Also thank Governor Gregoire and legislators for adopting the “Fair Play in Community Sports” bill. http://bit.ly/DGPvc

Seriously this is weird, from my rarefied perspective.

So, there’s this guy who comes around and rapes me twice a week for the past year…

And one day I notice he hasn’t been around for a few months.

What do I do now? Send him a fucking fruit basket?

/1380/free-janine-and-all-political-prisoners/
Referrer: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free+janine+&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=
Hostname: wdcsun37.usdoj.gov

Someone at the DOJ is looking for Janine, maybe to free her, but more likely to get a hold of the latest Earl Miller photo shoot before she went to prison.

/1789/steal-this-number-595-12-5274/
Referrer: http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarchism/comments/8he5s/steal_this_number_595125274/
Hostname: emma.dhcp.fnal.gov

Anarchists at Fermilab, gotta love ‘em!

/1789/steal-this-number-595-12-5274/
Referrer: http://www.reddit.com/new/?count=25&after=t3_8i2vx
Hostname: gate4-norfolk.nmci.navy.mil

The US Navy, you say?

/1789/steal-this-number-595-12-5274/
Referrer: http://lonestartimes.com/2009/05/05/tuesday-open-comments-103/
Hostname: host.jsc.nasa.gov

Someone at the Johnson Space Center is a real “patriot”… or something.

/
Referrer: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nostate&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=
Hostname: 205-156-36-13.ssmcnet.noaa.gov

What the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration wants with me is a mystery… Isn’t that the branch that controls the orbital mind control lasers?

/1789/steal-this-number-595-12-5274/
Referrer: Direct hit
Hostname: washingtoncitypaper.com

Ok, this one’s not the FedGov, but still. Hmmm… Wanna interview me?

[My translation from original Slovak at the Priama ackia ("Direct Action") website. All errors mine.]

Priama Akcia’s call: “We don’t intend to pay for the crisis!”

Activism opportunity in Slovakia and the Czech Republic

12 November 2008

A world summit will take place on 15 November 2008 in Washington at which 20 of the most economically powerful countries in the world (including the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) will debate regarding reform of the global financial system. It is the day on which the elite will decide upon the salvation of capitalism. This meeting merits our attention because its outcome affects even us. Come what may, we are not going to just sit back and watch the whole crisis. There are many possibilities for beginning activism related to the crisis.

OUR POSSIBILITIES IN SLOVAKIA AND THE CZECH REPUBLIC

The politicians, bosses and bankers settle things and take care of their own. And we should do the same. The only way we can succeed in not being forced to pay for this crisis is to know ourselves, to have contact among ourselves and to help each other. The objective of this call is to take the first step toward presenting an approach to the crisis from the perspective of ordinary people rather than liberal economists and politicians.

We say this openly: ordinary people – workers, students, retirees and unemployed alike – should in our view take advantage of this global financial crisis to build contact among ourselves. Regardless of how or even whether the capitalists manage to salvage their system, the problems will not go away. They will always arouse discontent and the striving to resolve it by our very own energies. The current situation is an opportunity for establishing contact and thinking about setting up a contact network amongst ourselves. In the process the crisis can be built upon in terms of aid and solidarity regarding the various problems what await us in the near future.

CONCRETE ACTIONS IN OUR TOWNS AND WORKPLACES

During Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and subsequent days we will publish a flyer, a poster and a questionnaire at our website, www.priamaakcia.sk.

• We suggest distributing flyers basically everywhere. Places where people gather (cafes, clubs, etc.) are good, but distributing them in trains is also very good. All you have to do is get on before the train leaves, throw a few flyers into the cabin and get off before departure. Quick and effective.
• Posters for transport stops, schools, workplaces and elsewhere can also draw attention to this activism.
• The questionnaire will be able to be filled out right on a web page and is part of an international project by militant workers. More information coming soon.

Only two things are needed for anyone to get involved in this activity immediately: the urge to do something and the ability to print out materials. These will be prepared in PDF form for open download in Slovak and Czech. Even now you can talk about activism options with someone near you with whom you might be able to do something today, tomorrow or the day after.

OTHER ACTIVITIES GOING FORWARD

Other activities are planned as well. If you want to get involved, let us know at priamaakcia(at)priamaakcia(dot)sk. We will provide information on the website about further activism opportunities and we would be especially pleased if more people – including readers of this text – took part in our ideas. Should you get involved in any way (such as by distributing flyers), please let us know.

We can’t count on chit-chat saying that the crisis will impact us to a weaker extent than it will other countries. The fact is, it’s already impacting us through layoffs at US Steel, in the auto industry (the firms Riba Nitra, Dura Stupava and Johnson Controls), in machining (PPS, Embraco), etc. This will by no means be where it ends…

For spreading this call farther – among your acquaintances, friends or colleagues, via discussion forums, blogs, web pages, myspace, hi5, facebook or other information channels – we thank you in advance.

This is the impulse. What else, and how, is up to you.

WE DON’T INTEND TO PAY FOR THE CRISIS!
Watch www.priamaakcia.sk

PRIAMA AKCIA
Priama akcia (“Direct Action”) is the Slovak branch of the International Workers Association (IWA), a confederation which unites trade unions and initiatives from 16 countries of the world as a membership base.

Almost 20 years ago, at the muddled dawn of my political awakening, I took a road trip from Orlando, Florida to Washington, DC with a few friends intent on joining one protest or another against the first Gulf War. My car was literally festooned with anti-war, pro-peace graffiti, bumper stickers and slogans — a rolling billboard for anti-war protest.

Late at night during the journey we stopped off for food and a break from the road at a Waffle House or Shoney’s in a tiny little town in South Caroline called Paxville. The perfect stopping place, one might think, given that the Latin word “pax” means “peace”, and wasn’t that just what we were after?

So we ate our meals and drank our coffees. About mid-way through, a small group of young men came in to dine as well, looking at us suspiciously and having conversations with a waitress in hushed tones. Cold stares all around. One of my friends noticed an insignia or patch on something one of the guys was wearing that suggested he was a member of the Civil Air Patrol. Potential conflict ahead, and under the surreptitious appraisal and venomous looks we finished our meals quickly, full of tension that this group might decide to provoke some sort of conflict.

We got back in the car and made ready to continue the long drive to DC. As I pulled out of the restaurant parking lot, one of my friends said that the CAP guys were hustling out of the restaurant and piling into a Camaro. I got us out onto the deserted, dark county road, heading back for the highway, but about 500 yards from the restaurant I and my friends spotted the Camaro’s headlights behind us. The CAP guys were accelerating quickly to close the gap between us. I made a snap decision to evade them; if they wanted to start trouble out here at 4 o’clock in the morning without another soul in sight, we would likely have our faces pulped and the car damaged. Spotting an unfenced field filled with tall grass and weeds ahead, I switched off my headlights and plunged into it, with the Camaro now maybe 200 yards behind. A short, reckless, bumpy ride into the field in darkness, and I used engine braking and the hand brake (to avoid brake lights betraying our position) to bring us to a stop a goodly distance off the road. I shut off the car, and we watched the Camaro pass slowly, take a U-turn a ways up the road past our location and circle back looking for us before making a final U-turn and continuing on their way.

After catching our breath a while and agreeing upon what had just happened, we all shared a laugh about the name “Paxville” and got ourselves back on the highway to continue on.

This close encounter with violence was part of a tapestry of counter-protest that we experienced nearly everywhere. “Support the troops, oppose the war” on our side and “America, love it or leave it!” on the other, backed by the barely-controlled fury of some in the opposite camp eager to bait us into violent confrontation.

I was just reminded of this old tale of Paxville on discovering and reading another follow-on fisking to my “Fuck the Troops!” article. It’s by one W.B.B. Johnson and entitled “OUR TROOPS…MY HERO’S! DON’T LIKE IT…THEN GO TO HELL!“. A long screed with a surfeit of apostrophes and all-caps invective ends on this note:

No one (especially our troops) likes war. Atrocities (which no one wants to have happen) do happen in war… IT’S WAR!! To call our troops murderer’s… is TOTALLY… UNACCEPTABLE and beyond reason! The cracker-ass-joker that wrote this article: http://www.nostate.com/77/fuck-the-troops/, would have been hung for treason against AMERICA… had General George Washington been here today!

What Mr. Johnson doesn’t seem to get is that if I were transplanted into the history he romanticizes here, I might indeed be hung for treason — by the British.

It is one measure of the relative success of the American state’s indoctrination program that so few would be able to make that qualification correctly.

Via Jeremy at Social Memory Complex:

Adam Kokesh, “Duty to Resist“. 12 July 2008, Washington DC:

Text of the speech, from Adam Kokesh’s blog:

When I joined the Marines at a little strip mall in Santa Fe, and when I was in boot camp in San Diego, and when I was dodging mortars in Fallujah, I could not have imagined that I would one day share a stage with such renowned speakers. However, to march shoulder to shoulder, and to stand in solidarity with you, is a far greater honor.

It has been said that when in the course of human events, an oppression so revolts its subjects, it becomes necessary to alter or abolish the means of that tyranny. Is it that time when our Bill of Rights is defiled every day? When our adventures abroad threaten our security at home? When the Federal Reserve keeps our free nation enslaved by debt? When the people of the world tremble under the thumb of corporate imperialism? And now our nation is drifting dangerously from freedom to fascism. So I have to ask, is it time? The time is now, the threat is clear, the bands of tyranny are tightening around America, and it is our duty to resist!

As empowered patriots, let us take stock of our commitment to the ideals upon which this country is founded. America without her freedoms is like a body without a soul. The challenge before the Freedom Movement is no less, than to bring about a revolution of values, inspire a renaissance of American politics, and breathe new life into the tortured body of our nation. We will meet that challenge with courage and love, and as always, we the people, will prevail!

To rally the troops of the Revolutionary Army in the winter of 1776, Thomas Paine said, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot, will in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

As Iraq Veterans Against the War, we are resisting an occupation that we once risked our lives for. We swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, but we found out the hard way that the greatest enemies of the Constitution are not to be found in the sands of some far off land, but rather right here at home! We are your new winter soldiers and we are still defending America.

We bring the values, skills, and commitment that make us warriors to the fight before us today. We are working to end the war by strategically withdrawing our material support and inspiring others to do the same. By advocating for veterans, we honor those who served, and empower soldiers to become successful civilians. With Truth In Recruiting, we are inspiring a generation of young Americans to find a better way to serve this country than dying for empire. By supporting those who are actively resisting, we inspire further resistance, and ensure that soldiers still have the right, as is their duty, to disobey illegal orders.

During the siege of Fallujah, a young Lance Corporal was shot through the side of his flak jacket in a firefight to the west of the city. The bullet hit an artery near his spine. My team was called to help get him to the field hospital at Camp Taqadum. He was on a stretcher in the humvee in front of me, and I watched the Corpsman treating the external wound in a frightened, hurried panic, as the dust from the hot road swirled around us. When we got there, I carried him in as he moaned and writhed in pain, barely conscious. He flailed his arm off the stretcher, and as I put it back by his side I told him, “Don’t worry. You made it. You’re gonna be OK.” But he died only minutes later from the internal bleeding.

I have to live with that memory every day, but I have learned from it. I will not tell you that the band-aids applied by Republicans and Democrats will heal us. I will not pretend that everything is just going to be ok while we are bled dry by tyrants. And if it takes the last full measure of devotion, I will not allow the same fate to befall this country!

This young movement, is getting past the external wounds to the greater evils plaguing this nation. We know, that the greatest threat to American security is the current corruption of our government! No politician has ever ended a war. Civil rights were won in this country not by any legislator, but by a movement. I have great hope for America, but not because of an election. No, my hope comes from you!

Our tragic love affair with the state, has led us to put far too much trust in a government that we hoped could improve our lives, but has instead come to run our lives for us. We have become, as a people, like a frightened, battered, beat down victim of an abusive relationship. A servile, unquestioning, obedient people, will always produce tyrants. We must, as a nation, once again, embrace defiance, rebellion, and resistance!

Every day more and more Americans are avoiding unenforceable taxes, leaving government jobs out of disgust, and sending their kids to college instead of combat. But our efforts as a movement must become unified and deliberate to fully withdraw our compliance and support. Be it with your lives, labor, or tax dollars, stop investing in your own oppression! Guard your communities from the police state! Do not waste a single vote, or a single dollar, on the two-party system! Do not be content merely to grumble and to march while they are using fear, force, and violence as weapons of oppression. We must embrace the opportunity to resist civilly while we still can!

We are compelled to be here for many different reasons, and there is strength in our diversity. As within Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace, we do not need to be uniform to be unified. Take a look at the thoughtful, passionate people around you on this field, and throughout this country. Do not leave here without meeting a new brother or sister in the struggle. Take with you the inspiration to share your passion with someone who does not know they are yet part of our movement. Seek out where you can be most effective in the cause of liberty.

Challenge our force fed culture of unquestioning conformity and compliance. Embrace a world that is not defined by the politics of fear, our obedience producing schools, or the false prophets of the corporate media. As we have been awakened, we must stir the sleeping masses. As the forces of oppression are diligent, so must we toil. As they are committed, we must surpass them. As they step up their efforts, we must rise up to defeat them as a unified movement!

We have been labeled rebels, traitors, enemies of the state. All terms King George would have used to vilify our founders. I, for one, will always rebel against oppression, a traitor only to tyranny, and I would be remiss to not be the enemy of a state, that so blatantly tramples our freedoms.

American values have been nearly vanquished by consumerism, militarism, and authoritarianism. Yellow ribbons and lapel pins will not save this country. When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. The utmost manifestation of love and devotion to America, is today as it always has been, resistance of tyranny! Resist we must, and resist we will! We will not be silent! We will not obey! We will not let our government destroy our humanity! We will not wait another moment in fear to stand up for what we know to be right! It is time the government starts fearing the people again! It is time that we meet oppression with resistance!

They cannot stop us! Humanity marches on. You can fight it, or fight for it. When we say revolution, we say it with love. As we march onward from this place where we have pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor, let us embrace the struggle, cherish the fight, and live in that love. The passion of our hearts will be raised with our fists!

Thanks, Joe.

Is the lobbyist-driven agenda of corporations, special interests, and political culture really any less distant than U.S. foreign policy? Do we have any authentic control over the decisions in our society that affect us? Or are we just treated as fungible units of polity that have only to be deftly mobilized by public relations wizards in pursuit of an agenda fundamentally alien to us? What, in other words, is the difference between our powerlessness within the borders of the U.S. and the powerlessness endured by the residents of Iraq and Afghanistan?

The answers are obvious on one level, and subtly and critically different on another. This essay dramatically illustrates the differences between “democracy” and demos, and should resonate loudly within the minds of those millions of hopefuls who have not yet surrendered themselves totally to the machine.

Read it. Suffer it. Internalize it.

From the New York Times:

Justices Rule Terror Suspects Can Appeal in Civilian Courts

WASHINGTON — Foreign terrorism suspects held at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba have constitutional rights to challenge their detention there in United States courts, the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, on Thursday in a historic decision on the balance between personal liberties and national security.

5 to 4. 5 to 4.

How very far we have fallen.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — America’s wildlife refuges are so short of money that one-third have no staff, boardwalks and buildings are in disrepair, and drug dealers are using them to grow marijuana and make methamphetamine, a group pushing for more funding says.

“Without adequate funding, we are jeopardizing some of the world’s most spectacular wildlife and wild lands,” said Evan Hirsche, president of the National Wildlife Refuge Association and chairman of the Cooperative Alliance for Refuge Enhancement.

The cooperative said in a report released Thursday to Congress that the nation’s 548 refuges and the 100-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System — about the size of California — is underfunded by 43 percent. The refuge system needs at least $765 million a year but is receiving $434 million, the report says.

A decrease in law enforcement has left the refuges vulnerable to criminal activity, including prostitution, torched cars and illegal immigrant camps along the Potomac River in suburban Washington, methamphetamine labs in Nevada and pot growing operations in Washington state, Hirsche said.

Here’s a thought, Evan. I won’t even go into the logic of stopping government “maintenance” of wildlife refuge altogether, but rather present a revenue-positive, easy solution which will take no effort other than a bunch of legislators voting for it.

Legalize drugs. Legalize prostitution. End all official discrimination against people who lack the proper papers.

Viola! We haven’t managed to stop the torching of cars, but we’ve managed to wipe out these three most pernicious dangers to “some of the world’s most spectacular wildlife and wild lands,” as you put it. And the $331 million per year you want will be chump change compared to the money saved by ceasing to prosecute those victimless crimes in America.

The wildlife will thank you.

From the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel:

Disturbing Stirrings – Ratcheting Up For War on Iran

by Stephen Lendman

Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.

[...]

With Iraq still raging and hawkishness over Iran heating up, it’s disquieting to think what’s coming, and it’s got Middle East leaders uneasy. Not about Iran, about a rogue administration with over eight months left to incinerate the region in a mushroom-shaped cloud and no hesitation about doing it.