Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

EVIL INCARNATE did an interview with Steve Inskeep on NPR’s Morning Edition today. He was defending his fellow neo-con, Donald Rumsfeld. In step with Rumsfeld’s comment the other day that “you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want,” Richard Perle said: “We went to war with the Army.. inherited from previous administrations, with Shinseki’s armor, with Bill Clinton’s Army establishment..” So, Perle is doing the usual thing: blaming anybody that doesn’t toe the neo-con’s line.

Ed: The audio is now available at NPR’s site.

We’d do well to remember that the armor plating for vehicles has been an issue for over a year.

So, even if someone wanted to blame someone else for someone’s problem, then someone should do something to solve the problem before someone else can say someone should have done something about it sooner. (I’m talking in Rumsfeld-ese, now.) What I mean is, Rumsfeld and the current leadership should have been on this from the start; and after a year passes without dealing with a problem they should be called on it (BY THE PRESS. C’mon, press!) when they try to blame someone else.

Perle made another interesting statement. He was opining on what the biggest mistake has been regarding the war. The exchange went like this:

Mr. PERLE: I think we have made serious mistakes and continue to make mistakes, although fewer, I’m happy to say, and the principal mistake is not military at all. It’s political. It is a failure to recognize that this war will be won, not by American military forces, but by Iraqis, and the failure to empower Iraqis, to trust Iraqis, to turn to Iraqis early was a dreadful mistake and we’re still not moving sufficiently in the direction of transferring responsibility to the Iraqis by giving them the resources they need to defend themselves.

INSKEEP: Should anyone be held responsible for that?

Mr. PERLE: Well, ultimately you have to hold the president responsible..

(!) Isn’t it interesting that he would go against the heretofore apparent policy that the President never be implicated in a mistake?

I compare this Administration to the Hydra, a ferocious beast with many heads. There’s the neo-con head, the Christian fundamentalist head, the corporate interest head, and the figurehead. Heheh. The heads co-exist and tolerate one another so long as each feels it profits from this bizarre symbiotic relationship. Or should I say codependency? Is Perle’s comment a sign that the heads may soon start snapping at each other? I’d love to see the Hydra eat itself; and I hope our country can rise from the ashes (I know I am mixing mythologies) and return to our ideals.

Is the experiment over? What is happening to America? What’s happened to the melting pot? Aren’t we supposed to respect everybody’s freedom? Regardless of color, creed, heritage, religion, age or sex? Or is it true what Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, “some animals are more equal than others”?

This is a dark time. Brainwashed with Fear, and willing to be shaped and led, the American Public Mind is quietly acquiescing to tyranny. An election marred by voter suppression and disenfranchisement, employing unaccountable electronic voting machines has come and gone unmentioned by most of the media; and has consequently been unnoticed by most of the public.

The Fear associated with the events of 9-11-01 and the careful machinations of propagandists thereafter has turned us against our very foundations. By foundations I mean the belief that we are all created equal, and posses certain unalienable Rights, and that beyond these unalienable rights we have even gone to the trouble of stating clearly and specifically what certain of those rights are (the Bill of Rights.)

With the shadow of those chilling events still cast cooly over our collective conscience, in 2002 a poll of Americans revealed that 49% of us felt the First Amendment goes too far. WOAH! What the fuck was that about!? I was blown away. I understand that some of those 49% have since chilled out; but I simply cannot comprehend how so many find themselves capable of rejecting any facet of the First Amendment, and still call themselves patriotic Americans. Fucking sell outs.

Well, here we go again. While Our government, acting in Our name, is ravaging Iraq and killing thousands of the people we are allegedly delivering God’s gift of freedom to, like good soldiers, we sit blissfully unaware in front of the boob tube. When the so-called news comes on we are transfixed. As if watching Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate, we cheer from the sidelines. We mourn our dead heros, 1304 so far, and learn little of the thousands who die on the other side like animals. We disdain the prisoners who are beaten and humiliated (read: tortured) in Our custody. We buy into the notion that the insurgents are terrorists who reject the freedom that we would bestow upon them because they hate it. We give no consideration to the Iraqis who must be desperate to take some form of control of their country and destiny.

We have been hardened to the reality that we are destroying human beings; and that we will exploit the survivors of this war and their resources FOREVER. We accept these truths, or we accept the set of “truths” that are marketed to us, out of laziness and a desire to maintain Our extravagant lifestyle. As a result of this numbing of our sensibilities, and perhaps as a way to rationalize Our actions in Iraq, we now shamefully reject again our essential beliefs. The Associated Press reports today: Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans.

I am appalled. I am ashamed. 44% of Americans can kiss my ass. Fuckers.

Go back to sleep America.

If you’ve seen the site before, you may have noticed it’s changed some. Since I have zero expreience with web design (or HTML or CSS or PHP or mySQL,) I’ve stuck pretty much to the basic layout that comes standard with WordPress, with some color and font changes and a header image added. (Thanks for the photo, Mr. H.) Thanks also to Nuclear Moose’s tutorial wp-layout.css explained, and to the help I got from the WordPress support forum.

Enjoy.

Krugman on Social Security:

Buying Into Failure 12-17-2004

Borrow, Speculate and Hope 12-10-2004

Inventing a Crisis 12-7-2004

The generals love napalm… it has a big psychological effect..

The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs.

“You smell that? Do you smell that? [Mark 77 firebombs], son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of [Mark 77 firebombs] in the morning.” –Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall, Apocalypse Now)

FALLUJAH NAPALMED

What are we doing?!

This article, meshes well with what I am reading right now Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle by Zizek. It deals with the need to create something to replace the now defunct concept of Liberalism. (I might first ask the question: is Liberalism(*) dead in the US because it is truly irrelevant? Or, was it murdered, (or perhaps merely marginalized) by media propaganda?) Whatever the case, the New Whatever, I think, must strive to end exploitation and employ a moral and justifiable international policy. Beyond that, I agree with the need for more local production and governance as presented in the interview.

(*) I refer to this definition of liberalism:
A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority. dictionary.com

In the meantime, I also like the idea of how to put the conservative extremists back on their heels:

[The] first thing is to fight, and the second is to provide bold solutions that may lose – that may lose badly. Let’s say that the first $80,000 of everyone’s income should be tax-free. Let’s offer to pay a mother and father to stay at home and raise their child. Let them fight against motherhood. Alternet Article

A similar tactic is touched upon in another (short) article I read this morning from Buzzflash.

I’m not sure what Zizek would think about using these tactics (I haven’t finished the book yet.) He seems to caution against the Left buying into the system, and giving up the moral high-ground. Nonetheless, we need something for now to raise our spirits. Even if it only amounts to some minor rhetorical victories along the way, they may provide some amount of ‘political capital’ to be cashed in for the 2006 elections.

Hydrogen fuel cells sound like a great idea to solve the energy problem and reduce the necessity of burning gasoline in our vehicles. One problem: hydrogen is not renewable. Yet. Currently, to get hydrogen from water, electricity is needed. While some of our electricity comes from renewable resources, using electricity mostly means burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas) or using nuclear power. (U.S. Department of Energy-Energy Information Administration) However, there is developing technology that might prove to solve the problem with sunlight.

..Tandem Cells are coated with a metal oxide layer that is less than 30 nanometers thick and can convert sunlight energy into hydrogen with 8 percent efficiency.

..a system on a home’s garage roof that is 10 percent efficient could provide enough hydrogen for a fuel-cell car to drive 11,000 miles per year.

Wired News: Sunlight to Fuel Hydrogen Future

I am still bothered by the Clint Curtis documents
It seems strange to me that the first three pages of the affidavit don’t match page four, the notarized signature page, (in terms of font, margins, etc.) and that nothing on page four actually deals with the election fraud issue. To my mind, the very nature of the document is suspect. Page four may well be legit, but with something else scabbed onto the front of it. The whole thing is reminicent of the Dan Rather incident.

At the time of Rather’s tribulation, there was talk that those papers were actually created by some Republican operative seeking to kill the AWOL story. There is now the same sort of conjecture associated with this new document.

I remain skeptical, but also mindful of the old saying: “There’s always some truth in kidding.” So if there is anything to the “dirty trick” theory, then there could very well be some truth to the underlying allegations, if not the specifics regarding companies and individuals mentioned in the dubious document.

This story isn’t going unnoticed, at least in the internet world. Yang Enterprises now has this message up on their website: “Recently there have been several wildly absurd accusations against this corporation by Clinton Eugene Curtis. All of the allegations are 100% FALSE!! An official statement will be forthcoming. Thank you for your concern and God Bless America.”

I get the daily email newsletter from buzzflash.com (I like the bitingly funny headlines they slap on the articles.) They posted an alert yesterday, although I only saw it this morning. It points to a damning affidavit by one Clint Curtis who claims he wrote a program to flip votes on touch screen voting machines at the request of a Florida Republican Congressman. Well, I was excited at first, which is a good indication to me that I need to slow down and get skeptical.

After reading the affidavit, I decided I should try to find out more about Clint Curtis. He posted a comment on the blog Thudfactor with a link to this site. I went to samspade.org and did an IP whois on the posted link (justaflyonthewall.com.) It is registered in the name of Clint Curtis.

I clicked over to the site and read through it. I found it troubling that while the affidavit says he was employed by Yang Enterprises (a technical services company in Oviedo, Florida,) the website says he was “..employed at Wong Enterprises..” (which, as best as I can tell, is a restaurant company in Des Moines.)

Now, I’d love to find proof of the election fraud that many suspect happened; however, I am more interested in the truth. I don’t know if this discrepancy can be explained, but there is enough here to make me doubt the veracity of the claims made in the affidavit.

Remember during the Presidential “debates” when Kerry & Edwards said the war in Iraq had cost the US $200 billion. The other side, with an air of snarling satisfaction, debunked this exaggeration saying “..$120 billion is, in fact, what has been allocated to Iraq.” (By the way: why, media, didn’t you put this little gem of a soundbyte out there for all to see, over and over. It was every bit as entertaining as Howard Dean’s hollering.)

Well, today the National Priorities Project puts the monetary cost at over $148 billion and icasualties.org puts US military fatalities at 1261; and US military wounded stand at 9556 (ibid). These figures pale in comparison with the costs to the Iraqi people: 100,000 dead civilians before Falloojeh. (Thanks again, media, for not leveling with us about Falloojeh. Keep up the good work!)

As we approach the $150 billion mark it makes sense to consider this: Economist Jeffrey Sachs says we could solve world poverty on $150 billion a year.

Wow. Let me think about that. Let’s see: I’d bet we could actually establish that there is a moral justification for ending poverty. (As a side note, let me clarify that in saying this, I am implying that there is no moral justification for the war in Iraq. Have no doubt about were I am coming from here.) Anyway, having established a moral justification, I’d also bet that the world would pitch in to help pay for a project such as this. Shit, if we (the US) led this effort and went around spending money to end poverty, the people of the world might notice; and be thankful; and trust us. Peace, love, and harmony would infect the people of the world. They would rise up against tyranny, topple dictators, foil power seekers, convict the corrupt, reject exploitation. No more patriotism. No more nationalism..

Naaaaah– not good for business.