Monthly Archives: July 2003

For America

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed (1), That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government (2), laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

I hope that all Americans read the first quote and really understand what it means. I've highlighted a couple points that I think are of the greatest importance. The first point is that governments exist for one purpose: to protect your rights. That's why they exist. For no other reason. They are there to defend your life, liberty, and your right to pursue happiness, and their right to do so is solely derived from the people of that country.

Is that happening now?

The second point makes it clear that when government betrays those ideals, you have the right to a new government that does not do so. So the big question I think Americans ought to be asking themselves on this fourth of July is whether they are still being governed by their government. I'd like to quote from Noam Chomsky describing the American people:

“I don't like to use the word 'US interests'. That's why I wish some other critics, friends of ours, would stop saying 'we go into this country' or 'we go into that country'… 'We do this', and 'we do that'… No! We don't do the thing! They do it to us! We are part of the victims, not part of the victimizers!”

On the other hand, let's quote George “There ought to be limits to freedom” Bush for a moment. There's a lot of debate as to why he launched all these wars (personally I think he's a puppet); some particularly stupid/gullible people still think it's terrorism and WMDs and so on, others think it's oil, others think it's religion. In any case, the important question is are these wars being fought to protect the “Life, Liberty, and Happiness” of the American people? I think that should be clear (no). Bush was recently quoted in Haaretz:

“God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”

Some people debate that Bush may not have said that, so let me quote directly from Bush's televised address to the soldiers to drum up morale for the Iraq war:

“I also want to thank Chaplain Stone [for] your words of prayer for our men and women in uniform. People across this country are praying. We pray that God will bless and receive each of the fallen, and we thank God that liberty found such brave defenders. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world. It is God's gift to humanity. May God bless America!”

But any fool can see that this is bullshit. It's brain candy for the mindless. America has become a corporate aristocracy and its federal government absolutely does not represent the people who live inside its borders. The question is what will you do? Options galore. You're free people still:

  1. You can roll over, show your belly, and piss on yourself every time the police state knocks on your door. The second option is actually the same as this one, but with a different color packaging.
  2. You can vote for Dean or whatever “bandaid” the Democrats put in place. But it's bullshit. The people making the real choices are beyond the two corporate megaparties (and many of the preparatory events that set this in motion happened under Clinton anyway), and Dean et al have promised to keep increasing Pentagon and domestic intelligence budgets. Nothing changes. You're just eating dog shit flavored ice cream instead of cat shit flavored.
  3. You can push for Kucinich or one of the other “long shot” parties and make a statement but little to no change. They'll assassinate him before he gets into power — no politician promising to dismantle the system will be tolerated by the system.
  4. You can rename the 4th of July “Kill a liar politician day”, toss your guns in the back of a pickup truck and join the revolution.

If you need help deciding what the right option is for you, let me strongly urge you to go to the effort of listening to the full firefighter tapes from 9/11. The government has worked to keep this suppressed, and for good reason. It contains recordings of the firemen on the floors directly struck by the planes describing minimal damage and fires that were absolutely controllable (here's a short version).

Steel melts at something like 2800 degrees. Ignoring the fact that a steel building has never collapsed due to fire, and ignoring the fact that there is no known phenomena that could raise the fuel to that temperature, do you really think that firefighters could work in that level of heat? I'm sorry, but the American people need to address this — it must hurt like hell to face it, but the more information that comes out, the more clear it becomes that this was a US government operation start to finish with a bunch of terrorists playing the patsies.

Want to know more? Or more? Still more?

Why is the government still blocking access by the public to information regarding the OKC bombing, 9/11, Iraq, and so on? Why have they all blocked access to their financial involvement? And let me ask you — will you call for their execution when the evidence is undeniable? How much do you need, and will you let them hold it from you?

Will you stand by as the US invades Liberia, Iran, and who knows who else… All at the expense of the US citizens and the people of the world — while all the time making the “government” officials and their corporate overlords monstrously wealthy. Will you keep paying them a fortune to rape the world solely for their pleasure?

Today is the fourth of July — where do you want America to go and what will you do to make sure it does? It's your country, not your government's, isn't it? Just remember, America could be an amazing place, full of freedom, liberty, and happiness… All it has to do is throw off the shackles being forced on it by its alien overlords.

Heh

So that moron out in Winnipeg actually had the gall to write me and admit that he was involved in trying (but failing) to get the police to cause problems at BMEfest. It's just so pathetic, given that I also have a pile of emails from him begging to come to BMEfest… What, if you can't go, no one can I guess?

Yeah, all communication from him is basically the mother of all funmails.


photo: steelhawk

Anyway, later today I'll be posting the latest column by Fakir Musafar, but first this morning I'm off to the gym (seriously). I'm going to try and talk about exercise as body modification in my column as well and explore what the parallels are. I hope it turns out to be interesting on that level as well as healthy.

So many people

I wish I'd had time to talk to more people — looking at this sign-in list I see so many people I'd been looking forward to meeting in person that I didn't have a chance to hang out with. Oh well… next time I hope!


SO
MANY
PEOPLE!

Another quickie…

Just some quick pictures; these are of the very start of the day by Clive (I see more on MarmeladeFlesh's, x k x's, and avaia's pages too). The rest will start to trickle in over the next day or so. Also, a lot of people who wanted shirts didn't get them (we totally sold out) so in the next 48 hours we'll figure out how to get shirts out to those who want them. Oh, and I'll have some “lost'n'found” pictures too but feel free to pre-emptively message me.

Anyway, I'm really tired, but I'm going to try working on a “BMEfest from the host's point of view” type article. I'm not saying that I do all that good a job (other people do the real work), but I've learned a few things from hosting BBQs that might be useful to people as they continue to grow larger and larger all over the world. Watch for it; I'll submit it as an experience in the next day or two.

Very quick update

  1. Total success I think
  2. 320+ people signed in, total probably about 350?
  3. Awesome bands
  4. Chip wagon
  5. Crane suspensions
  6. Fire shows
  7. Fireworks
  8. etc…

I will post lots more later, I now have to return some rentals and so on…

Idiots…

So we've already had a bunch of idiots come in, sign in with fake names (do you think I'm not able to look up if someone is an IAM member?), talk about how they're CoBM (not according to the CoBM website) and now it looks like they stole a bunch of stuff too. Not cool… And yes, their group has been thrown out. They created a fake page two days ago to find the maps and so on. Seriously pathetic… Have fun on your drive back to New York.

Morning of the half-way point

This time it really is half way through the year, right?

The party actually started about 18 hours ago it turns out, with our power systems being struck by lightning (computers here run off a pair of big UPS's) — meaning we had to drink all the beer before it got warm, right? Well, that quickly degraded into making mixed drinks of some calibre, which even more quickly degraded into making mixed drinks with less caliber and more alcohol.

And then I made some nice spaghetti… Whole wheat pasta. After cooking, add a bunch of garlic, olive oil, jalepeno, and (embarrassment for taking the easy route coming up) a whack of club house Greek spice. Then a really plain classic tomato sauce. It's actually really good; nice and simple but just overflowing with a surprisingly complex flavor.

I had nightmares about something.

I don't remember what it was about; all my dreams are the same. Escape dreams. They're all about horrible things happening around me — sometimes war, sometimes crime, sometimes just general assholism. Last night involved a cheap hotel and my Corvette being stolen — I know I said I didn't remember, and that was true, but writing is bringing it into focus.

I was in a cheap hotel programming. I took a walk and I noticed some super trashy dudes painting a blue corvette skin tone (it actually looked kind of cool). When I got closer, I realized it was my Corvette and they realized that I had caught on… They jumped in and gunned it straight at me. I jumped into the middle of the street and tried to block them but they swerved around me and took off. Of course, they were painting it in their own driveway so I just went up to the house.

Even though they'd driven away already, they were still at the house. Or their clones were; several copies each. I don't know if that's my dream brain being lazy, or some profound statement on the personification of evil. In any case, threats escalated back and forth, and not long after we were in some seedy bar fighting. Eventually I just realized that since I was leaving anyway, I'd probably get more on the insurance settlement than I would if I sold it anyway (which, moving to BVI, I'd have to do) and wandered off.

Anyway, all my dreams seem to have this central theme of being surrounded by wrongness (be it mundanity or full on evil), with my mission not being to fight or destroy that evil, but simply find a safe space for my family, leaving the evil to destroy itself. That's what I dream about I guess.


Back in the real world, BMEfest is today!


Or, if you'd rather know about the messed up part of the real world, the AP is reporting that Iraq is heading to full-scale revolt (more). If they're right, the “war” won't be over until America has either retreated out of their territory or killed every last one of them. But no worries there — we know which path has been chosen — America is developing a new set of “super-weapons” guaranteeing new levels of horror never before imagined by humans (more).

Ah, progress.

At least the Army sees through it; their resentment toward their rulers grows as strong as those of the average radicalized citizen (fuck the sheep, they're not even worth mentioning), writing in a recent ArmyTimes editorial that Bush is paying nothing but lip service to the troops in his pandering speeches (more). They know because they're getting killed and their wages are being slashed while Bush prances around in uniform like a kid on Halloween.

Back in the American gulag, Guantanamo Bay, both guards and prisoners are “feeling marooned” in a “surreal society” (more). Bizarre mind control and conformity experiments are being conducted, often on minors — this is happening largely outside the reach of advocacy groups such as the ACLU, and clearly the US has the power to violate the Geneva convention when it suits it. Suicide attempts run rampant, although the official word from the psychiatrists at the facility is that these are simply a “coincidence” and would have happened to these people anyway (more).

Why even get mad? It's a culture of lying when it comes to the government these days it seems. The Future of Freedom Foundation writes, “are we feeling duped yet?” (more), and John Marshall of The Hill qualifies, “A rose is a rose is a rose. But a lie is, well… that's really more of an exaggeration” (more) pointing out the obvious: either the US government is a pack of evil liars, or they're the most incompetent group of fools to ever run the country.

Or if we're to believe Buchanan's The American Conservative, America is flirting more and more with all-out fascism (more).

As many of you know, the US Supreme Court overturned sodomy laws last week, with perfect timing for Pride festivals around the world. Republicans are decrying the decision as a horrible mistake for freedom and liberty for all, and have promised to make sure that even if gays have stolen the right to have sex in private, that they will never be permitted to marry (more), with the Republicans pushing forward a bill that would place a constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Unfortunately even the Democrat offerings on this matter are weak at best. Only Kucinich (more) is actually pushing for full federal legality of gay marriage. Sure, guys like Howard Dean have helped bring about gay civil union (not the same as marriage; more), but Dean has constantly said that he will not support gay marriage, nor will he support it federally. I should point out that the “states rights” part of my sympathizes, but to be honest, I think this sort of thing should be federally — even internationally — mandated (more). Partial rights are bullshit. Gays deserve full rights, not some “compromise”.

This entry has gotten too long.

I demand it end now.