Remembering

The first step is to convince you that you're remembering certain events in your life incorrectly.  If those events make for crappy memories - like having been in combat, or that you may have done things you know were wrong, or that you fell for a scam and got played for a sucker - well, then I can substitute an alternative version of history and you'll be more than a little happy just to go along with it.

From truthout:

With George W. Bush's wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and Barack Obama's drone wars in seven Muslim-majority countries and his escalating wars in Iraq and Syria, we have apparently moved beyond the Vietnam syndrome. By planting disinformation in the public realm, the government has built support for its recent wars, as it did with Vietnam.

Now the Pentagon is planning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War by launching a $30 million program to rewrite and sanitize its history. Replete with a fancy interactive website, the effort is aimed at teaching schoolchildren a revisionist history of the war. The program is focused on honoring our service members who fought in Vietnam. But conspicuously absent from the website is a description of the antiwar movement, at the heart of which was the GI movement.

Thousands of GIs participated in the antiwar movement. Many felt betrayed by their government. They established coffee houses and underground newspapers where they shared information about resistance. During the course of the war, more than 500,000 soldiers deserted. The strength of the rebellion of ground troops caused the military to shift to an air war. Ultimately, the war claimed the lives of 58,000 Americans. Untold numbers were wounded and returned with post-traumatic stress disorder. In an astounding statistic, more Vietnam veterans have committed suicide than were killed in the war.

If we know the real story about what "our" government wants done, most of us are going to be pretty reluctant to do it.  And that's always a problem for governments.

So I have to ask - What's the story here?  Why now?  Are we getting this Happy-Talk-History because we need solace about another shitty chapter in USAmerica Inc's past, or are we being softened up for the next little adventure that we'll end up feeling shitty about all over again 40 years down the road?

Also too, Veterans' Day is coming up, and we're losing veterans of "the good war" at a very brisk pace.  So maybe we just need a little good ol' American PR know-how to take the Vietnam shit brick and polish it to a bright lustrous sheen blah blah blah - we need heroes, and heroes don't come from stupid little corporate sponsored wars.

Today's Stevie Ray

1. The Things That I Used To Do
2. Tin Pan Alley 04:57
3. Leave My Girl Alone 14:10
4. Riviera Paradise 18:29
5. Ain't Gonna Give Up On Love 27:22
6. Life Without You 33:32
7. The Sky Is Crying 37:50
8. Little Wing 42:31
9. Texas Flood 49:24
10. Dirty Pool 54:48
11. Lenny 59:53

Elect Republicans

Expect amazingly great things, and end up getting Kansas.



We are so Kansas-ed.

2014 Mid-Terms

Find out what's on your (Virginia) ballot here This is what the ballot looks like for Albemarle County Virginia: Office Jurisdiction Ballot Name Party Web Site United States Senate Statewide Ed W. Gillespie Republican http://www.edforsenate.com United States Senate Statewide Mark R. Warner Democrat http://www.markwarnerva.com United States Senate Statewide Robert C. Sarvis Libertarian http://www.robertsarvis.com Member House of Representatives - 05 05 Robert Hurt Republican http://www.roberthurtforcongress.com Member House of Representatives - 05 05 W. Lawrence Gaughan Democrat http://www.gaughanforcongress.com Member House of Representatives - 05 05 Paul F. Jones Libertarian http://www.pauljonesforcongress.com Member House of Representatives - 05 05 Kenneth J. Hildebrandt Independent Green http://www.electken.com

There's also a Proposed Amendment that exempts active-duty military survivors from a certain level of property tax.  I'm not crazy about the idea because first, it was proposed by a Repub, which makes me suspicious that they're trying to smuggle in some kinda of general anti-tax bullshit by hiding it behind a cynical and equally-bullshit "concern for our veterans", and second - well, actually I guess that's about it.  I don't trust 'em any farther than I could spit one of 'em.

I think you could probably find out what's on the ballot wherever you are by doing what I did - just google the sumbitch.

Get up off your ass for a change - go vote.

Today's Tweet

@TinaDupuy:  So far every case of Ebola in this country got it by helping people. So relax, Republicans, you're in the clear.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Privatizing Public Money

There's a good buncha rubes who're always prattling on about how "taxation is theft; da gubmint holds a gun to yer head and steals yer hard-earned money, and gives it away to welfare cheats yada yada yada".

You've got the process right, Dub - but as usual, you're lynchin' the wrong guys, because you're just too deliberately ignorant to know it.

When your head is that far up your ass, even if you manage to open your eyes, all you're gonna see is your own shit.

From TruthDig:

In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the group’s education agenda. The first — and it turns out, only — stop was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington.

Douglass Academy was an unusual choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35 students, roughly half the state’s minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that federal regulators were investigating the school’s operations.

But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group.

The school’s founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Koch’s free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits.

In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.

The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell’s charter schools there’s no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts.

Dreamin' Of A Better Day Gone By

Lay My Burden Down --Alison Krause & Union Staion

Today's Self-Parody

Not that long ago, DumFux News was busy slagging Obama for his propensity for the PhotoOp - I seem to recall somebody using language along the lines of "Obama's addiction to the PhotoOp".  Here, of course, the Fluxxy Friends need to run in the opposite direction to slag the Prez for his dislike of the PhotoOp.

2nd - as everybody's been pointing out - these guys give us a good look at another example of just saying whatever the fuck they need to say to get the rubes to start flingin' shit - the fact that we don't have an Ebola Czar, even tho' their guys have blocked Obama's choice for Surgeon General; and if we wanna go back just a bit further - these are the guys who were voicing great disgruntlement over Obama's "appointment of all those darned czars"; plus something else that everybody's pointing out - the simple fact that their guys have done nothing but cut the funding to the bureaus and agencies that they now say are letting us down.

Wanna see how Gubmint works when it's run like a bidness?  Your wait is over.

Today's Colbert

A Ballsy Ad

I'm not asking anybody to try to match the Repubs crazy-for-crazy, but I really would like it if the Dems could finally getup on their hind legs.



And BTW, Dems - when you don't stand up and make a lotta noise about the Repub Stoopids wanting nothing but more cuts, you're helping people make the case about "both sides", which adds to the gridlock in Washington, which adds to the paralysis of the electorate, which makes it impossible for cooler heads to prevail once the shit really hits the fan.

Step up or step aside.

La Musica

Sarah Jarosz and The Milk Caron Kids, Austin City Limits

Mile On The Moon




Years Gone By

Today's Jesus Ain't

Jesus ain't your toady, Huck.

The American ISIS

...meets the Islamic Klan(?)

Whatever I'm doing on any given Saturday morning isn't more important or educational than listening to The Professional Left podcast from driftglass and BlueGal.

Starting at about 37:00, they get to the meat of something that sounds about right.  Even if it does end up seeming a little obvious, when somebody connects a coupla dots for me, and there's the sound of a click in the upper part of my brain, I know I've become aware of something worth learning about.

Anyway, listen to it and then tell me there's nothing to worry about with something like the Bullshit Revisionist History Curriculum in Colorado (eg) right now.

It's important to believe as many true things as possible, and to not believe as many false things as possible. (paraphrasing Matt Dillahunty)

And Away We Go

Farther down that long and slippery slope.  From Rolling Stone:

"In terms of a clear national picture of what kind of military equipment is going to K-12 schools through the 1033 program, we don't have a 100 percent transparent picture," says Janel George, education policy counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That lack of transparency is one reason the Legal Defense Fund and Texas Appleseed are asking the DLA to end the 1033 program's relationship with school districts and school police departments. George also emphasizes that excessive force against students by school police is already far too common, with many school officers armed with weapons like tasers and pepper-spray. "The concern is not only the potential harm when you add in military-grade weaponry – we're talking about M16s, AR 15s and grenade launchers. It's also, how does this exacerbate existing school climates that are already tense? And how does that contribute to the criminalization of youth of color in particular?"

The disproportionate punishment of Black and Latino students for the same behavior as their white peers is so well-documented that, earlier this year, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education expressed concern that such disparities may constitute a widespread civil rights violation. The fact that students of color, as well as students with disabilities, are so much more likely to be referred to law enforcement leads advocates to wonder: On whom are such military weapons likely to be used?

"In LA, if you depend on public schools – and given that the vast majority of students are students of color – at the moment you walk into school, your interaction with police automatically grows," says Manuel Criollo, director of organizing at the Strategy Center. "You depend on a public service, and that public service is attached to the criminal legal system. Are the police there for [the students'] safety, or are they there because they perceive them as a threat?"

Like the man said - "this country is finished".



All we're doing now is arguing about who gets to do what with the corpse.

The KrugMan Speaks

I haven't put up any of Paul Krugman's stuff for a while, mostly because it gets pretty dense and since I'm generally likely to go along with the conclusions he draws, it doesn't seem necessary for me to keep flacking it.  But that's kinda the problem - I'm convinced, and so I have what I think is a reasonable expectation for certain actions to follow; certain policies to be put forward and debated and eventually enacted.  

I understand that "the other side" is thinking the same way, but c'mon - amending the US Constitution to ban abortion and same-gender marriage?  Killing unions by force of law? Denying working people a living wage while funneling billions of tax dollars into corporate off-shore accounts?  Slashing Medicare and poverty bennies?  Turning Social Security into a cash cow for Wall Street?  Privatizing the water supplies?  Ya gotta be some kinda serious butt-plug radical dip-wad to call any of that "reasonable".

So anyway, here's Krugman in Rolling Stone, defending Obama - something I've been reluctant to do (not that RS has ever asked me - ahem).  But y'know what?  With all the time we spend bitchin' about Obama's Neo-Liberal bullshit, I still can't see how those other guys are anywhere near any kind of an improvement.

When it comes to Barack Obama, I've always been out of sync. Back in 2008, when many liberals were wildly enthusiastic about his candidacy and his press was strongly favorable, I was skeptical. I worried that he was naive, that his talk about transcending the political divide was a dangerous illusion given the unyielding extremism of the modern American right. Furthermore, it seemed clear to me that, far from being the transformational figure his supporters imagined, he was rather conventional-minded: Even before taking office, he showed signs of paying far too much attention to what some of us would later take to calling Very Serious People, people who regarded cutting budget deficits and a willingness to slash Social Security as the very essence of political virtue.

And I wasn't wrong. Obama was indeed naive: He faced scorched-earth Republican opposition from Day One, and it took him years to start dealing with that opposition realistically. Furthermore, he came perilously close to doing terrible things to the U.S. safety net in pursuit of a budget Grand Bargain; we were saved from significant cuts to Social Security and a rise in the Medicare age only by Republican greed, the GOP's unwillingness to make even token concessions.

Today's Pix

 

My Country My Ass

"I feel like a stranger, in the land where I was born" --Quicksilver Messenger Service

• Vigilante "Justice"
• School kids and their teachers massacred
• Rise of Hate Groups
• Increase of 400% in death threats against the prez.
• Voting Rights legislation gutted
• Fracking
• Pipelines for the dirtiest oil on Earth
• Corporation = person
• Coat hangers for women stuck in poverty
• Disappearing middle class
• Schools for profit
• Wars for profit
• Prisons for profit
• Innocent citizens murdered by the cops
• Coin-operated politicians
• Deliberate Congressional gridlock
• Police Department funding by seizure of citizens' property
• Cutting benefits for the poor
• Subsidizing the rich
• Minority rule
• GMO gag rules
• Money = Speech
• Government by religion
• Death penalty and botched executions
• Guns Guns and More Guns

USAmerica, Inc - not brought to you by:

hat tip = Left Turn Only

Close Encounters

...of the ironic kind - from KPTV in Gresham OR:

GRESHAM, OR (KPTV) - A man openly carrying his new handgun was robbed on a Gresham street by a man with a gun of his own.

Police were called out to the area of 172nd and Glisan Street at 2:10 a.m. Saturday.

Investigators said the 21-year-old victim bought a handgun earlier in the day and was openly carrying it while talking to his cousin.

They said a man approached them and asked for a cigarette. Talk eventually turned to the victim's new purchase, before the robber pulled his own gun from his waistband and said, "I like your gun, give it to me," according to police.

The victim handed over his gun and the suspect ran away.

The suspect is described as a light-skinned black man, 19 to 23 years old, 6'1" with a skinny build. He had black, wavy hair and was clean cut, except for a small patch of facial hair on his chin. The man was wearing gray sweatpants, a white T-shirt and flip-flops.

The weapon he used in the robbery was described as a black gun, possibly semi-automatic. The stolen gun is a black Walther brand, model P22. It is semi-automatic and .22LR-caliber.

There's a rube born every minute - and 2 to steal the gun he thinks he needs to feel good about himself.

Bye, Felicia

Huckabee loves to whine about how Repubs are losing their "moral edge", and so he throws the usual fits and tantrums, but he's not about to give up his power.  He intends to do what losers always do - he's going to go sulk.  I'm pretty sure he has a decent enough organization in place by now - mailing lists and phone bank volunteers and operatives and ad makers et al - that he'll never want for money, and that he'll be a thorn in everybody's side for as long as he cares to draw breath.  That's how it works.  Money & Power - once you've got one, you can get the other.

And always remember that these guys want lotsa things, but the only reason "democracy" is  on the list is because it sounds good to the rubes who're constantly being duped into voting against it.

hat tip = Crooks and Liars

Happy Birthday, Mr Lennon

Whatever Gets You Thru The Night --John Lennon (w/ Elton John)