Epiphany in Real Time.

So the Pope invades Washington DC...says a bunch of stuff that sounds a whole lot like Jesus...and Boner of Orange sees the light, through copious tears, and Frikking Resigns the next day!!!
lol.
...and in the closed door meeting wherein he surprised his Fellow Travelers with this news, he recited the Prayer of St Francis, of all things.
(in full, below, because St. Francis is prolly my favorite Christian )

So now we'll be treated to an appointment to Boehner's seat by Governor John Kasich, who sometimes pretends to have a soul...and then to what will likely be a raucous and contentious circle jerk, with machete juggling, to pick the new Speaker.
The Nattering Nabobs are swooning over that McCarthy Guy...the one that Kevin Spacey followed around to learn how to Be Frank Underwood....but I just don't see the Nutters going for that.
He's not near crazy enough.
Perhaps McCarthy could disembowel a Hippie on the steps of the Capital...
That might just do the trick....
I expect further disintegration of the GOP, and less mannerly and polite discourse(!?!?).
I allege that they have yet to truly plumb the depths of decorum and taste.
There are lower lows, yet to be achieved.
Enjoy.

….......................................

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi


Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love,
Where there is injury let me sow pardon,
Where there is doubt let me sow faith,
Where there is despair let me give hope,
Where there is darkness let me give light,
Where there is sadness let me give joy.
 
O Divine Master, grant that
I may not try to be comforted but to comfort,
Not try to be understood but to understand,
Not try to be loved but to love.
Because it is in giving that we receive,
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

Jumping the Shark as Political Philosophy

So....

Fake Videos are Real.
Obama is a Kenyan Socialist/Commie/Muslim/Fascist.
Vaccines Cause Disease.
Supply Side Economics was a Resounding Success.
So was the Drug War...which needs to be immediately reinstated.
99.8% of Climate Scientists are not only Wrong...they are also part of a Vast Liberal Conspiracy to eat up all the apple pie and suck out our Precious Bodily Fluids.
Marihuana(sic) is Just Like Heroin.
Black People are Lazy.
Latinos are Disease Ridden Interlopers.
Women belong in the Kitchen.
Your Sex Life is inherently the Business of the GOP.
Gays have a nefarious Agenda to subvert America and turn us all Gay and Hitlery.
Poor People are merely getting their Just Desserts.
Jesus never said anything about helping the Poor...so Fuck Them.
That same Jesus was a Corporatist War Mongering Hate Machine who loved the Rich and Powerful, and always...always...sided with the Status Quo.
Corporations are People...the are People in their own right...and also consist of People; while Unions are not People....nor do they consist of People.
Health and Safety(and Roads) are a Privilege, not a Right.
Cops are Moral Arbiters and can do no wrong...if they shoot someone, the Shoot-ee must have deserved it.
Protest and Free Speech are Rights that belong only to Corporations and White, Right Wing Christians are the only ones who rightly possess Freedom of Religion..
When in Doubt, Brandish Your Gun.

Did I miss anything?

on the proliferation of external penile implants

(just something that's been rattling around in my brain for some time)

I've never cared for guns.
Loud and dangerous, and often to be found in the hands of the stupid and the hateful, in my experience.
But I've been strangled for voicing unpopular opinions...and had an insane neighbor who stalked us for 7 years, doing all manner of strange and disturbing things...so I learned to shoot, and clean, and maintain firearms...I learned the relevant law.
...and the cat is , literally, out of the bag.
Guns are everywhere, in Texas.
it seems the "debate" has been lost.
So I am, and have been, a Hippie with Guns.
However, I detect the possibility of an unexpected outcome in all of this barrel stroking.


{{“”Texas Weapons Laws
The General Firearms Laws of The State of Texas:

In Texas, it is generally illegal to carry a handgun outside of a person’s own premises. However, a person may carry, either open or concealed, in a non-threatening or alarming manner, a shotgun or rifle.

However even with a handgun, in Texas, there are several places where a person may possess a handgun legally without the benefit of a Texas Concealed Handgun License (CHL). These places include:
A person’s residence or other real property under their control.
A person’s private motor vehicle or watercraft if the handgun is concealed, and the person is legal to possess a firearm, is not a member of a street gang, and is not engaged in the commission of a crime greater than a Class C misdemeanor traffic or boating violation.
A person engaged in lawful fishing, hunting, or other sporting activity on the immediate premises where the activity is conducted, or is en route between the premises and the persons’ residence or motor vehicle, if the firearm is a type commonly used in the activity.
While storing a loaded firearm, it must be in a place which cannot be accessed by a child under the age of 17, or secured with a trigger lock if there is reason to know that a child under 17 may gain access to the firearm.
The Concealed Handgun Laws of The State of Texas:

Texas allows concealed handguns to be legally carried with a CHL issued by Texas or by a state which Texas recognizes. If a license holder is in possession of a concealed handgun, they must produce their concealed weapons license along with another valid identification upon the demand of a police officer.

Private property owners are allowed to prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns on their property if they provide proper legal notice of trespassing by a CHL holder with a concealed handgun given in compliance with Texas Penal Code §30.06. Notice may be given verbally or in writing with a statutory warning or by signage with the statutory warning in English and Spanish, in one inch high block letters posted in a conspicuous place.

Further, even with a CHL, these weapons may not be carried concealed under the following circumstances pursuant to Texas Penal Code §46.03 & §46.035:
A concealed handgun cannot be carried while the person is intoxicated.
At an amusement park if a proper TPC §30.06 warning is given.
In a place of religious worship if a proper TPC §30.06 warning is given.
In a hospital or nursing home if a proper TPC §30.06 warning is given.
At any correctional facility or within 1000 feet of a correctional facility designated as a place of execution on a day of execution if proper notice is posted.
In any court or offices used by a court unless pursuant to written regulations or written authorization from the court.
At any polling place on Election Day.
At any meeting of any governmental body if proper notice is posted pursuant to Texas Penal Code §30.06.
At any high school, collegiate, professional sporting event or interscholastic event, unless the license holder is a participant in the event and a handgun is used in the event.
At any racetrack.
Inside any building or passenger transportation vehicle of a public or private school or educational institution.
In the premises of an establishment licensed to dispense alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises, which derives 51% or more of its income from the sale of alcoholic beverages and has a conspicuous warning prohibiting firearms, if posted.
Inside the secured area of any airport, however a person may carry any legal firearm into the terminal that is encased for shipment purposes and checked as baggage to be lawfully transported on an aircraft pursuant to airline and TSA regulations.
The State of Texas Justification For the Use of Force & Deadly Force:

In Texas, there are several situations where a person is justified in using force or deadly force.

A person may use force against another to the degree the person believes that it is reasonably necessary to protect themselves or a third person from another’s unlawful use of force.

Deadly force is defined as the degree of force likely to cause death or serious bodily injury, which includes actually firing a gun. However, the threat of using deadly force by displaying a weapon, if it is intended to cause apprehension that an actor will use deadly force if necessary, is defined by law as the use of force not deadly force.

In Texas it is presumed that deadly force was reasonably necessary if it is used against an individual who was unlawfully or forcibly entering or entered into an occupied home, business, or vehicle or is attempting to forcibly remove another against his or her will from an occupied home, business, or vehicle. Deadly force is also presumed to be justified to prevent the commission or attempted commission of murder, aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery and aggravated robbery.

In Texas if a person is present in any place where they have a right to be, they have no duty to retreat and have the right to use force, including deadly force, if they reasonably believe that it is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to themselves or to prevent the commission of murder, aggravated kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery or aggravated robbery.""}}

(from:https://www.texaslawshield.com/portal/texas-gun-law/)

(a good enough exposition on current Texas law...just easier to read than the law, itself. accurate, as near as I can tell)

The recent rash of police shootings...rather the recent explosion of police violence that we are suddenly aware of, due to the ubiquity of cameras...points out a perhaps unforeseen flaw in all of this.
To be perfectly and preemptively clear: I'm nowhere near stupid enough, let alone Violent enough, to attempt to "defend myself" from the cops, at some traffic stop or whatever....no knock raids would probably be a different story(see relevant law, above)
But I have detected the presence of a lot of stupid and/or violent people out there, in the world.
I would think that the Cop Lobby would be on the front line of the gun control argument.
These two phenomena...out of control police, vs. the de facto policy of guns for everyone! and Shoot First...are bound to intersect, at some point.

I can think of two interrelated remedies for this potential bloodletting.
1. cop policy...this us.v.them thing that cops seem to have, apparently derived from what goes on in the academy...the pseudo-philosophy of "broken Windows"...the profiling schema that is used, whether it's written or not...all of that must be revisited. It appears to me, too, that there's a lot of former military folks, many with possibly untreated PTSD, in cop shops across the nation. the line between soldier and cop should be wide and bright, as a cursory review of history would indicate.
The idiotic, and ineffective(by their own criteria!) Drug War must be ended. Now.
That 40+ year experiment has run long enough. Results are in. Time to pay attention to them.
And speaking of Drugs: it has recently been reported that a great number of Cops are abusing Steroids, which may play in to the obvious Paranoia and Rage that is often on display when one encounters a Cop, and fails to bow and scrape abjectly enough.

2. I can see no good reason not to have reasonable limits placed on firearms purchases.
I expect immediate cries of "Second Amendment!" to ensue...but consider: there are reasonable limits on the rest of the bill of rights.
Prohibitions on yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater...far too many "exceptions" to the fourth amendment...none of them are absolute.
Why should the second, alone among the amendments, be so?
To follow the "logic" of the NRA and Open Carry people out to it's logical end, I should assert my 'right' to tactical nukes and ak-ak guns.
it's ridiculous.
a shoring up of the mental health apparatus would do wonders, as well.
I fully realise, that all of these little points will be seen by some as akin to criticising Israel.
Flame on.


http://www.alan.com/2014/10/11/mayor-a-gang-of-armed-white-men-will-be-standing-along-parade-route-do-not-be-alarmed/

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Debbie,

I was under the impression that we were the “Democratic” Party.
As such, I had assumed that we would at least try to embody,somewhat, the whole universe of Ideals that that word--”Democracy”-- entails and implies.
This would mean having more debates...in order to flesh out the complex and so far murky issues that confront us.
It would also mean having a wider conversation on these issues...out here in the world.
Finally, it would entail allowing the Voters to decide who will be the Nominee...in a Democratic Fashion.

We should not be anointing anyone.

That's what the other side does.
We were supposed to be different.
But we're not nearly different enough...I am continually frustrated and angry that “my” Party still has no Spine...no Stones.
I am ashamed that the Leaders are as terrified little children before the ongoing attacks and eliminationism of the Others.
I am livid that the Movers and Shakers of “my” Party continue to attempt to Out Republican the Republicans on things like Surveillance and Economics and the Drug War and a million other things...seemingly too afraid to challenge the Right Wing Counter-Revolution.
After all, the Thugs might call you “soft”...or even “Liberal”(shudder)...
Now Mellon-Scaif has been dug up and reanimated, set to staggering around, mouthing insults...and no one is allowed to mention that the last Clinton Administration virtually Enabled the mess that followed.
We can't even speak intelligently about the Bush Darkness...especially on this day...lest we be labeled “crazy” by the most demonstrably Crazy sociopolitical movement in Modern Times.
I want a Party that is courageous in it's diagnosis of the dysfunction—one that will tell it like we all know that it is—that is unafraid of Giant Immortal Fictions, long escaped the New Deal Fence and become Supranational... and of loudmouthed ignoramuses , parroting the Corps(e)world Mythology.
In other words, I want a Bernie Sanders Version of the Democratic Party...and look!
There he is...ignored by “my” Party and the Corporate Media Conglomerates that “My” Party helped to install.
“Democratic” means “of,characterized by,or advocating democracy”.
You, and the rest of the Big Wigs, should put that on a poster and hang it on your wall, or tattoo it on your foreheads.
Sanders is what we've been waiting for for most of my life.
Y'all should get with it, and remember who you work for.
(and no...I don't have any money to send...not even $5... so save what money you have, and stop wasting it on appeals for blood from a turnip)

Usque ad Finem,
Amfortas the Hippie,

Anti-Facist,Anti-Feudalist,Anti-Authoritarian,
Pro-Enlightenment.
(http://www.dsausa.org/toward_freedom)

Wallow

It's “Patriot Day”, and the firetrucks are lined up around the square, and the networks are eschewing whatever is actually happening in the world in order to replay several hours of (then) live footage from the morning of September 11th, 2001.
My kids, neither of whom were yet born at the time, will be herded into the auditorium for patriotic songs and a recital of the anodyne pablum that passes for Civic Religion, these days. This will be accepted without question—it is quite normal, now.
The Mundanes will all have a tear in their eye, and a wistful version of the thousand yard stare, as flags are raised and lowered to half-staff and aging Veterans will stand there solemnly, in full regalia.
We will all be reminded who the Enemy is...and why we should hate them... and at no time will brains be engaged, aside from the Lizard-ish portions.
Those of us with perfectly legitimate questions about that day and all that led up to it and all that has come after will be relegated to the Rubber Room, if not shouted down in hyperpatriotic spittle and froth.

Are Mexicans still mistaken for Osama?
Are Hindus still beaten in alleyways in retribution?
Will Ed Snowden finally be welcomed home, his public service acknowledged at long last?
The only parade I want to see today is the one where Lil George and Darth Cheney and the rest of the warmongering gang of liars and Empire Builders are frog marched into a Federal Courtroom.
But that, in yet another surreal display of irony, is known as “living in the past”...and anyway, it was all Obama's fault.(a common belief in Lumpenbilly circles, it turns out)
Charley Wilson and St Ron the Befuddled will get nary a mention...nor will the NSA,CIA,FBI , save as heroes—not as unindicted, and probably unintentional, (being charitable) co-conspirators and incompetents.
The Ignored Memo(“terrorists to use planes in attack on East Coast”) will not be remembered, either...and Rumsfeld's 9-10 admission that the Pentagon had “misplaced” Two Trillion Dollars will remain apocryphal and un-noticed.

Instead of Discourse and Discussion, today will be an exercise in Operant Conditioning, reinforcing the necessary Fear and Confusion and Xenophobia.
It will be an almost perfect expression of everything that Orwell and many others warned us about--but that, too, will be overlooked by the Official Mouthpieces.
“Never Forget”, they will all say...and I add, “except for all the questions and suspicions and even the actual proven crimes and skullduggery...”
Those things can safely be forgotten...in fact, it is our Patriotic Duty to forget them.
R.I.P, Mike Ruppert.
You were right, all along.

On the Definition of Insanity

Oh, look:

(http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/09/08/bring-back-war-drugs/h2wWV7ojkje4P5dwIbmgPK/story.html)

Bill Fucking Bennett, Mr Virtue, wants to bring back the War on Drugs.
...because “it worked”.
He and John Walters, both water-carriers for the Bush Crimen Familia, were apparently released from the pods they've been kept in, reanimated, and set to walking around, parroting the same tired old nonsense.
“Just say No”, and “Fill up the Prisons”...which themselves are open Bazaars of Dope Pushing...were failures then—and they would be failures, now.
Those policies played a large role in destabilising South and Central America, leading directly to last year's refugee crisis, and the ongoing flight from the war zones that were created there, as well as the “Low Intensity Conflict” in Mexico, which looks a lot like a weird sort of Revolution(by the Cartels), from where I sit.
Here at home, these policies have torn apart families, ruined far more lives than drugs ever did, gutted the First, Fourth,Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution, and led inexorably to the distrust, if not hatred, between cops and poor folks and people of color that has been on such display of late.
Yeah...lets double down.
Fuckers.
Where are the men in white coats when we need them.