"I'll call after my love for you is dead."

"I'll call after my love for you is dead."

Rat bastard! she knee-jerked to his parting words, using a phrase she never before used in her life. She wanted to say more but any more words would be too dangerous. Did she really know everything she needed to know?

*********

He'd hurt her drowning in a mess of falling tears. She was not perfect, but their love had been. But to keep it alive he must step into the light where no lie can live - and no lie can live. In arguments against the moon, he flailed false convictions demonizing the light he knew to be true, resisting its dreamy call as an "impractical delusion". No daring love for him, he'd rather be considered a Man Of Reason.

How very unreasonable.

He'd started inching, then pulling, then running away as the dam burst with imagined fear and death. Rocks of false mockery he'd flung against her tender, precious body. Too afraid to step into the light herself, she never saw the demons he fought, failing to call out his shameful motives. Yet, how both so anxiously begged to come clean under the sun!

Dying in chains of which he held the key, the Kingdom Of Heaven lay a forbidden paradise. Unable to deny the truth he now recognized, he pleaded instead not to recognize the existence of truth itself. That only made him more stupid. Terrified of facing the flower of love he neglected, he called defeat upon himself, she his Waterloo, leaving her with only his last stinging remark of destructive intimacy.

*********

[DALLAS - Zebra mussels are like the zombies of the water - you can't kill them... and then they take over.

The invasive species crashes fish populations by hogging nutrients and then they attach their razor-sharp bodies to boats and docks.

"It's mind boggling how bad this is."

The North Texas Municipal Water District decided it would pump zebra-mussel infested water from Lake Texoma to clean Lake Lavon so it could meet demand for its 1.5 million water users.

"We're in a tight spot here, but candidly don't see any other reasonable and practicable alternatives [to permanently fucking the environment]..."

Experts say doing that would spread the infestation into Lavon and other lakes. "A true tragedy."

Once infested, a lake is lost forever. Only one chance to get it right. Better recognize your brother, every one you meet.]

*********

She courageously remembered that fond Spring - that magical, wonderful Spring! When on a warm wet afternoon the blinding optimism of burgeoning life saturated the thick humid garden air consummated by an approvingly streaming sun. They had laughed and loved and forgotten the world, discovering paradise within - the only place it can ever be found. Stray white clouds hung in the sky in bidding to their whims.

Then he shyly confesses at the end of a shared laugh: "I'm funnier when I'm in love."

It was one of those rare, longed for moments when reality's definition sharpens into focus, wondering how one could ever had been so blind. Never did it seem so true the long echoed lyric, "Life is but a dream."

*********

[Their wicked, wicked ways had caught up to them at last. The mad king they'd foolishly let rule over them rousted from office by an angry populace desperate to be led to the promised land. So much damage, so much healing needing to be done - these things must be recognized under the sun.

But must they give up their way of life to reach heaven's gate?

The new king spoke out against the damage done, crowds cheering in teary approval. At long last, a savior had come! But he did not lead them into the promised land. "It's their wicked, wicked ways they truly want," he wrongly surmised, losing the chance of a lifetime and an epoch.

He kept them in the wilderness with a clarion call to hope, the king charming them in a slow composition of mutual corruption as eyes shuttered once again, imagining themselves in paradise despite their obvious pains, swaying them to give up the good fight just as he had done. And as they believed themselves saved so did he. "If they think they are in paradise then I must be the savior!"

Nothing left do but kill the prophets, torture the truthtellers and hide the tears of grieving mothers.]

*********

He swooned at her helpless radiant smiles, gifts to him more magnificent than the sky and the land and the seas. That was me that did that! Childhood dreams popped back to life, sunshine in his pocket. Even in typed correspondence his dancing demeanor was clear as day to her.

She was happiest when she remembered the truth of these fateful facts though she had trouble sticking with them as the Offically Authorized Story of her state.

She'd felt as special as chosen Moses, communing with God on Mount Sinai. How very exciting this love newly met but always known. "Ah, of course you'd be like that!" she find herself thinking. Had she stepped outside to the sight of a burning bush she'd been unfazed, leaving it to the hobgoblins of little minds to explain.

But she was off the mountain now.

Back in the whirling world of grasping idolaters, soothsayers of sly sin, proud proclaimers of perishable promise, the annoying rattle of minds in daily self-avoidance, and the eternal malaise of Man who ceaselessly learns but never understands, she questioned if she even belonged on the mountain to begin with. Suddenly she realized the commitment of Moses to make that hungry climb.

How to face one's Maker where no clothing is possible, alone with the naked truth?

*********

Crowded by uncooperative intruding thoughts, she slipped on the radio - only to flip off again when confronted by the suffocating overwroughtness of a wailing Barbra. But Barbra was famous and successful, a living legend. And just who exactly was she who drove in boredom down this colorless Texas freeway?

Dutifully, she flipped the radio back on. Maybe there was a home there she'd missed. Maybe she threw the baby out with the bath water. Maybe love was an illusion made up to please the stars. That made all these silly love songs made up too. She silenced the music once more.

Had anyone in a city of six million stories cared to notice, a curious soul may have peered into a large white SUV barreling down the road to see a woman unconsciously over-gripping the steering wheel while rocking in frustration as she obliviously vented, "Who am I? Who the fuck am I?"

In a flash of the ever changing currents of traffic she'd be gone, the curious observer abandoned to wonder why she did battle with herself. Probably the same reason we all do, one might suppose.

She failed to notice her passing admirer. Instead, it was one of those dreaded moments when reality's definition slipped away, sliding off the mountain with her confidence. No more mocking music she'd take, just the sound of cold winds of emptiness rushing through her ears.

*********

[He feared how he could still live upon a dying orb. The very old, the very young and the very unloved are the first to go. Moral and financial poverty spreads in unstoppable viral contempt, claiming new victims every day. But the poisoning ways of a stubborn and defiant populace are pried only from their cold, dead hands.

He too played his part in the insanity play.

Having lied in the face of love, his life disintegrated in vain pursuit of scientifically proving said lying valid. But no redeemable value existed. He'd fucked up, his actions beyond the reach of salvation. He'd traded real love for unreal arguments, leaving him to love as cowards are forced to do: from afar and haunted by a life unled.

Were they even to share an elevator together now, they'd still stand oceans apart. He dare not call her home (but must if not to remain damaged goods).]

*********

What now? What was this boulder under her mattress? Like a spaceship hit by an asteroid she'd been knocked off course. Whither the way home? Had she'd been on a vain shortcut after all? Why did she find it so difficult to do what she wanted, struggling against unseen winds? Had she ever been on the right path?

Damn these questions! Leave me alone! Am I indulging myself or does what I do have value? Am I cheating myself if I stop looking? I can't get these bugs out of my ear. I can't think straight! I want to know who I am when I'm with him. But all that is broken now.

Too many voices. Which one the fool's? Her most prized asset, her sense of self, wavered in darkness. Why did she do less when she knew she could do more? She needed to face him, to gain back that missing piece he took. She so wanted to believe her life had purpose...

Sipping her lonely cocktail, she sought to silence doubts whispering of a path unsustainable. She must do something. But not now! I can't do it now! Yes, later, sometime, it must be done. Oh please, leave me alone! It's too much for me to take. Not while I still got feelings. Not while I can still be exposed. I'll call after my love for him is dead.

A Seed Of Justice Is Planted...In Texas??

Winter branches bend
Stripped of leafy greens and buds
Waiting for Spring's hope

--------------------------------------------

Veterans salute former army medic Timothy Cole

The firing of the guns had such an air of finality

Cold winds do blow upon this planet, and when ignored can carry us out beyond the realm of hope. When we fail to prepare for these winds, tragedy strikes, leaving in its wake broken hearts and broken dreams. Then we must ask ourselves: What could have we done differently? What can we do to prevent this from ever happening again?

One thing is for sure: the cold winds will always blow.

Whose child does not count? Do not they all? If so, we often fail to act in accordance with that belief. But even the tears of tragedy can provide seeds of flowering life, the sacrifice of one providing life for countless others. That is the dream of Man.

White roses were handed out for those who fought for exoneration

On a fittingly cloudy, chilly day in Fort Worth Texas, an historical marker was unveiled to hail the life of Timothy Cole, a Texas Tech student robbed of his life in the dark hole of the Texas prison system. At age 39, he died of a heart attack brought on by asthma complications. But the story did not end there.

In the outstanding fact based Soviet film "Citizen X", a serial killer is running loose in the Russian countryside. A committee - of course - is formed to find the source of the killings. As per any Soviet committee, a party member monitored with an iron fist, stating even before the evidence was in a serial killer could not be responsible for the deaths. That was a phenomenon only of the "decadent west" which could never happen in the paradise of communism. How very chilling to watch the search for truth stillborn with a preconceived agenda.

The police in the Timothy Cole case were also very Soviet like in their investigation of the rapes occurring of Texas Tech students in the mid 80s. A female undercover operative had been placed on the campus in the hopes of luring the rapist out into the open. Tim had the misfortune of striking up a conversation with the girl so when the next rape was committed, Timothy Cole was suspect number one - no matter what.

Traumatized relatives of Timothy Cole

It was said more people were at the unveiling than at the funeral

The police "investigators" took a shirt and a ring from Tim's room and used them as evidence. This despite the victim denying their assertion of belonging to the rapist:

[Rape victim Michele] Mallin said she told police, "I told them it wasn't the shirt.”

And, about the ring she said, "I told them my ring was too big of a stone."

The victim never identified Cole as the perpetrator. Even the asthma was exculpatory as the true rapist "smoked heavily" while Timothy never did. The police had their agenda and were sticking to it, and in their minds that proved they were on the correct path. Just never admit you're wrong, comrade.

Click here to read the full story and hear the actual rapist's confession as detailed by the Lubbock paper in 2008.

Tim's brother Cory with his arm around victim
Michele Mallin at the grave site


The event was well covered. Many dignitaries were there:
judges, state representatives and other judicial officials

After the statute of limitations ran out, the true rapist confessed - to deaf ears. None of the authorities followed up on his letter. The Innocence Project Of Texas, however, did. That started a long journey to daylight, as DNA evidence also proved Tim's innocence and a posthumous pardon was issued. Like the Soviet Union of yore, this forced even the Republic of Texas to crack under the undeniable horror of a life raped then killed by its bloody hands:

The Texas Senate passed legislation to exonerate Cole. The Texas House of Representatives bill passed through committee and then the full house. After that, it went to Governor Rick Perry to be signed into law. Another bill, named after Cole, was passed by the legislature and sent to the governor on May 11, 2009. It made those who are falsely convicted of a crime eligible for $80,000 for each year of incarceration and provide them with free college tuition. The bill also established the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions. A panel set up to study the causes of wrongful convictions and to devise ways of preventing them is to report to the Texas governor no later than 2011.

Jeff Blackburn, founder and chief counsel to the
Innocence Project of Texas, on the left.

Tim's brother Cory now works
for the Innocence Project

With the unveiling of the permanent marker, Texas now slides down the slippery slope of total revelation - thank God! This beautiful metal sign stands as a forever thorn in the sides of those who fail to admit the truth: we failed this man. How many more are out there? Once one wrong is admitted, they can all be. Let the floodgates open! What is known can never be unknown again.

View entire photo set here

Here are some highlights from the commemoration and the unveiling of the marker. Very powerful.

I Woke Up - And Fell Into A Dream

I woke dead in my bed - and the world had gone ahead without me.

I ambled outside into a surrounding hazy grey sky - but it was the wrong kind of grey, a grey that forgot our civilized world of 60 second sound bites, no longer keeping faith with our glorious claims to fame. Grey mist fell upon me and grey I too became. In a twinkling the world had changed but I was not ready. How could this happen?

"Is this a dream? What finally cracked? Who are we?"

Who are we? What made me ask that? I saw bewildered shoppers in the distance streaming out of stale bricked stores, raising their clutching hands to the sky in gross confusion. That's when I knew I could turn to no other soul for answers. Then suddenly I realized I expected this all along. Not maybe this exact thing, but something to happen. It had been building for the longest time. Dew droplets of Spring's unreality sprinkled upon us in helpless abandon. What shall blossom from this?

The cars had stopped moving, left like skinned buffalo carcasses on the streets and freeways. I knew not to panic because everyone else already had. My thoughts turned toward the king - only I never remembered us having a king before. But it seemed the natural thing to do. In memory found I made my way to the throne of power.

The king sat upon his toilet throne in the great Barton hall corrupt in both smell and soulful shit. I wondered why only I had come to see, to know what can be known. My presence was not appreciated as our ruler snarled at my arrival.

"Ruined and rotted! Ruined and rotted! What have they done? The government's tool is evil! Hell's mouth has opened and it suffers no justice. Follow it or die!"

Only then did I realize he was not speaking to me. Rather it was like one of those android robots who speak when their motion detector goes off, alerting them to give their programmed speech. Walking behind I found the cables to reality cut in two. How far down the path of unreality had our king traveled? Dare I even stay?

"They made me do it. They made me be evil! Protect the polluters or die! I want to stand up for what is right. No man can stand for what is right! Kill it! Kill it now! Destroy the foul and feculent government before it's too late!"

Sparks of freshly shorted cables caused me to run away from the robot man of incarnadine hands, living in his world of shit. Did he not realize he asked for his own death? No, of course not - not with severed ties to reality. Where to turn? I rushed outside to see the thoughts of my blind brethren.

I viewed uniformed soldiers rushing ahead to the call of duty but their walk was hindered by an unseen wind. Then I heard a small girl cry out to her mother.

"But why does Grandpa have to go to war?"

"Because he's old, sweetheart, and we can't take care of him anymore."

Soon I was passing the grey troops in their infirmities. I wonder who the war is against that required the eldest among us to be called. No guards were present at the military compound’s front gate. I wandered furiously through the corridors to arrive at the commander's office. As I squirmed my way through a throng of old soldiers I glimpsed walls covered with lusty centerfolds reflected in the light of a booming playstation, the commander with a game stick in one hand and his own stick in the other. The aged men pleaded.

"But sir, you're masturbating away our time!"

"Yeah, I know. But you still have to do what I say no matter what! You got that, soldier?"

"Sir, yes sir! I am a good soldier!"

"Great! Now squeal like a pig, private! Yours is not to question why. Ain't authority great!"

When the pig noises started I fled outside for fresh air, passing an impromptu sign: "Life is wasted on the old! Save the youth!"

Across the way I was struck by a sign exclaiming over a building entrance, "It's A Man's Life In The Service!" I wondered why they even felt the need to say it. Knowing I'd regret what I'd see even before I saw I was pushed in anyway. Peeking in I saw General George S. Patton in a French maid uniform, barefoot with bare buttocks meticulously scrubbing a floor as a high-heeled lusty vixen watched in delighted disdain. The General seem quite proud of himself.

"This is where it pays off! The training and the discipline - God help me, I do love it!"

"You better love it, bitch," corrected the vixen. "Or I'm leaving your ass high and dry."

"Ma'am, yes ma'am! You're the reason we're fighting for!"

Unable to take any more, I staggered away possessed by the thought all wars were fought for no reason, never a noble cause. Who is not a desperate man? I don't want to know...I ran again.

Lost in a yellow-grey grassy field, I fell to my knees to grab my spinning head. "Can't be...Can't be..." I found myself chanting. Then inside me history reversed in my mind, telling me things had always been this way - the sky always grey and the desperate dead fighting wars. The urge to believe was overpowering and I knew not from where it came.

No...I had to believe the military minds had gone mad - but was it only relative to madness from before? I heard triumphant laughter from the other side of a line of evergreys. Maybe someone had found an answer! Fighting the nagging voices within I saw three men celebrating as if they'd conquered the world. Faces fell when they saw me though.

"Stay back! It's all ours! You can't have any! We're kings of the world now!"

Behind them was a hodgepodge pile of blank and lined paper. Notepads, yellow pads, notebook paper, copy paper - piles and piles of it. I was transfixed by their desire to accumulate and protect such a worthless stack of junk. They thought they could read my face.

"Wish it was yours, doncha?? Haha! It's ours, all ours! We gots the paper now! We call the shots. We gonna be livin' the life! Get your own paper! Them’s the rules! Them's always been the rules and we ain't never changing it now!"

Funny, but at that moment all I could think was I bet they hadn't changed their underwear in forever either. I scatted away in curious fretting of how anyone could think simple paper was a pathway to salvation. What if it burned up? Then what? Would their lives really be any different afterwards? Oh, hell! Damn this grey mist in my eyes!

I sought a safe place of my youth, a park by my elementary school. There was an overhang there where I could think - if I still dared to think. But when I got there I saw masses of children with choke collars held firmly by cross parental leashes. The neck of the parents had been stretched six inches too high yet none seemed to notice the deformity - or did they? Constantly they pulled the children along, berating them as they marched in circles.

"Tell me you like the collar and I'll take it off!"

"No! I hate it!"

"Rebellious brat! This is my life I tell you!"

Whenever a child yelled too loudly a man in a black coat and pointed black hat rushed in with black pills for the resisting child to ingest. Like a surreal epic painting, it played like a great battle scene of chaos and despair. Only in this battle it was life that was feared, not death. Not a parent believed taking the collars off might bring peace.

My inner ears ringed with the sound of mayhem. What was this ever louder voice telling me all is as before?? No, it's not! It can't be! It's the grey! Somebody stop the grey mist! It came when we weren't even looking!

I climbed to the top of the highest peak, hoping to rise above the maddening mist. From there I saw down into the valley - revealing why I stood alone on this vantage point of perception. I gazed upon thousands - maybe millions - of chained, toiling slaves connected together in rows that disappeared over the horizon.

"But we're free!" I helplessly retorted.

Grey Mist Lords walked among the slaves taking bites from their bodies as nourishment. Some of the Lords played games of chance and if they lost made the slaves pay with their lives. I knew nothing at that moment but that I must put a stop to this, find a way out for everyone.

But as I got closer I found no lock bound the slaves to the long poles of bondage. I approached a particularly pained person, asking why he did not set himself free.

"I can't do that!" he spat. "Everyone will hate me if I do!"

"So fucking what! Give yourself a chance."

"No! Never! Never!" Then his eyes returned to blankness.

I asked the same of another man but he swatted me away, cursing me as "the enemy". Starved for hope, I tried one more, only he smiled a toothless smile at me in return.

"Ah, that's OK. I plan on doing this to my wife when I get home."

I thought to myself: But you're not going home. I backed away as if an invisible hand pulled me back to safety. "These men...these men...where will they go?" Once more, I stuffed my ears to any answer. Grey was here, grey was there, grey was everywhere. I had to find a light.

Then I saw one, a glowing dome in the distance, a beacon of hope.

"THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD" it proudly proclaimed. But it was not a natural light but an artificial one of burning bulbs on their last legs. I slipped inside a grand and great room where every man was dressed as a working man, arguing in roundabout circles shaking scepters in hand. They had too little currency to keep the lights ablaze, a solution must be found.

"If 2+2 equals four all is lost and we'll never have enough to pay!"

"It's eight, I tell you! Eight! 2+2 is eight!"

"It can't be eight, you fool! Have you no sense of living?"

"You call getting the lights shut off living, Mr. Know-it-all?"

"Let's compromise on six. I vote 2+2 equals six. Who's with me on this?"

"Eight! Only eight! Save the light or die!"

"It's gotta be four! Anything else is a deadly lie! Moving from eight to six is like proposing to fix only half the hole in a ship."

"Better half than nothing! Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good!"

"But you'll still sink!"

"Not if I brainwash myself otherwise!"

"Eight, I say again! Eight! Eight! Eight! Eight! The loudest voice wins!"

"We have to take our medicine and admit it's four, there's no other way."

"Idealistic fool! No one is going to accept four. Grow the hell up and face facts like an adult. You've been outvoted, loser!"

Propagandists hate facts - especially the one they have no vote on truth or reality. To me the answer seemed simple: stop requiring currency for the lights and they could stay on forever. But these were unhappy men, closed of mind and heart. Rulers make bad lovers. I guess they hoped to pass laws to make that not so. Another false faith, another deluded deed, another manic man.

Blindly I ran till I found myself on the steps of a steepled church. Maybe the folks inside could quote an answer, an understanding of the fate of the world of which they often did speak. Maybe I don't know so much after all, I hoped. Reverently, I creaked open the great wooden door, expecting a warm light from within to give me sanctuary. Instead I whispered,

"Grey! Everything's grey!"

They had painted every inch - even the light bulbs. The high priest in robes dripping grey was performing a ceremony of "purification", painting grey onto each member who stood in a line. Those not yet painted were anxious and impatient, roasting alive to be in a state of non-salvation. Those already grey lay prostrate on the floor in divine thankfulness for having been saved. I overheard the sorcerer's words.

"With this I make thee of the grey world, blessed of the world and divine in the eyes of man. May thee be covered in the glory of the great and good grey god and made whole with it. I lift thee from hell's confusion and give thee calm certitude of the one true answer. Those unmarked may neither buy nor sell for they are agents of the enemy who must be purged!"

Naturally at that point all eyes turned to me and before I could say a thought I heard: "Death to the truth-sayer at the door! Death to all who undermine the world!"

Must have been something in my eyes that told them I didn't want to walk around covered in grey shit. But what was going on? An outcast I be! Nowhere to run to...nowhere to hide. Was the grey mist melting our veneer, dissolving delusions from our desires? Too much to take in...must get away...are the subways still working?

There in the underground as yet untouched by the grey, the prophets' song came true when the words of the prophets were written on the subway walls.

"Into the Knowing we are thrust and once Knowing we can never turn back."

But who is ready to know? Who bravely trudges forward into life? The past is gone.


--------------------------------------------------------

You decide which is more real:

The glossy glory of Georgie:

Marching to Battle

Or the hazed and abused life of Private Pyle:

Yes, Bill Maher, Atheism Is A Religion!

"That Harry is a funny guy!"

Maybe Bill came across one of my posts or comments where I pointed out atheism is an annoying religion like any other. Bear in mind we're talking about philosophical religion, not practical religion like capitalism (which I'll get into later). Bill likes to act like he's an agnostic (no opinion one way or the other) but he preaches like an old-time atheist, squeezing it in wherever he can even though he claims he "doesn't really like to talk about religion."

Please, someone free Bill Maher! He's forced to talk religion! He has no free will!

To back his claim of being non-religious first thing Bill had to do was lie about the definition of religion, saying it's a belief IN God, which is not true. It's a belief ABOUT God, regardless if you think any God exists or not. If you have an opinion, you are religious, if you don't then you are agnostic. It's a Boolean situation.

See, it shapes up like this: One group of religious assholes tells me I have to believe in God. Another group of religious assholes tells me I have to not believe in God. All I got to say to you religious people is: don't tread your religion on me! Who are these do-gooders wanting to evangelize and "fix" everyone else? And hardly anyone evangelizes more than Bill Maher. Give it a rest already, dude.

The problem with most atheists is that they are very gullible people. Some guy comes up to them and says, "I'm a man of God!" Next thing you know the supposed Man of God is molesting an eight year old. Then the moron atheist says, "See! All that God stuff is bullshit!" Uh, hey Einstein (who did believe in God) that's only a valid argument if you believed the guy in the first place. Gullible much?

No one gets outraged when a plumber molests a child saying, "I no longer believe in plumbers!" Atheists reply, "Well of course not! He never claimed to have anything to do with God!" But again, the plumber has no more or less to do with God than anyone else. Why would anyone believe otherwise? Because they believe in religion, that's why. That's why they always hold up the vast and horrific malfeasance of current and past church conduct as "proof" there is no God.

Here's a clue for the logic impaired: if there is a God of love, burning people as witches would not be a godly act. Therefore, those people could not possibly represent said God. It's just incredible the number of people who fall for that.

A man who didn't believe in wasting time

But don't get me wrong. God talk is just jacking off, much adieu about nothing. Practiced religion is the real killer. The definition of that is your belief system of whatever it is you believe will save you. As Bill himself once rightly pointed out, "Money is the true religion of Republicans." That's what their actions demonstrate despite whatever lip service they may give to give to God, Alan Greenspan or (laughably) social justice.

Listen to people talk. They will tell you in time what will "save" them. Money, war, capitalism, politics, this ism, that ism - pick your savior. I remember talking to this chick on a phone one time who worshiped at the altar of credit scores. I could have strangled her ass. Whatever you trust to get you through this world shows where you place your true faith.

I will finish with one more thing. Bill has also openly said - and I do believe this - that he believes in love. I wouldn't listen to him otherwise. And I believe that's one reason he fears the Bible so much. The Bible doesn't say God is religion or to believe in religion, it says God is love. So if you believe in love you therefore believe in God. Got ya, Bill!


Everyone (who hasn't been around the block) says love will never work but they damn sure do want it!

"Where Is the Uprising from the Left?"

There's no doubt that for the most part the media in America has been co-opted as an extension of both governmental and corporate interests. Truth is an undeclared enemy by both entities but an obliging public has no more interest in facing facts than any guilty child would. These are cold, hard facts.

The overseas press however has no fidelity to covering up our crimes nor do they see the "profit" we seem to assume from self-deception. It would be a fascinating Rorschach test to ask each American why we invaded Iraq and whether or not we should have ever invaded. Our actions have already revealed our true motivations simply by the sheer fact if we truly were misled we would have been outraged afterwards at the liars. But there was no outrage.

The evildoers in America have been given a free pass and they are having a field day as they find no one wants to know what they do. But the foreign press has no such reservations and oftentimes it's the best outlet for seeing a truer face of America. Der Spiegel (The Mirror) is a weekly German magazine with a long standing reputation for investigative journalism stretching back many decades. It's an outstanding source for inconvenient American facts and inconvenient American voices.

Here in the states it's people like the sick and twisted Alan Greenspan who continue to garner attention in what can only be described as an attempt to believe if we repeat our lies long enough they will become true. Francis Fukuyama of Stanford does not share America's eternal optimism (aka denial). Thus he doesn't sell well here in the land of the free (ride for the wealthy).

Below is a copy of his interview with Der Speigel, one that will enrage many on both the left and the right. For clarification purposes I think it's best to define the Tea Party and Occupy movements. Both movements agree that the redistribution of wealth is crippling our country. The difference lies in that the Tea Partiers claim there's too much transfer to the poor and the Occupy movement claims there's too much transfer to the rich. Apparently, only one group can handle simple math.

I'll give my take at the end.

-----------------------------------------

Political scientist Francis Fukuyama was once the darling of American neo-conservatives. In a SPIEGEL interview, the author of "The End of History" explains why he now believes that the excesses of capitalism are a threat to democracy and asks why there is no "Tea Party on the left."

SPIEGEL: Professor Fukuyama, you are best known for your essay "The End of History," in which you declared that, after the demise of the Soviet Union, liberal democracy had emerged as the triumphant global model. Now, your latest research claims that the flaws of capitalism and globalization could endanger this democratic model. How do you explain this shift?

Fukuyama: Capitalism is the wrong word to use here, because there is not a viable alternative to capitalism. What we are really talking about is just economic growth and the development of modern economic societies. A combination of factors is beginning to challenge their progress in the United States. We have had a lot of technological change that substituted for low-skill labor and made many people in Western democracies lose their jobs.

SPIEGEL: Which is why countries such as the United States or Britain wanted to turn themselves into "service-oriented" economies.

Fukuyama: We have unthinkingly embraced a certain version of globalization that assumed we had to move very quickly into this post-industrial, post-manufacturing world. Doing so, we forgot that the whole reason real socialism never took off in the US was the fact that the modern economy seemed to produce middle-class societies in which the bulk of the population could enjoy a middle-class status. They worked in industries that were abolished in our countries and transferred to countries like China.

SPIEGEL: Even if members of the middle class held on to their jobs, they saw their income stagnate or even decline, while a few of globalization's winners at the top reaped outsize rewards. The level of income inequality in advanced nations is greater than ever before. What effect does that have on our societies?

Fukuyama: It is not good for democracy. If income is relatively evenly distributed and there are not very sharp differences between rich and poor, you have a greater sense of community. You have a greater sense of trust. You do not have parts of the community that have superior access to the political system that they can use to advance their own interests ...

SPIEGEL: … all of which undermines the democratic process.

Fukuyama: What you are going to see in a democracy with a weaker middle class is much more populism, more internal conflict, an inability to resolve distributional issues in an orderly way. In the United States right now, you do have this return of populism. It should be on the left, but actually most of it is on the right. If you talk to Tea Party members about their feelings regarding the government, they are very passionate. They hate the government. They think they have been betrayed by elites.

SPIEGEL: Americans, however, are beginning to discuss the problem of social inequality much more openly.

Fukuyama: They are slowly beginning to realize it. The recent public focus on inequality and the Occupy Wall Street movement are harbingers of change in that direction. The trouble is that in the United States it is extremely difficult to mobilize people around pure class issues. President Barack Obama was ostracized as a "European socialist" when he brought up the idea of higher taxes on the rich. These class debates are historically unpopular -- except for a very brief period in the 1930s during the Great Depression.

SPIEGEL: The latest financial crisis was often compared to the Great Depression: Why did we not see another case of the left wing rising up against the rich?

Fukuyama: I am at a loss, too. Where is this uprising from the left? This is a crisis that began on Wall Street. It really was rooted in the particular American model of liberalized finance. It hurt ordinary people tremendously, and it benefited the richest part of the country -- the finance sector -- which came through the crisis very well, thanks to government bailouts. You would have thought that this would pave the way for a rise of left-wing populism as seen in the 1930s. A Tea Party on the left, so to speak.

SPIEGEL: Could the Occupy Wall Street movement fill this void on the left?

Fukuyama: I really do not take this movement seriously, because its social base is extremely narrow. It consists mostly of the same kids that were protesting in 1999 in Seattle against the World Trade Organization -- anti-capitalists. The big problem sociologically for the left in the United States is that the white working class and lower middle class, that in Europe would be reliably social democratic in their political behavior, tends to vote Republican or is easily brought into the Republican camp. Until the Occupy Wall Street people can connect up with that demographic group, there is not going to be a big left-wing populist base of support in the US.

SPIEGEL: Has the crisis simply not been deep enough to achieve that?

Fukuyama: Ironically, because the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury acted to support the financial sector, the crisis did not develop into a deep depression with unemployment up to 20 percent like in the 1930s. Back then, President Franklin D. Roosevelt could restructure the big banks. I believe that the only solution to our current problems is to restructure all these big banks, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup and Bank of America, and turn them into smaller entities that could then be allowed to go bankrupt. They would no longer be "too big to fail." But this has not happened so far.

SPIEGEL: One could also make the case that President Obama was simply not as tough as Roosevelt.

Fukuyama: Obama had a big opportunity right at the middle of the crisis. That was around the time Newsweek carried the title: "We Are All Socialists Now." Obama's team could have nationalized the banks and then sold them off piecemeal. But their whole view of what is possible and desirable is still very much shaped by the needs of these big banks.

SPIEGEL: In other words, Obama and his influential advisors, like Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, are themselves part of the "1 percent" that the Occupy Wall Street movement rails against.

Fukuyama: They are obviously part of the 1 percent. They socialize with these Wall Street gurus. Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein met with Geithner many times during the crisis. Such close contact clearly influences the world view of the White House.

SPIEGEL: But would you seriously argue that Republicans are any less close to Wall Street?

Fukuyama: Oh no. Republican politicians are completely bought by Wall Street. But the real question is: Why do their working class supporters continue to vote for them? My explanation is partly this deep distrust of any form of government that goes back very far in American politics, and is today reflected in political figures like Sarah Palin, which holds against Obama primarily the fact that he went to Harvard. There is a kind of populist resentment in US politics against being ruled by elites.

SPIEGEL: Even the Tea Party movement is largely financed by billionaires who represent everything regular Tea Party members are opposed to.

Part 2: 'Tea Party Activists Mobilize Against Their Own Economic Interests'

Fukuyama: The Tea Party is a genuine grassroots movement, so I do not buy into these conspiracy theories that rich billionaires initiated it. When you go to one of these rallies of Ron Paul supporters, they are very passionate. They all tend to be young, and they have just got this libertarian idea in their minds that the government is really the source of all of our problems. So I think the convictions of Tea Party activists are sincere, they are not manipulated by billionaires. But it is true that they mobilize against their own economic interests and for the interests of elites they should despise. I still do not fully understand why they do that.

SPIEGEL: Why can't Obama reach these frustrated people?

Fukuyama: The president never annunciated a vision of a different kind of economic order that did not just look like a return to a kind of classic big spending, liberal Democratic formula. The Democrats have never articulated an economic philosophy that is not just the return to the 1970s, big government and so forth, or the position of the labor unions which is very hostile to globalization.

SPIEGEL: What else should he do?

Fukuyama: I actually think that the German model should be a very interesting one from an American perspective, because Germany is still the second-largest exporter, but has done a much better job in protecting its manufacturing base and its working class compared to the United States. Somebody needs to articulate a strategy in the US that will say our goal is not to maximize aggregate income. It is to protect the middle class through an engagement with the world with globalization, but one that benefits the broad mass of people. No Democrat has really been able to do this.

SPIEGEL: Do you want the American left to draw lessons from former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's "Agenda 2010," a controversial package of labor and welfare reforms which overturned the classic social democratic model?

Fukuyama: What the Social Democrats in Germany have done is increase the degree of flexibility in labor markets and make the German welfare state more friendly to capitalist competition. The old traditional agenda that we are just going to have more and more social protection no longer rules in Germany, and that is a good thing. Part of the problem in Europe is that similar reforms have not happened in France and Italy.

SPIEGEL: Would that protection of the middle class include a new form of global protectionism?

Fukuyama: We should never have permitted the Chinese to deindustrialize a large part of the world. The Chinese have managed to play one Western country against another, stealing their technology basically. They succeeded because everybody in the West has got this short-term view saying: "I may be clobbered by the Chinese down the road, but if I do not make my money now, somebody else will get in. So I make business with them even if they rip me off." This view is very short-sighted. We should have been much tougher with China.

SPIEGEL: Could that trend still be reversed?

Fukuyama: It is too late, at least in the United States. We have lost all crucial manufacturing industries to China.

SPIEGEL: A feeling of helplessness also prevails in Europe. Every time EU politicians try to present new solutions to the euro crisis, they fail to convince the financial players around the world. Is political leadership still possible, given the outsize power of global financial markets?

Fukuyama: The political leadership problem stems not simply from the pressure by the markets. All modern democracies have a disease, which is that the democratic process tends to be captured by well-organized groups that are not representative of the general public. This is the whole problem with Greece. The pharmacists and the doctors and the civil servants and the architects, and every other social group in that country, has organized itself into a closed corporation that controls prices while largely avoiding taxation. They make a fortune, but the national bankruptcy is bound to happen.

SPIEGEL: Unelected technocrats and advisers from outside are now being brought in to reform the Greek system. What does that mean for democracy?

Fukuyama: If I had to bet my own money on this, Greece is going to leave the euro, because ultimately any outside intervention is going to be regarded by the Greek public as a non-democratic imposition of policies that they do not want. Greeks are just never going to behave like Germans, right?

SPIEGEL: Can Europe, in its desperate attempts to rescue the euro, still be democratic?

Fukuyama: The entire European project was very elite-driven from the beginning. The evidence of this was every time a country held a referendum where they voted against signing on to further EU regulation ...

SPIEGEL: ... that referendum was simply repeated.

Fukuyama: The EU elites said: "Oh, you just got it wrong this time. We will keep voting until you get it right." Virtually every European country now has got a right-wing populist party. They are anti-EU, anti-immigrant, and it has exactly the same cause, because there is a perception that the elites in Europe do not really address their issues.

SPIEGEL: Authoritarian systems, on the other hand, appear to be getting more and more popular. When German businesspeople travel to communist China, for example, they are enamored with the system there. They rave about how quickly important decisions can be made.

Fukuyama: I hear that from American businesspeople too. The Chinese system is particularly striking when you contrast it with Europe and the United States where you currently just cannot get a decision made.

SPIEGEL: So authoritarian China will emerge as the new global model -- which would totally contradict your thesis from "The End of History" that democracy has become the default option around the world.

Fukuyama: No. China is never going to be a global model. Our current Western system is really broken in some fundamental ways, but the Chinese system is not going to work either. It is a deeply unfair and immoral system where everything can be taken away from anyone in a split second, where people die in train accidents because of a rampant lack of public oversight and transparency, where corruption rules. We are already seeing huge protests in all parts of China ...

SPIEGEL: ... which Communist Party officials fear are reminiscent of the Arab Spring.

Fukuyama: When its leadership stops delivering the current level of economic growth, it has got this huge moral vulnerability. Liberal democracy still really is the only game in town worldwide, in spite of all of its shortcomings.

SPIEGEL: Professor Fukuyama, we thank you for this interview.

Interview conducted by Hans Hoyng and Gregor Peter Schmitz

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Many refreshing points of view here. I do not agree with his assessment that capitalism is the only viable path. If he had said, "In my little pea brain, capitalism is the only way" I'd have no problem with that.

Also, like many prognosticators, he believes that contrary to all current and previous actions that people at large will at some point act in their own interests. However, that is only true as far as people are interested in taking responsibility. Hey, anyone up for apologizing to Iraq for unleashing death and destruction as we admit we only wanted to steal their resources?

As for the headline question I can only say that's the wrong perspective to take. It's not the job of the so-called left to stand for social equality, economic and criminal justice, and civil rights. That's the job of everyone. "Why isn't everyone uprising?" is a better question. Why didn't everyone join the Occupy movement? Do you really believe the answer is not known? If so, that's pretty damn funny!

Noize In The Hood

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A Purchased Life

When Thomas Elkin got his wildly inflated, otherworldly yearly bonus, first call he made was to his favorite hooker - $3,000 a night, sheets included. Next, he called his mother, thrilled with his worldly success. Lastly, he called a woman who would no longer talk to him, getting her voice mail as always. If only she could see me now! On an orb spinning in darkness, he bowed down to his well-financed image, hoping the illusion to be true.

Amanda Wittenberg dutifully ran the family shop. Inherited wealth protected her from any economic storm. She carried within her a list of her favorite restaurants, favorite cities, and even favorite closets of clothes. Male suitors were many, never far behind. She had everything and did everything, as expected. Life's perfection lacked only one missing piece: doing what she really wanted. How to give up the proven for the unproven?

Sydney Hallison has a pocketful of answers! If the world suddenly became absent of pestering questions and perilous dilemmas she would die of agonizing atrophy. For each answer she presented to a searching soul, she awarded herself a gold star. "I am most excellent and special!" she'd often proclaim with a certain smile. Across the glorious globe only one person did she refuse to be there for: herself. Ukrainian bitch.

Sherry Hodges faked another orgasm on this cold winter's night. "You were just fantastic, honey!" She stayed home to pursue her dream of writing. Just imagine such a fantastical career! Once writing, new exciting worlds opened up shedding light in darkly held corners. Her marriage, her children's dreams, her parents' approval, her nosy friends - each and every one was presented in a disturbingly new way. Carefully, she made sure never to write an honest word, thus avoiding any chance of damaging conflict - and any chance of possible success.

The right honorable Senator Oscar Tibbs was the first elected black man from his state. Blessed with pleasing looks and engaging charm, he championed the ideals of the dead Martin Luther King. His campaign to be liked was a runaway success, role model and hero he be in the adoring eyes of his constituents. Yet never did he himself believe it true, trolling for prostitutes of degradation in homeless city nights. His campaign slogan: "We need only to believe to win!"

Lance Finster knew how to get the girls. And not just any girls, but fantasy girls of unearthly delight! He labored as a carpet cleaner on a lark but gathering envy was his true paycheck in life. In the tri-state area of his domain he knew of no other who could match his trophy case of ecstasy dream life. Yes, he could be anything he wanted to be - just so long as he didn't have to be anything.

Perry Heinsom hated the only job he could ever hold. He dreamed of a tropical island where only he would live. Once there he'd never lift a finger in anger again, never having to lie. In time, he planned to purchase his paradise even as his job consumed him, his health and his relationships. But he remained undaunted in the race to create his own personal empire - and then sit upon its throne in sickly silent splendor.

I Saw One Of Those "Must See" Films

There's an eternal naiveté about war and it's one that inhabits most its proponents who most claim to know its dangers. As all the world truly is a stage, those with war in their souls must sell that war and thusly turn a blind eye to the true reality of its futility and useless wreckage. That is why even after all this time we still hear (and trust) the chant, "War is hope! Peace is doom!" But there is no ultimate profit to the illusion.

America has a unique war fetish. One day we were walking along and saw a bully beating someone up. We stopped the bully and felt really good about ourselves. Then we saw someone who was thinking of being a bully and so we beat that person up too. Then we someone who looked like a bully to our eyes and so we beat him up too. Until finally, slowly, we became the bully - but in our minds are still doing the Lord's work. That's the illusion of war.

America, of course, is not unique in her self-deception and stupidity about war. Like any drug, the longer you take it the more it corrupts you until you become the very thing you're fighting. You have no choice but to become that to which you give all your energy. And that's how Israel took the "role of the Nazis" in her early 80's siege of Lebanon as described in the animated documentary "Waltz With Bashir".

It has been described as an anti-war film. It is not. It is a pro-truth film, one intent on fact finding. It is the truth that is anti-war. The film's director was a participant in the Lebanon siege but has suppressed his memories of it. Like James Clavell in "King Rat", he must visit the past in order to keep his future. He seeks out his comrades in arms, retracing the descent that led to the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

Here's an abridged Wiki on the event:

The Sabra and Shatila massacre took place in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, Lebanon between September 16 and September 18, 1982, during the Lebanese civil war. Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were massacred in the camps by Christian Lebanese Phalangists while the camp was surrounded by the Israel Defense Force. In that period of time, Israel was at war with the PLO in Lebanon. Israeli forces occupied Beirut, controlled the entrances to the refugee camps of Palestinians and controlled the entrance to the city. The exact number of victims is disputed, from 700–800 to 3,500 (depending on the source).

Israeli forces enabled the entrance of the Christian Phalangist militia to the refugee camps by firing illuminating flares over the camps. The Phalangists were enraged by the assasination of Lebanese Christian president-elect Bashir Gemayel. The forces were under the direct command of Elie Hobeika, who later became a long-serving Member of the Parliament of Lebanon and, in the 1990s, a Lebanese cabinet minister.

Lebanon or Aushwitz?

Janet Lee Stevens, an American journalist, later wrote to her husband, Dr. Franklin Lamb:

"I saw dead women in their houses with their skirts up to their waists and their legs spread apart; dozens of young men shot after being lined up against an alley wall; children with their throats slit, a pregnant woman with her stomach chopped open, her eyes still wide open, her blackened face silently screaming in horror; countless babies and toddlers who had been stabbed or ripped apart and who had been thrown into garbage piles."

In 1982, an independent commission chaired by Sean MacBride concluded that the Israeli authorities or forces were, directly or indirectly, responsible. The Israeli government established the Kahan Commission to investigate, and in early 1983 it found that Israeli military personnel were aware that a massacre was in progress without taking serious steps to stop it. Therefore it regarded Israel as having indirect responsibility. The commission held Ariel Sharon personally responsible for having disregarded the prospect of acts of bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps and not preventing their entry.

Families lined up against the walls and shot in cold blood. Genocide deja vu. And the director was one of those shooting the flares into the murderous night of screams to enable the slaughter. All the more shocking when he reveals his ancestors were in Auschwitz, another place of genocide. With this he must make peace.

There are no Jews, no Christians, no Islamists, no atheists or agnostics, no blacks, no whites, no Germans, no Americans, no anything - it's sheer hogwash made up in our heads to make our wars seem justified. We are each merely a soul in need of love, nothing more, nothing less. But rare are those who believe that, because to do so means we kill for no reason.

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