Wait a minute...the Consti-WHAT-tion?

Another inflammatory day in the ongoing conflict between the dwindling base of American Judges willing to uphold the Constitution and the rights of the citizen, and the "Justice Department". If you can't detect the irony within that statement alone, then there's no point in me bungling my way through an explanation.
So, this is a battle that under the current political storm system a "Liberal" judge (in NeoCon speak LIberal Judge means "Horrible Godless Liar and Death-Bringer to Peace-Loving Supporters of the Military-Energy Power Establishment) is fighting a losing battle, but yesterday a flicker of light in the growing dark: U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs issued a ruling declaring, basically, that the wiretaps and overall spying program that the NSA is conducting against its own people (those whom it purports to be protecting) is clearly unconstitutional, and must be stopped. Wow. Three cheers for the judge but for cripes' sake, is this news to anyone? I guess this is what it takes, a legally-researched and judge-supported official 'ruling', just to stamp it in permanent ink. Sort of like when the court ruled that nicotine was, in fact, a drug, some years ago...much to the amusement of the smokers of the world, but ultimately it was important that such a ruling was made. Sadly that's what it takes in our country today. The spirit of the law has very nearly vanished, it's only the letter of the law that matters anymore.
So, of course, the Justice Department (sorry, I had to stop there for a moment, I was just laughing too hard to type)...whew, okay, anyway: the Justice Department has predictably "vowed" (there's perhaps the most over-used and utterly disingenuous word in politics) to combat this judgement. Big surprise. When's the last time the Bush Administration and it's store-bought Judicial Wing ever listened to anyone else? No matter how impassioned their speech or backed with reason and law their argument? They certainly never listened to the American people, so why bother with annoying "renegade" judges and their "constitutional protections". The juiciest part, however, is their avowed tactic: They say that they have validity and proof of the President's legal right to order these wiretaps...but, umm, they can't show it to us because it would be a breach of national security.

I would like you, the reader, to take a moment and really let the awesome stupidity of that statement sink in.

In essence: We have the right to do what we want with your privacy, but we can't prove it because if we did then the world would blow up. So we're told to accept their word that they're listening to our phone conversations, thumbing through our library records...purchases on credit cards, magazine subscriptions, party and community organization and religious affiliations, charity donations, monitor our state-to-state travel, and of course any international travel, subjects studied at school, our income and records at our places of work, and anything else you can think of, we're told that all this is done for the sake of our safety, and that don't-you-worry, we won't do anything naughty with it...TRUST US. And by the way, it's all legal, we just can't show you why and to ask such a question means you're probably in Al-Queda. Are you in Al-Queda, commie-boy?

Furthermore, they will march into court and with their army of lawyers (far more powerful than the army currently in the Iraqi meat grinder) and extoll all the virtues of the system, while in their words "leading members of the intelligence community will testify to the many valuable uses and the crucial knowledge" that has been gained. But you know what guys?

THAT'S NOT THE BLOODY POINT!

Even if that crap your guys are spinning were true, that's not the goddamn point! The point is that this action is unconstitutional, and do we protect our country by turning our back on what it was supposedly founded upon? They'll argue that the information being gained is USEFUL! Ohh, well...hell's bells Ma Kettle! Bring it on! I didn't know it was useful! I guess we should make anything legal that someone finds useful, eh? You know what? I'd find it pretty goddamn useful to rob a handful of neighborhood banks, knock over a liquor store and mount a submachine gun on the hood of my car to get moron drivers out of my way! Let's make it legal! It's USEFUL!

Is it worth being "safe" by surrendering our rights? Are we even safe in the first place? No! Where's the benefit that they gas on about? We're less safe from international terrorism now than ever before in our country's history! Ever! That is fact which can be backed up by numbers or logic, or both...look it up! Now, what about "Leading members of the intelligence community"? Huh? That could be anyone! But you can bet it's not anyone who has anything bad to say about the programs or their supporters! Those kind of people don't keep their jobs in this administration, even reporters who ask the wrong sort of questions are threatened with inadmission to White House press conferences, which is essentially a career-ending blow to most journalists. THIS is freedom? Our country has a larger target painted on its back and on that of every single one of its citizens than it did fewer than ten years ago...and we can't even protect our people from storms predicted weeks in advance, or rebuild their homes after a year of promises! THIS is safety? Bullshit.

Wake up America, you have been lied to for decades, it's true, but now the lies threaten to cost your more of your freedom and privacy and civil rights than perhaps ever before.

The NSA eavesdropping program and all its satellite programs are unconstitutional and WRONG. There is no argument, there is no "mitigating factor" or legitimate rationale. The Executive Branch wants to increase its stranglehold on the very movements, expressions and personal development of its citizens, and it will brook no opposition. They will strangle us all until we have not even the breath to speak out in defiance. Because according to their rhetoric, defiance or even disagreement is tantamount to terrorism, sedition...heresy.

Well done, Judge Diggs. But beware appellate court: Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and all the rest of the Buckaroo Crew will be hitting back with everything they've got. And soon.

Satan is an Arms Dealer

It's true. That is, if one believes in such things as an anti-Christ, et al (I don't). If the Lord of Darkness were on this earth in human guise, working his evil into the fabric of our world, I think he (she?) would have to be an Arms Dealer. I capitalize that because, well, I think I should. We should pay more attention to these people. Most people think Satan would be a lawyer, and I would have to agree that perhaps his most powerful lieutentants have some pin-striped firm in New York, but Satan himself could be no more effective agent of death, misery and catastrophe than to be a prominent Arms Dealer.

If you think about the horrors of this world, virtually all of them can be directly traced to mass violence and state-sanctioned bloodshed. From soldiers marching in line behind billion-dollar tanks to guerillas scampering through the wilderness with AK-47s, slaughtering indiscriminately...or emerging from the dust like phantoms and ploughing RPGs into a wall of humanity. Where do these weapons come from? WMDs is a popular buzz-word these days, but I have to wonder why an RPG, or a cache of machine guns...or even a tank, isn't considered a weapon of mass destruction? Are you kidding me? Think of what you could do at the helm of an M1-A1 Abrahms tank let loose in, say the suburbs? How many houses, stores, schools, hospitals, warehouses and other structures could you flatten before the Guard finally arrived with more tanks? How many of those would it take and how many soldiers to bring you down? An Abrahms is no joke, mister! Howe many people could you kill? A hell of a lot! That's right! Now that's mass destruction, in my opinion. Imagine if Israel and Hezbollah had no weapons right now...they'd be throwing rocks and harsh language against each other across a fence.

Yet there are countless companies in the world that earn scads of profit by manufacturing and selling new and ever more effective weapons to the highest bidder! Of course, there are supposed to be certain international legal restraints put on the sales of anything more powerful than a hunting rifle but c'mon...where do you think the so-called "terrorists" of the world get their weapons? How hard do you really think it is, and how reluctant are these companies and their agents to accept a few more hundreds of millions of dollars in sales? Please.

Instead, imagine a world where weapons of any kind are extremely hard to get.

-Tell the NRA to go shove their rifles up their cold, dead ass. No need for "protection" fella, when nobody else has guns either. You want protection? Learn karate...of course, you'll have to ditch that huge beer gut, won't you?-

Imagine nobody but stable governments (if there is such a thing) able to buy weapons. But then, the stable governments would have no one else to blame when they feel the urge to inflict some state-building somewhere..."freedom" at gunpoint. No "terrorists" to point the finger at when they want to flex their military muscles, eh?

But goddamnit, it's the weapons manufacturers and the Arms Dealers who bribe the governments in the first place! And I'm not just talking about tanks and guns and bombs here! Think about the companies that make friggin' fighter jets, bombers, and big ole *!#$!*&% AIRCRAFT CARRIERS! NOW we're talking about weapons of mass destruction! Now we're talking billions, even trillions of dollars. That kind of money shapes the world. That kind of profit shapes foreign policy. Take a few minutes and go look up the 2005 Earnings Report for Northrop Grumman, for instance, or Boeing. Look at those numbers and then tell me that they don't have collossal power to change the future...to sow the seeds of constant war so that their insanely expensive product is always in demand. Remember that every business must constantly keep demand alive for its product. Do you think the Arms Dealers want world peace? That would be like an Air Conditioner salesman praying for a cold summer! Take some time to research and you'll find that the weapons industry is even more embedded in Washington (and London, and Paris, and Moscow, and Berlin, and Riyadh, etc.) than the Oil People! In a very real way, they are Washington.

The evils of this world are not, perhaps, created by weapons...but they are achieved with them. And that would not be possible if it weren't for a titanic industry that is allowed to exist against every law of human decency simply because they earn more money than the GDP of most small and some mid-size countries. That kind of money makes things happen: laws are ignored, entire administrations steered into state-sanctioned carnage, peoples enslaved, whole towns wiped off the map...cultures crushed under the boot, entire regions embroiled in hell for decades without the slightest hope of an end to the misery. Why? It's like everything else: So a few men can earn a lot of money. I'm sorry but it really is that simple. And it really is that sick.

the forgotten percentage...

Ahem. Perhaps you should not be reading this. Perhaps I am not worthy of your time, because...well goddamnit I gotta admit, I'm just a poor, single male without the slightest care for mortgages and bank loans. I am not, I must admit to myself, very important.
I will come clean: I don't have much money...okay, damnit, I have none. I do not have a house, or two kids...or an expensive car payment and all sorts of complex issues with my "investments" and equity lines of credits...etc., etc. The only "portfolio" I have contains a lot of drawings and digital paintings that I use to try to drum up enough work to keep away the eviction notice gremlin. But at least I like what I do. I am trying to do something with my life (heaven forfend!)

So, therefore, I am not an important American. Apparently, even though virtually every dollar I earn goes right back into it, it would seem I am also not an important part of our economy, either.

I understand if you want to stop reading here, and amble off into cyberspace, seeking another blog written by someone with a more vital involvement in the American money game. I really am sort of pathetic. It's okay, point and laugh. Someday I will be in a museum. Austrilopithecus Jeremaximus: The man who decided to live his life for something besides money. What a fool!


Seriously, dear reader...what the hell is wrong with these people? These Suze Orman-reading, SUV-obsessed, squirt-out-the-kids-like-rabbits people? They and the media seem to believe, in their infinite "Idiot's Guide" knowledge, that millions upon millions of Americans simply do not exist. We're not here. We walk the streets as ghosts dodging our way between the harried herds twisting their way to the bank, their broker's office, and Home Depot.
When I say we don't exist, I'm not talking about the disenfranchised poor, I wouldn't dare compare my plight to that, they probably exist in the credit card world more than we forgotten millions do, simply because the credit card set likes to feel sorry for them, and drop off a bag of sweat-stained workout clothes every Christmas at the local shelter.
The forgotten sector are those of us who don't see the almighty HOUSE as the greatest acheivement to be reached. Those of us who can't imagine a college fund ever being a problem because we (gasp!) aren't much interested in having children. We don't see a Lexus or a Range Rover as a goal, when only an operational and reasonably comfortable car is wanted.

I made the mistake of reading a few lines from a Suze Orman article the other night, appropriately titled "Count your blessings...and your money!" (vomit bag please), and I was immediately nauseous (no joke). There it is again. She argues that a lot of people today are clearly misguided and deluded because they don't seem to think money is what it's all about:

I'd be the last person to tell you that money can buy happiness, but I'm fascinated by recent reports insisting that money isn't a major factor in whether or not people are happy.

Please.

What a sick, twisted woman. These are the kind of people who continue to poison the minds of middle America: Just clever enough to sound plausible and make intelligent-sounding arguments on behalf of the rationalization of GREED. What she is doing is bending the reports that she cites into an all-out attack on the notion of financial security as a good thing. Like every other loud voice in America, it's all about choosing an extreme viewpoint and sticking to it no matter what reason might interefere with one's comfortable, easy answers.

Sure, I work and I would like to get more work and better-paying, I would like to achieve a little financial security...but then again, what the hell is financial security these days, short of having a few million in a savings account? Even that can be taken from you in a heartbeat by someone with a good lawyer who breaks their ankle walking up your sidewalk. Financial security does not exist, not unless you're wealthy and powerful. For the other 99.99991 percent of us, any amount of money, properties, investments, savings accounts and other means of holding and developing $$$ is as precarious as a teapot in a bird's nest, no matter how smart you are or how many $22.95 Suze Orman books you read. But, my point is, yes, I would like to have more money, and yes it would reduce my stress level to have a bit more in the bank should my work run dry for a while (I have the audacity to be self-employed), or if I get injured (no insurance makes this a terrifying prospect), but it is by no means the key goal in my life.

There are millions upon millions of us out there, utterly ignored by the media and the money world, because we haven't cashed in on the great western formula for success:

Years spent learning a boring trade that probably contributes little to the world community, only to one's wallet + all dreams centered on earning cash + a nice House + kids to put in the house + nice car to drive kids around in + money for kid's college expenses + a boatload of cash to retire so we can start enjoying our lives for ourselves somewhere around the age of 65. (oh yeah, and a few grand leftover for funeral expenses...)

Gee, can't imagine why that doesn't appeal to me. Those of us for whom the above formula holds little joy are deemed silly, selfish (I just adore that line of argument!), lazy and incompetent. Cleary if we are not interested in the mortgage, the steady job (another phantom concept) and lots and lots of money, then something is wrong with us.

Huge masses of people still believe that if they earn a lot of money, although it means giving up nearly all their time and energy to do it, that they're doing the right thing. Well, that may be right for you, but not for me. And I'd appreciate it if you'd shut up about it, Ms. Orman.

Or maybe, you need a little reassurance? A little extra padding of rationalization for those nights when the demons come to remind you that you're 47, trapped, and so far have done nothing whatsoever with your life but fill the checking account in a continuous loop. Well done, that's a life well lived, right there.

What do you say to yourself when you're 73 and you realize in a horror that you've wasted your life? Oh well, maybe your kids will do something with theirs...