Mad Mad Mad Mad World |
Sunday, April 10, 2005
FYI The posting dates on many of these items are incorrect. These little snippets came from my website and were originally written between 1995 and the present. The dates shown are simply the dates they were pasted into this blog. I have tried to indicate the original date where applicable. -Erik
If we are truly God's children, then why don't we talk to God like children? Gooooo-oooooood..... Saddam gassed 5,000 Kuuuuuuuuuuurrrds..... (This prayer could be called the Holy Tattlement) --------------------------- Dear Usama, We told God what you did and he's really really mad. He told us to send you to see him. Sincerely, The Americans. Wednesday, March 09, 2005
This is now a terrorist war and I have the feeling that it's going to escalate beyond anything we've ever seen before. The civilian losses are going to be difficult to avoid. Take, for example, Usama. If we don't get him, he'll strike again. The entire world is his battlefield and his armies are underground. To remove him and to disable his army will mean destroying his bases, and also villages, towns, cities, and nations that protect him. If we take no action, he is free to terrorize the world and more civilians will die in mass graves like Manhatten. If we DO take action, it will be hard to avoid killing civilians on the other side. It's a no-win situation. Kill or be killed. But it is They who have caused the killing. It is They who will have caused the deaths of their own people through their actions. It is They who are using their own women and children as human shields. And it will be We who are forced to kill them.
My mother bought me the usual stack of "Why do you hate god" books for Christmas, and my father bought my kids the usual stack of Animals In The Ark books. I tell my kids to make up their own minds but to also understand that although people have a right to believe whatever they want, and I respect that right, I won't make any effort to conceal my opinion either. I think that Atheism the truth, and that the truth is SO powerful, that it doesn't matter what kind of hogwash they hear and read, having an single atheist role model (me) will lead to them maintaining a healthy atheism throughout their lives. We'll see. I'll be very surprised if either one of them develops a religious disorder.
I always wanted to invent a religeon. There would be lots of specific sins, like you can't write the word "color" with each letter in a different color. That's a sin. And everything can be explained with magic. Magnets and fire are actually magic. Febreeze is evil. You can't have a number on your body anywhere and any kind of sports where people wear numbers are evil because wearing a number makes fun of cat angels (they have numbers on them, 1 thru 9 -- everybody knows that). Anyone who can ride a bicycle has magical powers but uncycles are an irresponsible display of vanity magic. Tandem bikes are evil because 2 people can't share the same magic for the same reason that Sabrina can't undo a spell cast by Agnes Moorhead. Stuff like that.
Recently, I put a clock on one of my bedside tables. I've never needed a clock before. I always wake up when I need to, even now. But a short while ago I began working on a project and I wanted to make sure that I woke up on time every day without fail, so I took out an old analog clock that used to be in my son's room and set it up next to my bed. True to my old faithful rhythms, I've never actually needed it, but knowing that it is there still makes me feel better. Now this clock reminded me of something that I have not thought of in quite some time. When I was seven years old, I had a similar clock. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Some things from your childhood you remember vividly. Back then the electric clock had a black plastic housing and a square transparent faceplate. That was 1973. Here in 2002 this clock next to my bed is almost the same design. It reminded me of an unusual thing that I did when I was seven. I talked to my clock back then. Yeah, strange, but little kids do strange things. I have a six year old daughter. She does stuff like that. Back in 1973 I used to say goodnight to my clock. I'd tell it about my day. I would watch it's glowing face in the dark and feel like it was watching over me in the darkness of my room at night. Sometimes I would confide my deepest fears and concerns with my little electric clock. Sitting in my bedroom, as a 36 year old adult in 2002, I regarded my electric clock and reflected on my long forgotten memories of 1973. I thought to myself, what would I tell my clock now, after nearly three decades? Well, I'm fine. The world is fine. A lot of the things that were wrong with the world back then are now fine. Back then there was a lot of evil in the world. A lot of this evil is still there, but it is being narrowed down to tiny points of weakness in the human psyche. The age of large scale evil is over. The age of planet killing evil has been dead now these ten years. Evil is now known to be nothing more than human misguidance and misunderstanding. Evil now exists in receding factions, tiny pools of ill-motivated psychopaths who are desperately receding into dark and remote hiding places. The world is now a fragile unit of like minded souls, still tormented by the last vestiges of exposed and frantic bullies. For the most part, we are divided by differences of opinion on how to best feed the poor, stimulate the growth of business, and mete out the incredible advancements of medical science and economy that we now enjoy. This is a world that we could not have imagined back then. The whole of the human race sings as one through an electronic medium that could not have been expected nor envisioned by the highest minds at the time. To those who attempt to gauge the relevance of this medium are only stunned at the prospects of what it will become given another thirty years. True, in this time, there is not one of us who do not have the ability to witness on demand any and all manner of experiences that the previous half century of media would have considered highly taboo: religion, sex, violence and executions, liberal ideas, ancient philosophies, modern philosophies, and all manner of alternative thought... yet the thing that we have discovered to be most profound is that it is not exposure to ideas and events that compel people, yet it is the nature of people, when confronted with such exposure that compels them. We thought, in 1973, that if a person were to be subjected to certain amount of specific media, be it sex, violence, or specific idealism, that such exposure would direct the mind of the person. But in 2002 we have discovered that this is not so. A person will react to such media in the way that befits the character of the person. That person's character is not defined by the experiences that are presented to the person. A person's character is defined by the person, prior to that person's exposure to experience. How that person deals with the experience is merely a testimony to the character of the person. You do not create character. It is defined within the person at birth. It is genetic. It is not magic. A psychopath does not become a psychopath. He does not experience something that makes him so. He was and will always be a psychopath. That one cousin who always took the game of croquet too far, breaking mallets and sending balls into the pond, or when you captured that frog he was the one who actually wanted to kill it. The one who played with matches. The one who wanted to see you be as bad as him. You saw the same things. Kids in war-torn nations grew up among unspeakable horrors, yet they went on to become upstanding citizens. People react to their environments, they are not a product of it. This is one of the biggest lessons we have learned by the year 2002. Knowing something, seeing something, experiencing something, all of these things define our character, and allow our character to become evident. We are born with strengths and weaknesses. We do not develop them. Our parents can choose to nurture our strengths, or allow the environment to prey upon our weaknesses. This is a huge variable, indeed. Nature plays a little game when it creates life For the most part, it imparts upon new life the strengths and capabilities of a robust and potent design, yet by the rules of life itself, it must experiment a little, so for some there is improved vision, greater strength, longevity, or beauty. For others, however, there may be errors, sickness, or mental deficiencies. Evolution needs to know what works and what does not, and we, as are all species, are it's uncompassionate laboratories. So when our founding fathers stated that All Men are Created Equal, they may have been saying something profound about human morality and justice, but in reality they were quite wrong. Yet, human morality and justice trumps reality here, for it is not our place to pass judgment on our fellow science lab experiments. We are all equally the result of Evolution's roll of the dice. We have to know our place here, and must have compassion for our fellow species. Who knows? We've learned, here in 2002, that a demon possessed lunatic in one age can be Stephen Hawking in another. We are humbled by our mistakes. We ought to be. But my point is this: Talking to my clock, having not spoken to it since I was seven years old, when to me back then the world was a very big and scary place, I have to say first and foremost, that things are okay for the human race, and the planet Earth. We still have a lot of problems, but things are a lot better than they were even in my own short memory. People are far more wonderful, and on the vast planetary scale things are so much more stable and predictable. We're all discovering something that I guess we just forgot a long time ago: We're all just people. We're all brothers and sisters. We're all here alone in a big an amazing Universe that has wonders, delights, and terrors of it's own just waiting to be discovered. We're all breathing the same air. We're all being terrorized by the same little group of psychopaths. And that's where we are now, on this 4th of July, in the year 2002. -Erik Thursday, July 08, 2004
I have a solution to solve the so-called Health Care Crisis in the United States. Pass a law requiring everyone to seek and procure health insurance of some kind (like we do with car insurance). Whoever does not have some kind of health coverage set up for themselves in 30 days gets a ride to Mexico in a box car. Thursday, April 29, 2004
knock knock
who's there? Let me in they're trying to kill me! Let me in they're trying to kill me who? (silence)
Ignorance is the mother of something...
Have you ever noticed that the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark is the same thing as Happy Birthday but in a different tempo? Why are the wheels on refridgerators the worst wheels in the world. Who designs them? Wednesday, April 02, 2003
I put some of my non-political stuff on a blog called ViolentRapture. It's mostly from my old web site The Violent and Rapturous Technicolor of Being. This blog is devoted to my feeble political observations and general shenannigans.
HEY SADDAM, APRIL FOOLS DAY WAS YESTERDAY. Guess what? Saddam is Dead. Also from the grave he issues a statement: Victory is at Hand! (IOW Keep dying for me. It's your choice. A bullet in the chest or a bullet in the back. Either way you're dead). But his legacy continues on through it's last gasp of life as his last will and testament continues to permeate the rubble of his palaces, the facilities of his War Machine, his torture chambers and prisons: Destroy my own citizens, fire rockets across my borders, call for the Death of All Jews... After having pulled back from the lands he has invaded and the people he has murdered and opressed, the man lies dead in a bunker. Now I ask you stupid misguided fucks out there on the street today, "Who sounds like Hitler?" Make no mistake, we will make a point to remember everything you said in 2004 and we'll make sure you don't forget it either -- you know who you are... Tuesday, April 01, 2003
To quote Nelson Mandela: "the attitude of the United States of America is a threat to world peace" and "It is clearly a decision that is motivated by George W Bush's desire to please the arms and oil industries in the United States of America". By supporting sanctions against the South African government, George H. W. Bush helped speed the dismantling of its system of racial separation. Mandela was freed from years in prison largely due to the anti-racisim sanctions and pressures imposed by both the Reagan and Bush administration. He was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa in 1994. He retired in 1999. Now he can kiss my big fat American ass. Monday, March 31, 2003
Oh No! "Cyber Terrorists" vandalize the Democrats.com website by posting remarks on their "impeach Bush and indict him for war crimes" petition. Here are some samples:
Who does Bush think he is!? Republicans have absolutely no right to use our military in this manner. Only Democrats like Clinton should be allowed to attack Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosovo with neither UN mandates nor Congressional approval! We are Democrats. We are anti-Bush. We are anti-Republican. We are anti-capitalist. We are anti-Israel. We are pro-Palestinian. We are pro-Saddam. We are pro-bin Laden. We support the suicide bombers in their courageous fight for freedom. Stand up and be counted! WE ARE DEMOCRATS! Support Saddam against the US military. Democrats Unite! Join together for the common good and hatred of the infidel. Take a lesson from sweet palestine! Death to the evil ones! Give your bodies and lives to Allah It makes me sad to read such ridiculous sites such as this. Its horrible to think that people such as you are allowed to live in a country as great as this. Wait! The DEMOCRATIC Senate voted to give President Bush the authority to wage war. The Democrats had a majority in the Senate at that time too. Perhaps you people should impeach your own elected officials. None of this would have been possible, if the Senate did not give our President the authority. Think about it.... Let's make sure we also prosecute EVERY DEMOCRAT that is equally responsible for the loss of America. THe busches would get a bom if I was in a arme and amecens deserve to be terrist and kil The photo of the American Taliban was not officially released by the DOD. You people know that. If President Bush is guilty of war crimes, you liberals are guilty of treason. What George Orwell Bush is doing is wrong. Why can't the world see this? Long Live Saddam. Death to Israel.
Basically Iraq is Europe's piggy bank. The vast oil reserves trapped in Iraq are being used to artificially prop up the Euro, almost as if someone discovered a forgotten vault at the Federal Reserved that contained a trillion dollars worth of gold that nobody knew about. The value of the Dollar would suddenly double. Because Iraqi Oil, the second or third largest single asset of any kind on the planet. As long as the oil is trapped in Iraq and what little that gets out is being dumped in France for below market value the Euro will continue to strengthen against the Dollar. Saddam Hussein purposely chose to convert his treasury to Euros and dump his oil-for-food in France (and Germany) simply because it was more lucrative and it would also be wicked a burn on the US. Europeans wanted this too because it helped to elevate the Euro as a competetive alternative to the Dollar.
But then Hussein started messing everything up because in addition to being a shrewed businessman he's also a really really evil tryrant. So undoubtedly the US saw this as an opportunity to intervene and while liberating the people of Iraq and making the free world a safer and more stable place to be, it could also fix this Euro problem that was contributing to the downfall of our economy. When the US liberates Iraq most certainly their $10B treasury and their future oil commerce would be shifted over to dollars and the euro would almost instantly crash. France and Germany have staked their economic futures on this not happening. The theory then moves on to Russia, who, although uneffected by the economic war between the US and Europe, would only benefit from the strengthening of Europe and the devaluation of US currency, thus making the US led war a "political mistake" as they put it with only mild outrage. If the invasion was a Russian operation it would have been all over with after the first wave, but there wouldn't be too much left of Iraq or it's people and they would be kissing their oil fields goodbye UNLIKE how the western coalition is going to handle things REGARDLESS of the stupid shit that some people want to believe.
Hate is a powerful political weapon. If you can't make them love you, make them hate the other guy. The Republicans used this weapon throughout the 90's to try and take down Clinton. They spread the message that we should be ashamed to have such an immoral man in the white house and that America had lost the respect of the world. To a degree it worked because that's Clinton's legacy (and it was also true). Now the party out of power has raised the bar, they have concocted this vast consipiracy which is highly believeable to the masses who are very willing to believe such things, and preying on their fears and concerns, instilling self loathing and mortal hatred among the feeble minded. But the goal is simple -- Make America Hate. This will shift the power and Topple the "Regime" and put them back on top. But guess what, it isn't going to work. Truth is is more powerful than hate.
Along one main street today, a caravan of taxis carried 68 coffins that officials said represent the civilian death toll from the air raids thus far. The coffin-bearing taxis joined a procession of protesters that stopped in front of U.N. headquarters, chanting slogans against the United States and the international trade sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
"Baghdad mourns today 68 martyrs who fell due to the criminal military action committed against our peaceful people," Sultan Shawi, a member of Iraq's National Assembly, told the crowd. At a news conference tonight before the attacks resumed, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan charged that heavy bombing in southern Iraq and the distribution of U.S. propaganda leaflets there proved the military action has less to do with U.N. weapons inspections than it does with dividing the country and toppling President Saddam Hussein. President Clinton is the world's "number one liar," Ramadan said. "Aggression has been pre-planned. It has nothing to do with the subject of cooperation" with weapons inspectors. "Its mission is to find cover" for dividing the nation, he said, adding that by enduring this assault, Iraq "will possess freedom . . . and the sanctions will be lifted, and the spies will be evicted." - Baghdad, December 19, 1998
I think that even the EFF wouldn't characterize the Patriot Act as something that a "Regime" was "Unleashing on the world". I read through their analysis and personally didn't find anything objectionable to me in it. There are certainly some places where they indicate some clarification is needed but the technological environment of our society has changed a great deal in the past 20 years and the rights of Law Enforcement also need to be considered. And I'm speaking as someone who was ass-fucked by the establishment over something as simple as the definition of "without authority".
I think that if Bill Clinton were president today we would still be invading Iraq and the same bitter arguments would be chasing each other around the globe, but there wouldn't be a population of bitter people calling him Hitler and (in my mind) hoping that some great injustice is being perpetrated against them so they can continue to feel both ashamed (guilt) and oppressed (victim mentality) at the same time, and able to point the blame at someone other than themselves.
I would hope that if the day were to come that the US had terrorist training camps and was stockpiling horrific weapons for the specific purpose of commiting religious and racial genocide, if the US was mowing down it's own citizens and paving them over alive in the streets with asphalt, freezing dead babies, executing political prisoners by throwing them feet first into giant shredders, or shooting them in the head and dropping off their dead bodies on their family's doorsteps, and if the US were to be ruled by a family of sadistic tyrants who raped and beat people to death with impunity, burning villages to the ground, torturing children in front of their parents, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc IF the US were to be doing this I would hope to god that someone would come along and do the same thing the the US that we are doing to Iraq.
This is not a matter of a "person or culture" that we have a problem with. This is a boil on the ass of humanity. This is a cancer. This is a sick and sadistic regime that threatens the entire world and must be eliminated as quickly as possible. It wouldn't be so bad if we had taken care of it earlier. If we wait any longer it will be worse. I am proud that our country and the decent people in western civilization have the guts and resolve to do the right thing and I am proud to be an American and I am proud of George Bush and all of the leaders of this country who almost uninimously support this operation in spite of the opinions of all the naked people running around in San Francisco with signs comparing George Bush to Hitler. Additionally I think that kind of attitude is a slap in the face of all the truly oppressed and maligned victims of every brutal dictatorship that really DID have an evil leader with designs on world conquest at the expense of the well being of their citizens.
I guess I'm just a rosey-eyed optimist. I refuse to believe that my country has anything less than honorable intentions. I'm sure there are some people, Americans included, sitting around waiting to capitalize on anything they can, and I'm also very concerned about the religious right's belief that this is somehow pre-ordained destiny because that's a pretty frickin' dangerous way of thinking, very little different than Osama Bin Ladin, but I believe that for the most part every American and coalition participant in this affair probably feels pretty strongly that we are doing some good in the world. I also think that the most outspoken opponents to this action (not counting the freaks on the street who are just a collection of crackpots and looneys with a chip on their shoulder and nothing better to do) have something to hid and a deeper ulterior motive than any American capitalist.
"If Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act or we take some ambiguous third route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of sanctions and ignore the commitments he's made? Well, he will conclude that the international community's lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on doing more to build an arsenal of devastating destruction. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow. The stakes could not be higher. Some way, someday, I guarantee you he'll use the arsenal."
-President Bill Clinton in 1998 |
