So in order to confront the iminent threat of vapid vibrations, I bring you Pop Watch which will be a recuring institution here so that readers can educate themselves about the disgusting happenings in pop music without ever having to turn on a Top 40 radio station. I know what your thinking. Its too bold. Why would anyone in their right might dare do such a thing as listen to and review pop music. I admit it is a selfless act, well not entirely selfless. Considering that work regularly deposits me in the bowels of consumerism and I am forced to listen and watch Yakoo. A music service where you get to, via coded text message, ”choose” what they play. Some restrictions apply. Void where prohibited. Choices may be limitted to mind dulling, vomit enducing, and bowel evacuating jingles.   So I am doing this to  help others avoid the pain I went though on Wenesday. Luckily music videos are now chock full of product placement, so inadvertant adverts can tempt me to buy useless shit with money I don’t have. Which is convenient when they are playing in a mall.

Now contrary to what you might be thinking, this post is very serious. For while the news media is one half of the propaganda machine that provides a veneer of factual accountablilty for the happenings around the globe, music and television are the other half. They provide us with subtle (and blatant) cues about how we should act and what we should want. From what I’ve been able to gather from whatching music videos (the same ones over and over again) I should want to get rich, drunk, then bang streams of girls till I fall in love with a girl who acts like a total bitch. Unless its a Justin Bieber video,  then I suppose I can either run through the ladies or become a homosexual statuatory rapist.

While I feel a nine-hundred word rant on Ke$ha may appropriate, I will spare you. I am afriad more subtle threats to human decency have appeared on the pop music horizon. More subtle threats like this moron. In case you are unfamiliar with Travie Mccoy, he wants to be a billionare… so fricken’ bad. While I undertand that wealth is an institution we all wish we could partake in, Travie couldn’t you have been more orinal in expressing your desire to be filthy rich? Are you aware how most peope make such fat stacks? Or the implications or such the uneven distribution of wealth on the populace?

To be fair Travie says if he was a billionare he’d “pull and Angelina and Brad Pitt.” He’d adopt orphans and go to New Orleans and help more than FEMA did and give away mercedes and make sure non of his friends were hungry. Well Travie must not know much about being a billinionare because in 2005 the goverment passed a $62 Billion aid package for New Orleans. Good luck Travie.  Now this song peaked at number 4 on the charts. Clearly everyone wants to be billionare… so fricken bad, that they are content to listen to shitty pop songs about it just to indulge their fantasies.  If they listen to it closer they might relize during the verses (who listens to the verses), Travie really just want to redistribut wealth while taking loads of it for himself. So really he’s just a bolshevic pretending to be a low-rent pop sensation.  Although he does want to be on the cover of Forbes and hang with Oprah, so I guess hes more like a Chinese Communist Party official who is embracing capitalism. Travie really needs to put down the microphone and pick up the Kalishnakov. Atleast then the security aparati would do away with him before he releases his next album. Don’t get me wrong the redistribution of wealth doesn’t sound like something I am totally against. I just don’t want our school children being taught that Travie Mccoy is the supreme being-billionare. 

However anoying Travie may be, his self-agradizing fantasy put to tape (or hard disk) pales by comparison to that of Taio Cruz who has been leaving footprints all over the charts.  Taio as you may know likes to throw his hands in the air sometimes and say ayo, baby lets go. Yes, unconcerned with funneling wealth that we all want… so fricken’ bad, Taio just wants to celbrate and live his life, saying ayo, baby lets go. He also advises you to get out of his and his crews way. Now I understand the urged to get pissed (as the brits say) and dance the night away, but again couldn’t you have been more original and less pretensious. What about your life is so worth celbrating Taio? The fact that the radio can’t stop playing vitriol so hacks like you have the privledge of forcing me to contemplate stabbing out my eardrums with crocheting needles? Well good for you Taio, celebrate you earned. Mean while the rest of us will just keep drinking to forget, while you revel in your ill begoten power and wealth. I’m glad the media empire bends over backwards to spout your dribble while other perhaps more introspective or reflective or original music is buried in locked vault the people who seek it must search the ends of the earth for it.

“Dynomite,”  the song I am refering to, like alot of the music out these days, isn’t so much a song with a sung melody of perhaps a poem well thought out in advance, no its more like verbal diahree. Just a bunch of buzz words and phrases that sounds enticeing, but don’t mean anything. Consider the lines,

Cause we gonna rock this club

Like it’s dynomite

We gonna go all night

We gonna light it up

Like its dynomite

‘ Cause I told you once

 Now I told you twice

We gonna light it up

 Like its dynomite.

 Third time is the charm when it comes to explosive simoles. This is during the all eight note base line part, that now come standards on all pop songs. I believe we have the Black Eyed Peas to thank for this phenemenon, but as of yet I am unsure as to where it first originated.  

While we have covered getting drunk and rich, Usher provides us with the next piece of pop music lifestyle advice: sleep around. Though his song “OMG” does talk about love, I don’t think its the let’s get married kind. Consider the lines, “Honey got a booty like pow, pow, pow / Honey got some boobies like wow, oh wow.” He also fell in love with her on the dance floor, a common phenomenon in pop music, and judging from the video he has yet to leave the dance floor. Some how I think this song is less about falling in love than finding ladies with boobies like wow, oh wow. Then putting ones nether regions amongst said boobies until satisfaction is achieved. I don’t want to presume anything now, becasue T-Pain did actually come close to falling in love with a stripper. If you count sharing a woman with your brother falling in love that is.  I do also wonder if David Guetta and Akon ever did find words to describe that girl without being disrespectful. Some how I don’t think, “Damn yous a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch/ Damn yous a sexy bitch, damn girl,” is that respectful.  None the less the message is clear. Find a girl, make sure she is hot, then have sex with her.

Of course though the idea there is to find a girl so unattainable that you actually do fall in love. Even if its only so that everyone sees you with the finest piece of booty in the club, its still love. Obviously you should look for the coolest mate you can find. Mike Posner touches on this with his song “Cooler Than Me,” in which he laments his unrequited love of a total bitch. He opines,

You got designer shades,

Just to hide your face and

You wear them around like

You’re cooler than me.

And you never say hey,

Or remember my name.

Its probably cuz,

You think you’re cooler than me.

Or it might be “cuz” shes a total bitch. Fortunately she seems smart as she got “shoes on her feet.” She seems like a real catch, most girls have trouble figuring out what to do with those damn things.  There you have it. The pop-doctrine is complete.

Mr. Miner, there is no doubt, Leslie Calvin Jr. will be missed by loved ones and vilified by those he menaced. However, you and your colleagues in the press, repeatedly fail to bring any “clarity” whatsoever to the issue of gang-violence. Rainey is just as daft, suggesting that the community should be focusing on finding the killer, not silencing insensitive alderman. While it might come as a comfort to some to find the killer, the systemic violence prohibition creates will rage on no matter how many people we lock in cages. Supposedly Rainey pointed out that the crime was “drug-related,” but like you, she fails miserably to connect the dots.

The shootings in poorer urban communities of color can’t be solved by the national guard, catching the criminals, or gun control. The killings are centered around protecting and enlarging market shares in the illicit drug trade. Because the product is illegal, there are no property rights besides those which can be asserted by force or good will. In a highly competitive market with no rules, people exhaust good will quickly and do terrible things to on another. Long story short: end prohibition, end gang violence.

In the future, please spare us your vague prattling about gun control. The city banning handguns is practically just an economic stocking stuffer to sporting good stores outside of Cook Country. As for the Second Amendment, it is quite clear, even though the court has made it murkier. It is there so that the tree of liberty can be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots. If the press really offered any real clarity, perhaps such a Jeffersonian outlook wouldn’t be necessary.

Curiously the response that also made the Reader was “samsa’s”. I present it to you below in its entirety.

It is there so that the tree of liberty can be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots. If the press really offered any real clarity, perhaps such a Jeffersonian outlook wouldn’t be necessary.”

I love that we feel the need to reiterate this over and over and over as though this is a brilliant idea. Jefferson thought that the terror of the French revolution was a minor hiccup, mostly a good thing. On the other hand, Jefferson himself was not exactly volunteering himself for guilloteening. On any question relating to Virginia, he was suddenly a member of the landed gentleman’s class.

If we must treat Jefferson’s writings as religious texts for governance, then I suppose we must treat all of his writings as such (who will arbitrate amongst them?) and have every law expire every 19 years, abolish corporations, renege on our nation’s debt, re-institute slavery, depopulate the cities, and ban women from public service.

Or we can just be Jeffersonian about the whole thing and just admit that in the 19 years that have passed 11 times over, we have decided that he sometimes wrote like a seventeen year old Megadeth fan.

He harps on my Jefferson comment as if I am an NRA certified militia pretender.  To be honest certain components of Jeffersonian-ism do appeal to me. Ironically samsa points some of them out. For instance I would rather abolish corporations than live by the Supreme Court’s recent indiscretion into the land of make believe.  Where nations compete as nation states against one another for economic supremacy. A veneer of freedom. This is 2010 not 1750.  We obviously need a complex system of interlocking systems of authorities that have partial sovereignty over decisions that will effect them in which all organizations are respected and legitimate. A where the machinations of the nation states are dismantled so they can never rain war on those whose resources their benefactors wish to exploit.

The problem is this guy is thinking I’m a conservative or right wing. As opposed to being left wing. This is interesting because he points out that Jefferson wanted to abolish corporations and make all laws expire in 19 years as if its going to scare me. Now those  are interesting ideas! Anyways the problem for most people is these things are off the chart. Were either left or were right in this country. Some might call them selves a centrist or an independent, but most times they don’t know shit about politics and they don’t want to piss anyone off.

But what if we ditched this idea of two different options liberal or conservative. Its a one dimensional analysis. And they don’t mean what they used to anyways. Liberals were the original conservatives. Private property, a truce with the aristocracy, and hear comes with capitalism! In a land that casts such broad and vague labels its no surprise Obama treats being asked if he is a socialist is a joke. I mean the number one bad-guy super-villain of all time is Jimmy Carter. Well that is what the threat of Nuclear fission in the atoms above your head will do to a society: scare it shit-less. Even though being a socialist doesn’t mean your necessarily a communist, if you asked this guy I am guessing he wouldn’t know the difference.

A certain third party identification that can help smooth over encounters with Republicans is libertarianism. This is because many Republicans say their a liberatarian, but unwaveringly vote Republican. Name recognition is a bitch.  Libertarians have the “Worlds shortest political quiz”, which is poppycock because any major news outlet hosts shorter yes or no polls up on their websites. You will notice however this quiz is still only operating in two dimensions. Up, Down, Left, Right.   However, Life happens in three dimensions.

So I present to you three dimensional politics and the worlds longest political quiz. The quiz is called life and the politics is up to you, but you shouldn’t be so stupid to think that DemReps are gonna make anything about our government substantively better. I suggest withdrawing your support from either side because of your “conservatism” or “liberalism” and start supporting other things for concrete reasons.

For instance, I support ending prohibitions because of shit like this. I don’t support wars because of shit like this. All these things happen in three-dimensions regardless of labels. Do you think a bullet cares whether you vote red or blue. The reason I don’t like the amalgamation of real and economic power we call the “free-market” is because of shit like this. It doesn’t have a thing to do with property rights, freedom, or Americanism.

What difference does it make if a country calls itself fascist, communist, capitalist if in every instance Elites (whether established or freshly catapulted to power) collude to turn the state on commoners. A left vs right mentality only serves to confuse that instance. It creates a set of ideals that is fiercely defended by politicians though rarely followed up on and sometimes of no particular consequence except to establish divisions. These pseudo-political dogma  serves only to split hairs and keep the demagogues in office. Its self serving agenda that doesn’t result in much substantive differences in three dimensions.  To illustrate this point and remindyou ne’er do well DemRep voters of it, I created a small poem.

This November, just try to remember

that two party politics is a pig skin ball,

Lucy, the master and wearer of crowns;

She voraciously laughs;she vividly calls!

That Hope springs eternal for poor Charlie Brown.

The first one was big news for all my fellow “warons” out there. “Warons,” for those of you who don’t know is the derogatory term used by mor0ns to make fun of drug policy reformists.  Yes, prohibition is a splendid little delusion for all the pro-family anti-minority/woman/queer folks out there. Its also a splendid fat paycheck for prison industrial complex.  True story. And it’s no doubt companies like Aramark, a food service and uniform giant has likely served you food are singing the blues. In the future crack-cocaine dealers will only be dealt with 18 times harsher than soft cocaine dealers.  It saddens the heart to consider this a step forward, but the disparity was 100-1. It warms the heart to know that when our politicians have finally pushed the government coffers so far into the red that prisons remained closed due to lack of funds, that they will take a modest step back from insanity in spite of what conservative trauma traffickers and the owners of the system might think.

Those charged with crack-cocaine trafficking currently locked in a cage will stay the remainder of their sentence. Yes, though congress does agree that 100-1 sentencing ratio is severe, they simply care more about the projected dividends of their state-sponsored corporate-control device. The rape-machine is dependent on the individuals currently locked up, because with out them there wouldn’t be an excuse for the guns, the guards, the foods, the low-cost labor, the cops, the bullet proof vests, the computer systems, the iron bars placed their to keep these unwanted soles from seeing the light of day and breathing fresh air. Then there would be no excuse to charge the tax payer for any of that either.

While this issue has gotten some positive press the media remains ardently blind and silent on the real issues behind prohibition. Professionally misguided mouthpieces fumble around with the concept of black market fueled violence blaming it on many different things family’s, poverty,  thinly veiled racist theories, or if they happen to be Micheal Minor,  guns. This opinion piece encouraged me enough to write an email to the editor. We will see if the Reader has mettle enough to print it.

In the mean time lets move on to the other victory to which I was referring. Nike will pay Honduran workers for “job-training” and health care. The factories the Hondurans worked at shut down after they unionized and Nike pulled production. So to all those that picketed outside of Nike Towns, I salute you. Its also worth giving props to University of Wisconsin, which dropped their small Nike deal, and Cornell which also backed away from its dealings with Nike. To the execs and Nike, Tiger Woods, and Micheal Jordan, enjoy your expensive homes while you continue to treat workers like shit, unless you absolutely have to do the right thing.

Though I am no sucker for nostalgia, I do ride a bicycle, which was a nineteenth century invention and is timeless. As oppossed to spending 55 hours a week at ”a career,” I will do whatever the hell I want until I am forced to get a job, which is as I understand it a much older invention that has stood the test of time.   Though, I’m not sure what it is exactly I’ll be doing hopefully it will help solve all the money laundering problems in Zimbabwe. Yes, ending the global crapitalism Empire is certainly a priority, but how important I just can’t say. I haven’t seen any adds on craigslist either so it makes it a bit more difficult than jobs.  If you haven’t noticed the blogtacular website has some seditious undertones. Some might even call it sardonic to the point of Anarchy. I’ve been asked by my own mummy in fact, “What does Anarchy mean? And won’t there be Chaos! What is your alternative?” They had spent much time working on their “career,” so I couldn’t really blame them. When you have a career there is no time meditations on politics realiity and misbelief, mysticismss and trickery, and besides that’s not appropriate for the office in the first place.  No the bar is really a much better venue.

Anyways I got to thinking with all these people wasting their days renting themselves out. I should start an Anarchist street canvass, to enlighten them about the ways of Anarchy. For those of you unfamiliar with the term ”canvassing” it basically means either going door to door or as in this case standing on the corner and asking for money and volunteers.  I’ve done it for work before, but perhaps now that I have temporarily freed myself from wage slavery I might canvass try this. So I present to you how an ideal Anarchist street canvass would opperate.

Anarchist: Hey!? You look like you can’t stand the government!

Confused Wage Slave or CWS:  Yeah, those bullshit Democrats/Republicans, damn IRS, taking my money, vauge poltical reference to freedom and possibly yesteryear…

Anarchist: Indeed, so what do you do about this?

Crapped-on Worker Subordinate or CWS: Well I vote.

Anarchist: Do you know how many voters it takes to change a light bulb?

Croney Winked Sucker or CWS: I don’t know three or something…

Anarchist: Its a trick question. Voters can’t change anything (shit is also acceptable and encouraged if CWS has already gone there). Every year people line up behind either a Republican or Democrat and punch the  card and though candidates are shuffled around nothing ever really changes for the better.  Why don’t you do more about it?

CWS: Well I don’t really know what to do or what would be better? Show me something better, this is the best country in the world!

Anarchist:  Maybe, but image if there weren’t countries or governments to rule over people. Then everyone everywhere would be better off. Doesn’t that seem better?

CWS: That sounds like Anarchy. There would be chaos!

Anarchists: So if there was no more United Snakes Government stopping you, you would go rob your neighboor?

CWS: Yeah, maybe I would.

Anarchists: Don’t you think thats a little short sighted, he will just steal from you when he figures it out. I don’t think you even know what Anarchy means, in the Greek it means without rulers, which doens’t mean there would be chaos, I mean not to fetishize the Greeks. They are kinky enough as is… Thats a different issue though, look at the world right now/ Isn’t there arleady chaos?

CWS: Look this is stupid. Of course there is  some chaos, but atleast people aren’t blowing eachother up.

Anarchist: Some Chaos? I’m sorry but if you haven’t checked recently, but blowing each other up is clockwork for some poeple. Not only in Iraq and Afghanistan but around the globe. There is apartheid in “the Holy Land.” People in the Congo are at war for the metal in our cell phones. I mean there are plenty of examples of just violence against humans. We’re over farming at a rate that will turn this county into a desert just like humans did in the middle east.  Ever wonder why the fertile crescent is a desert? There are hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil flying into the gulf of Mexico on the daily. Again that is just two examples. Do you really expect the system that produced these conditions to do anything about substantial about it?

Corporate Whack-job Swine or CWS: I suppose your right but what can I do about it?

Anarchist: Well what do you feel  passionately about?

Career Wanting Simpleton or CWS: Well I want to help kids/ the environment/ animals/ workers/ immigrants/ LGBT people/ black and brown people everywhere/ run as an independent/ break out bank windows/ burn cop cars ect…

Anarchist: [Busts outs action calender], Well there is Group X for Issue Y meeting up this Saturday to do a family friendly March. Do you think you can be there? It starts at four.

CWS: Sure is there any thing else I can do?

Anarchist: Well, if you want want make a contribution to the cause so I can keep doing this and don’t end up in a cubical selling toilet paper rolls, but first let me get your number and email.

CWS: Okay, It’s 555-555-0003 and CWS@workerbeecorp.com. how much should I give?

Anarchist: Ten Thousand Dollars would be nice. However, I think as much as you feel comfortable giving is more appropriate.

Now this again is an ideal conversation. Most conversations wouldn’t likely go that way. Invariable you would run into objections, which should be overcome if possible. Here are some such objections, I think and anarchist street canvasser might run into?

CWS: Well how are we going to have no rulers and still get things done?

Anarchist: No rulers doesn’t mean no organization. It just means no one is the boss, everyone decides for themselves with out physical or economic coercion what to do with their time. Then decisions would be made by the people that the decisions effect. Like the decision to close a factory being made by the workers, not the some banker who has decided a fire sale of the company’s equipment and property is more profitable. Is having corporate oligarchs and political hacks miles away fighting amongst themselves for a bigger piece of the pie really a better option?

CMS: That kind of stuff has never worked.

Anarchist: Or the only examples of that time of decision making that hasn’t worked are brought to light, because the fat cats running big media don’t want you to get any bright ideas.  Six years ago, it worked in Argentina when the economy collapsed.  Plenty of religious groups and indigenous people have made less hierarchical and community based groups. Not to mention the autonomous zones and reclaimed spaces in Italy, Greece, and other countries that go about each day without violent internal strife. Have you really looked into this or are you just going on what you thought was the case?

CWS: Well what makes you mister know it all?

Anarchist: Look I don’t claim to have The Answers, I’ve just maybe looked into this a little more than most people. I hear most people wining about the Government, but not really thinking about what they can do to change things for the better or even understanding what the better might look light. I’m just trying to have a conversation with you and see what your passionate about, so I can connect you with people who are passionate about the same thing.  If you don’t want me to do that for you, then you are free to turn and walk away. If you care to keep talking what are you you politically passionate about?

Now this is a scenario I would expect to be unfortunately inevitable.

CWS: Well if we could just get rid of those damn Blacks/ Jews/ Arabs/ Mexicans/ Japanese/ Whites/ Gays/ Catholics, ect…

Anarchist: Whoa, I think your getting the wrong idea here. If you really are going to blame all your problems on one group of people, I don’t think we should be talking. The problem isn’t a certain group of people, the problem is the people who think they can order people about to better themselves and the institutions that allow them to do it. To be clear, if you refuse to judge people based on the content of their character, but on some other erroneous characteristic, I can’t do anything for you.

Or you could get something like this.

CWS: Alright, Hells Yeahs, lets go violently overthrow the government and take that shit over.

Anarchist: Whoa, I think you’ve gotten the wrong idea. Although I can appreciate a diversity of tactics, You can’t replace a violent and repressive order with a violence and repression. That will just lead to the same set of conditions with different people at the top. Any real revolution can only use violence when all other options are exhausted. Until people are out in the streets and the government is shooting and them, wide scale violence against any humans is simply unacceptable. Are you familiar with Monkey Wrenching or the Luddites?

Anyways that would be my way of Anarchist canvassing. It would be fun to try, maybe I just might.

I picked the Kennedy’s because the becuase I just read the book The Kennedy Men: Three Generations Of Sex, Scandal And Secrets by Nellie Bly. Again I picked the Kennedys also for the strength of the myth that allows people to revere them with out looking like a moron.  This myth even fooled the cynical me. Until a while back I might have defended Kennedy, but now the only thing they are responsible for that I can be proud of is JFK smoking the green in the White House. The point of this post isn’t that the Kennedys are the worst politicalicians ever to hypnotize a people. Stalin did alot more terrible things than all the Kennedy’s combined. However, we hold the Kennedy’s a little bit differently in the history books. Comparing Stalin to the Kennedys isn’t apt, a more apropriate comparison would be to some of the Gangsters Ole Joe and the boys relied on for votes. Who Bobby later turned his back on.

The point of this article is that to attack the notion that our politicans are anyone to look up to. This article goes out the the people who champion FDR with out looking closely enough at his legacy to rember the Japanese internment camps or his own Machevelian political tactics. Looking up to politicians as role models is either naive or sinister, but a truely sinister person would probably say they like to keep thier work and personal lifes seperate and they only look up to politicians on the purely proffesional level of fucking people over.  Eitherway its time for the poeple suffering from political stockholm syndrome to do the rest of us a favor and wise up.

Fist off lets get one thing straight the Kennedy’s great plan for America was them running it. That’s it. Their legecsy was not great dreams of a liberal utopia, nor a  great vision for civil rights, nor a surrepticious attack on the Federal Reserve as some conspiracys theorist are fond of suggesting, just a quest for power. They were plain and simple politicians.

Joe and Rose, being good Catholics pumped out nine children: Joe, John, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Bobby, Jean and Teddy. In the quest for the Presidency and power Joe, John, and Bobby would be kiled, Rosemary lobotamized, Kathleen excomunicated for marying a divorce Anglican and Teddy driven over the brink of aceptable insanity. While the Kennedy’s were raised learning that winning was everything, the girls weren’t allowed to participate in politics.  One reason we know them no by one name, but my many (JFK/Jack/John/President John F. Kennedy, RFK/Bobby/Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Teddy/Ed/Eddy/Senator Edward) is because Ambasador Joe/Joeseph senior/Ambassodor Joesepth P. Kennedy cultivated a long and lasting relationship with  the press including megoliths like William Radolf Hearst. Copy-councious reporters had to think up cut nicknames some of which were used at Kennedy request such as JFK, which brings to mind FDR.   

This leads me to the first myth that the Kennedys stood up for womens rights. Joe said Eunice would have made a great politican if only she had some balls. The men for their part all were notorious adulters, banging movie stars, campagin workers, prostitutes, and pretty much any half way decent looking girl kind enough to spread her legs to them. While this doesn’t necissarily disqualify from being a feminist the way the Kennedys treated the partners in their sexcapades does.

Marylin had the privledge of being dumped by not one but two Kennedy’s.  Yes, they shared their women. Both Bobby and Jack cut of ties with the Marylin by having her private line cut from their offices with-out telling her. She called them only to recieve a message that the line had been disconnected. After that she was stonewalled by the secretarys. President JFK warned female visiters that “…the Ambassador likes to Prowl…” after whitnessing his father opening his robe on a young female visitor and waking her by saying, “this will be something your never going to forget.” Johnny Boy though had learned early how to treat women, when he caught his Dad boning some young puntang on their yacht. He was so startled he jumped overboard. Clearly he wasn’t too horrified as he was fond of taking a nude swim with his secrataries “fiddle” and “faddle.” One person said he used to order up prostitutes like most poeple order a sandwich.

The second myth is that they are some liberal demigods who after all the philandering they still were out for the people. The Kennedy’s were natorious cheapskates. Ambassador Joe used furs and jewels to seduce a movie star working for his film company and later charging the items to her company account. He even made her pay for her trailer. Kennedy help was paid minimum wage and were often borrowed from by the family. President Kennedy used to borrow money from his friend every week from his friend for the collection plate. He rarely paid it back. This was when he was president. 

When the Ambassador was asked by a eeger young campaign worker what dreams he had for America that his son would fulfill he laughed in his face.  His plan was complete. The only reason the Kennedy’s wanted to the Presidency was to rest their slutty taints on the seat of power. They just wanted to bone models and pop bottles, to have it their way or to make ‘em pay, get gorey to get the glory ect.    

The myth that they are were a happy family is perhaps most hilarious. Ambassador Joe (FYI: he bought his ambassadorship from FDR), had plans for his children. Joe and Roses ambitions and vanity had more casualties than those taken by an assassin’s bullet.  Rosemary who wasn’t content to be a political pawn and perhaps neglected. had “emotional problems” which included sneaking out an wandering around at 2 a.m. Eventually Joe had her lobotomized. In his defense, lobotomies were all the rage back then. Needless to say Rosemary was a vegetable the rest of her life. She was locked away in an institution rarely visited by anyone but one of her sisters. The press of course was lied to about this. It was implied she was a nun or some other bullshit.

After John F. Kennedy’s highly exagerated exploits on the south pacific during WWII, were turned into national headlines by Joe and his magic media machine, Joe Jr., the eldest s0n who was used to being incharge, decided he to was destined for military glory. After completing two dangerous bombing tours, he voulounteered for a risky mission taking out the Buzz Bombs hitting london at the time. His plane malfunction and he died. This is perhaps a good thing as he was probably the most entitled and ruthless of the Kennedy children.

When it was Teddy’s turn to sacfafice himself on the altar of power, he simply became widley alcoholic. His atrocious behavior finally resulted in him drowing and campaign cutie and not reporting it for eight hours ensuring her demise. His presidential hopes were dashed, yet some how he remained senator till death.

Anyways these were just some highlights of the thorough thrashing Nellie Bly gives of the most stupendous and horrendous myths to affict the American Politity. Anyways the moral of the story is not to fall for the Party line and never to vote for the same person twice thus ending the circle jerk of voting for bank rolled cowards. Remember voting for a Republican or Democrat or anyother professional politician is throwing your vote away. Be warned though morals didn’t get the Kennedy’s Jack shit. No he won the prize the old fasion way, ruthlessness, hypocrisy, and a good dose of intimidation.

While the “Religious Right” in this country may have been responsible for electing the most irresponsible and reprehensible president of recent history, zealots in this country have much to learn from the whack jobs over seas.  They are much more adept at the art of lunacy and tryanical puritanism than anyone state side.

One extremely sticky situation that made some ripples last weekend is that of the Israel and Palestinian conflict. A flotilla of activists was boarder by Israeli commandos, for trying to bring stuff to the Palestinians in Gaza without the permission of Israel. The interesting thing about this conflict is that on both sides combatants are so completely involved in the conflict that any sort of reasoning or compassion normally gets tossed out the window early on. As was the case here.

Listening to and reading the rationalization by the agents of the state of Israel for their actions is at times mind boggling. Most apparent is it seams that the Israelites, though very dependent on support from the U.S. still don’t quite understand out traditions. The reaction on the ship from Turkey has been repeatedly described as a lynch mob, an art the southern whites of the U.S. perfected during Jim Crow era. In this gruesome display of xenophobic mob rule, a mob is first formed. Then the mob travels to the residence of the Lynchee. The lynchers then demand for the head of the Lynchee and threaten violence against others if specific lynchee is not surrender to them. Then they kill the lynchee.

The group most associated with this tactic was the Klu Klux Klan. Now they lynched Jews as well as Blacks and the occasional Gypsy or Catholic. So it supries me that so many Jews can seem to be confusing a lynch mob with violent resistance. See normally the lynchee was unarmed and occupyed a lowly rank in society. It is hard to lynch miliary personel because they armed. A key to a successful lynching is that the the person being lynched is powerless.

Now another key to aspect to lynching is that the crowd must go after the lynchee. As in romance the chase is half the fun. There was never a case of lynching in the south where a group of Black folks came to a Klu Klux Klan rally with paint ball guns and started pushing people in white robs around. No the Klan would have to seek out their prey, they never rappelled out of helicopters into their laps.  See Black people in the Jim Crow South knew they weren’t invited to such gatherings and as such didn’t go into them with paintball guns hoping that the Klan would peacefully disperse.

While I’m sure that the Israeli soldiers lives were in danger (one of them died, I think), they managed to kill 9 activists. Though we hear about the rocket attacks on Israel, its pretty rare we hear about the the death tolls on the other side of the wall.  Like the time a Israeli soldier shot a Palestinian boy. Or of course the white liesIsrael was telling about its ordinance.  Some have said there was insufficient intelligence during the planning of this raid. I’d agree.

However, the most hypocrisy has come from Israelis describing Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hamas for those of you prefer to live your lives with your heads up your arse (excuse my British) has been democratically elected by the Palestinian people to represent them. So when Israel says it has a right to defend itself like any other state, Hamas theoretically has the same right if it is part of the government that rules Palestinians. All the while Israel is casting Palestinians as religious extremists when Israel fights wars (killed people) to take back land that they believe God had explicityly to them.  Anyways… thats all for today…

Seriously, though the shit has hit the proverbial fan. Pehaps I’ve been drinking myself back to modernity to hard as post apocalyptic science fiction movies are beginning to take on a new and frightening dimension of reality. Oil leaks, that people keep calling a spill (a spill is a one time expulsion of a finite amount of liquid; a leak is the letting of a ongoing stream of liquid which if unattended will continue into perpetuity) are turning the gulf of Mexico into a toxic lagoon.  Out of which, the swamp thing will someday emerge. Its not funny though, and not simply for the poor quality joke. The reality is BP is using a toxic chemical to disperse the oil. So if you plan to go to the beach in Forida anytime in the next few or… years, you’ll get the chance to swim in crude oil and poisonous dispersant.

The dispersant doesn’t actually break down the oil into anything else, it just spreads it out. That way all the crude and dispercent will coat you evenly in a cancerous toxic bath. The last step is a nuclear emergency in the gulf and we’ll have a legit zombie bath on our hands. Wild life will turn into mutant zombie life forms and spread the mutanous zobie disease that so many comic books and movies predicted.  Yeah, if I lived on the gulf coast I would run to the mountains. Get to the highlands before the inevitable nuclear “incident” creates a tidal wave of zombipathiocancertitus.

On second thought… The mountains might not offer the same protection they once had, since many have been blown to bits. I suppose as long as we don’t blow up all the mountains and posion all the oceans, we  can still sit at home not enjoying them just the same whilst whatching too much T.V. That way will still have the un-exercised option to get off our fat asses and do something that doesn’t involve buying something or being tempted to buy something.

Anyways, I’m writing a letter to some editors about what I think should be done to those responsible for ruining the gulf of mexico so they could make a quick killing.  I’ll put an extended version up when it is done and the papers haven’t published it.

Indeed though much more shit, hath passed.  Here is quick recap. Close to my locale a Chicago area man shot a boy because the boy’s dog shat in his yard while two State reps from illinios called for the national gaurd to deal with violence. A bit further away the mind bending masters of the economy at Goldman got called to congress for a national bitch-out. Luckily the geeks at Goldman were well tutored by their attorneys. While the Senate was too spineless, well paid, or clueless to really cue into the parts of the argument that could have landed some execs in Sing Sing for a date with some of the meaner boys from Harlem. That way the Fabulous Fab and friends can keep ruining the economies of the world.

Here’s a clue for the brilliant minds who managed to kiss enough butt to get to the running joke we call congress: when bankers say they are paying special attention to liquidity, it means they are paying attention to how quick they can off load their miracle elixir securities laced with iodine to widows and orphans. It means they are not concerned with the actual value of the securities. Therefore selling said securities under the pretext of real or underlying value is at the least scum-baggery and at best felonious.

Out West,  the state of Arizona wants to check your papers or throw you in jail. We could conceivably trick the type of gentleman who likes ruining our economoy and envioroments with some sort of trip to the only remaining oil-free vacation coast in the mainland United States.  Once california legalizes the ganja in November, the stoners of the Golden State can just take it upons themselves to prey on the unsespecting corprate leaches.  Once Medicino county becomes the Napa Valley of cannabis all the elites will look to the newly legal means of intoxication as a status symbol. Once these light weights get baked beyond composure, the hippies of Humboldt can get vengeance for all of us by stealing their I.D. and then taking them against their will to Arizona for imigrant bounty. I don’t think immigrant bounty part of the law just yet, but I’m sure its only a matter of time . Then we can lock these tie toting pricks up in the pen for spilling toxins into our our oceans and financial systems (well technically we’d be locking them up for being foreign, but it’s the locked up part that matters).

On the world stage revolutionary acts are being perpetrated all over the place with out racist laws to take advantage of. Some very pissed of K rygs, Thai, and Greeks all rose up in acts of defiance of their governments this spring. The Krygs kicked their government out. The Thai kicked a significant dent in the GDP, by shutting down the heart of Bankok for six weeks.  While the Greeks burned down a bunch of shit. People died in all of these clashes, though the only deaths the media seems that sympathetic about are the late bank workers in Greece. There is a lesson to be learned here though: work is less important than crossing a general strikes picket line. Anyways I suppose the main stream mediagarchy doesn’t give two shits about the violence in Kyrgyzstan and Thailand because they can’t clearly blame the rebels for the violence and, well central and southeast Asians rebels aren’t quite white enough to be given the full human treatment reserved for pussy bank workers who should be out in the streets. Anyways its a great time to travel to these countries if you like cheap hotel bills or throwing rocks at cops.

That is my Triumphant (err fairly routine) return and recap of the craziness occurring everywhere. Hopefully, from this point onward I’ll be posting thrice weekly. If I don’t live up to this, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. Unless… you click on the donate button a few times. Then you can threaten not to anymore. So give me some cash so I can rationalize ignoring others and laying down on the job to blabber on this blog.

The metaphor that casts our leaders as “actors” on the “world stage” makes me cringe. Could there be a more misleading and romantic metaphor for international politics? Granted it is a great way to attract the avaricious and vain to the leadership.  Tell them they will be like Marlon Brando or Audry Hepburn , a  great star in the great unfolding drama of history.  Frighteningly enough, this is exactly how poli-sly students are taught to think about international politics.

Sure as Shakespeare noted,

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,

But the so called actors on the world stage tend to determine other peoples “exists” and might even prevent some people from entering in the first place. This is exactly the problem. An actor works in the realm of fiction. Our politicians clearly don’t need the encouragement to dabble in fiction. The result can be very embarrassing.  Not to mention deadly. And even white lies* can have damning and terrible consequences.

This metaphor clearly contributes to the lemons problem (as we say in ickonomics) that we face when it comes to “leadership.”  All the nice people don’t really care about bossing other people around. The quintessential “A-hole”, however, thrives on power, and naturally takes advantage of any chance to tell people what to do. Its an ironic maladjustment inherent to hierarchy. The people at the top must step on other people to get there and naturally the ones who rise to the top also tend to be the most ruthless.  Which leads us to our next old as dirt smart dude quote, Niccolo Machiavelli, “If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud.”

The powerful and ambitious must one-up one another in ruthlessness to obtain power. They must be willing to break the rules because everybody else is. It is impossible to be successful without having the same edge. Look at Jimmy Carter. Everyone says he was just too nice of a guy. Another example is the behavior of banks during the mortgage bubble inflation. If they didn’t dabble in the risky stuff the customers would take their money somewhere else to get a higher return. Bush most likely won the Presidency twice by voter fraud in Ohio and Florida. Gore was just too much of wimp for that. If you can’t take the heat, then don’t try to raise hell. That’s what I say.

As if these natural inclinations of society aren’t enough, we go around glorifying our rulers and making them celebrities. The media also loves to do this, because they need characters and stories, not accurate news. Accurate news tends to get boring. George W. Bush is a lone-start desperado type. Palin is a rouge. Apparently because she is as dumb as the average Republican voter.  President Obama is the ambassador of change we can believe in. This fact is vetted by his brown skin but contradicted by his economic team. Although he is being cast more and more as a Jimmy-chump-Carter type as the republicans do everything they can to block legislation. Or a Maoist if you like to take your commentary from nationalist snake oil salesmen.

But what about those actors in the big show. Hugo Chavez, the new great red tyrant, who is stealing the land and oil from foreign companies that they worked so hard to steal from the indigenous populations in the first place. There is also Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran. He is currently playing the scary nuclear zealot.  Kim Jong Il just wasn’t ready for the spotlight. Hopefully Mr. Arhmadinejad isn’t planning on doing anything too drastic during the second act.

All these characterizations though lead us to believe in images of our leaders. We then judge them based on their how they are playing their role. This allows us to conceptualize political issues on the basis of feeling rather than thought. It is always so much easier to feel than to think.  The whole don’t-think-double-think routine. Chavez isn’t a democratically elect populist grappling with an elite controlled media and U.S. backed coup attempts, he is tyrannical socialist. Ahmadinejad isn’t trying to arm his country as well as most the countries that oppose him. He is bat shit crazy hell-bent on destroying Israel and all the rest of the infidels. (To be fair though he is a theocratic ruler, which to some qualifes for bat shit crazy [depends on if you're from Texas], and seems a little hell-bent on destroying Israel.)   Bush isn’t a dumb-shit megalomaniac. He just your average guy who isn’t scared to go it alone and get ‘er done. Obama isn’t a moderately liberal democrat. He is the harbinger of change and great imperial wizard of freedom. Need proof he represents change you believe in? He is black, if you haven’t noticed.  It doesn’t matter his economic team has been borrowed from the most elite offices of Wall St. It doesn’t matter has escalated the conflict in Afghanistan. And it doesn’t matter that he has acted like a big puss-ball when it came timeto trying to get promised health-care reforms passed. All that matters is that he is the hope and change we can believe in (because he is black). All these characterizations are great, just great… only  not of you want to understand reality.

Our leaders aren’t actors playing out some great drama. They rule us in real life. Their decisions have real (often dire) consequences.  So next time you turn on the boob- tube and some fast talking pundit  present a caricature of a world leader, take a second to think about why your being presented with this crude image of a human being instead of a less dramatic profile.

That is the ironic thing about love. Something that is supposed to be unselfish devotion is rooted in the desire to have that one person who can’t live without us.  Which of course is bullshit. If a piano were to drop on you’re main squeeze’s head and squash them to death of course you could go on living. It would be hard, but you’d survive. Although there are some instances where people are motivated enough to end their own life after they lose their lover, they are generally the exception that proves the rule. While I don’t like to jump to conclusions, unless of course if we are playing the Office Space inspired board game, I generally characterize  suicides, no matter what the circumstances, as completely irrational bordering on bat-shit-crazy.  Of course I am being cold and cynical, but that is what I do here.

The most epic tech-innovation for judging someones level of dissatisfaction with the holiday is facebook. While I’m sure people have posted even more pathetic things on myspace, I don’t cut myself to relieve stress and  have only thought about dying my hair jet black in passing. So I stick to facebook.  Everyone seems to have a witty or not so witty Valentines Day facebook status.  “Happy Valentines Day <3 ” is a stock status for single girls. As far as I can tell this means, “please, someone, anyone wish me a happy Valentines and make a pass at me.” Straight up cynics might go with the “Happy Anna Howard Shaw Day” following Liz Lemon’s example from 30 Rock who chooses to honor the first wave feminist born on the 14th rather than capitulate to Hallmark’s schemes.  Others summed up their view on Valentines days by saying that it is “overrated.”  Thus proving they don’t really care that no one is giving them flowers. Though by far the most pathetic Valentines Day status I ran acrross was a video montage dedicated to “a friend.” This video reportedly took four hours to make and involved plenty of dorm room dancing antics. While I’m glad to say no video footage of myself engaging in such behavior exists, if it didn’t I would be pretty with whoever put it on the internet. If this magnanimous waste of time isn’t a proof of loneliness and heart-ache I don’t know what is. The saddest part is seems to try to portray the author as happy and fulfilled socially by showing how good of friends they have.  This going above and beyond to prove how stable and secure you are with your current social arrangement is the most disturbing part of what this holiday does to the single.

However, I suppose there is a brighter side of love. Its nice when people can find someone they are truly happy with and have a beautiful and harmonious relationship. However, let it be stated that I don’t want to be anywhere near these freaks. While the couple that is always at each others throats is not the most fun to be around, I would hangout with them any day over the couple so in love that it’s stomach churning. At least with the constantly fighting couple you can pick sides, switch sides, and add to the general dysphoria. In the opposite situation there is no room to coexist. You can join in on their embarrassing baby talk, but they won’t like it. Take it from me they might even think you are mocking them and their foolish belief that they are “perfect” for one another. You can also take it from me that after they get done kissing, yelling “my turn” and trying to pounce on which ever one is of interest will not be received cordially. No, when around people who really believe they’ve found “the one”  the only thing to do is sit there and be angry at the world that you’re all alone in.  Fortunately in a few months they will start to get sick of one another and begin to bicker and fight like all couples in a healthy relationship.

The important thing for the single is to keep taking risks. If there are no risks there is no reward. The great thing about the economics of romance is you only invest shreds of your dignity at a time, and even if you lose it you’re not much worse off.  If the romantic gambit fails then you end up stuffing your face alone, pretty much what you would have been doing any ways.  (Exactly what I am about to do right now.) Your dignity only stays broken until you forget the embarrassing episode, and you are no worse off for trying.

Amidst the candy, flowers, and bitterness there are some brave souls out there reminding us that love isn’t just a game, it’s a contest.  Like Jeff Ondash a “speed hugger” complete with fire retardant suit in case the hugging gets out off control, who set the world record for the most hugs in twenty-four hours. The man hugged 7777 people outside a casino in Vegas.  He is quite the hug-slut.  But leave it to those hot blooded Latino peoples though one up Teddy McHuggin’s exploits.  Mexico City set the world record for biggest make-out party yesterday. 40,000 people gathered in the town center to kiss their loved one with 19,998 other couples.

Luckily the media has picked up on these interesting stories so we won’t be distracted with newsworthy stories like how many people NATO killed with its rocket attack  this weekend or what Iran will do when it finally gets the bomb.  Then we’d all really feel lonely.

This is the great scam of international finance, especially for less established nations. We will loan you plenty of Euros, but we want it paid back in Dollars. This is can be devastating for developing nations. If they try to print their own currency foreign companies refuse it as payment.  No one will take it, it isn’t real. Its only real if they borrow it from someone else in a currency currently accepted. When they are unable to pay back their loans countries like Haiti are cut off from credit, “It must be right that a nation buried in rubble must not also be buried in debt.”  We will only bury nations in debt free of ruble. Its only logical, how will they pay off the loans if the country is buried in ruble?

Goldman seams to be rearing its head everywhere these days.  The bank also made new by suggesting that American investors need to be more “worldly.”  Which is euphemism for move your money over seas where the getting is good because there is no money to be made here in the U.S.

The “bank holding company” is also in the news haggling with AIG saying the insurer ows it more money on insured assetts that went south. AIG is claiming just the opposite that Goldman overstated its losses and that Goldman needs to pay back some of the money. While the two mega-finance corporations squabble over the easy government money. This year has not been spectacular for AIG, for Goldman however 2009 has been a year of record profits.

Re-capitalized by the government Goldman did what it does best in 2009, capitalize.  Since the other American premier investment houses Bear Stearns and Lehman either were absorbed or destroyed by the market, Goldman was the only game left in town willing to dabble in the scary stuff. Taking advantage of the slack market Goldman bought the risky mortgaged backed securities at low prices and turned record profits in 2009.

Yeah, Goldman Sachs raked in 13.4 billion this year.  Just for a point of refference, if Goldman Sachs was its own country it would push out Gana for the 100th spot on the list for GDP accross all nations.  Of course even though average total employee compensation at Goldman is $500,000 per year, the CEO is making headlines for only taking $9 million worth in stocks for bonus. This is after it earlier came to light that he was set to stash a hundred million this year. Poor guy. Blankfien will just have to get by. Hopefully he stashed some of his $68 million bonus  from 2007 for a rainy day. Or he could just have some of those guys who working with the Greeks to hide a hundred billion in derivatives… one hundred times more than what he made…

The saddest part of the whole situation is while Americans love to bash the corporate chieftains for their greed yet we are still completely enamored by them. From the industrial revolution onward the characterization of businessmen has gone back and forth between two different character types. The captain of industry, master of organization sent and ordained by the Almighty to make decision inferior creatures are incapable of.Of course the doppelganger is the  greedy capitalist pig willing to do whatever it takes to protect its profits. A significant shift occurred. In the past the U.S. economy was reliant on our industry to make stuff poeple buy. Since the 1970′s more and more profits have come increasingly from stock jobbing or financial speculation – in the  jargon of late.  More and more people have been making money not by making tangible goods but in the markets.  They have been making more and more money by betting on (or against) savings and loans, tech stocks, and mortgage schemes. Activities that  don’t end up making any useful things.

The result is that no longer is that what’s good for GM is whats good for America, its what’s good for Goldman that’s good for America (not exactly leisurely reading). GM hasn’t made a profit off an car in decades. They make money off the loan on the car.  Economic dependency on our financial services sector, which surely lends itself to political clout, is what got the laws separating banking activities and regulating risk wiped from the books. Now, businesses can contribute unlimited amounts of money to political campaigns. No doubt Goldman will have a bit more leverage over legislators than they gained with Blankfien’s hurricane defense of the low interest rate – double ended – speculative frenzy we call the housing bubble.  Such undeserved power might ensure the business community a deregulated climate for conjuring up the perfect storm.