A Chicken Is Not Pillage

Get Out That Vote!

It's clear that tomorrow's election will likely be over before anyone reads this, but I'm a pompous gasbag who will post this anyway.  I'll be honest witchya.  For the first time in a long time, my enthusiasm for an election is next to none.  (Ohsnoes, another disenchanted Demoncrat!)  Don't mistake my intention; I will indeed vote and my wife will as well.  In fact, I expect that turnout will be slightly better than predicted for off year elections.  Nor is my ennui related to whether or not Democrats will win or lose.  Very much as in Football, some unexpected will win and some will lose.  And very little will change at all.

For months now, those of us with a history of voting for Democrats have been innundated with the dire warnings of what a disaster it will be if the Senate falls to the Republicants.  No.  There will be no disaster.  I can't be the only one who's been paying attention here, and if you have, then you know that the Senate has accomplished next to nothing for at least 6 years.  In fact, everything they have accomplished in about 14 years has benefitted only corporations and/or financiers.  Part of that, of course, is the easy out of the filibuster. The Republicants won't pick up 17 seats, and so they will still be able to excuse their do-nothing salaries while caterwauling about the obstuctionist Democrats (hypocrites, the fucking lot of them.)  That is, just as Amanda Curtis will be able to blame obstructionist Republicants if she gets elected.  There will be no disaster.  What, the Senate will not confirm Obama appointees? With a Democratic majority, they've already set a record, that will not be broken anytime soon, for that.   Oooop, they might repeal Obamacare!  Not one chance in hell that will happen.  The Insurance companies, especially those who have become money launderers and income sinks for the large banks, will absolutely never let that happen.  So, I'm begging those smarter than myself to clarify where "the disaster" will occur?

The good folks at 4 & 20 Blackbirds will clarify that we are an Empire and killing innocents all over the world.  Of course, they mostly blame Democrats for that anyway, and actually have a point to make.  Mark T will chime in with agreement, and not a one of them have any solution beyond "don't vote".  Fine.  Steve Kelly, Democratic candidate extrordinaire betrayed by his own sympathetic sheeple voters, clarified that voting is useless at the MT. Cowgirl's site.  Of course, his complaint was to insult readers and clarify how 'parties' are to blame.  Foolishness.  He desires that we not cooperate with "Big Money".  Again, fair enough.  My response:

An effective non-cooperation effort could go viral in short order IMO,

And only your opinion it remains. Please do tell, exactly *how* a non-cooperation effort could ever be effective? Since you’ve shown a history of confusing such things, Steve, please notice that I’m not asking how it could “go viral”, but rather how it could be “effective”. Given context, the only possibility of your “non-cooperation” is in voting. Fair enough, save this. If you’ve read this website for any length of time (or are you just slumming while Mark is on vacation?) then you would now that one of those awful parties is working overtime to prohibit people from voting. That would be the same party that has won every off term election in Montana for about 30 years. Now, even ignoring the party aspect, it seems that ‘Power’ (call them corporatists, or the shadow government or the MIC, or the illuminati, whatever you wish) doesn’t want people to vote. They work very hard to convince people voting is the only power we have left, knowing that power is ‘illusory’, but attempt to hand pick our candidates and gerrymander districts and character assassinate those candidates the Power doesn’t trust . That doesn’t actually make sense, does it? Unless, the Power fears people voting ‘the wrong way’. That’s my opinion, that they know one of the very few powers they have left the people with, by necessity, is the vote. They simply seek to ‘fix’ that, something I’m certain you would agree with. But the question still remains: why would someone, anyone, spend so much money and effort to ‘fix’ something they knew was in the bag?

Here you are, telling us all to not cooperate with the vote, to give up the illusion that voting matters, when obviously it does to those who are our enemies. I’m not going too far at all out on a limb to suggest that your opinion about ‘non-cooperation’ serves the power far more than it does the people. It gives them an easy road to nullifying something they find dangerous, the people actually having a power, a power you want us to give up to show our displeasure at how they have taken the power you want us to give up willingly. They makes no sense, Steve, not a lick of it. We are a nation of laws, not voters. If we don’t vote, then those who do (suckered in as they are by power) will set the laws, and we lose even more ground to those in control. Your plaintive plea for ‘non-cooperation’ isn’t organizing against the enemy. It’s serving their purpose.

Big money knows that voting matters, but strangely enough the very people who argue against serving big money are the ones serving "Big Money", by promoting the idea that voting doesn't matter.  If there was nothing broken in my electoral spirit before that exchange, than it most certainly occured then.  That's truly the tricky part of the whole damned shabang.   America is not a nice country because it's ruled by moneyed Oligarchs who are violent and we shouldn't stand against them by voting, which is the only right they seem fearful about removing in entirety ... excuse me, why now?  Other than to send the message that they have me by the balls, why shouldn't I vote?  Because Libya?  Because the environment and the Keystone XL?  Because ISIS and the Ukraine and good guys half way around the world are fighting the Oligarchs and I need to give up my life for those brave enough to pick up a rifle who hate American Empire by not going to the fairgrounds and blackening ovals on the right day?  Because it's a bad country with bad leadership, and the only fear I can instill in these assholes is to vote against them?  Tell me, tell me do, how does that make sense?

I don't give a salient shit about the doings half a world away. I care about what I can control, without having to march on a capital with a pitchfork.  Ezra Klein tells me how my goals will not be achieved, even though the majority of my fellow country-persons agree with me.  I respect Klein a great deal, and he's right, about *HOW* this election will likely happen.  But that isn't enough any more.  I wanna know why.  It isn't because Americans are stupid, or sheeple.  Americans know what they want, but they will turn out for the people they don't want in numbers certain to harm themselves.  How is not a question worth answering; it's boring, mundane and known.  Why is the actual question and no, the media and money is not the answer.  What makes people hurt themselves given the only power that the Oligarchs have left us with, by neccessity.  This is not an easy question to answer; it's quite complex.  But it's also worth looking into without the certitude of conspiracy.  Here's a conspiracy for you:  Mark T agrees with me that the worst thing that the US citizenry could have done was elect the former head of the CIA to the Presidency.  But he spares no effort in telling people how stupid they are for struggling mightily against a covert Navy Seal officer running for the House.  That makes no sense, and it really shouldn't, because he can't make anything of this complexity any more than others can.  These choices, these complexities, are all we face on tomorrow, when we do the ritual and vote.

I like that ritual, and none of these mentioned folk have any good reason why I shouldn't.  If anything, they offer me greater evidence why I should enjoy it.  In truth, they offer *you* greater evidence why you should get your ass to the polls and vote.  It's all we have left, unless we are willing to pick up rifle and hand-gun and pitchfork and stand against the oppressors.  I may not be enthusiastic about voting in this current political climate.  But I owe it to you, to me and my wife and those who think it useless to do so anyway.

So go vote.

A Bit Of The Ol' Political, With Blog Notes

My brother likes the new layout of Not Pillage.  I'm not certain that I do.  I actually liked the whole simplistic black and white thingy. No artifice, no pretension.    Black words on a white screen (YOU KIDS GET OFFA MY LAWN!)  But I just couldn't deal anymore with video being relegated to too small a space.   So I changed it.

Over 9 years ago, I decided to go with the Typepad basic service.  Wordpress wasn't available yet, and I liked the people who created, own and run 6 Apart.  Even though, as a basic subscriber, I don't have the options of stylesheet design and layout I would wish, I still have a robust and secure internet presence.    I could transfer to Wordpress now, but No.  The reasons are many.

1)  Few things amuse me more than people claiming ownership over a webspace that they don't pay for.  I don't want to be 'that guy'.

2)  I could pay for hosting and still use Wordpad, but that seems a bit inconsistent when I have what I want.  My blogging has never been about saving money.

3)  Though I have sassed them before, and they have sassed me back, I still like the people who run and created Typepad.

4)  It ain't Blogger.

This layout is okay.  It's starting to grow on me, and I can introduce a bit of color when I need to.

If ever there was a video that required the full exposure a new layout could offer, this is it:

The election is coming.  It is time to make a choice.    There are those who would have you believe that Obama is a bad choice and I'm just telling you that he's better than the alternative.  No fucking way.  He is *BETTER* than the alternative, but this sad-sack bad-choice crap is just that, crap.   I don't like getting  shit on by the rich, and I don't really care that drone strikes should have me getting even more shit on by the rich.  There are those who believe that one should willingly hurt oneself to support a morality that favors others (when the truth is it won't favor those others at all.)   'We need to punish bad doers by punishing ourselves' they will claim.  Nope.  No I don't.    I need no such thing.

Drones are the weapons of the future, here now.  They will be used by any President elected, including Jill Stein.  That is the way of technology;  I know because it's my business to know.  If you want universal peace, then write in Ron Paul.  Me?  I'm voting for the people who will favor what and how I live. These are my choices:

Barrack Obama.

Jon Tester

Steve Bullock

Kim Gillan

I haven't a doubt that I will be accused of 'only supporting Democrats'.  I've been doing the blogging thing for 9+ years.  You don't think I've seen all this bullshit from right or left before?

Wake The F*** UP!

Yeah, what he said:

 

It Ain't That Damned Hard, People

It's just Arithmetic:

Droning On

I felt compelled to create 2 new tags for this post.  It's been a while coming, nonetheless.  This will be mostly an opinion piece.  If you're expecting links or narcissistic mention then you will likely be disappointed.

One has not been able to read the blogs or the Twitters, or FaceofEvilBook for months now without encountering the dire stories of drone strikes, Kill Lists, the maniacal psychopath Obama and his blood lust or tales of innocence destroyed by the Skynet machines ... Drones!  The righteous wrath is coming from the right and the left, though I would be remiss in failing to point out that most of the outrage is coming from the left, and much of the 'America, FUCK YEAH!' is coming from the right.  To many on the left, unmanned drones are the horror that spies on us as we plot a new government, as well as the devices that kill entire wedding parties in WhoGivesAFuckistan.   To many on the right, drones are the crushing fist of Obama that will spy on our crops for the EPA, and force us into the FEMA camps.

~Yawn~

Where the hell have these people been for the last 20 years?  Or more to the point, where have they been for the last century?  For over a hundred years science fiction writers have been scribbling about unmanned war machines.  If one needs to go further than that, then the jewish tale of the Golem is about the good and evil of an inhuman killer controlled by those with agenda.  These dread devices are not a new outrage; they were fricking inevitable.   It was going to happen, people.  The only question was "when".  'Walky-talky' wristwatches?  Inevitable.  Social networks based on world-wide communication?  Yes, actually inevitable.  Unmanned machines that fly through the air?  Yep, you got it.  Inevitable.  These are machines, devices.  They have no moral will.  The question concerning those has never been whether we would have them, but how we would use them.  Based on that alone, I find most of the outrage silly.

Every new technology faces opposition based on moral value.  Some passed that test, like cel-phones.  Some fail that test,  like Nukes.  Consider how long it took us to get over that fear ... Oh wait, we haven''t yet.  Drones are no different than cel-phones.  We see the bad use they can be turned to, but fail to recognize that these technologies exist, and there isn't a damned thing we can do to stop their use.

But wait!  Obama has a kill list!  Obama wants to spy on farmers!  Obama, blah blah, blah.  Every President since Clinton has had this technology at his disposal.  I grew up in the Bitterroot valley, where the fly over of SR-71s was frequent.  Screw black helicopters.  Anything that needed to be seen could be from those.  It was the technology of the time.  Drones have replaced the SR-71.  Just as we needed to learn how to deal with ultimate spy plane, we need to learn how to deal with the next ultimate spy plane, which doesn't have a human on board.   And it really doesn't matter which man sits in the White House; the technology will be used.  I'm kinda thinken' that we have a job to make certain that the man (or woman) in the White House uses this technology for good.

Drones aren't going away, anymore than nuclear weapons did back when this same argument was being made about them.  They're not going anywhere.  The choice in every election going forward from this has nothing to do with whether this technological clock can be turned back.  It obviously can't.  It's time to buck up and admit.  Who do you want to use it?  Mitt Rmoney?  The future Mitt Rmoney?  It's time to adapt, people.

'He Made Sure We're Screwed'

Forrest Gump:  "Stupid is as stupid does."

Forrest Gimp: 

I don’t care about the outcome of the Obamacare bill. Without it we’re screwed, but he (Obama) made sure that with it we’re screwed as well.

~sigh~  Obama didn't put Scalia or Thomas on the SCOTUS.  He didn't even have a chance to vote for or against them.  But it's somehow his fault that these two ethically challenged assholes are on the court ruling against the people.

Yes, stupid is as stupid does.  Blaming a person in whatever position for screwing you over when they had no say in the screwing is doing the stupid.  Thanks, Mark.

Nailed It!

One of the best blog posts I've read in quite some time:

The Problem We All Live With ...

Relief, Joy, Sadness, Humor? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

I didn't discover that Osama bin Laden had been killed until I pulled the rubber bands off the newspaper this morning.  Since I don't obsess over TV, it came as a surprise to me.  Yes, sometimes bloggers still learn things from the fish-wrap.  It's really all I thought about on the way to work, and many hours after I got there.  8 years since Chimpy McWorthless told us all that the mission was accomplished, with Osama bin Laden still roaming free.  9 years since our leaders were obviously lying us into a war against a nation that had nothing to do with the attacks of 9/11.  Almost a decade since our great national commitment to invade Afghanistan, depose the Taliban, destroy Al Qaeda and capture or kill Osama bin Laden.  Whatever I felt this morning or feel now was a long time coming.  A very long time.  And now it's here.  Osama bin Laden is dead.

I thought a great deal, on that short/long ride to work, about what the reactions would be online.  The reaction from the right was a given.  Joy without acknowledgment of what it took to bring them happiness in destruction,  complete avoidance that anything significant had happened, distrust that a Soschulust could have accomplished such a feat.  Oh, and Go Warriors (WOLVERINES!)  I expected the reaction from the left would be mixed, some subdued and celebratory, some condescending and dismissive, some questioning the morality of what had happened and some pointing in any direction away from a rather significant event.  (I'd provide link examples to all of these reactions, right and left, but I'm just not that enamored of getting into arguments with fools at this point.  People react in different ways.  Just take that as a given.)  The one thing I knew for certain would be the reaction from the tinfoil hat crowd.

Conspiracy theorists, right or left, react in pretty much the same way to contrary information.  A very rare few of them will, never admitting they're wrong, change their minds and go their way.  The vast majority of this remarkable minority will simply double down on the claims of conspiracy.  Which leads us to Mark Tokarski.

Osama is dead, says Obama.

Osama bin Laden probably died in late 2001 in the early bombing of Afghanistan. His images over the years have varied. He’s gotten younger, worn jewelry, a changed his dominant hand. Who it is that has been manipulating his image we cannot know. I presume it is the Americans, as his face was a valuable commodity. In propaganda terms, he was the focal point for our hatred, a way to manipulate us into supporting our own terrorism.

Right.  Bin Laden has been dead for a decade, and now the Kenyon in chief pulls his corpse out to manipulate us with alien brain control.   I'm not going to link his BS, but then there is likely not a person reading this who doesn't know where to find it.  What Mark is saying is this.  Osama has been kept as a boogey man to manipulate the ideas of the public, and that knowledge was shared between the Bush administration and the Obama administration.

When Obama was elected, I thought perhaps they would “kill” Osama, indicating that there really had been regime change here. When they did not kill him, when Obama signaled to the world that there had been no change by leaving Gates at at the Pentagon, I knew that we were in for four more years.

So, Dumbya willingly shared this info for ... why? Oh yeah, to keep power in the hands of ... who again?  Gates?  Get real.  This info would have been far better used by McCain.  Let's track on back to our good friend Occam, who posited that when faced by contrary alternatives, the one most likely to be true is probably the one to choose.  Osama's death would have far better served the legacy of Bush than it would the control of Obama, unless one really is committed to idea of our Illuminati overlords.  Bush handed Obama the ultimate trump card (all pun intended) and Obama squandered it for no reason anyone can really see.  Or, as Occam would have it, Osama bin Laden was still alive and our Commander in Chief just terminated his terrorist ass.  I know which of those is more likely, and it sure ain't the former.

Still, MarkT is not without his sycophants supporters.  Ladybug writes:

Why today? Because tornados messed up the sync with the 2012 2nd-term roll-out? Or is something else happening we shouldn’t see? No body, no evidence, no witnesses, but a blockbuster movie for sure.

Hmm, so true.  So prescient.  So full of shit.

There is no body, but there is DNA.  There is no evidence, except that there are pictures which may not be released to 'her' sorry ass.  There are, of course, the reports from Navy seal unit 6, but we aren't likely to be privvy to those either.  But, considering that the Pakistani government cooperated, they already have been released to them.  Eventually you will get your terror porn, ladybug.  No witnesses?   How about the well known Pakistani twitterer who tweeted the raid in real time, without any knowledge of what was actually happening?  Surely a government plant.  Tinfoil, dear.  Wrap it about your cranium and then the chemtrails won't get you ...

 

Staring Into The Crystal Ball

I hope that you have a taste for reading, because this is some very toothsome fare.

I'm not seeing much that will avoid the future as it can be seen.  America will collapse.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

...

But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

America's end as THE world power?  Why that's unthinkable!  No, it's really not, and in fact is the very message that the right is promoting this very fricking moment.   I don't joke when I suggest that the right is employing a "scorched Earth" policy.  That is exactly what they are doing, and they are finding large support for such.

The problem that blew a hole in health care reform and the Obama Agenda this year wasn't "death panels": it was that there are millions of Americans who are stupid enough to believe that wingnut fictions like "death panels" are real.

The problem with President Barack Obama is not that he is a socialist or a communist or a secret radical or a Muslim or Kenyan Usurper: it is that there are millions of Americans who are racist enough to swallow this bilge and ask for seconds.

The problem with Fox and Hate Radio and Regnery Press and all the think tanks and all the websites is not that they churn out utterly toxic lies 24 hours a day: it is that there are millions of Americans who are too weak and too cowardly to stop listening to their Siren's song

And the problem with America is not that we have these vast numbers of stupid, frightened and racist people scattered in our midst: the problem with America is that -- at great expense -- they have all been methodically gathered into the same political party, and they are pointed like a gun at our heads.

I love and adore driftglass's parable.  I've used his tactic of failure to achieve many times.  So has anyone who's worked in technology for any length.  I refer to it as parenting.  I knew a young man once who kept breaking his glasses (cars, whatever) who was parented by shame.  Every loss was met by lesser gift.  He now refers to the glases he was forced to wear as "birth control spectacles".  Funny.  He couldn't break those.   Still, we have a broken Presidency, and we have a President that we haven't broken. 

Barack Obama is the most hated man in America. He has a wife and two young daughters, and death threats against him are reportedly 400% greater than those faced by his predecessor. If it's all theater and he's just faking it, isn't there an easier, less punishing, less threatening way for him to do that? Couldn't he simply stop arguing for policies that stir up hate in the heartland? Couldn't he become more like Ben Nelson or Harold Ford? Wouldn't that be easier -- and safer -- while leading to similar results?

The argument is that he's the political equivalent of the Washington Generals -- the team that exists solely to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters, while maintaining the illusion that the Trotters have an opponent. But when was the last time you heard of a Washington Generals player being viciously fouled? How much punishment do the Globetrotters dish out to the Generals? How angry does play get? That's theater disguised as competition. If Obama vs. the GOP is all Kabuki, why isn't it like that?

Oh, crap.  We haven't forced the issue.  Let's disregard that we might not know the issue.   Let's just primary this asshole and then things will be better:

♦  Forcing Obama to move to the Left will cause Republicans to lose heart, support Pelosi, abandon the filibuster and resolutely embrace single-payer Medicare-for-All.

...

Join the “Get Some Unhinged Jackwagon/Human Sacrifice to Primary Obama” (GSUJ/HSPO) bandwagon, today! It’s the New Age Dance Craze that’s sweeping the nation…here, here and here. Plus, if Dick Morris says it’s likely, you know it’s money in the bank!

~sigh~  There are definately times that your friends are not your friends.

It started off with a few oh-so-hilarious references to “Chocolate Carter” and “Mr. Presnint.” It moved on to “Dayum, I thought Obama was gonna be a gangster!” and “we elected a brother so he could bust some caps in whitey’s ass, not sell out to the man.” Now, the left is wholeheartedly embracing right-wing Rovian/Fox News race-baiting tactics:

There may be no point to the continuing struggle.  We may have already lost before Obama ever stepped up. But for fuck's sake, people.  If you have a suggestion for forward movement then make it.  Make it, now!  Don't just bitch about what you want.  State what you want and tell us how to get there?  Some asshole I know keeps talking smack abourt "organizing".  How, when, where?  This is the end game, folks.  We don't get do overs, from this point on.  The right has taken their blood and flesh.  We have nothing left to give.  There isn't a future for 'Murka.  What do you propose that we have left in the tank for the future of America?

Quotes of the Days

Tengrain:

Obama Appoints Record Number of Gays – Less than halfway through his first term, President Barack Obama has appointed more openly gay officials than any other president in history. “And none of them have any rights either, so quit whining,” Obama did not say. (AP)

Blue Texan:

You know that woman who goaded those brownshirts patriotic, Teabagger supporters of Rand Paul into stomping on her head? She’s an unhinged, left-wing, MoveOn eco-moonbat.

Bitch had it coming.

And do read the quotes from the noble right ...

Driftglass:

"If you want a picture of the Teabaggers, imagine a boot that was paid for by Medicare stomping on a human face -- forever." -- George Orwell v 2.0

The graphic is priceless.

Mistermix:

I assume the reason Rand Paul supporters literally kicked this woman to the curb and stomped her head was because she had a Muslim appearance and made them nervous. I’m not discounting the theory that this was simply a harmless fraternity prank that was misunderstood, nor the possibility that the bitch ran her big mouth and got what she deserved.

Dougj:

What I’ve learned over the past few days is that both sides do it. Whether it’s a left-leaning writer using the phrase “curb-stomping” or an angry mob of conservatives actually performing a curb-stomping, whether it’s a liberal drawing a Hitler mustache on George W. Bush or a right-wing militia member blowing up a federal building, whether it’s two black guys in berets standing outside a polling station or a hundred years of Jim Crow laws. It’s all the same stuff and we should just admit it.

Kyle-Anne Shiver:

From where I’m sitting, all of these seemingly coordinated efforts by Democrats and their press minions to label Party dissidents as “insane” are not only creepy, they smack of tactics widely used by the most repressive, most brutal tyrannies the world has ever known.

They smack of Soviet-style, scientific tyranny in the worst way imaginable.

Really?  Stomping a woman's head into concrete is sane?

Barbara Morrill:

Now we know why Rand Paul spent the past twelve or so hours blaming the vicious assault of Lauren Valle by his supporters on "both sides" and a "daze of lights flashing" -- because one of the assailants is Tim Profitt, the Bourbon County coordinator for Paul's campaign.

According to Mr. Profitt:

... the camera angle made the scuffle Monday night appear worse that it was.

Tammy Webber, AP:

Gay voters angry at Democrats could sway election*

Across the country, activists say gay voters are angry — at the lack of progress on issues from eliminating employment discrimination to uncertainty over serving in the military to the economy — and some are choosing to sit out this election or look for other candidates.

Y'know, just once, I'd like to see a story from the press about how people, (Gay, Het, Poly, White, Black, Red, Yellow, Male, Female, Rich and Not) are going to swing this election because they're tired of the damned stupidity, extremism, violence (physical, verbal and virtual) and bullshit coming from the "Tea Party" who want to take back America from the overwhelming majority of Americans to whatever goddamned fantasy they live in.

 

*Don't even start with the "You're blaming the gays for a vote that isn't in!" shit.  I'm not.  If you actually start to think about it for a second, Tammy Webber just invited one to do so.  But she offers no proof that the GBLT vote has that kind of sway in swing districts.  The press, having been willing accomplices to Tea Party excess, is now in CYA mode.  And what handier scapegoat could they offer than the Gay voter who doesn't vote.  Other than Obama, of course ...

UPDATE:  And like cockroaches, the vermin keep returning.

UPDATE 2:  I said, ~hrumph~, like cockroaches, the vermin keep returning.