first response when hearing about this event is not whether Delta should charge these individuals for extra bags. My immediate thought was why were these individuals even allowed on a plane?

If you use profiling as a method of security screening, here are the indisputable facts you will gather when doing an unbiased, rational threat analysis of these individuals wearing the state’s clown suit:

1) These individuals are recruited, trained, employed, paid, and tightly controlled by an organization with a proven history of global terrorism.

2) These individuals, as a group, are known hired killers, known to be prone to violence when among civilians, have committed previous acts of terrorism (by any definition of the word), and tend to be emotionally unstable.

3) These individuals, as a group, experience a high rate of suicides and coupled with their willingness to follow any order, make the perfect candidate for a suicide terrorist.

Israel, which has a long history of dealing with suicide terrorists, offers a few general characteristics of a suicide bomber. Although demographic characteristics (age, education, marital status) don’t quite match the group in question, the key characteristic (and more relevant one, in my opinion) is this one:

“Suicide bombers participate in months of indoctrination training. When ready for the mission, they are in a hypnotic state, believing that the mission will open heaven’s gates.” [Or, in the case of US terrorists, create heaven on earth through colonialist occupation and rule by corporatist oligarchs.]

This possibility of such a military developed suicide terrorist has already been realized by a military psychiatrist whose job was to treat these same mentally damaged individuals!

Airport security would be smarter to focus on these very individuals whose professional and even personal history are blatantly disturbing, rather than harass and terrorize elderly, handicapped women and strip search children.

The false meme continues to thrive that “The Troops” defend and protect the wonderful (and steadily decreasing) freedoms you enjoy. Some members of this scary cult will go as far as crediting the very air you breathe to be a gift of compassion from these generous, altruistic warriors. They are therefore rewarded by their loyal, enthusiastic admirers with shouts of support, special favors, and lower baggage fees. Outrageous!

Is my analysis harsh and unfair? Are my concerns misdirected? Please remember, these military slaves take orders from and are compensated by the very gangsters that blanket our lives with an oppressive, ever-growing police state, break down the doors of our homes at will and murder us, and bleed our bank accounts dry with steadily increasing taxes and mandates. They willingly participate in illegal acts of aggression and occupation around the world, enforcing their political master’s edicts with whatever deadly force deemed necessary. They “serve” the very organization that has planned and executed false flag acts of war and “terrorism” throughout history. You can be certain there are more to follow.

Until oppressed individuals recognize that these state directed terrorists are (along with "law" enforcement) the key enforcers of the above mentioned oppression and proudly defend those who instigate this oppression, this state-lead tyranny will not only continue, but will expand with increasing brutality.  And once this realization is reached, how can anyone continue comfortably flying with them?

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“As we have seen years ago in the U.S. government’s using immigration central planning to turn away Jews attempting to escape from Nazi Germany, and more recently in the U.S. government’s prevention of Americans from leaving the U.S., the more control we allow governments to have over the people, including their right to travel and right to work and do business, and the more power of intrusion we give to the government-monopolized police, the less freedom, security and prosperity we will have.”
Scott Lazarowitz

“War is the feces produced when patriotism eats too much stupidity.”
From a sign at a “Free Bradley Manning” rally in Leavenworth, Kansas

“Whenever the only defense of a policy is ‘it's the law‘, it's worthwhile considering whether that policy is, in fact, ethical. After all, it was perfectly legal for one human being to own another for much of history. Legality certainly is not the same as morality, and politicians have a bad tendency to conflate the two.”
Simon Black

“If we actually want freedom and not slavery, we cannot have one government for all. Freedom and one government for all are inconsistent with one another. They contradict one another. To have one government and simultaneously to have freedom is an impossibility.
To arrive at greater freedom, one has to have the freedom to remove the manacles imposed by a government that presumes to be the government for all. One has to be able to opt out of government laws. One has to be able to secede personally from a government.”
Michael Rozeff

“America doesn’t exist anymore. It’s the United States. America, which was basically an idea, a concept, is dead and gone. The United States is just another of 200 awful little nation-states that have spread across the face of the earth like a skin disease. There’s no longer any difference that I can tell between the U.S. and any other country.”
Doug Casey

“Republicrat U.S.A. has now become an extreme example of a society in which the ruling Party is closed off from the world, obsessed with building Party power and wealth, incapable of understanding the vast new developments in the world and totally incapable of creative responses to Reform our society to meet those changes in the world.
The party just trundles on and on like Frankenstein hell bent on walking off a cliff or killing some innocent people, totally oblivious to the cliff or forces closing in on him to destroy him.”
Jack Douglas

“Just as George Bush used national security as the great excuse to shred the Bill of Rights, the Obama administration is using illegal immigration as the excuse to achieve the socialist dream of bringing employer-employee relations entirely under government purview. It is a form of micro-nationalization.”
Lew Rockwell

"It is in the context of discussing fundamental political questions involving the government’s legitimacy that the idiot believes the phrase ‘love it or leave it’ constitutes a powerful argument. If the debate turns to the question of whether taxation is morally and legally synonymous with robbery, for example, the idiot thinks that anyone who doubts the government’s legitimacy should simply leave. It completely escapes the notice of the idiot that the question of what dissenters can or should do is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not the government is legitimate."
Mark R. Crovelli

"Every invading army, every conquering empire, has been constructed out of wealth that was taken from productive people. The destroyers have always been funded by the creators; the thieves have always been funded by the producers; through the belief in ‘authority,’ the agendas of the evil have always been funded by the efforts of the good. And this will continue, unless and until the most dangerous superstition is dismantled. When the producers no longer feel a moral obligation to fund the parasites and usurpers, the destroyers and controllers, tyranny will wither away, having been starved out of existence. Until then, good people will keep supplying the resources which the bad people need in order to carry out their destructive schemes."
Larken Rose

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
H.L. Mencken

“Consortiums of criminal bands like the United Nations and the G8 are the sanctifiers of a corporate imperial order foisted on the globe by the most powerful states. Just as empires impose a foreign system on their outposts, so does the state itself force every individual into an existence defined by servitude to a ruling class
If the G8 has the moral authority to declare that Gaddafi must go, then every free, sovereign individual certainly has the same authority to announce to the state that it is no longer welcome in society.”
David D'Amato

“Freedom is like true love; like physical pain; like the fragrance of a rose. One can consult a dictionary for their definitions, and one can read all about them in encyclopedias, but until they are experienced, they cannot be truly understood.”
Tzo

“When America lies, its allies lie, too. When American leaders tell deliberate untruths and treat human lives as if they are entertainment in so-called snuff-films, those who live in the shadow of the world's super-mono-power are left to mumble in unison or face the consequences. It goes for the media too, of course. These days, instead of celebrating businessmen, America's mainstream media mostly lionizes the military class – its brilliant generals and intrepid warriors.”
Anthony Wile

“The belief that one person’s maltreatment is isolated from the rest of us, is essential to the maintenance of state power.
What we have in common is the need to protect one another’s inviolability from governmental force.”
Butler Shaffer

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

From the Darkness:

“Each generation of people has a job to do; a burden that falls to their time. Sometimes, it's a war or depression. Sometimes, it's the work of building the first railways and roads. Sometimes, it's a plague that wipes out half the population or a fire that destroys a whole city.
Looked at through this lens, our generation has it easy. Already wealthy and armed with new technology, we need to front up to the challenge of building a low-carbon economy.

The tool we'll use is a carbon tax that seeks to subtly redirect some of our choices. Cut your power bill by more than the compensation offered and you get to keep the change.
Is that really so onerous compared with a depression or war?”
Richard Glover, The Sydney Morning Herald

“If we had the threat of war, had a military buildup, you’d be amazed at how fast this economy would recover.”
Paul Krugman

"Whoever the Republican nominee is will have to have the support of the Tea Party movement, the entire Tea Party movement."
Chairwoman Amy Kremer, offering more proof that the TP is a bunch of phonies.

"Our economy depends on the ability of companies to provide trusted, secure services online. As new cybersecurity threats evolve, it's critical that we develop policies that better protect businesses and their customers."
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke [Who, exactly, is "we?"]

"The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."
Clifford Stoll, Newsweek, in 1995

"We would hope that some consideration be given to repaying the United States some of the megadollars we have spent here [in Iraq] in the last eight years."
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher during a one-day visit to Iraq by a group of six U.S. congressman

DVD Reviews

The Way Back:
This entertaining survival feature is based on a true story about a small group of prisoners who escaped a Soviet gulag in Siberia and walked 4000 miles to India. An attractive film to those who enjoy accounts of great human “journeys” that display the finest in persistence and celebrate the yearning to live and die free.
Recommended

Ordet:
This 1956 Norwegian film, beautifully filmed in black and white, explores the life of a farm family whose members have differing degrees of religious faith. A tragedy helps them realize the extent and value of unbending faith in God.
Recommended

The Cartel:
Reporter Bob Bowden created this well written and researched documentary about the public schools (particularly in New Jersey) and the stifling teacher’s unions, corruption and the unaccountable waste of tax money that accompanies some of the poorest school performance in the U.S.
Recommended

Frontline- The Quake:
This report examines the suffering of Haiti after its devastating 2010 earthquake. It looks at the problems involved in successfully rendering aid and even a brief look at the history of embargoes by other countries in the past that helped impoverish this country that was once productive and wealthy.
Recommended

Freakonomics:
This documentary is based on the book, where the authors utilize the principles of incentive and cause and effect to analyze common, everyday social problems. Though the material seems to be more of the kind of fluff content you might see on one of those goofy, network TV morning shows, the two authors are bright and entertaining and do offer some useful insights, though you certainly won’t agree with all of them. Make sure to catch the additional interviews offered on the disc.
Recommended

George Thorogood and the Destroyers- 30th Anniversary Tour Live:
This concert, recorded in Europe in 2004, has George and his Destroyers rocking through a tight set of blues and roadhouse rock and roll. There’s never a shortage of sonic energy when Thorogood straps on his guitar and cranks up his amp.
Recommended

Little Fockers:
Viewing the third installment of the Fockers saga found me waiting and waiting for the laughs to start but they never came- just a couple of chuckles. What a cinematic crime to collect such a great cast of actors to execute such an inept screenplay.
Not recommended

Black Fox:
This made for TV western starts out on the wrong foot when the first scene is captioned as “Texas, 1861” when it is obviously filmed in northern California. Then it stumbles again when blaming slavery for the start of the “Civil War.” Overall, this isn’t a bad western but Lonesome Dove and its sequels proved that quality made-for-TV westerns are possible.
Not recommended

Baraka:
The title means “blessing” and is another project of camera genius and director Ron Fricke, who was instrumental in creating the “-qatsi” movies. This is a gem filmed in 70mm widescreen with no narration that captures the glories and ravaging of nature as well as the diversity, energy, and wonder of human culture and interaction.
Recommended

Farewell:
This is an entertaining tale of espionage during the latter years of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union, with France being the intermediary party. The dialogue moves back and forth between Russian, French and English. Some real life characters including Ronald Reagan are used but I don’t know if this is based on a true story or not.
Recommended

The Hit List:
Cuba Gooding, Jr. is totally miscast as a dying, government hit man who aims to go out in a blaze of glory. Instead, he comes across as stoned, sleepy zombie, looking for a place to lay down and take a nap. This movie could have been salvageable if an actor of the order of a young John Malkovich or a young Bruce Dern had played the part.
Not recommended

Best Man:
This is filmmaker Ira Wohl’s sequel to his award winning Docu-drama, “Best Boy” where he filmed several years in the life of his mentally handicapped older cousin. In that film “Philly” was in his early 50’s and starting to live more independently of his parents. This sequel takes up the story 18 years later as Philly approaches age 70. This is another heartwarming close-up view of what power a loving family and friends can have when it works to bring the best out of people.
Recommended

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band- Live in New York City:
This two-disc, concert video recorded at Madison Square Garden is one of the best I’ve ever viewed. Having never seen Springsteen in concert I now appreciate what all the fuss is about from those who have. This is one of the best, most entertaining, driving rock and roll performances you’ll probably ever view on video. Springsteen and his incredibly talented, tight band offer us an emotionally charged and inspirational musical exhibition in the Church of Rock and Roll.
Recommended

Casino Jack:
Kevin Spacey is just the guy to play Jack Abramoff, the overly ambitious and often corrupt lobbyist who defrauded several American Indian tribes. The movie also exposes the hypocrisy of politicians who demonize people such as Abramoff after directly participating in and benefiting from his activities.
Recommended

Secretariat:
Movies about horse racing make excellent vehicles for dramas, though most wind up kind of hokey. This Disney effort succeeds, in part, because of the true story involving an incredible animal who won the Triple Crown in 1973. The story also revolves around the tenacious, female owner who persevered and wouldn’t give up on her quest to succeed. Diane Lane (who looks even more attractive now than she did 25 years ago in Lonesome Dove) fills that part well and John Malchovich is well cast as the eccentric trainer. You also get to enjoy some really nice camera work in the racing scenes.
Recommended

GasLand:
This 2010 documentary is a must see by anyone who cares about the water they drink. Filmmaker Josh Fox travels around the country gathering interviews from victims of gas drilling. He also exposes brilliantly the corruption inherent in the government agencies charged with preventing such problems. Of course, these agencies are created and directed by the very industry they’re charged with “regulating.” A fine illustration of American style corporatism.
Recommended

Tom Waits- Under Review- 1983-2006:
A number of music journalists examine specific years in the long career of one of the most unique, eclectic writing, singing , and acting talents in contemporary American culture. Waits continues to innovate and surprise his audience without selling out to “industry standards.”
Recommended

'Remember' - An Update

I was very pleased with the popularity and reaction to my video, “Remember,” which I uploaded to YouTube on Memorial Day weekend. Checking this morning, I see where it has over 33,000 views, 100 comments, a favorable rating of 98%, and has been viewed on every continent. Well, we‘re not sure about Antarctica. My delight is sobered, however, by the fact that a thirty second video of a screaming cat has received nearly 54 million views.

Regardless, this experience has convinced me of the power and reach of the internet (particularly YouTube) and has made me realize that, like it or not, more people will watch a video than ever read an essay, let alone a book.

I’ve always believed in the power of the written and spoken word as an effective tool to educate, persuade, motivate and inspire others. I’ve also believed that a well composed image delivered within the proper context can be just as powerful and effective. But if you combine these two methods you can really knock people’s socks off.

I received a number of wonderful messages from people about the video. But one of the most interesting was from a gentlemen by the name of NguyenKha PhamThanhChuong. Chuong is originally from Vietnam. Here is his website. He was one of the “boat people” who escaped the communist government in Vietnam in 1983. He returned to Vietnam in 1997, but was expelled for anti-government activities. He said he also lived in Forth Smith, Arkansas and Santa Ana, California from 2002-2004.

Chuong expressed a willingness to me to translate the text of “Remember” into Vietnamese and overdub the video. I was only too happy to oblige. He taped the translation, emailed me an mp3 file, and it was inserted into the show as the new soundtrack. It will be interesting to see how many people view it:

 
 
Chuong has been working for years, also, to convince others of the folly of war and state obedience: “My people, although experienced in many brutal wars, are still addicted to jingoism, glorifying wars and worshiping the State,” he says. Here are some of his essays published in the past at LewRockwell.com:

"Plea From a Simple Vietnamese"

"We, the People Can Make a Difference"

"A Piece of Myself"

"Please, Help Me!"

“I just do my tiny part in this common cause against statism, its deceitful 'righteousness' of nationalism, and its madness of war," adds Chuong. "I remember Ludwig von Mises said, so true, that, 'whoever wishes peace among peoples must fight statism.' I am doing just that, Roger."

 He says he has left writing in English to focus on Vietnamese audiences and readers.

Chuong thanked me “for being here with us and for speaking out on what many people dare not do." Thank you, Chuong for doing your part and for such a unique and satisfying partnership.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“The ability to kill efficiently should not be a source of pride. And the fact that a small group of elites has the power to send thousands of people to fight, die, and kill, as well as cajole an entire society into tacit support, is a total aberration of humanity.”
Simon Black

“Needless to say, all anarchists should support outright and immediate abolition of the police. We’re talking about the enforcement arm of the state, after all. If you oppose the state monopoly, you must favor eliminating the state’s method of maintaining its monopoly – through the police. And indeed, if you distrust socialism, you should distrust law-enforcement socialism as much as anything, for this is the original sin that allows all other state depredations to follow. Also, when the state misallocates resources, it is not nearly so evil in itself as when it inevitably misallocates violence on a massive scale.”
Anthony Gregory

“Males value freedom over security; women, security over freedom. Men love venturing into the wild, whether in Silicon Valley or unexplored jungles, if any; women do not. Men are fiercely competitive; women, concerned with order and comity. Men are physical, enjoying, even needing, rough sports; women are not. To a man of my generation the country today is unbearably controlled, restricted, safe, and feminized.”
Fred Reed

“That Government is instituted for the benefit of the governed, there can be little doubt; but the interests of the Government (when once it becomes absolute and independent of the people) must be directly at variance with those of the governed. The interests of the one are common and equal rights: of the other, exclusive and invidious privileges."
William Hazlitt

“If advocates for the world's poor really want to do something that actually helps the world's poor, they should quit protesting sweatshops and start working to eliminate barriers to free trade and free immigration."
Art Carden

“We don't need to send the country into bankruptcy, in the name of the poor, by spending trillions of dollars on people who are not poor, and who could take care of themselves. The poor have been used as human shields behind which the expanding welfare state can advance.
The goal is not to keep the poor from starving but to create dependency, because dependency translates into votes for politicians who play Santa Claus.”
Thomas Sowell

“Regardless of whether the debt ceiling is raised, the US government is not going to go out of business. Why does anyone think that the President, who does not obey the War Powers Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, US and international laws against torture, or any of the laws and procedures that guard civil liberty, is going to feel compelled to obey the debt ceiling?”
Paul Craig Roberts

“Politics is the method of the thief who doesn't want to face the fact that he is the bad guy. That he is backed up by 'laws and The State makes no difference in the foundation of his actions.”
Kent McManigal

“If mentally incapacitated troops are being drugged with dangerous, mind-altering drugs and deployed to battle against their will, how can we say that we have a volunteer army?”
Alliance for Human Research Protection

“Liberty lies in the essence of man, not in documents secretly drafted in the dark of night by the few. The free spirit of the people must awaken before any real freedom becomes evident, and in that awakening they must realize the great importance of the individual and of individual responsibility.”
Gary D. Barnett

"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing."
Thomas Sowell

“Each individual has an inalienable, inherent right of ownership of one’s own life, person, labor and justly-owned property, and pursuit of happiness, and the right to be free from the aggression against one’s life by others, including agents of the State. With the right to life and the right to sustain one’s life, each individual has a right to trade his labor with others for a compensation or good in return for such labor, within a voluntary and mutually-agreed-upon contract, as long as one is peaceful and does not interfere with any other individual’s equal right.”
Scott Lazarowitz

“Cops couldn’t get away with their thuggish activities if they weren’t aided and abetted by their fellow cops, by their commanders and chiefs and commissioners, by their mayors and city councils, by the local judicial system, and worst of all by clueless citizens who mindlessly call them ‘heroes’ and whitewash them with clichés like ‘one bad apple in a barrel of good cops’ and ‘putting their lives on the line every day.’"
Garry Reed

“What is wrong for your neighbor to do is also wrong for the government to do, because there is only one standard of morality. Slam the door on the face of anyone who says differently.”
Wendy McElroy

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

From the Darkness:

“It would certainly be in our interest to see Iraq remain on its current path and become even more stable. As a member of the national security team, that would be my advice.”
General Martin Dempsey, The Emperor’s choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying he’s willing to keep U.S. troops there past December.

“The conditions on the ground [in Afghanistan] need to dictate when we come home. We can’t have a political decision on a deadline. We can’t show the enemy our playbook.”
Sarah Palin [It certainly was a “political” decision to start the war in the first place.]

“Greenhouse gas legislation, either with a tax or with cap and trade – which is a more complicated way of getting at it but it has the advantage of politically sort of hiding the fact that you have a tax – but that’s what you’re trying to do.”
John Bryson, President Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department

“Abraham Lincoln, the president who ended slavery, and Barack Obama, the first black president of the United States, are peas in the same pod, both irredeemably stained by the hard fiscal decisions they had to make to save their nation.”
Andrew Leonard, Salon

"The U.S. military has never been at a loss in being told to find things to do. They've always had a full menu."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates

“America is, as the expression goes, putting ‘our money where our mouth is’ with respect to this part of the world - and will continue to do so.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates [You always have plenty of “mouth” but there isn’t any “money” left.]

“These programs [increasing the combined U.S.-Australian naval presence in the region and expanding joint training with Singapore’s forces] are on track to grow and evolve further in the future, even in the face of new threats abroad and fiscal challenges at home, ensuring that that we will continue to meet our commitments as a 21st century Asia-Pacific nation - with appropriate forces, posture, and presence.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates [Since when is the US an “Asia-Pacific nation?” Is Mr. Gates geographically challenged?]

“Making medical school free would relieve doctors of the burden of student debt and gradually shift the work force away from specialties and toward primary care. It would also attract college graduates who are discouraged from going to medical school by the costly tuition.”
Peter B. Bach and Robert Kocher, from a NY Times editorial

Thy Hand for..............a Medallion?

AP reports that President Barack Obama will award the Medal of Honor to Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Arthur Petry, who lost his hand in Afghanistan when he tried to toss an enemy grenade away from himself and two colleagues.

When examining the facts recollected within the Army's limited context (one battle involving a few individuals), Mr. Petry's actions most likely saved the lives of his colleagues. I am certain they are grateful and it is understandable that they would like to see Mr. Petry recognized.. But when analyzing this event from a much broader perspective, one can reach some different conclusions.

Mr. Petry swapped a piece of scrap metal in exchange for a God-given hand. In order to escape a life of pain and loss, Mr. Petry now faces a future of continual delusion and belief in the myths that inspired him to involve himself in such a conflict. He must preserve this delusion to prevent the realization that his presence in Afghanistan was illegitimate and not necessary. Any such realization will only create grief and displeasure that the sacrifice of his treasured appendage was not worth it. Trading a God-given hand sounds fair only if you believe the nation-state is your God and you are willing to sacrifice your life, blood, or limbs to help project its depraved power. It is only worth it if you believe that your life, limbs, health, and freedom are subordinate to the needs, goals, and directives of the nation-state to whom you submit and prostrate yourself in unbending allegiance.

No mention was made in the Army's account of the illegal act of aggression instigated by the US regime (under the leadership of Emperor George W. Bush) that put Mr. Petry in a country he had no business being in, in the first place.

No mention was made that if The Emperor had not illegally attacked Afghanistan that Mr. Petry would likely still have his hand today.

No mention is made that the so-called “enemy” mentioned in the account were merely inhabitants of this country that was invaded and were actively defending themselves. What should they have done? Allowed themselves to be overrun and massacred to please the US legions and their controlling political masters?

Finally, no mention is made of the inconvenient truth and sobering reality that the real hero in this particular incident is the individual who threw the grenade to defend his home from crusading, barbaric aggressors.

Just who is right and/or heroic in war is dependent on your perspective of the conflict. How your mind focuses and processes such information depends on your world view- whether you view actions as a free, critically thinking, empathetic human being or as an obedient, indoctrinated pawn, shackled by misplaced loyalties, fallacious faith, and jingoistic tunnel vision.