If you listen to bidens news conference is as bleak

If you listen to bidens news conference is as bleak in reality as anything trump can muster.
Weaponization as policy. Every country should be able to make their own weapons?
Complete support of Israel, even at this late date in the genocide.
Despite what he says, the cold war is not over, in fact, the cold war is colder. How could it not be? The opposite of the warmth we throughout the world are continuing to experience. Maybe there is no longer an existential threat.
Reality starvation, yes we'll survive on the crumbs or our common sense that tells us we should be afraid but can we afford to be?
(The above was written before the attempt on trumps life so id be remiss if i didnt chime in on that)
Its still early yet but ive heard talk of god protecting trump. Heres a man who has been impeached but not convicted, twice, been indicted for everything from treason to money laundering to rape (convicted on some minor points related to charges), and is called the teflon president, so we can wonder if he could kill somebody in the wide open streets of america and get away with it. Is it possible we want to elect him because we're worn out from all the tv shows depicting the untruth of american justice, you know, where they always get their man?
Speaking of which, It's been a little slow IDing and coming out with info about the man who shot this liberty valence yesterday. Because he didn't carry id with him like many other assassins, killers, and Republicans. they finally came out with his name, Thomas Mathew Crooks, and he is registered as a Republican. They must have looked at his voters registration right off, so it will be difficult to go down the path of blaming another disgruntled trump hating democrat, and, or an anarchist loving, deranged leftist.
I know one thing though, with the quick reaction of law enforcement to both protect and serve the fist pumping, along with one heil hitler salute, the former president will be revising his demolition of the fbi and other federal agencies outlined in planet 2025 plan from outer space.
America is a bad script ready for Hollywood, if only one hero can be found, who is both intelligent, younger than 80, and who knows right from wrong. Apparently, there are none.
All this politician talk about how violence in america must stop, its sick, while thousands of miles away american made weapons and intelligence services literally commit genocide and while in the depths of american policy making right here at home, violence is the only thing manufactured. Its pure, homegrown american hubris and cynicism.
America is the wasteland of the free, as iris dement says.
About the only thing that keeps me from saying the world would be a better place without trump is the fact it wouldn't be. When i say "the world" i dont mean the limited space occupied by america, nor the confines of the shortsighted men (and one or two women) who continually chain us to this cynicism, calling it God, I'm meaning the vast, complex maze of humanity still driven by instinct and necessity rather than false hopes and murderous aspirations.
Ironically, this vast assortment of cultures, communities, tribes, extended families around the world doesn't care a thing about the declaration of independence, the holocaust, nor the exceptions to the rules of american politics ( except for their own experiences rubbing up against the modern world's wide search for resources, destructive wars, and supremacy and dominance over everything it touches).


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Baja (War, Days 56 thru 67)

 

Baja (or war days 56 thru 67)

 

For me, sitting in planes always seems like small, cramped spaces,

slightly bigger than coffins,

Ready to fall at the slightest pretext.

it’s one of the top ten sure ways to die 100%,

If the wing does fall off or the engines stop,

Like I imagine it will.

Make no mistake, it’ll be over soon, I tell

Myself,

If those things did happen,

I still believe

It will turn out all right.

After all, what were all the flying dreams about when I was a child.

Saving myself in occasions like this.

Always escaping the inevitable, horrific fate.

Three hours of these kind of thoughts until

Touchdown in San Jose del Cabo.

Where the walk through the airport is a bustling carnival of insurance, tortilla sales whistles,

Kids, and Indian mothers begging, “Can you spare a dime” in espanol,

the same plea in all the languages the world over.

A million cabbies more than eager to take you to town.

We are here. Safely ensconced in town,

Fish tacos already down,

Margaritas up.

And if I hear one more jimmy buffet song

By the pool,

I swear I’ll go to Portugal next time,

Where the fado will save me.

 

 Sunlight highlights her breasts,

Exposed and open to the growing morning light,

She, sleepy to the notion of my smiley thoughts,

Right through her gentle heart,

The piercing shrill of butcher birds

Alighting in the orange fuchsia like flowered topachine tree.

A lonely dove next to it,

It’s blossoms laying the sidewalk like soft orange colored snow. 

Yellow jackets find moisture on the dripping outdoor shower head.

 

By the thousands, jelly fish have stranded themselves on the beach,

A musty odor pervades the air as they spend their last moments drying out in the sun.

 

On a dive, twenty feet below

A hundred barracuda move in unison,

Effortlessly across the sandy bottom,

Scatter like gazelle when I turn my masked lion face

toward them.

Mantas, like monstrous bats in slow motion

Glide through flickering shafts of light

To the underworld I now occupy,

Their course less angled, more smoothly pristine than ducks and geese of the air,

In their watery dark solemnity.

Rising back up a hundred feet through Devil’s Throat,

A two-thousand-foot gateway into dark so thick,

Muscle bound with dark and gray shadows,

Light rays from above barely penetrate,

Eleven days of just her and me,

Under a mean Cabo Pulmo sun and clear water reef.

 

I missed days 56 through 67 bombings.

Before we left, day 56, Milosevic was ready for deal and Clinton was happy we (usa) weren’t killing too many innocent people, and it was Milosevic’s fault anyway if we did.

When I got back day 67, Milosevic is ready to deal and Clinton is happy we, (usa), weren’t killing too many innocent people, and it was Milosevic’s fault if we did anyway.

I had a dream on my first night back

I was never in mexico at all.

I am still frozen forever with my countrymen in a still life paint of ambiguity.

History tells me, it won’t be the last time.

A toy train and dinosaur loving boy

He was A train and dinosaur loving boy, set his boyhood sights on engineer, fighting giant reptiles or the future mean machines of evil men.

A lost childhood dream, he finally makes his peace,

Looking out for revenge, a release,

He doesnt know now who he seeks, but he makes his stand, 

dies with a gun blazin in his hand,

Long before he becomes a man.

Whatever vanity he had inside tHen,

Has since evaporated from his soul, and left him, 

if not a better man to be, at least a lessor one, i see

And that is good in a funny sort of way.

Love. that love that rises from a violent free world, a love whereby, his socialized tendencies must be thwarted, for they contain all the fragments of his own oppression, and his repression of them is a mirror.

The revolution within a revolution within a revolution that starts right here, in all our hearts, moves like a dream, a collective dream, 

Its appropriate but probably an odd coincidence that black history month includes valentines day, a sort of incongruity, beautiful contradiction where one, the descendants of slaves learn how to love their own humanity in the face of hate and women in general learn how to define love in their own terms, and guess what, everyone is better for it.

Guerrilla art.

Take up your art, take up your humanity and make it everywhere. 

City of joy.

Heroes all over the world who rise to the occasion and provide a realistic pathway for what the people have held inside themselves, desired but how is it that thousands of years ago humans worshipped and believed in gods who were versions of men and women, animal and human, and today we are left with believing in the power of ordinary men who are as intransigent as any god because they have money, ownership, and the only super power of invisibility.

Is it all a matter of the emperor wears clothes because he doesnt bare his power to the masses. 

Somebody needs to throw back the curtain.

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No change no justice

No change, no resolution

How many abusers of humanitarian causes, i.e. Para /official militaries, militias, police forces, tyrants, dictators having been accused of genocidal practices over the last century by national and international judicial reviews have ever been punished, sanctioned, or adjudicated.?

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Civil War Movie

Civil War Movie

Finally, a movie all about violence without any thematic context.

In the beginning of the movie three veteran journalists encounter a young woman photographer who is an admirer of the veteran journalist (kirsten dunst) who amidst a violent protest gives some advice to the young wanna be journalist. 

When the vets decide to go to,washington d.c. The young journalist tags along, much to the dismay of the veteran, who is hard line and knows whats what in this world of getting the story and the pictures to back it up. The money shots.

It's not clear who prints or even hears the stories because nothing seems to be "normal".

These journalists are covering an American civil war which from the film's opening looks as if it's been going on awhile. Throughout the countryside there is damage to cities, towns, and the land is scattered with men with guns, refugees, tribes, armies and burnt military equipment.

There's the western front army which i think represents secessionists from california, texas, florida but it doesn't really matter because unlike those states, there is absolutely no ideology behind any of the secessionist military, militias, individuals nor any reasons given or implied why secessionists want to secede, except when the journalists encounter a group of military camo clad soldiers dumping a dump truck load of bodies into a pit with hundreds of other bodies. One of the soldiers starts asking the journalists where they're from and when one answers China, the soldier shoots him.

Maybe its pre-MadMax, yet the presence of the journalists and general  exceptance of their right to follow the action and maintain their neutrality. Free press gives the entire thing a sliver of civility. 

The journalists are impartial chroniclers of the carnage and decide to go to washington dc because they hear the president may give an address to the nation. They think they may even be able to get an interview. 

Their journey, like other famous journeys, the Odyssey, for example, they encounter various individuals, militias and the western front army that is going to make a final push into washinton d.c. They follow along and embed themselves with the WF forces in order to get into the main action which is the defeat of the president. The armies' orders are to kill him and thats it but, again, the viewer isn't privy to who gives the orders and what the orders are. The movie itself maintains a level of neutrality and pretty much leaves it up to the viewers own moral/political perspective on who is perpetuating violence and who is the victim of it.

One other thing that this movie reminded me of was the european directors in the late sixties and early seventies who made several film parodies of american involvement in viet nam, civil rights and the turmoil of that period. At that time also, the european outlook did not convey on film some great american theme being played out but was, like this film, a reminder that in america, violence of any sort seems to be the background for all ideologies and beliefs. 

When you consider that a recent poll, 2024, shows that nearly 30% believe violence is necessary, either on the left or right, to fight extremism (of the left or right).

And also considering, that everywhere in the world, violence is always played out over the dead bodies of those who aren't part of it.

In the end, there's a battle raged around the walled up white house, against the soon to be defeated president. The journalists follow a squad of WF forces right into the White house where secret service and others sworn to protect the president put up a fight all the way to the oval office. The young journalist is right there and when her mentor is killed, the young one gets even more determined, to be there when the president is killed, and she is. The end of the movie credits are rolled over a photo of the squad of soldiers gathered around the dead president in the oval office, like proud hunters surrounding a downed elk.

Okay, so maybe i should have put a spoiler alert ahead of this but its too late. The movie isnt about journalism anyway, and the characters, whether it be journalists or anyone else, are drawn to be imbued with the great american avoidance syndrome of not caring about why things happen, just that they do happen, and everyone has a right to know it's happening.

Maybe it can be summed up with the final scene when one of the vet journalists asks the dying president to give him a last quote and the president says, "Please, tell them not to kill me," and the journalist stands, and says, "I guess that'll have to do."

I was somewhat intrigued with this neutrality issue. I guess one could say, if the president gets killed, then the movie isn't quite neutral, but the fact we know nothing about what happened prior to the civil war and no one gives us any verbal clues as to who believes what, then it is neutral. There are plenty of scenes of people, both individual and en masse who are riding out the conflict in a somewhat normal way, in shelters, in stadiums, in homes.

You know, the ones who will inherit the mess. Just like now.

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Pre-Post debate

(Things are moving fast in the post-debate world from the democrats touting anyone between Harris, Michelle Obama, and every other lessor known liberal politician to rise to the occasion in case Biden is talked down from his ambitious and illusionary presidential position. I will try to keep up or better yet, stay ahead, stay the course and not fear the real future: fear, instead, the repetition of the present, the mouse wheel turning)

Pre-debate

The presidential coin was going to flip this year, both heads and no tails, will be arguing their case in front of a worldwide audience and some people will be tuning in for strictly entertainment value. The jokes and jokers are on us, for sure. I always thought george bush jr was the stupidest president we ever had until 2016, and i believe, trump is surpassing that high level again this year. To think the polling is close just goes to show how ludicrous the american people are. Trump is stupid but im not sure if joe Biden is any safer. Hes strictly a mouthpiece for the military industrial complex. Yes, he has liberal speechwriters saying the right stuff, and, yes, he does believe it but, in this country, opinions are a dime a dozen, and the liberal ones are a dime for two dozen because they carry no weight in real things. Sure, he believes in racial equality, women's rights, but that's easy in a society which is nearly equally divided between the ignorant and the stalemated governance we have. 

Besides Joe Biden believes in compromise and, again, in this country, compromise means liberal gives up a lot just to get a long shot at conservative thinking. Compromise also means the money gets moved around, but it still ends up in the pockets of corporations and military coffers.

I honestly wonder sometimes who isn't voting, who isn't caring, who isn't interested. I think it's a lot of people, it's a statistic you don't hear too much anymore.

Americans are all about feeling comfortable and trying to get the government to make up for their own inadequacy. The big business world in american politics is about as close to heaven as one gets. Skyscrapers galore, can't tell one from the other by the look of em, theres a multitude of femme fatales, big bad johns, and sweet sues, all ready for melodrama and making cash. 

Post debate

For the first time, at least in my memory, we are confronted with a question whether or not either candidate has the capability/capacity to be president. There have been many instances where the democrats have submitted for our approval "plug your nose" and vote for me candidates. Now, we have a candidate where we are asked to not only plug our nose but blind our eyes and, worse, silence our minds.

Biden, on stage, practically reiterated the Israel trope of eliminating hamas at all costs except without the use of our two thousand lb bombs, which "don't always do the job without too many civilian casualties" and proud we've stuck with israel through genocide, apartheid, and infanticide.

Which one of these candidates claims the high moral ground?

Take your pick.

I've said Trump will probably not be reelected and fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you "see" it, Biden, who has now become, the sponge, for military/intelligence, corporate capital. The oxymoron for, democrats always having an anti-corporate billionaire bias (by threatening to tax them) yet at the same time, taking monstrous amounts of corporate donations.

Those donations are written off of their taxes. 

And all the people who work in them, nameless, faceless, feckless ants crawling from paper trail to paper trail to archive to facebook, twitter and instagram. Don't worry, they won't remember your name. You're not at Cheers. Your social security number is as close to a name as you'll ever get. And if you're escaping a harsh environment in another third world country, just remember everyone here in the usa has a gun, not just the militia or military, and they're out to get everyone.

On November 5th, or thereabouts, we'll enter Biden Country but like disney world, Trump Land is fun too. But more expensive. 

Oh yes, there are third- or fourth-party candidates but that's something that will be more important when we have a real representative type of democracy, where having opposition in the congress rather than one basic plan divided four ways, extreme right, middle right, middle right democrat, and left right middle left.

Our country is a mess. Over the centuries, worker capitalists have really done their homework, while grasshopper liberals have spent much of their time underground, emerging once every couple of decades, to jump on some war bandwagon. It's a living example of Atlas Shrugged

 

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Notes and Quotes 1-From Arendt to Anything Goes

 

Here's one thing wrong with America. I'm listening to Ed of MSNBC rant about what we all need to do in order to progress. The Senate just voted for the Keystone Pipeline.

Recent reports showing improvement in the economy, more jobs, and how we're coming out of the recession (depression) we've been in for six years.

My question is, how can anyone expect any progress when we accept a norm of disaster, war, economic collapse and six, ten, twenty years later we accept their version of progress?

Best of all will be those who know only one thing for certain: that whatever else happens, as long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves.

It's those who actually decide to not participate, even when attempts to force them, who are the ones who would not be able to live with themselves if they were complicit (by even remaining passive) in murder.

Much more reliable are the doubters and skeptics, not because skepticism and doubting is good or wholesome but because it at least entails examining things (called thinking) and making up one's own mind, rather than the more rigid moralists and standard bearers, including liberal minded ones who are relegated to accepting any framework of justice or action decided on by those they support who make decisions for them, whether it be state, religious, or another human authority.

Once you commit yourself to accepting some limitations, there still shouldn’t be statutes erected to never return or move beyond what happens today. A loosely framed constitution that few primary principals (based on common and nearly universal, consensual sense) is the only basis for a society founded on principals of freedom.

Hannah Arendt

It seems we have one choice between two indistinct prospects. To take off the burdensome yoke provided to us as workers, citizens, and consumers in a fouled system or continue to stand upon the gallows with an ever-present noose, initiated by climate change, government repression, and economic inequality, above our heads. So, it’s stop being cattle or chattel or die ignobly. I don't think the violent overthrow of any government has been a working demonstration of successful change in the past nor will it be in the future simply because disarmament has to be one of the absolutes of any new government but I do acknowledge that all non-violent movements serious enough to threaten government will be met with violence on a unprecedented scale. This can’t be avoided so many will want to go the route of meeting violence with violence but what history has shown is that the new rulers when they assert their new power which has been gained by arms (with the masses behind them) don’t voluntary step aside when the job is done, but will turn their unprincipled guns on the discussion.

Marx and any of the thinkers who used history for their social formulations only had what was behind them, just like we only have what was in front of them and behind us. No more, no less.

The Ukraine is in shambles and disarray the country is ready to fall apart and probably will turn violent, and as usual, the people will suffer at the hands of an extreme right-wing party and a weak liberal base. This didn't just happen overnight. The leaning of the mob toward the west without regard for the fact that the EU is falling apart economically is a true mystery. While there are demonstrations throughout the EU nations about severe austerity measures it's as if the Ukrainians never heard or they still believe it will be easier to get cellphones with the EU than with Russia.

In any Fatherland, the revolution will only succeed when the people, more than the mob, unite under some common cause in such numbers that when violence does come, the nation will collapse, at great sacrifice to those who struggled, making it more important that the ongoing revolution become a true and permanent change. 

Permanent change as demonstrated by constant rehearsal and experimentation on dismantling the institutions of hate and replacing them with, not other institutions, but with real egalitarian and free ideals, upon which individuals have true choice. Choices that are realistic and not some upheaval of reality by usurping need for some sort of dream.

In communism, the old adage goes, if the country needed plumbers, one could be forced to become a plumber, but in America if the country needs plumbers, one is advised to become an engineer, then become a plumber when the economy is leaking and stopped up with shit. 

The police in Sacramento who detained a family in what the police believed was a stolen car, ordered them out at gunpoint, made them sit handcuffed in squad cars while they investigated and, then released them unapologetically when they realized it wasn’t the car they were looking for.

The gist of the police response from the enforcements side is that according to them, when people have issues with police procedure, such as being handcuffed, having guns drawn on them, and being put in squad cars to wait out a traumatic event, that people have to realize what a tough job law enforcement has, and that freedom isn’t free, and out of the thousands of calls police respond to, only a handful of complaints are registered. What about empathy,man?

There is no doubt that in this country law enforcement riding the coattails of military and intelligence carte blanc use of force has been accepted as the obedient stepchild in the war against our freedom, contrary to what those in power, call the war on terror, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush war on human nature.

The inherent contradiction we are being forced to abide by is that the police (read ‘the government’) says we must give up some freedom (to be determined by them) in order for law enforcement to provide a sense of total security whereas law enforcement itself doesn’t have to give up a little security in order to maintain freedom. We are all suspects, under all circumstances whereas before the ideal was always innocent until proven guilty. That standard has been put on its head.

Those who exact revenge don’t have any advantages over those who forgive, (the vast majority will opt to take a middle ground, by defying injustice in whatever way they can. although it appears that doing one thing or the other is as natural as apple pie isn’t.) Our prisons are based on this same principal as well as all law enforcement and military institutions: everything based on law, rules, and honor. It is the sheep strapping on the gun and becoming temporarily the lion or the lamb standing, baaing at the wolves. It is a remnant in our consciousness that both bodes well for those who foster superiority over intelligence and bodes bad for the future for all of us.

 In a country where the two main issues are money and security there doesn't seem hope enough for young people. If I look around I think oh, there's a lot to do right here on earth, and I probably don't have time to do it all, but I'll try. However, when I think about the past, and my youth, it all looked pretty boring getting older. I can imagine that in this age where boredom comes fast and furious, about the only thing that gives a rush is violence. I smoked, took mild drugs and tried to have illicit sex, which was sex before marriage. Those were my thrills. And they were enough to take me into adulthood and to a point where I could say, they're no fun anymore. But what do you do when the thing that gives you a thrill is shooting people, either legitimately in the army, or at the bowling alley video game gallery or at the real bowling alley.

Who wants to be a plumber?

Let's face it. We want to believe that the young men who bombed the marathon are different than the ones who went into a classroom and killed children or who shot fellow students at Columbine. Name the atrocity and what you get are non-ideological killers who are more interested in the act than the reason for the act. 

In a land of freedom to discuss differences, the ennui that that particular freedom produces is buried under the fascination of simply acting on an impulse. That's where we are now. Our foreign policy mirrors the individual psychological impulsive nature of a sociopath. Is it any wonder the young will continue the terrorists war, based solely on non- ideological, sociopathological boredom with the world’s fastidiousness and national self- absorption.