I've been listening to this Democracy Now interview with Nir Rosen. Damn.

Iraq's situation is maddeningly complex for a midwesterner to try to take on. So much of the information coming out of the region is either wishfull thinking by worthless 'embedded' reporters who have never left the green zone, or pro-american propaganda that our U.S. taxpayer dollars are purchasing at a rate of millions per year (yep, the military admits to buying Iraqi journalists.) Even those journalists who are not pets of the media can't get much of an Idea what's going down in Iraq, cuz they keep getting kidnapped or murdered.

As a rational man, I'm still inclined to seek out those folks that were right before we invaded the country; yet being able to call a spade a spade does not necessarily make one an analytical genius. Anyone whose skull diameter just can't quite penetrate their own rectum knew that Iraq had no serious weapons 'of mass destruction.' The U.N. weapons inspectors were saying it. U.S. weapons inspectors were saying it. Domestic critics of the military industrial complex were saying it. It made sense that a country under the thumb of deliberatly repressive sanctions might have a hard time duplicating the Manhatten Project. Plus, we kept learning more about the limitations of chemical and biological weapons - how they have a short shelf-life, how difficult they are to use in a tactical situation, how war crime justice just might catch up with leaders who do gamble on them. All facts that Colin Powell pissed on when he 'nailed it' before the U.N.

To understand why we were being lied to leading up to the invasion took the critical thinking skills of a twelve year old. To understand what the best course for Iraq is now takes a bit more.

They've been 'on the verge of a civil war' for about two years, and somewhere between 30,000 (Bush Administration estimate) and 600,000 (Lancet Medical Journal estimate) Iraqis are dead. If over 3000 died just last month; yeah, we all no better than to trust numbers from the calculator of George W. Bush.

Some interesting points by Mr. Rosen:

A civil war has been going on for several years. Soon we may see a major move by the Shia to 'remove' the Sunni presence from Baghdad.

Neither Bush nor the figurehead of Maliki can do anything about it. Maliki doesn't have a militia, so he has no power. Bush has a militia (yep, he means our bumpersticker supported troops) but they can't tell a Sunni from a Shia, so no matter how many innocent Iraqis they kill it just ain't relevent. They own a streetcornor until they leave. They can't possibly compete with a 'mob' style of street power. How can you fight the mob when you can't tell a made man from an ice-cream vendor?

"If I were an American," Mr. Rosen said, "I'd support an immediate withdrawl cuz why should another American soldier lose his life in Iraq? They didn't die for freedom, or to protect our your country. . . America can do nothing to help and maybe only a little bit to still hurt the situation.

This ain't Rowanda, where we can sit around and watch the two peoples kill each other. There was no civil war until we invaded. This is our fault.


I can't help but think of those poor mormon kids (and their poor father) who stopped over the other night. I just haunts me like a drag trap.

If one wants to believe in democracy (and as an atheist I probably invest a bit more of a 'need to believe' in my political structure than most) young men like that are anathema. Democracy that follows the 'will of the people' requires a population with a fairly high level of political acuity. The Mormon Trio had none of it. I'd bet my sideburns and all facial hair for a decade if either of them could have given me even a rudimentary overview of the Iran-Contra Affair. Remember, that little scandal of a few decade ago that a fair percentage of the current adminstration? Playing the Shia in Iran and the Sunni in Iraq against each other to destabilize the region and benefit their client (Israel) and 'national interests' (that involved oil extraction certain companies, and companies we do business with.) DEATH SQUADS AND JON NEGROPONTE. Whatever, I digress.

That must be it. The Mormon Trio has everything invested in their 'faith in a benevolent god', but only a trivial amount in a 'faith in good governence.' In fact, a lot of those worthless, traitorous wackos, actually profess to see the moral misguidance of government as a 'proof' of the validity of their belief system. Nevertheless, I have no 'faith in a benevolent god' so to provide my life with meaning I must search elsewhere. I'm interested in government cuz I see it as being a valuable, often dangerous, tool in trying to leave a mark, to improve upon, society.

Well, how's that for a five beer blog?

Today, circumstances conspired to compel us into our local supermarket in the pre-turkeyday havoc. Bless the fates that we didn't need anything but a few fresh loaves from our recently upgraded Rainbow's surprisingly skilled bakery. Normally, I'm all about avoiding the big chains and supporting local business, but somebody running this bakery be making it a labor of fucking love. They make these twisted rye loaves that are edible works of art, this ain't the domain of a handful of minimum wage clock-watchers.

Given: a shopping market on the day before thanksgiving is going to be a damn madhouse. Lot was full, SUVs and minivans formed a line of illegal parking across the buildings entrance. Carts were in short supply.

- - - My blogging train just got derailed by a trio of mormons at the door, I tried to save their soul but we'll see. Even gave them the old url, so maybe they'll read me blog - even some negative comments would be better than none at all. I wish I could get through to kids like that, cuz there is a huge beautiful and terrible world out there - don't miss trying to engage it with your mind. I'll have to upload that experience later. - - -

Back to my commentary on social interaction.

Standing at the bakery glass, Cindy picked out a sexy shape of whole grain, and we tastefully flagged down a woman to come down and assist us in packaging it. Soon a woman and children were pressing our right flank, a heavyset, middleaged man squeezed into the space directly to my left. He didn't make any attempt at eyecontact, just continued to stare at the bread selection. My brain was already firing on the impulse to say, 'hey, fucko, can't you see you are in my personal space?' His daughter pre-empted me; 'oh look out' and then the cart that dwarfed her cute little frame caught dad in the ass. His reaction helped me learn.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that 'dad' is a good man who would never hurt any child, let alone his own. Yet an unexpected knock to his backside surprised him and his knee-jerk reaction was held in check with visible effort. I realized that his close proximity to my large, almost youthful frame was generating the same tensions within himself. Here we are, two good folks in a loud supermarket, and we're on the verge of fight or flight.

I'm growing into the understanding that men have territorial instincts, we spent a few hundred thousand years as social creatures who lived and died in groups of no more than a few dozen. Even into the middle ages, this forced proximity with other males of alien origin would have been totally unacceptable. Why should I trust someone I don't know? Why should I let someone I don't trust within striking range of my vulnerable parts?

The modern philosophies and our passive culture teach me that I should give that guy the benefit of the doubt, I should just trust that we're both buying bread and lay off. My adrenal gland don't seem to be buying it, however, and so tension levels rise quickly and impulsive confrontation ensues. The pattern repeats itself like a fucking fractal over and over again, in convoluted ways.

The parkinglot, another example of folks responding to real or imagined slights to their manhood (while protected by two tons of mobile steel) with impulsive reactions. Racing through pedestrian crossings or gesturing vulgarly as someone does not vacate a parking space with enough with submissive alacrity.

West Saint Paul, where I live, is even more complex, cuz here we have the intersection of at least four cultures. Whites have lived here like a suburb for a long time. Blacks, Latinos, and Asians all have specialty stores and growing populations. The tension caused by 'standing on your toes' interaction is exponentially increased when racial boundaries are crossed. I might snap at a white guy, but I'd probably let it slide from a black - cuz I don't want to look like a racist.

Maybe our community is on the track to become like a New York: fuck you, get out of my fucking face, I don't give a fuck who you are. I'd like to hold on to the notion of 'Minnesota Nice' that gets so ridiculed, but that would take effort.

If we had a mass media that presented messages other than how focused people are on associating themselves with particular brand names, maybe some of these situations could be addressed in a neutral environment away from where a man's blood gets up. Examples of disrespectful behavior - like blazing into a pedestrian crosswalk at forty or pushing past women and elderly to get on a bus first - could be addressed and templates for dealing with those types could be presented. Folks who didn't have a cultured father to teach them to respect little old ladies could still learn it from the T.V.

I've never wavered in my belief that if I had control of all domestic media (not just me, anybody with an IQ over 100 and a keen intrest in society) ; all racism could be eliminated in less than a decade. That's the frightening power of a minister of propaganda.

Grr.

While I should have sat down and compiled my thoughts about the horrorshow that be 'Jesus Camp', I decided to dwell on the positive in the world and drink some Newcastles and watch UFC on pay-per-view. Somehow I thought watching the best thing in modern bloodsport was a better use of my time than sitting here typing 'fucking evags' over and over.

Technical difficulties precluded my catching the first three fights, and that's too bad cuz I heard one of the guys from season two was scrap'n, but I was well lubricated by the time Jeff 'The Snowman' Monson went up for his chance against the Champ, Tim Sylvia. Let me just say a few things about Jeff Monson. If you wiki 'anarchists' the short list of modorn advocates of said philosophy includes UFC fighter Jeff 'the Snowman' Monson. He's got a real blog, not one of the rather lame ones that are supported on the UFC website, and a master's degree from the Minnesota university system in psychology. His body is covered with anarchist and socialist tatoos. I got total respect for a man who stands up for his political ideals and uses his celebrity to promote it. I don't claim to have a fantastic insight into the nature of his anarchism, but I'm guessing it's along the vein Dielo Trouda - a rather pragmatic approach towards economic change that hates the concentration of state power in the hands of a few, extreamly wealthy capitalists - and I'm guess'n he's an atheist.

So when he walked out to the Octogon with the music of John Lennon's 'Imagine' (which was on the banned list of songs after 9/11) most of the folks watching must have been wondering what the fuck was going on. Not exactly the metal and rap that most fighter pump themselves up for, but he had a national audience, and damn it more people need to listen to the words of John Lennon. The UFC commentator summed it all up with, 'Jeff, he's a political, socio-economic dude.'

They say Bruce Lee used to spar with Kareem Abdul Jabar to investigate the advantages of reach in combat. If you've seen the weigh-in shot between Sylvia and Monson, you know what I mean. The smugly smiling Syvia has the musclebound Monson at the end of a long striking arm. There is eleven inches between the men, quite a disproportionate fight. The Snowman showed great heart and even some surprising standup, but in the end he was just plain out leveraged. Ground game included, everyone watching learned some valuable lessons in how a much taller man can use his long arms and legs to effectively leverage his weight and overcome Monson's vise-like grip.

In my humble opinion Mr. Monson has gone as far as he can in his quest for the title, it's a matter of physics that a short man cannot overcome. If he could cut down to the next weight class, I'm sure he'd be a killa. When someone eventually comes around to taking the Champs belt; I predict he'll be another fucking big man.

As for the second title fight, Georges St. Pierre vs. Matt Hughs, that one went exactly as I hoped. Personality-wise, I like St. Pierre more than Hughs, so I was in his cornor. GSP's a marvelous fucking fighter to watch, yet Matt Hughs went into that fight a champ and a proven winner. I would not have put a dime on that fight beforehand, I just couldn't get over the notion that betting 'gainst Matt Hughs was fucking throwing money away.

The results of this battle show us the new direction that Mixed Martial Arts be heading. I declare we are seeing the ascendancy of the high leg kick. It's not glamorous like a uppercut, but the technique is dangerous to defend against (drop the hands below the waist, not a good Idea) and when there is power behind it like Georges St. Pierre can produce - he literally kicked Matt Hughs legs out from under him multiple times. Your stand-up don't mean shit if you can't fucking stand up.

Congrats to all the fighters and Georges St. Pierre in particular. What a great fucking night. Peace out.

Later today I'm slated to catch a showing of that newish documentary 'Jesus Camp' which features, amongst many disturbing images, a scene of young children fanatically praying to a cardboard cut-out of President Bush.

I'm not sure why I'm going. I can't see how any combination of images could make me any more radical of an atheist. I've pretty much been backed into the cornor by the 'New Atheists', forced to admit that whatever good some christian groups might contribute to the world, utilitarianism cannot be satisfied. Terrorists and propagandists can swim in the ocean of 'moderate' christians with imputiny. It is time for rational americans to take a big step forward and throw off the rediculous shackles of bronze age beliefs.

Honestly, can any amount of molestation by a priest be worse than getting totally indoctrinated at a camp that borrows tactics from the fundamentalist jihadi schools and the Hitler Youth?

I expect to be fully enraged at what's being done to bright-eyed white kids in the next state by sundown. grr.

I'm just drifting through a day on the web, as I'm demarcating some boundries at the new job; Taking a sanity day.


Anyhoo, I've been thinking more of late on the nature of online community. Bloggers everywhere would benefit from thinking of ourselves more as a class with a rather coherent ideological position. Bloggers are bloggers. I really don't like how some tech companies have ratted out bloggers to oppressive governments so the can be imprisioned. That's pretty shitty. In general, I think we all agree on a promotion of technological education as a means of improving overall civilization, and we know a lot about the value of free speech. The internet is the greatest collective action in the history of humankind - it blows organized religion out of the water when it comes to having meaning - and thus it shapes our souls even as we shape it. Those of us who are in love with the internet are a class.

I'm not pleased with the effort by agents on the right to use the same 'divide and conquer' tactics that have largely precluded television and radio from being great instruments of collective spiritual growth. A jackass to bray in front of cameras is no scarce commodity. Bloggers, those who rack up hours a day reading blogs and updating their own - not such a common entity. Those who can write and are actually engaging to read, those who got the sort of eloquence where over time readers actually feel like they know him or her personally, pretty gosh dang rare.

Like, I totally dig commenting on conservative or christian blogs encouraging them to engage some facts and grow in their understanding of the world. I always figure if someone is on the internet at all, then they are already half-way to atheism. I know I've saved some souls, and I've been banned from a whole lot of blogs and forums. What enrages me, however, is when I get the feeling that the site I'm at is not run by an actual human being. The manner which fascist structures disseminate 'talking points' from the top down bears telling resemblence to a computer, but when talking points are arranging themselves into code and furthering their distribution accross the internet, we should take note. Even if a human is involved in the process in some trivial way.

I'm certain that right wing institutions have 'bloggers' that they pay to contribute to the content of the blogosphere, just like they pay media and marketing companies to contribute to the content of radio waves and television waves - in ways that benefit the institution. These 'bloggers' are not you and me, reading blogs, feeling blogs, putting our own souls out there to be either ignored or attacked. These 'bloggers' look at it as a job, they put in their ten hours a week on their ten blogs, each with a similar format and content. Usually they have titles that are quite abrasive, then a paragrab or two of talking points (logical flow rarely necessary) followed by a lengthy cut/paste from a conservative columnist. In this way the most valuable investment, that of the paid columnist, gets successfully replicated in this media. The 'blogger' who repeats some of the talking points he absorbed in the car listening to Rush and friends, maybe shows a bit of flair for making commentors look stupid. Over and done in twenty minutes, easiest two bills a month you ever made.

If the battle does ensue as the more primitive media has, the market will be controlled by a small group. Billions of people, only and handful of radio frequencies. You got huge internationals buying them up and loading them up with meaningless crap, quickly the voices of those who want to challenge a corporate ideal for the future of mankind are drowned out. Can the internet become so overloaded with content that statements regarding reality, like schools of fish, overwhealm a young mind as an unquestioned truth?

If I wander the internet and find fifty bloggers who all feel that something is pretty important, I'm inclined to reconsider my own stance on it. That's a weakeness (in the eyes of conservative propagandists) us liberals have, we will frequently reconsider our opinions and modify them occassionally. If a republican party that spends hundreds of millions in self-promotion, can pay one 'blogger' two hundred bucks a month to produce twenty blogs of technological competetency and ideological consistency - how many thousands of blogs do I have to sift through before I get to one that has a human being on the other side.

I'm spending hours of my life every day engaging with others on the internet for the purpose of contributing to culture and perhaps civilization. They are hammering out a few hours a week in the production of a product, one that meets certain specifications. What my bloggers and their 'bloggers' are doing is completely different. I don't want to waste my time online engaging with them.

Technology keeps moving like a shark. We've all seen 'bots that comment all over the blogosphere with the grace of a spammer, but they are going to improve. How long before the menial tasks of a 'blogger' can be automated? One writer can take the days talking points and parse them into fifty or so phrases, which gets entered into a database. Macros assemble random phrases into all the potential permutations, with duplication aplenty. These become titles and opening content on millions of blogs, with hundreds of approved newspaper content being pasted in for further ideological fortification.

Young bloggers everywhere could soon be railing against virtual enemies.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that only the canon of Literary Criticism can save us. Only a sheer insane amount of literary complexity can assure us that the producer of said message is actually a human being. I'm seeing a whole new species of solipsism.

(overheard near the water cooler within the Republican Machine, between two controllers of ideological operatives)

A Yo!, did you hear about Joshua Muravchick?

B No, what up?

A He totally killed 'gainst Amy G'man today!

B Um, Muravchikim'explaininghtheUnitedNationstopavethewayforward. . .

A Dude! Lil' man done pointed out he was outnumbered two to one by McCarthy and Kucinich, 'I'm the victim pussysounds', then chastises her journalistic cred. He had hit on the 'we'll be responsible for genocide' excuse and referred to AG as 'little miss moderator', before he ever got around to dropping the moneyshot.

B 'Little miss moderator' before he stroked off even one 9/11. . . This is reach around.

A No, Murav's too trivial for play'n, this be the loyal dope.

B So he's the next big thing?

A Oh, Pshaw! It's the blessed Kennedy Principle: both a powerhouse intellectual and a true believer - we don't push buttons on guys who both.

B Moooorav! inflected to rhyme the Marine battlecry.

A He scored a bunch of key word bombs early, but took too much time trying to establish himself as a thinker by pointing out a few of the official 'errors'

B Rummy Down! Rummy Down! feigning a panicking chopper pilot on Black Hawk Down.

A Yet, turns out him and everybody else out there 'had criticized Rumsfeld's descisions from the very beginning.' Of course we should have had more troops to begin with, cuz escalations the solution now DUMBASS! I LOVE THAT.

B Yeah, Jesus Love.

A Anyhoo, give it an ear then e me, short term link, I want to promote it and use it for training purposes, lines you want to see reinforced should be to me in 24.

B Aiiieh, 24.

Well, it's been crazy but I guess now it is over. Shitloads of dirty tricks were played in the lead up to it, and the worthless media went out of their way to make such chicanery appear to be spread equally between the two major parties. Somehow the will of the people overcame voter suppression drives and the questionably patriotic act of voting into a touchscreen; the gloating of the 'permenent majority' has ceased.

Here in Minnesota we did so - so.

Amy Klobuchar became our replacement for one term wanderer Mark Dayton, smashing the lame Mark Kennedy. Unfortunately for Mr. Kennedy, enough Minnesotans had wised up to the fact that he was not a dem, so his usual campaign ads where his surname is repeated like a hip-hop riff while bland, neutral statements about being a 'good guy' - they just wern't gonna cut it anymore. Glad to see my state represent'n when it came to the U.S. Senate.

In the House, Betty McCollum easily won here in my home district. My partner has sent Ms. McCollum a letter from time to time, and she always replies to her with a personal letter. Better than my luck sending mail to our republican senator Norm Coleman. I send him an email telling him that he's a fuckhead, and I get a form letter back directing me to send contributions to this address.

Also in the House, Minneapolis, Minnesota has elected the nations first muslim to the Congress. Keith Ellison is also the first non-white ever elected to federal office in my liberal home-state. I've heard Mr. Ellison speak a few times and he's got some good shit to say. He's one of those black politicians who makes me envious. How nice would it be for a young man to have someone of his own race who could speak so eloquently regarding the state of the world. He's also promised to make instant run-off voting a priority when he get's up there. Instant run off voting gets us all a helluva lot closer to being able to elect real people and end the tyranny of the entrenched wealth.

One the down side Minnesota still has Tim Pawlenty as governor. Even though he again only won thanks to a third party cantidate pulling votes (again, let's get some fucking instant run-off and cut that out) , our worthless mass media be talking about how this is his opportunity to showcase his bipartisanship and prep himself for the national stage. Trust me, this guy ain't Presidential material. I don't even think he has the slightest misconceptions about that, the whole 'might he be President someday' line of bullshit is just something to give the sycopatic press to talk about other than his actions as gov. This guy made a promise to a dozen of our wealthiest citizens not to ever raise their taxes, and has been pussyfoot'n around with 'fees' and shifting expenses to the local municipalities ever since. He also compared poetry to being a mime, so he can go fuck himself as far as I'm concerned.

Another let down over here was the loss of Colleen Rowly to John Kline. Again, not my district, so I'm not to down on why John Kline sucks, but Ms. Rowly was Time magazine's Woman of the Year. She was the career FBI agent who blew the whistle on the massive fuck ups that were preventing the disturbing fact that terrorists were over here learning how to fly planes (just not how to take off or land. . .) I'd think that even 'security moms' would want someone like that in the House. . . I think the district she was running in had a lot of wealthy suburbs, and suburbs do make people fucking dumb. . .

Let's see if the new majority party can be shamed into doing some worthwhile. Peace out.

Anybody else out there fondly remember reading Card's Ender's Game? I even read his whole series that sorta follows that, with his goofy takes on the next world war. I totally dug that Bean character, and even liked Achilles (with the french pronunciation - a She el.) They were alright books.

Sometimes authors need to shut the fuck up and stick to their fantasy writings. I mean, I'm all down with free speech and go Dixie Chicks and all that, so I'm not saying dumbasses like Card and Crichton should not be allowed to write out 'their opinions' - but when they do so they should expect a bit more backlash than what those poor country girls have had to endure. The shitstorm aimed at the Dixie Chicks was designed to squelch their freedom of speech - evidently, many Americans have huge fucking holes in their head and can accept that fact that entertainers need to 'shut up and sing.' Your knowledge of music must be pretty fucking shallow if you can ignore the Dylans, Youngs, Waters, Beetles, fuck even Lynard Skynard was fucking political.

Orson Scott Card is a douchebag not because he's expressing his opinion. He's a douchebag cuz his opinion reveals such a level of ignorance that's it's fucking shocking. Honestly, I'm shocked, that a man who has made a name for himself as a writer would put that name behind this sort of shit.

Since I myself rarely click links to read up on supporting matters for somebodies blog, I don't pretend my reader has now completed Mr. Card's extremly long-winded opinion piece. Here's how the great man begins his article:

There is only one issue in this election that will matter five or ten years from now, and that's the War on Terror.

And the success of the War on Terror now teeters on the fulcrum of this election.

If control of the House passes into Democratic hands, there are enough withdraw-on-a-timetable Democrats in positions of prominence that it will not only seem to be a victory for our enemies, it will be one.

Unfortunately, the opposite is not the case -- if the Republican Party remains in control of both houses of Congress there is no guarantee that the outcome of the present war will be favorable for us or anyone else.

But at least there will be a chance.

I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war

Nice, hunh?!? Maybe the fucker is a democrat, I'd hazard that at least seventy percent of that party are a bunch of whistledicks who live on exactly the same rations of selective media that the most brain dead amongst the neo-conned savor. I don't know, I'd think that a fucking citizen of America would care that he only has two choices and even the lesser of two evils still cannot insure a positive outcome to what haunts him as civilization's greatest threat. That could be changed, just about every democracy on the planet does it differntly than we do it here in the U.S., but that's a whole 'nother rant.

I should'nt be so abrasive. Mr. Card has got to be getting up there in the years. Perhaps he's had a stroke recently and no one in his familial structure has stepped up to prevent him from publishing such statements. Let's be a bit more abstract and dwell on these specific statements apart from the man. I'm a seeker, not an assassin.

First, we have the Zell Miller effect. Everyone remember Zell on Earth? He was that looney dork who was getting torn up in the South by the evag media machine. Sure he had limited choices, but he chose to do the speech at the Republican National Convention as a way of trying to make nice with his tormentors. A fair percentage of the republican stalwarts are evags, they broker in 'redemption' stories in a way that most normal people cannot understand. A few formor addicts talking about how much better a high Jesus is over crack - that goes a long way with them. Mr. Card's intro is not meant to entice democrats into pondering his wisdom, it's intended to get 'the base' hard while Mr. Card grovels in his submissive display. Think of a low status dog on his back urinating on himself before the pack, same shit different species. Nothing like having a supposed ideological enemy admit that he was wrong and then argue why for your amusement.

All that and he also gets in his two givens: The 'War on Terror' is real (or important, or logically sound) and the democrats will undermine it if they have the opportunity. Writing which will never endure critical thinking be filled with 'givens' that are laid out in the opening and never solidified. Mr. Card does go a step further than most, he devotes an entire bold headed segment to defining:

However, there are several excellent reasons why "War on Terror" is the only possible name for this war.

1. This is not a war that can be named for any particular nation or region. To call it "The Iraq War" or the "Afghanistan War" would lead to the horrible mistake of thinking that victory would consist of toppling certain governments and then going home.

In fact, it is precisely the name "War in Iraq" that is leading to the deep misconceptions that drive the Democratic position on the war. If this were in fact a war on Iraq, then in one sense we won precisely when President Bush declared victory right after we occupied Baghdad. And in another sense, we might not see victory for another five years, or even a decade -- a decade in which Americans will be dying alongside Iraqis. For a "War in Iraq" to linger this way is almost too painful to contemplate.

But we are not waging a "War in Iraq." We are waging a world war, in which the campaigns to topple the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan were brilliantly successful, and the current "lukewarm" war demands great patience and determination from the American people as we ready ourselves for the next phase.

2. We cannot name this war for our actual enemies, either, because there is no way to name them accurately without including some form of the word "Islam" or "Muslim."

It is our enemies who want to identify this as a war between Islam and the West. If we allow this to happen, we run the risk of achieving the worst of all possible outcomes: The unification of one or both of the great factions of worldwide Islam under a single banner.

President Bush and his administration have shown their grasp of our present danger by stoutly resisting all attempts to rename this war. We call it a "War on Terror" because that allows us to cast it, not as a war against the Muslim people, with all their frustrations and hopes, but a war in which most Muslims are not our enemies at all.

That can be galling for many Americans. When, after the fall of the towers on 9/11, Palestinians and others poured into the streets, rejoicing, it was tempting to say, A plague on all of them!

Yep, a plague on them all. This is an awesome example of writing with a cock in your mouth. 'Our enemies want us to define the war as a war on Islam cuz their planning on waging a fucking total war of global domination. Fortunately, our totally great Leader won't play that game. He knows what's best and will do it regardless of what the majority of Americans think.' When Palestinians rejoiced after 9/11, only our moral superiority kept us from nuke'n those fuckers.

It must have been a stroke that did this to Orson Scott Card. Obviously, the guy read plenty of war histories to conjure up his fiction, did he never read a single word of history of propaganda? Golly gee whiz, every state fighting a war has employed tactics to keep their population docile while they did so, and Mr. Card be going right down the list in his lame ass article.

In Ender's Shadow, Bean has a scene where he remarks, 'It felt good to speak truth to power.' Unfortunately, nobody seems to have the fucking manhood to simply state the fucking obvious about 'the War on Terror.'

When large groups interact in conflict, like when white America was pushing west through the vaginas' of native squaws, or when huge international petroleum extractors use loads of money to support repressive regimes that will give them unfettered access to the resources they crave; often one group grinds the other into the dust. History has recorded about a fucking million examples, and perhaps we're all grown up enough to realize it ain't much differnent today. In conflict where one side has total military superiority - and demonstrates that they will simply kill every member of your group - resistance to that requires desperate tactics.

It's just fucking evolution. The noble members of a group that refuse to murder civilians or torture or whatever don't survive. Those who fight by whatever means necessary don't live all that long either, but sometimes truly brutal terrorism does have an effect - so it will be repeated.

The simple fucking fact is that the middle east if full of fucking oil and oil runs every-fucking-thing in our modern world. The world has been fighting over the middle east's resources since WWII, and as the lone superpower, many in our country feel that it's ours 110%. The neo-cons have been writing papers about this for a couple of decades.

Some fucks still want to see the world in black and white, even though a few World Wars and decades under the threat of nuclear planet death didn't seem to get us too far with that mentality. They are tittilated by the notion of an 'Us vs. Them' kinda war, cuz they don't know shit about war or human suffering. Guys like Orson Scott Card are buying into the seduction of telling the American People what those in power want them to hear. Ain't hard to do. He's becoming just another Christopher Hitchens - just with a lot less talent.

I'll bow to the guys at South Park, Mr. Card is not a douchebag on par with the 'psychic' Jonethan Edwards, but he's still a douchebag.

Now, I've got to drink some beer and see what's happened at the polls today.

This afternoon I was trying to do some writing and things were going alright, you know, alright where your thoughts start feeling pleasurable and you get pretty sure that these thoughts are good thoughts, thoughts that literature exists to enshrine. Anyways, I got to thinking about how I got to be the way I am. Perhaps I'm not everyman, Mr. Joe Sixpack, the flat part of the bell curve. What if the processes that I followed in the infantile dream of becoming a writer were, quite seperate from the goals of moving forward culture; simply a rudimentary step in the development of self-awareness. Maybe people who keep a diary for ten years just happen to generate a greater level of familiarity with their own personality than those folks who don't. Maybe there arn't that many proven pathways to greater levels of consciousness - I suppose it makes evoluntionary sense that there would not be.

Could that be valid? Could it be true that mass media has no need for adults so their product is purposefully aimed at children so that the masses will aspire to that level of interaction. I'm not that much of a snob, but I can't watch five fucking minutes of broadcast television without wanting to vomit - it's all crap! 24, CSI it's all schlock! Engage the literature that was revered for centuries and that shit won't do nothing but hurt your soul. Could so many souls be hurt'n?

I just wanna believe that I'm just average 'for a country boy.' I gotta say, however, that the boogyman makes some damn fine points. Maybe when the world was village size and the church ruled out ninty-nine percent of possible innovation, maybe then a man could know his place by twenty. When the world be internet sized, and no rational man is going to let some dumbass clinging to a robe tell him how to live his life, maybe one needs to devote a fair portion of one's twenties to experimentation and growth.

I'm 31 and have spend a fair portion of time devoted to modern American history - I'm still ignorant - 300 million people; power = complexity.

So we have less than two days until the vote starts a rock'n, and I've got to say that my own personal contribution has been kinda lame. C- and I went to a fund raiser for Al Franken's Midwest Values PAC, and I finally became a financial supporter of our local community radio station, but other than that I've been coasting . . .

I suppose I could dwell on the positive, make excuses about how swell my opportunities are at the new job and how I had to take the time to put myself first as 'gawd helps those who help themselves' and all that rot. Maybe I indulged a bit too much in the general apathy that preaches about how there's just nothing that we can do.

I never re-joined with the local activists that had demoralized me with their immature ineffectiveness. I never knocked on any doors. I didn't print out any of the great zingers of a bumper sticker that pop into my head, to stick on my new truck and start changing the world. Never even got around to bringing up the election with my family when we had a dinner last night.

I just got to take a step back and get serious about this sort of thing. Take some responsibility.

We bloggers never have any trouble ripping into others and finding who to blame. I'm still down on evangelicals who support fascism from the cult-like idiocacy of their 'christian' media bubble, and I'm not going to let the Baby Boomers off the hook for being too selfish.

If enough folks vote against the current power structure on Tuesday and the threat of Bush be forced to slink back into the shadows, great. Never will so many have done just the bare minimum to preserve their own damn liberty.

Anybody else notice this?

Sweep rounds up 10,700 fugitives

Convicted sex offenders who haven't registered are a main target.

By Mima Mohammed, Times Staff Writer
November 3, 2006

WASHINGTON — More than 10,700 fugitives were rounded up last month in a weeklong sweep by federal, state and local law officials, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales announced Thursday.

Lets just speak plainly about the world for a few minutes. Even the retired Justice Sandra Day O'Conner has made allusions to the conditions in this country that are trending towards authoritarianism. Citizens concern themselves with this sort of thing, but for the most part, the malled masses embrace ignorance. Casually shrugging off the singular uniqueness of our country and our track record of personal freedoms vs. just about any other place or time, they just don't engage. So lets just step around the 90 some odd percent that don't matter in America.

That just leaves the established elites, who are obviously concerned with maintaining their priviledges but who often war amongst themselves for position at the teats of taxpayer monies; and the radicals, those who are willing to throw away a comfortable, if meaningless, life in the pursuit of Ideals greater than an individual. Where elites come from is obvious, folks born into that top one percent do have sex and have children. Each generation, at least a few win the lottery and join those ranks. The radicals are something different. They come from any random combination of genes that forces a moral structure to engage - they tend to die prior to reproduction.

So you've got two classes that have any measurable control over the direction of America. Those who are slip'n the steely dan into the Daughters of the Revolution, and those who are drawn to radicalism like a moth to a flame.

And let me just say one thing about us radicals. We be the folks that just can't accept the world as it is. We just can't understand why citizens of a nation refuse to educate themselves to the point that they can make decisions in their own best interest. Why would anyone willingly support a politician who is guaranteed to triple the debt of any child of yours who goes to college? Why would anyone support a politician who decided to just ignore the national debt? We just don't get it, so we make noise and invite attack.

So amongst the single digets that actually engage with the direction of 'the land of the free', the majority are the elites. The Bushs, the Kerrys, the Kennedys, and the Clintons, and all their butt kissing friends.

This FALCON roundup - gosh dang I'm tired of the neocons little acronyms - is a show of force for the small percentage that's paying attention. They are making a statement and we're all pansies if we refuse to engage what they are saying. With mere hours before the next major U.S. election, do we really need to spell this out to the few morans who might stumble accros my blog.

A percentage of the elites are 'all-in' behind the Bush political machine. The K-Street project ensured a fair number of them were.

Now they are signaling to the fence sitters that the war is over and they better choose the right side. All the groundwork for a police force coup is in place, and not enough of the public has their head out of their ass. If you were an elite, with children in Princeton, would you hedge your bet on the wisdom of the masses right now?

They've eliminated habeus corpus. At a word from GWB you are an enemy combatant (even if you are a U.S. citizen) and penciled in for four hours of sleep and twenty hours of stress positions for the next three years. No appeal, no lawyer, no right to see the charges against you. Sure they havn't really stuck it to anybody who didn't look 'terrorist', but the law be the same for every one of us. Maybe you never went out of your way to read up on the dozens of young black men who wanted nothing but to fight segregation, but wound up on Death Row for the 'crime' of being associated with a group that someone in the government thought was terrorist. Flying planes into buildings is terrorist, refusing to submit to the KKK's terror program of burning black's homes is not. Unfortunately, too few Americans can pull themselves away from the castrating effects of media to understand that there might be a diffence between the two.

So, unfortunately, the powers that be do not see this as a challenge to their powerbase.

TBC - hit me one time. . .

At the new job today, during an unusually boring meeting, someone had the bright Idea of helping to ensure our privacy by playing some music and pointing the speakers out the door. Suffice to say, that same individual thought that KTIS (one of the many fucking christian stations that pollute our airwaves up here in Minnesota) would be a choice we could all agree on - hey, at least it's not rap. So after almost two blissful months of mental peace; the old wounds have not healed a bit. I tried to focus on the content of the meeting, but like I said it was unusually boring.

I just fucking hate that music. Even if we ignore the large percentage that's just ripped off fag rock - change 'my boyfriend' to 'my savior' and you've got a hit - even if we ignore the blatent homosexual longing, the music centers around themes that I don't think are at all manly. "I can only imagine. . . when I worship you. . . I can only Imaaagine." Bollicks.

What ever happened to fucking masculinity?!?

That's my biggest problem with evangelical males, they just don't seem to have that fire in their eyes. Like, I'm pretty liberal and don't have a problem being around gays, but when I first meet one, I guess I just kinda like to know one way or the other. What they used to call the 'gaydar'. I always thought I had pretty acute gaydar. Then the weenie little evags started popping up all over the place. They stand too close to ya. They make too much eye contact and seem too comfortable with the proximity. They seem too interested in what you have to say . . .

I was about to compliment my friend Ch- on being so laid back with so many gay friends when I realized my gaydar was all fucked up. These young men with the meticulously manicured facial hair and a sense of 'flair' in their dress were not homosexual - they were evangelical. They didn't want me to touch their penis, they wanted us to touch Jesus' penis together.

Masculine men do not want to share emotional experiences with other men. Sure, maybe in the second or third year of a fucking World War, men might tell each other they love them - but that's certainly the exception to the rule. Evag men, having been convinced to lower their guard to experience a sensation of love that requires singing and make-believe about some sexy messiah with abs of steel, yearn for an emotional experience that just ain't natural. I ain't down with that.

Off on a total tangent to the program on maximum security prisons that Cindy and I watched last night.

Inmate after inmate spoke the same truth: 'It's a shark tank in here, there are no fish. Somebody disrespects you and you have to respond. If you don't, you weak and you gonna die. That's just the way it is, you gotta accept that.'

That's just the way it is, you gotta accept that. This has been true for 99.99% of all males that might ever be catagorized as members of homo sapiens. It was true when we were citizens of Rome, it was true when we were homesteaders in the West. It was true when I went to High School, although the consequences for failing to stick up for yourself and your tribe were a little less than fatal.

It you'z a young man in Iraq right now it sure as fuck still stands. If the world identifies you with the Sunni then you better be a Sunni who demands respect. Cuz if you ain't, what brother Sunni is going to put his balls on the line to stand up for ya. Death squads do those guys with power drills, it's fucking real over there.

Here in America we have a generation that has no fucking clue, and the evag is the weakest of that progeny.

Final point: I think that we should take the right to vote away from religious fundamentalists.

We don't let the mentally retarded vote, do we? Certainly most states do not allow felons to vote, even twenty years after they've 'paid their debt'. Why should we allow evags to vote?

I believe that the burden of citizenship gets heavier for each generation. The world gets bigger and more complicated. The access to information increases and the number of Ideas out there explodes exponentially. We've got more history to sift through and better takes on the lessons that need to be learned. The sacrifices of the Greatest Generation are not intended to be dissed, but if they gave all that then what have we done? Spend three or four hours a week reading up on modern history and alternative media?

Evags are not members of our society. The 'christian' founding fathers that they worship are not the real men who founded this country, they created a ficticious fantasy. They discount all forms of media that we real Americans contend with, and instead wallow in a 'christian' media filled with lies and purposeful misinterpetations. They don't even accept fucking science, the foundation for just about everything modern in the last two hundred years, to them the scientific method is just another competing religious dogma.

How do we interact with these people?

And since their interaction in the political arena has been so destructive, how do we deal with a whole subsection of the population that is not loyal to the values of a liberal democracy. They can't be reasoned with, they have radio stations that repeat all day long how they are the just like the jews, a persecuted chosen people, and how all liberals want to destroy gawd.

I don't think that any of the puppets in Mr. Rodger's neighborhood got to vote. If a modern evag male wants to live in a world a make-believe and only trust the leaders of his chosen group. . .

That's my final rant, that's what pisses me off the most about the pussys who call themselves 'christian men.' Men get angry when someone lies to their face or disrespects them. Getting angry is not a sin, sometimes it is the natural response to some dumbass who needs a lesson in when to shut the fuck up.

Pat Robertson is a corrupt bastard who uses charity helicopters to move mining equipment around to his diamond mines. The Rev. Ted Haggard was probably using church funds for gay liasons - my gaydar says he's totally into queer sex. While Bush and Rove have referred to the evangelicals as 'wackos' more times than I can count.

Where's the outrage?!? When does the average evag open his window and shout, 'I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!'? When does he at least take the time to ponder if maybe his religious worldview might not make a whole lot of sense?

When do they grow up? It's fucking 2006, six years into a Bush presidency that's been a horror show. Or do we have to take away their right to vote?

America has been free for over 200 years, and I'm not just going to sit on my liberal ass while these fucking douchebags sacrifice every liberal right and liberty we fucking have in the hopes that it will make Jesus come back sooner.

Can you only imagine how great America could be if every evag male's balls' dropped tommorow?

The cover story in last week's Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi, helped get my activist fires burning just a bit more uncontrollably than a six-pack of Octoberfest can smother. I've always thought that was the worst timing for an election, days after a major fall festival and the World Series. I suppose it's a hold-over from the good 'ole days, if the masses don't like the elections and rise up, well it'll be too cold for them to occupy anything for the long haul. Winter is no time for a seige.

There still exists in the back of my mind some revenant from catholic school civics which steadfastly refuses to accept some of the details of juvenille behavior that Mr. Taibbi alleges take places in the hallowed halls of the Legislative Branch. The story of Rep. Bill Thomas and his republican cohorts on the Ways and Means Committee rebuffing Rep. Charles Rangel from behind the door of an 'undisclosed' meeting. What the fuck? I'm supposed to believe that the Lions of House and the Senate sit around for five minutes and pose for C-SPAN, then tell their colleges in the minority to piss off while they go rewrite the bill in secret? That's so crazy?!?

I also appreciate Mr. Taibbi's willingness to describe a member of this congress as 'an asshole.' His descriptions of pay-offs and and ear-marks forces a man to use such words. To still give him the benefit of 'the honorable senator from . . .' seems like a too far of a step into crazy-land.

Most obvious reason to vote against the majority party next week:

The numbers bear this out. From the McCarthy Era in the 1950's through the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995, no Democratic commmittee chairman issued a subpeona without weither minority consent or committee vote. In the Clinton years, Republicans chucked that longstanding arrangement and issued more than 1,000 subpeonas to investigate alleged administration and Democratic misconduct, reviewing more than 2 million pages of government documents.
Guess how many subpeonas have been issued to the White House since George Bush took office? Zero -
(Rolling Stone, 11.2.6, pg 54)

What a bunch of fuckers.