May Day! May Day!

"I have found the Massachusetts Indian more full of humanity, then the Christians..." 

Thomas Morton

Like punk, May Day originated in the good ol' USA, before it became all the rage and celebrated in many a country abroad as the true worker's holiday. Unfortunately, it was quashed, neutered and then repurposed in the country of its origin to suit the powers that be. Workers' Day demoted to yet another sales holiday, in September- want fries with that?

400 Tons!!!

Four hundred tons of radioactive contaminated water leak out of the Fukushima power plant into the ocean each and every day...

"Most Of The Global Economy Will Be Dedicated To Keeping The Water Away"

Most of the time when you tell people that climate change will raise the temperature worldwide a few degrees- they either glaze over or... laugh in your face. This brings it on home in no uncertain terms- unchecked global warming (which is what we continue to have despite and because of all the political hot air rhetoric) will be a world wide catastrophe in a hundred years (and even worse a hundred later), with many a major and world renown city abandoned and underwater...

I won't be here- will your children?

New Year, Same Story...

Where common sense continues to be an outlier,  and hope (small h), remains the dream...

Because We're Stupid

Not stupid because we didn't understand exactly how the banks were conducting business, it was made purposely too complex for us to understand. No one can be faulted for that. Stupid because once they were finally exposed, finally exposed bare and naked and clean for all to see just how longingly and lovingly they were fucking us up the ass each and every day, we chose to... 

1.) Allow them to be rescued with our money,

2.) Demand no accountability whatsoever,

3.) Blame exactly who they told us to blame ("poor people, teachers and immigrants"), and-

4.) Smile as we continue to let them fuck us each and every day, to this very day!

The beauty and genius that was Jon Stewart and The Daily Show was that they broke down complex (and often boring) social, political and economic issues into logical, easy to understand bits and pieces that were... goddamn funny to boot. The Big Short does much the same, and does so brilliantly, covering the financial meltdown that happened under our watch (Anthony Bourdain explains CDOs, Salena Gomez breaks down synthetic CDOs)- and that continues unpunished and unrepentant, however disguised, as you read this.

But, hey, it's Christmas- grab the eggnog and a warm blanket; you can kick the dog when you're hungover after New Year's. 

PS- Oh... And when someone with a big, self satisfied smirk demands you explain just how the government could ever possibly keep a secret as overwhelmingly HUGE as UFO's under lock and key for soooo damn long- kindly just remind them that... it's all so easy, when we're the ones who do it for them; aliens are small potatoes indeed, compared to knowingly letting them rob us blind each and every day of our hard earned $$$...

Just try not to roll your eyes when you tell them.

Amen...

Lies, Lies, Lies... Very popular these days. On the news, the internets, the mouths of the pettiest of Presidential candidates. As true now as it was then- make them big enough, repeat them often enough... and people will fall in line to follow.

Not as loud, or convenient or as popular, there are always the facts. And for that, we can always give thanks, thanks for that increasingly rare opportunity to glimpse through the window of sanity...

Addendum: And speaking of truth in advertising...

American (Non)Jurisprudence

Monday morning before work I was hit with a double dose of how monumentally insane our court system in these Semi-United States has become. One video lays out how utterly and completely fucked you are if you are poor (a lawyer will be provided for you- for say... 7 minutes); the other describes just how determined the judicial system can be to guarantee they kiss your ass into eternity- no matter what the evidence says...

Less than 1 officer in 1000...

...reported police killings of civilians resulted in charges (not convictions, charges) of wrongful death.

Traitor or Hypocrite?

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Operation Tomodachi

The Fukushima catastrophe changed the world. Nuclear reactors melted down on live television and twice as much radioactive material was released as during the Chernobyl accident in 1986. The disaster drove 150,000 people from their towns and villages, poisoned entire landscapes for centuries and killed hundreds of thousands of farm animals.

AFP/US Navy

There's an old Saturday Night skit in which a Black janitor (Garrett Morris) is ordered to get his mop and bucket and clean up... a radioactive spill at a nuclear power plant. It was one funny skit- it's also basically what  Navy Captain Thom Burke told his crew to do on the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan when they entered the radioactive plume dispersed by the critically damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. Not so funny...

Many of those sailors lived and worked well within that radioactive plume for days, cleaning radioactive fallout without protective clothing, drinking contaminated water. Hundreds of them are now suffering from advanced cancers and "unexplained" debilitating diseases that the Navy says they cannot explain, and for which they take no responsibility and admit no accountability. Of the 500 sailors stricken ill, 247 are now attempting to sue Tepco (the Japanese power company that ran the plant in question), they're legally prohibited from suing the US Military itself due to the Feres Doctrine).

 

 How much of this have you heard or read about on the news???

Everything You Know About Drugs Is Wrong...

Yeah, pretty much everything... from the way they affect our minds and bodies individually, to the way they affect society as a whole. We've created and perpetuated so many long standing myths about drugs, that we've come to believe them as basic truths. See how quickly they dissipate into disrepute when held to the light of the most basic of scrutiny...

Will straighten ya out right quick!

Speaking Of Inequality...

  

 There's always an underlying reason, or two, or... when the pot blows!

Honesty And Mass Murderers

On one hand you have those that kill innocents seemingly for the hell of it, sometimes even killing themselves in the process- then there are those who claim to be beyond such outright barbarism, kill anyway- then proclaim innocence. I'd say they're both small minded, murderous bastards- and very much deserving of each other. But one is definitely the bigger liar.

But... Stan! Over a dozen innocent people were just slaughtered in Paris- where's your so called compassion for them!? And over 2 thousand more in Nigeria- and don't forget the hundreds of thousands we're personally responsible for in Iraq for no good reason (making Sniper doesn't count), not to mention our ongoing drone collateral recruitment program... that never does gets mentioned. The point is, it's time we stop playing whack-a-mole throughout the world and start addressing this global problem as a human one, one that can not be addressed, let alone solved strictly by military means... Ours, or theirs.

And another thing's for damn sure- Houdini in all his greatness could not have pulled off what the US of A claims these three did one night (in their zeal to get back at us)...

Lords Of Secrecy

Why did 4X deferment Dick Cheney allow Pakistan's evacuation of key Al Qaeda operatives from US jurisdiction? And other outrageous and essentially unpublicized and unaccounted for acts of complete security insanity...

Circus of Hypocrisy

Photo: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

"...this is a sort of circus of hypocrisy when it comes to all of those world leaders who were marching at the front of it. Every single one of those heads of state or representatives of governments there have waged their own wars against journalists."

Winess 40

Racist, bipolar felon...

Trust Us, We Lie For A Living

I don't know how anyone can say they have nothing to hide- if you believe in anything, they can use it against you.     
-Diane Roark


Whenever Obama or any national security official assures us that there are channels aplenty through which government whistle blowers can report their concerns of abuse or malfeasance within the system, all one needs do is utter the name Diane Roark to give testament to just how large a lie that really is, and always has been.

And why Edward Snowden did what he did, exactly how he did it...

Rogue Cops, Or Rogue Police Force(s)?

I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.*


How crazy, outta control has this "rogue" cop phenomenon become, this phenomenon that reaches across cities large and small, and across state lines? Has it become so widespread that they are no longer referred to as rogue cops, and are now simply what we have come to expect? How is that those that are supposed to protect us are killing us, at least a certain significant faction of us, even when clearly unarmed?

An unarmed nineteen yr old dead in Missouri; an unarmed citizen in NY killed over cigarettes; an unarmed resident killed entering his building in Phoenix, an unarmed resident shot dead in the stairwell of his building (the officer calling his union rep before calling an ambulance); and finally, the cop who shot a twelve year old with a pellet gun. Now I might have cut the latter a little slack, fake guns can look like real guns- that possible empathy flew when it was learned that the officer responsible for the shooting was kicked off a previous police force for his utter incompetency... particularly when it came to dealing with his own gun!*

This is shear madness, madness in need of very real change and reform, change that would save lives and promote police and community trust and cooperation. Instead, after the current tsunami of police denial, we'll proceed with the usual makeovers- makeovers like the ones that permit choke holds, even after specifically banning choke holds (see below). And the killings murders will continue...

Was This Ever Read To The Grand Jury?

Go to 40:30 in the clip and listen to the official NYPD Patrol Guide- not only what it says about the use of choke holds, but what it then goes on to state about police who fail to stop fellow officers from using excessive force...

A Government of Law

It is so often stated (with much pomp and pride) that this is a nation of law, as if this sacred principle applies to everyone equally, when in reality, the law serves those that most directly control and influence it- while those most in need of its protection are, in turn, those most abused by it. The Ferguson Grand Jury was not the greatest perversion of law and justice, merely its most recent, and more importantly, it's most publicized.  And yet, even when so obviously twisted and perverted to facilitate and favor those in power, so many remain oblivious, silent or... satisfied.