Serial Lying Sociopathic Punk For President?

The biggest and best lesson I learned as a kid growing up in Detroit was that if you stood up to a bully and even if it meant getting the shit kicked out of you and I did get the shit kicked out of me on a regular basis, but usually, standing up was all it took...

You won.

YEEEEEEHAW!

So, I can carry around a hand held axe on the street to intimidate people at least if I am following Justice Antontin Scalia's train of logic on the Second Amendment because it was just a misdemeanor when the constitution was written? Thanks for clarifying that for  me, Justice Scalia (I was always a little wary of carrying a hand held axe on the street when I lived in the East Village in NYC) . I think that is what Scalia incoherently said, at least as he explained it to the talking heads yesterday:

"We'll see," Scalia replied. "Obviously the amendment does not apply to arms that cannot be carried. It's to 'keep and bear' so it doesn't apply to cannons."

"But I suppose there are handheld rocket launchers that can bring down airplanes that will have to -- it's will have to be decided," he added.

That's it? That's the criteria as to whether or not the right to keep and bear a weapon of any kind -- its portability?

Wow, or as I would say when I'm in that mood to blow shit up might say: Yeeeeeeeehaw!!!!

Scalia seems to be opening the door not just for legalizing fully automatic guns, but all kinds of weapons. I mean, hell, pipe bombs -- which, let's be honest, really aren't quite up there in the rocket-launcher category in terms of lethality -- are currently illegal as hell and tightly regulated by the ATF and various other federal agencies right now.

So, for that matter, are all various kinds of portable bombs, particularly those made with C-4. They pack quite a kick, too.

And I guess if we continue to follow the impeccable logic of District of Columbia v. Heller, as Scalia is doing here, then we'll soon loose the dogs on a whole range of weapons that are currently regulated -- because they certainly can be carried.

But hell, why stop there? Go all the way: Let's establish the right to keep and bear a suitcase nuke, since obviously, it's a kind of arms and you can bear it, too.

In fact, I think every American ought to have a suitcase nuke for their personal use. That way if some nutcase comes into a theater and tries to blow everyone up with a suitcase nuke, the entire audience can set off their own nukes. I think I know where I can find some schematics on line...now if I can just get the weapons grade nuclear material...well, krikey, man, we're in business!
Thanks, your honor. We owe you one.

ALEC ROCKS

Mark Fiore scores big again with his take off on the classic Schoolhouse Rocks Cartoons to explain ALEC for us in words and pictures everyone can understand!

so you couldn't see the london olympics opening ceremony live in the usa?
i heard nbc cut out the queen's reaction to the arctic monkeys....
here is is....

Duchamp/BBC/1966 part 2

I particularly enjoyed hearing Duchamp explain what a readymade is. I love hearing him explain what he did and why he did it. Marcel Duchamp will always be one of the most influential conceptual thinkers that formed my esthetic awareness. He really changed the way we all look at art define creativity. His concepts of almost one century ago are as still as fresh and radically relevant today.

Sweet Paranoia

I saw this just freshly posted on YouTube yesterday. This was recorded by The Band, Belle Star in NYC in 1980....I have to thank who ever posted this. The graphic was the poster for a gig at Cartune Alley on 84th Street in Manhattan in 1981 by my very good old friend, from Sylvania, Ohio, David Koepp, who was our downstairs naighbor on East Fifth Street and never called the cops inspite of having the roof fall on his head while we were practicing in the apartment above his head...I tend to stomp when I play bass....

This was the single we released on our own independent record lable, Just Another Multinational Corporation.

The song was written by Didier Poursain, who plays guitar. The vocalist is Janet Kerr, who plays solid body electric autoharp, the drummer is the absolute greatest drummer I ever worked with, Tim Chisholm and I played bass...a guy named Patrick, who you know as Microdot. The riff started when Tim and I were jamming with the bass part from an old John McGlauglin riff, Marbles. I still have some boxes of original vinyl around....We had actually shot a video for the fledgling MTV network, which as it tragically turned, bizarrely vanished....the imagery, though, magically resurfaced in the first 3 Pat Benatar videos...I'm very happy that someone I never met appreciates this music again after all these years...It was reissued a few years ago on a compilation of independent punk singles "Homework" on the hyped2death label. We were a pretty unique little band, walking a crooked path through a landscape of folk, punkrock and jazz....and we were truly a Franco-American hybrid machine. We had as many songs in French as in English. 

Mitt The Twit

Today, Friday July 27th, 2012 Head lines from the British Press:

You know what? 

Mittens is beginning to look more like Bob Dole on steroids.....

Barefoot Gen #9

I hope you found this as painfully wonderful as I did...this is the end of Part 1.....

Barefoot Gen episode #8

I guess, I'll have to publish the final episode of part one now...stay tuned

Barefoot Gen #7

Barefoot Gen #6

Please bear with me, I'm possessed....this is absolutely brilliant

barefoot gen #5

This is one one of the most brilliant animated works I have ever seen. The graphic content was created by the cartoonist,Keiji Nakazawa who attempted to tell his personal autobiographical experience as a survivor of the Nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. He created an  multi part epic cartoon series, Barefoot Gen which documented his life as a child in WW2 Hiroshima in the days leading up to the Nuclear Holocaust and then the years after.....I said this before, I believe this is the most graphic, brilliant humanist depiction of the Nuclear devastation of Hiroshima ever depicted. The work in the animated images was art directed by Keiji and I myself own the entire series of printed cartoons and can attest to the graphic faithfulness and artistic truth. 

Barefoot Gen....The Bomb

Hiroshima (barefoot gen): explosión de la bomba par M4RCET2

Unfortunately, for some reason, the next episode #4 was blocked on YouTube, but this is the next part on DailyMotion....there seems to be a little loss of continuity, but then, I think I can find episode 5 through 9, after the bomb hits, on YouTube....this though is very powerful stuff...There is a second series, Gen 2 which traces the lives of the survivors after the war. Again, this is a real first hand story and the author created most of the of the graphic work in a series of comic books....

Barefoot Gen #3

 I had to find the next episode!

Barefoot Gen Episode#2

The next episode in the Barefoot Gen Anime series. I published episode #1 earlier this month.

I think the Barefoot Gen saga is the most powerful humanist saga of the Nuclear Age. I have the original comic books, but the animated series was brilliant. Stay Tuned!

l'Anglais

“English is essentially Norse as spoken by a gang of French thugs.”—Benct Philip Jonsson

“English is essentially a language that uses vowels no other language would accept.”—Luís Henrique

“English is what you get from Normans trying to pick up Saxon girls.”—Bryan Maloney

“English is essentially a French menu stuttered by a fish-and-chips dealer.”—Kala Tunu

“English is essentially the works of Joyce with the hard bits taken out.”—Jon Hanna

“English is essentially all exceptions and no rules.”—Jonathan Bettencourt
—A selection of “Essentialist Explanations.” Thanks to the Penguin Press for pointing out this gem.

Cold Cold Heart

Hank Williams Sr. The real deal 1952 on The Kate Smith Show.

"This a song that bought us plenty of beans and biscuits."

The Soothsayer

I have to thank Laci the Dog for this one....I love Mitchell and Webb.

Hey Mitten, I'll Follow You after the Fuckin Check Clears!

I will never have a twitter account, unless, of course, Mittens internet espionage agency notices this post and caves into my demands to be paid off...hmmmm...let's see, I think $750,000 dollars is a reasonable figure...then heck, I'll be his Twitter follower.  You see, I don't live in the United States of America and I found it very interesting that today, I have been getting one email notification after another of requests from twitter to verify different accounts linked to my email address. All were with very strange names. This never happened before and of course, if you don't actually have a twitter account, you cannot actually send them an complaining email, because to contact twitter, you have to have a twitter account....I found this interesting because just today, I learned that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is apparently buying Twitter followers to inflate his popularity in social media. The graph from 140Elect.com looks like a hockey stick:


For comparison, a graph of Barack Obama’s new followers in the same time period (viaTwitter Counter) shows steady growth with no spikes:


Here’s Romney’s profile page: Mitt Romney (MittRomney) on Twitter.

Check the number of followers, then watch as it increases by a hundred or so every time you reload the page. If you look at all these followers, they seem to have major trouble with spelling simple English words, have names that sometimes seem to be random assortments of syllables, and have no (or very few) followers themselves.

At the current rate, he’s adding about 10,000 followers every hour.

Yes, you can buy Twitter followers; in fact, it’s become a thriving business.

Why might the Romney campaign think it’s a good idea to shell out Rmoney to artificially pump up their numbers? Well, I’m no mind-reader, but I suspect this comparison could have something to do with it:



By the way, in the few minutes it took me to grab the screenshot of Romney’s profile and post this article, his follower count rose by more than a thousand. He’s got a long way to go to catch up with Obama, but plenty of cash to spend.
UPDATE:
The Romney campaign denies it:
Andrew Kaczynski@BuzzFeedAndrew

But, hell, Mittens has the bucks and his buddy Sheldon Adelson who is selling the USA to the Chinese Mafia has pledged "unlimited bucks" to get his boy, der Mittsler, elected...so if the USA is going to hell in a handbasket...I want my share of the big bucks if they want me to open a twitter account...I mean...

Mitt Romney Real Time Wealth Accumulation Calculator

The "Mitt Romney just made" page is a running calculator that shows a realtime estimate of Romney's earnings while you watch (He made $940.38 while I wrote a couple of blog posts and got a bowl of cereal for my daughter). It also lets you calculate your own Romney earnings. For example, making a 10-minute egg (including the time it takes for the water to boil, and a minute in ice-water to loosen the shell):
"In the time it takes me to boil an egg, Mitt Romney makes $2,596.08"

Check it out and find out how much fucking money Mitt Romney just made from his off shore untaxable, untraceable, UNAMERICAN 1% entitled upper class foreign bank accounts here....

This is what has been taking up too much of my time in the last 3 weeks
After a rather wet early summer, every one is trying to get hay cut and
baled while the sun is shining.

This is the sort of surreal landscape surrounding my house this morning.
This isn't my hay. It's Monsieur Boudy's. He does huge rolls. They will
all be picked up and and stacked by tomorrow evening.

This, though is the interior of my barn and my personal
hay collection from this year. I store the hay for my friends
who rescue horses. They have perhaps 18 horses. I got to
run the baling machine for the square bales in the back.
I had the ramp to the loft redone earlier this year, so now we
can drive a tractor up and bring up a roll at a time, but we
still have to roll and stack them by hand. I also had the roof
redone last year and the back wall rebuilt so the barns should be good for
another century.....my doggies are in the foreground....

Black guy kills some people.
Society: Criminal.

Muslim guy kills some people.
Society: Terrorist.

Latino guy kills some people.
Society: Criminal.

White guy kills some people.
Society: Mental illness. (lost soul, complicated psyche, quiet loner, misunderstood, frustrated with life, experienced recent, traumatic, life-altering events that set him off; not to mention all the positive descriptors that are attached to him, i.e. intelligent, PhD candidate, honor roll student, etc.)

Trouble Man

Marvin Gaye, 1974 live performance...he composed the soundtrack for the film Trouble Man...did you ever see it?  It was badass! But this rocks, catch Marvins piano solo....you know, he was originally the Motown Studio House drummer....then, Berry Gordy discovered the man could sing...and he was more than just a genius, Marvin was a religion....

Pretending To Care

Aurora, Colorado: As families and friends of the victims of yesterday’s tragic shootings gather to mourn for the departed, a storm of suspicion is gathering over the institution some say is at the heart of the nation’s recent epidemic of mass homicides, the American medical school.

In the early hours of confusion surrounding the attacks at a screening of “The Dark Night Rises” at an Aurora movie theater, some media outlets and politicians erroneously tied the shootings to the Tea Party movement, the Democratic Party, violent videogames, andenemies of Judeo-Christianity. But as details on the shooter emerge, a clearer picture is coming into focus. The sole suspect in the shootings, James Holmes, was a recent drop-out from the University of Colorado medical school.

Experts caution that it is too early to say that the suspect’s medical education led him down a path ending in mass murder, but many are reminded of Dr. Nidal Hassan, who is presently awaiting trial for his role in the Fort Hood shootings of November 2009, and who, like James Holmes, attended medical school.

“I don’t want to speculate on whether attending medical school inspired the Batman killer’s rampage,” said Professor Lewis Deery of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in an interview on MSNBC, “but the similarities are eerie. Here you have one graduate of a medical school opening fire, with no apparent motive, on innocent people on an Army base, and here you have another man who attended medical school opening fire, with no apparent motive, on innocent people at a midnight movie. Am I saying that these men were trained to kill when they attended medical school? No, but that possibility can’t be discounted based on the limited information we have at this time.”

In a roundtable discussion on the Fox News Channel’s Fox and Friends, Ariel Spain of the Columbia School of Journalism’s Tragedy Studies Department echoed Professor Deery’s caution concerning the Dark Knight shooter’s medical background. “It would be irresponsible, and reckless, to claim that James Holmes was programmed to become an unthinking assassin at the Colorado medical school simply because of the countless cases in which medical school graduates have gone on murder sprees, but many are asking themselves, right now, about the similarities between the Aurora shootings and the case of Dr. Jeffrey McDonald, who murdered his entire family in the 1970s. In both cases, I’ll note, the murderer attended a highly regarded medical school.

Following a moment of silence for the fallen in the United States House of Representatives, House majority leader Eric Cantor promised a grieving nation that its Congress would conduct a full investigation into the causes of the Aurora shootings. “It’s far too early to say whether the nefarious crimes of the infamous assassin James Eagan Holmes were the work of insidious medical professors, transforming our nation’s best and brightest into psychopathic killing machines. But,” Cantor informed the House, “the American people have a right to know.”

Across the capital, Attorney General Eric Holder convened a news conference on the killings, promising federal aid to Colorado authorities in conducting full, fair, and impartial investigation into the tragedy. “I cannot comment on specifics of the case at this time, and it would be imprudent for me to speculate on who may be responsible for these horrific crimes at the outset of an investigation, but let me assure the grieving people of Aurora that the Department of Justice will hold all those who aided and abetted this tragedy responsible, from the lowest professor to the Dean of the medical college himself.”

Historians of past calamities reiterated the Attorney General’s warning against pre-judging the case. On C-Span’s Books in Review, Dr. Thomas Waltham of the American University’s Department of European History warned against a “witch hunt” in connection with the Aurora case. “Time and again, we historians see cases in which the people are led, by politicians, the media, and religious leaders into demonizing some despised minority for the actions of one. That only compounds the tragedy. It would be reckless to tie the Batman shootings into some historical framework of past atrocities by medical school graduates, such as the infamous “Doctor’s Plot” in the Soviet Union, where prosecutors showed that a sinister cabal of people who, just like Nidal Hassan and the Batman killer, attended medical school had committed an unspeakably vile series of murders aimed at destabilizing and overthrowing the government.”

Representatives of the American Association of Medical Colleges, which represent medical schools including the Colorado institution where James Eagan Holmes was allegedly trained, were contacted for comment, but did not return telephone calls before this story went to press.

Perhaps you think my satirical response is offensive? Perhaps you are outraged? Relax, in a few minutes, your limited attention span and narcotized slothful acceptance of any reality that doesn't make you think or have to question your morality will kick in and you'll just forget about it.
Musical segue:

Americans do a great job of proclaiming our collective shock and outrage when some nut for the gazillionth time opens fire on a crowd of innocent bystanders at a movie theater, a college, a high school, a museum, or a post office, but at some point, if we aren't going to do anything about it, maybe it's time we stopped the charade of pretending we actually care.

How many people have to be massacred in front of us, while we do nothing (and, instead, actually enable the death), before it's time to conclude that perhaps we are part of the problem? Problem? what problem...the conservative gun loons think that if we only had more guns, this tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter.  Colorado laws allow people to carry concealed guns.
But what could anyone have done?
Consider this report of the shooting:
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said the gunman wore a gas mask, a ballistic helmet and vest, and leg, groin and throat protectors. He said he had an AR-15 military-style, semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and two pistols.
The attacker had the element of surprise, was heavily armed and wore a ballistic vest. It was dark and he threw smoke grenades at the start of the spree. Is it really likely that an armed member of the audience might have stopped him, in the dark and under cover of smoke grenades? Really?

From EJ Dionne at the Moderate Voice:

For all the dysfunction in our political system, a healthy pattern usually takes hold when a terrible tragedy seizes the nation’s attention.

Anyone who dares to say that an event such as the massacre at a Colorado movie theater early Friday morning demands that we rethink our approach to the regulation of firearms is accused of “exploiting” the deaths of innocent people.

This is part of the gun lobby’s rote response, and the rest of us allow it to work every time. Their goal is to block any conversation about how our nation’s gun laws, the most permissive in the industrialized world, increase the likelihood of mass killings of this sort.

So let’s ask ourselves: Aren’t we all in danger of being complicit in throwing up our hands and allowing the gun lobby to write our gun laws? Awful things happen, we mourn them, and then we shrug. And that’s why they keep happening.

The Boomtown Rats wrote "I don't like Mondays" in 1979, thirty-three years ago. Violence in America isn't a recent problem. It's been going on for a while now. And nothing serious is ever done about it because the gun lobby is ruthless, owns the Republican party, and preys on the Democrats usual fear of doing anything that isn't agreeable to 100% of the American people.

So the next time some nut goes on a shooting spree with weapons the gun lobby made it easier for him to get - and he will - let's stop pretending like we care, because as a nation we really don't.

Nadia

Jeff Beck - Guitar

Vinnie Colaiuta - Drums

Tal Wilkenfeld - Bass

Jason Rebello - Keys

Jeezus H Keerist In A Chicken Basket

On July 20, 1969, man landed on the fucking moon. This is the real audio and video of The Apollo 11 communication with NASA. 

Where were you that day if you had even been concieved yet? I was in Kansas City and saw The Beatles Animated film, Yellow Submarine.....

Hola soy de Mitt Romney y apruebo este mensaje

POISON

Have I posted this before? If I did, please don't tell me. You know, great art isn't obvious. What is this song about? The best rock is like semaphore, psychic morse code...it's telepathic. Language is more akin to the idea that a group of stars in the sky could actually represent something....

Oh, Brother Wayne, Where For Art Thou?

Ground Zero

On July 19, 1957, five men stood at Ground Zero of an atomic test that was being conducted at the Nevada Test Site. This was the test of a 2KT (kiloton) MB-1 nuclear air-to-air rocket launched from an F-89 Scorpion interceptor. The nuclear missile detonated 10,000 ft above their heads.

A reel-to-reel tape recorder was present to record their experience. You can see and hear the men react to the shock wave moments after the detonation.

The placard reading "Ground Zero; Population Five" was made by Colonel Arthur B. "Barney" Oldfield, the Public Information Officer for the Continental Air Defense Command in Colorado Spring who arranged for the volunteers to participate.

The five volunteers were:
Colonel Sidney Bruce
Lt. Colonel Frank P. Ball (technical advisor to the Steve Canyon tv show)
Major Norman "Bodie" Bodinger
Major John Hughes
Don Lutrel
and George Yoshitake, the cameraman (who wasn't a volunteer)
Bruce. Died 2005 age 86
Ball. Died 2003 age 83
Bodinger, not sure, may be still alive
Hughes, Died 1990 age 71
Lutrel. Died 1987 age 63
Yoshitake. Still alive as of 2010

Edward Gorey's Alphabet

Bye Bye, Blackbird

This is Ken Russels 1971 adaptation of Aldous Huxley's historical novel, The Devils of Loudon. I created a GIF from one of the scenes, which I published a few posts ago, but I could spend the next few months making GIFs from the  hallucinogenic  overload of ideas and images in this magnificently disturbing film.

Absolutely brilliant,  it is a in effect a psychedelic historical depiction of the collision of medieval religion and the modern political state using both disturbing imagery and twisted humor to tell the tale.  One of my favorite sequences kicks in about at the 39 minute mark...I won't give it away, perhaps jiust the punch line...Louis XIV's offhand line to Cardinal Richelieu, "Bye, Bye, Blackbird".

Sergeant Pepper Spray

Sergeant Pepper Spray

As of today, the official comment regarding the Lt. Pike...aka Sergeant Pepper Spray, who remains on "paid leave"  from the University of California:

"I don't know when that's going to get resolved."

Think about that for a minute.

This incident happened 8 months ago! In five months time, two independent bodies managed to complete an exhaustive investigation into every aspect of the incident. Yet even after an additional three months, the internal affairs process - the investigation, the hearings, and perhaps the appeals - is still not completed for one single individual, whose actions are on videotape.

Nor is there any word about when they'll be complete.

Someone, whether it's the university or its police department, needs to explain why this review isn't over and why this man is still on the university payroll. Two independent studies had enough time to reach a conclusion, but the Mayberry cops at UC Davis couldn't?

This is why cops get a bad rap, at least in part.  When one of their own do something wrong, it sure seems to take hell and high water to get anything done about it - but, on the other hand, it sure says a lot about the power of Unions to protect the rights of the working man. Lt. Pike, the utter asshole, can thank his Union for protecting his rights up until the bitter end.....this works both ways, but it works....

Think about that!

One of my fondest childhood memories from St Monica parochial school in Detroit.
Every once in a while a nun would spontaneously self combust....

Days Of Destruction, Days Of Revolt

I occasionally write speculative fiction and lately this has merged with a with a dark playful fantasy trendence. I tend to mix my socio/political speculative projections with a little Stephen King.  I was writing a piece on Mittens, which involved a continuation of my theme of the demonic possession of Dick Cheney and the forces of evil unleashed through capitalism...I thought I was writing some pretty ridiculous stuff, then I saw this. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and the brilliant graphic story teller, Joe Sacco. Any fantasy I could have had pales next to their brutal depiction of Reality!

 Journalist Chris Hedges and graphic artist Joe Sacco traveled to the most depressed pockets of the United States to combine narrative nonfiction with graphic art in their book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (www.daysofdestructiondaysofrevolt.com). Together they report from the vast and growing zones of sacrifice imposed across the U.S. by the corporate state. From the streets of Camden, New Jersey, the devastated coal fields of West Virginia, the Lakota reservation of Pine Ridge, South Dakota and among undocumented agricultural workers in Florida, Hedges and Sacco offer a ground up view of existence when the marketplace rules, when corporate capitalism is unregulated and unfettered

Just A Few Questions For the Romneytron 3000

After Mittens came out of his FOX hole and played his lame evasive non reality game on the networks yesterday, it becomes more and more obvious just exactly why John McCain ended up choosing Sarah Palin as his VP choice in 2008. Here are 35 un answered questions asked in An EXCELLENT article from Forbes today. Here are a few of the best:

4. Surely someone from Bain occasionally called you up and asked your opinion about something work related from 1999 to 2002. Wouldn’t that qualify as “involvement,” if only on a minor level?

5. You earned at least $100,000 as an executive from Bain in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings according to filings with State of Massachusetts. Can you give an example of anyone else you personally know getting a six figure income, not dividend or investment return, but actual income, from a company they had nothing to do with?

6. What did you do for this $100,000 salary you earned from Bain in both 2000 and 2001?

7. If you did nothing to earn this salary, did the Bain managers violate their fiduciary duty by paying you a salary for no discernible reason?

8. Are there other companies that pay you six figures a year as earned income, not investment income, for which you have no involvement?
24. Why do SEC documents claim you were Chief Executive Officer, President, and Managing Director of Bain Capital 2000 and 2001 if you were merely the sole owner?

25. Did you sign this SEC document?

26. Is this accurate or not?

27. If you didn’t sign it, is someone guilty of lying to the SEC?

28. True or false, it is a felony to lie on SEC filings?
34. You are obviously bright, hard working and energetic. Isn’t is possible that you put in 60 hours a week on the Olympics but still put in 5 hours a week as an active consultant or adviser by phone, email and the occasional meeting with the full time managers of Bain?

So, perhaps, could this be why Mittens is going on about John Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry not releasing more than 2 years of her tax returns back when Kerry was running? If I recall, John was the one running for president, not his wife, and he released 20 years of his returns! Mittens, listen, my man,

And please, please, please don't even try to sing for us anymore, okay, Mittens?

subtle, eh?

The Next Biggest Scam

Today is the 14th of July, Bastille Day in France..That's kind of the equivalent of the 4th of July in the USA. A symbolic date, like the 4th that designates the ideal of a new beginning. It was the 60th day of the new Hollande Government. We had our big patriotic display in Paris and Hollande gave his first real interview since he took office.
It is significant because it represents a real break with the last 15 years of French politics. It should be significant to Americans, because it shows that Democracies can effect change. An direct honest electoral system can become the instrument of the will of the people. 
A few posts ago, I wrote about how the pre WW2 Popular Front Socialist Government of  Leon Blum, which championed the rights of the workers was destroyed by the industrialists and elite conservative class of France. The economy was sabotaged to destabilize the government. The Right moved capital and industry out of France into Germany. The 1% welcomed the German Occupation and saw Hitler as  their model and savior. The propaganda machine relentlessly attacked the Socialists as Anarchists and turned the country into a racist, nationalist murdering machine against the Jews. The xenophobic racism still lingers, a poisonous vapor that rises from the swamps from time to time.
I made a connection between the forces that destabilized the Blum government and the obstructionist Republican policies of America, today.  We see the Conservatives trying to push us back into the 19th century. These are just a few of the regressive initiatives being promoted by the Republicans.


 1. Have attacked our child labor laws

2. Have attacked minimum wage for our students

3. Have attacked limited working hours for our students

(these countries have young children working in horrendous conditions for little or no pay)

4. propose abstinence as the only form of birth control

A. When women do get pregnant no abortions!

1. Once the babies are born no help from the government

5. Have attacked labor unions so that workers rights are being stolen away bit by bit.

6. Have proposed taking funding away from colleges and universities so that our people can’t be educated.

7. Have proposed that schools be run by local governments and federal funding be stripped away.

These positions are not popular with most of the voters of America, and the Republicans seem to understand this, but their concern is not convincing the general population. It is gaining a permanent majority, eliminating and destroying any real honest chance for the people to be heard. It is all about power, the concentration of wealth and the enrichment of the 1%. They are working very hard to disenfranchise and destroy voting rights. Again, take us back to the 19th...or say the 18th century, when only wealthy men could participate in governing. The latest attack is the attempt to gerrymander the already ridiculous Electoral College System.  Of course, you know that you don not directly elect a president in America. It is the Electoral College and now the Republicans are going to try to destroy even that in their quest for permanent domination.

And folks, it would be legal. Here's what you need to know to understand the plan:

■ The Electoral College elects the president, not the American people. 

■ Each state sends "electors" to the Electoral College based on a formula determined by that state via its legislature (plus the governor, who has to sign the bill).

■ Most states have a winner-take-all system of allocating Electoral College votes. The candidate who "wins the state" wins all Electoral College votes for that state.

■ The number of electors per state = the number of congressional districts (one for each district) plus two (one for each senator). 

■ Because of the gerrymandering of congressional districts, it's possible for one party to dominate the state vote generally, but for the other party to win more congressional seats. 

See where this is headed? 

Did I mention that each state legislature determines how its Electoral College votes are allocated? (I think I did.) Did I mention that many state legislatures and governors' palaces are dominated by radicals devoted to constitutional coup? (Not yet.)

See where this is headed? Your constitutional coup in action.

From Nick Baumann at Mother Jones, an article last September 

The GOP's Genius Plan to Beat Obama in 2012

Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania are pushing a scheme that, if GOPers in other states follow their lead, could cause President Barack Obama to lose the 2012 election—not because of the vote count, but because of new rules. 

That's not all: There's no legal way for Democrats to stop them.

The problem for Obama, and the opportunity for Republicans, is the electoral college. Every political junkie knows that the presidential election isn't a truly national contest; it's a state-by-state fight, and each state is worth a number of electoral votes equal to the size of the state's congressional delegation. (The District of Columbia also gets three votes.) There are 538 electoral votes up for grabs; win 270, and you're the president. ...

Currently, 48 states and DC use a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all of its electoral votes. 

[But under] the Republican plan—which has been endorsed by top GOPers in both houses of the state Legislature, as well as the governor, Tom Corbett—Pennsylvania would change from this system to one where each congressional district gets its own electoral vote. (Two electoral votes—one for each of the state's two senators—would go to the statewide winner.)

If you — and by "you" I mean Republicans, because you Democrats only play not to lose — have no conscience about how to win, because you have a note from Jesus in your wallet ... well, all you need to do is subvert the popular vote by dominating the Electoral College. 

Thus if you — soulless death eating Republicans, of course — own all elements of state government involved in redistricting, you can win that state for Mitt Romney. 

Or for any other Movement Conservative retainer you wish to elevate to the throne. For as long as you wish to. (Unless Democrats decide to stop losing and change the rules back, but that's a different problem.)

This is what Baumann calls the "redistricting trifecta" — both houses of the state legislature and the governor's box. That's all it takes to execute this plan.

Can it work? Baumann again:

This could cost Obama dearly. ... Pennsylvania Republicans get to draw the boundaries of the state's congressional districts without any input from Democrats. 

Some of the early maps have leaked to the press, and Democrats expect that the Pennsylvania congressional map for the 2012 elections will have 12 safe GOP seats compared to just 6 safe Democratic seats.

So Obama could win the state, and lose 12 of Pennsylvania's 18 electoral votes. 

Besides Pennsylvania, three more large states — Michigan, Ohio, and (perhaps) Wisconsin — are in play for this manœuver; the Republican constitutional coup is well under way in those states, and Obama took all three in 2008 (back in those old-school winner-take-all days). 

Depending on the closeness of the election, this move could definitely swing it.

What's the remedy? According to the article: "For now, the Democrats'—and Obama's—only real way of fighting back is political." 

That's not exactly leading with our strength, is it?

 As I watch this rolling coup, and also watch heart-rending videos of "ordinary Americans" on the losing end of the battle against the corp-enabled CEO Class, I'm torn by sadness, mixed with other feelings. 

On the one hand, the pain is palpable. It hurts to see one's fellows go down hard. I always keep fighting, but this one we could seriously lose. And if we lose, we will all lose.

On the other hand, I can't keep myself from asking — Which of these suffering "ordinary Americans" voted for Reagan, for either Bush, for McCain? For Wisconsin's Scott Walker? 

Which of them lived with their girlfriends while hating the hippies? 

How many of them would have been "collaborators" and welcomed the German occupation if they were French in 1939?

C'est la Quatorze!

Cette vidéo est de savoir comment j'ai appris à chanter cette chanson!