July 27, 2013

Alan Grayson

is using his wits and intelligence to slowly and modestly recraft legislation to be favorable to dems and palatable to repubs. He's getting stuff passed in this era of Repub obstruction and sabotage of our government.

He is reinventing how to be effective in Congress, and without selling out his Congressman with Guts sound bites. Actually, he's not doing too many; Republican Health Plan: Die Quickly, stuff as much as he used to? Probably because he's a big thinker more focused on advancing a progressive agenda than getting unfairly edited in the evening corporate news.

-90% Jimmy

July 21, 2013

I found a new Zappa quote utterly relevant to these times

I transcribed it. The original was posted on a facebook zappa info site i belong to, and it appeared to be a first gen copy from a print newspaper. I do not know when he said it, but he disparaged Dems equally to Republics, so I suspect late 70's to early 80's, as he and Gail gave 200G's to the Dems in the early 90's and he transitioned to strongly favoring the Dems towards the end of his life.

Oh for those quaint days of yore when we only had the military industrial complex. For it is now the military industrial congressional surveillance complex. Enjoy. This one has greatest page written all over it!


When a reporter for the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command interviewed Frank Zappa for the commands news syndicate, the story was held by a superior who demanded that Zappa – who had been rather hard on the army – answer one more question: just who does he think will defend the country without the army?

Zappa’s reply: “From what? The biggest threat to America today is it’s own federal government…. Will the Army protect anybody from the FBI? The IRS? The CIA? The Republican Party? The Democratic Party?....The biggest dangers we face today don’t even need to sneak past our billion dollar defense system….they issue the contracts for them.” The interview was not run.



-90% Jimmy

July 16, 2013

The WOT is mutually exclusive to "keeping Americans safe"

You have choice;

1. Build a surveillance state infrastructure (that shreds the Constitution we've fought many many wars to protect, including the 500,000 dead Civil War) to prevent a twice in the history of America terrorist attack on the US mainland (Pearl Harbor and 9/11) which resulted in the loss of perhaps 6,000 souls. over a 60 year period.

or

2. Develop programs to lower the 500,000 deaths per year of preventable causes. (see link for numerical details) If we assume that death rate has been constant for the last 60 years, then we lost 30,000,000 (thirty million) lives in the same period of time we lost 6,000 to terrorism.

The numerical magnitude of #2 about is 5,000 times greater than #1.

This whole bullshit "War on Terror" is kinda like spending trillions of dollars to prevent death by hangnails instead of death by cancer.

9-11 seems to have been used by our government entirely to repress their own citizens and strip them of their Constitutional Rights! Especially since our conduct in the Middle East since 9-11 is nothing more than a blowback factory to insure we will suffer from terrorism for many generations to come.

we sure got some Machiavellian sociopaths running the planet these days, don't we? Our world leaders are all Dick Cheney's now!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3000300

-90% Jimmy

July 14, 2013

a nice quote from John Cusack

found it surfing facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Capitalists

I voted for Obama twice, but I fear living in such totalitarian times we have today. My public education (1960-1972) really drummed it into my head that communist russia was bad and us freedom loving americans with our spiffy constitution stood on the moral high ground. I really liked my country because it was all about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I think all elected officials should be prosecuted for breaking their oath to uphold defend and protect the constitution, because now they're treating it as nothing more than a goddamned piece of paper.

-90% Jimmy

June 23, 2013

The NSA chlling effect

I believe in the Occupy movement and have an Occupy bumper sticker on my tailgate. I have seen only one other Occupy sticker on any car anywhere I've been. I surmise from this scientifically invalid study that most American's have little to no understanding about the Occupy Movement.

The totalitarian police state treatment of Occupy Protesters has made me EXTREMELY RELUCTANT to participate in anyOccupy gatherings. Simply put, I don't want to go to jail, get tasered, pepper sprayed,cracked in the face with a police baton, or loose my eardrums from police noise machines.

Also, I just plain don't know how to navigate big cities like New York. And I can't stand camping out.

Not to mention Occupy on the east coast seems to have fizzled. I'm even reluctant to peruse any Occupy websites, lest I put a big drone target on my back.

I fear my own government a hell of a lot more than any terrorist, simply because the probability of my own government wrecking my life if they chose too is about 10,000% greater than being a victim of terrorism.

-90% Jimmy

June 23, 2013

Drone death statistics

Here's some remarkable information about America's drone program. This one poor soul unto himself is responsible for 1626 deaths, working for the U.S. as a contractor, no less!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11794063

On the one hand, I think our national security state is based on the urgent need to avoid another large scale terrorist attack on the U.S.A. Can you imagine Fox News coverage if we receive another mass murdering terrorist attack? Impeachment would be too good for Obama. He'd be drawn and quartered on live TV if large scale terrorism to the U.S. happened on his watch.

OTOH - The U.S.A. is guaranteed to be afraid of decades of BLOWBACK as a direct result of the mass murders of our drone program.

It's my understanding that once a week, Obama sets aside an hour or two for personally selecting those to be droned. I think he should invite somebody like Dianne Sawyer and do a TV special while he's personally supervising murder by drone.

So, my conclusion is that our anti-terror program is really engineered to create even more terrorism so that more bricks can be added to our national security wall and engorge our military-industrial-congressional-security-complex until 3/4 of our GDP is going to defense contractors.

-90% Jimmy

June 13, 2013

An example of possible pressures Obama faced upon election

With all the other sinister crap our government has done over the years, this scenario is soon becoming the only possible explanation.

For example, it has recently been revealed, and covered in detail by Thom Hartmann, that LBJ knew Nixon was negotiating with North Viet Nam to delay a peace agreement until after the election and Dickie would give them a better deal than LBJ. Thom played a tape of LBJ talking to Senator Dirkson; "Everett, this is TREASON!" "I know, I know."

It've a proven part of history. bonafide, no wild CT's. irrefutable proof of an American Presidents successful use of TREASON to win a Presidential Election!

And Dick also needlessly extended the war another 22,000 dead as a result of this. How could any person not simply drone themselves from the weight of murdering so many people?

-90% Jimmy

June 13, 2013

Preventable

Yeah, it's not possible to bring any of the categories mentioned down to zero deaths. BUT, in the case of all things mentioned, governmental efforts can bring all those numbers dramatically lower. If you lower all categories by 10% across the board over the same time period, that would be 2 million (2,000,000) lives saved. I think it's fair to postulate that if the government had poured the same resources into preventable deaths that they did in building the current NATIONAL SECURITY STATE, a ten percent reduction is a reasonable assumption in the same time period since 9-11.

"terrorist attacks prod us into wars." Define "us", Kimosabe? The run up to the Iraq Invasion sparked the largest turn out in world wide anti-war protests in the history of the universe. We the people sure as hell didn't want to invade Iraq! It was our neocon GWB White House that wanted to invade Iraq. We as a country were terrified, but I think there was a decent consensus we at least wanted to bring the 9-11 plotters to JUSTICE, which is a hell of a lot different than invading a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 what so ever. I think we were all supportive for invading Afghanistan after 9-11. That was where most of the plotters could be located, based on info of that time.

Terrorist Attacks prodded OUR GOVERNMENT into starting a war. With our MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL-SECURITY-Complexes ever growing lust for profit making wars and conflicts, the USA, especially under GWB, would go to war if another punk ass country without nukes even looks at us funny.

The invasion of Iraq was an act of treason by the GWB White House. The fecklessness and waste of how the war was conducted was also treason. Incompetence so tremendous, it bore the weight of full blown treason.

The invasion of Iraq was another artifact that proves our democracy is being stolen. The first proof of democracy demolition was of course the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court Decision. The magnitude of just how much our Democracy is being murdered by design has become in your face clear with these recent FISA/NSA revelations.

The list of freedoms and rights lost, surveillance mechanisms built and practicing the governance of middle ages monarchs are pointing in the direction of a national police state governmental infrastructure. I think we are perhaps only two or three election cycles to reach this tipping point as described by Frank Zappa.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

America is a police state, although we are only at the stage where the tiny beak is starting to break through the eggshell.

Thanks for your comments. Insightful and thought provoking. It sparked me to try to further refine what exactly is pissing me the hell off about our It's alive, IT'S ALIVE!!!! Police State.

-90% Jimmy

June 12, 2013

3,000 dead on 9-11 vs. 30,000 per year on gun violence

How's this "keeping Americans 100% safe" working out for yah, U.S.-military-industrial-congressional-surveillance-complex?

Our government only wants to prevent terrorism. In terms of the magnitude of death and human suffering, they don't seem to give a rats ass about the 99.99999% of us that die from preventable causes other than terrorism.

I suggest our governments priorities are misplaced and it doesn't take much brain power to realize our government nullifying our Constitutional Rights has very very very little to do with keeping us safe.

Americans should be terrified of the stuff that has an astronomically higher probability of killing you - namely:

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
Diabetes: 69,071
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

And it seems all of the above mass murdering forms of premature death are not even on the radar of our national conversations?

"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." Frank Zappa

The hidden in plain sight stupidity of our war on terror certainly comes to light when you quantify the magnitude of the acceptable death we Americans tolerate!

We sacrifice 30,000 American to guns every year. This is perfectly acceptable to us all. But loose 3.050 almost 12 years ago and it's time to go full blown TOTALITARIAN FASCIST POLICE STATE!

I currently fear my government a hell of a lot more than I fear terrorism!

-90%

June 12, 2013

WTF squared

sabrina's post above:

"The president also said that in order for us to be 100% safe we have to give up some rights'. Wtf?? "

Well, if job one is to keep us 100% safe, our protective government missed their goal by about 99.9999% in the last decade.

We've lost 3,000 on 9-11 and perhaps 50 more to the present time. 3050.

In that same time periods, approximately 10-11 years since 9-11, we ALSO LOST about 20,000,000 (thats TWENTY MILLION) to preventable causes of death.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 597,689
Cancer: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
Diabetes: 69,071
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

Here's a link to another post that substantiates the above death numbers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=123706

so our government is stripping our Constitutional Rights to make us "100% safe from terrorism", but finds the 20,000,000 dead since 9-11 to be something they don't seem interested in fixing?

And if the are so concerned with keeping us 100% safe, how come our government sent an additional 5,000 young Americas to die in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9-11? The families of our patriotic dead that made the ultimate sacrifice realize that their loved ones were not keep 100% safe by our government.

If our government is hell bent on keep us all 100% safe, how come there's no angry mob torches and pitch forks about the ABYSMAL JOB our government did keeping those 20,000,000 dead Americans 100% safe?

As Thom Hartmann pointed out, we loose more people every year in bathroom accidents than we lost in 9-11. In terms of the magnitude of human loss, the bathroom deathtrap problem is much more severe than preventing another 9-11! Our government should take their TRILLION DOLLAR TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS PROGRAMS and funnel that money into SAFER BATHROOM TECHNOLOGY!

-90% Jimmy