The endgame has arrived

at least the ride to the camps will be comfortable

While currently being distracted by trivial things like losing their homes and jobs, and absorbing skyrocketing food and gas prices with falling real wages, and important things like the latest in a seemingly endless supply of interchangeable, clueless, hyper-sexualized prepubescent bits of pedophiliac jailbait (Montana Banana or Dakota Toyota or Milli Vanilli or whatever the fuck her name is) still more definitive proof of the death of the American Experiment (as if any more were needed) has arrived.

In 2003, Homeland Insecurity issued a 10 year strategic plan entitled, chillingly enough, ENDGAME. The 49 page report resurrects "a mission first articulated in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798" and has among its stated goals the removal of "all removable aliens" including "illegal economic migrants, aliens who have committed criminal acts, asylum-seekers (required to be retained by law) or potential terrorists."

Since, as the room full of informed people in Amerikkka already know, the "legal" (sic) infrastructure to declare pretty much any dissident as a "potential terrorist" is already in place, this certainly gives TPTB a lot of leeway to deal with anyone who cares to quibble with permanent war, economic implosion, ecological collapse, the shredding of the constitution or any of the other fun-filled facts of life in modern day Amerikkka, the best of all possible places in the best of all possible times.

Although passage of the Senate companion bill of the Rand Corporation's Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (aka the "Thinkcrime Bill") would be a nice finishing touch for the suite of police state legislation, the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive decreed by Boosh on May 9, 2007 is good enough. In it, Boosh gave himself the "authority" (sic) to take over all three branches of government upon the simple declaration of a "national emergency," which doesn't even need to take place in the United States.

But back to our story.

In 2006, former Halliburton subsidiary KBR was awarded a $385 million dollar contract to build, as its own press release said, detention centers for "an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs." In 2007, Chertoff increased the funding to $400 million to add 6,700 new new beds, a 32% increase over the previous year.

"New programs" is a charming phrase only a soulless lawyer or a evil dictator could love. It provides for no limitation on its implementation beyond the good will of the deviant psychopaths masquerading as Amerikkka's political "leadership" (sic) or extraparlimentary pressure that might be brought to bear on them by the brain-dead consumerist zombies known as the Amerikkkan public. I must confess a distinct hesitation to place much faith in either prospect.

Half-way through the ENDGAME plan, TPTB are finally ready to begin operationalizing it.

This month, the U.S. General Services Administration, acting on behalf of FEMA and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), leased the entire National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, Iowa until May 25th.

The alphabet soup of agencies involved have just completed the largest single site immigration bust in the nation's history, which "administratively arrested" over 390 individuals.

The Des Moines Register reports that detainees were processed "in one of three makeshift courtrooms at the detainee center in Waterloo. The set-up includes three courtrooms – two in trailers and one in an existing room."

I expected all along that they would use an immigration bust to test drive their new fascism, to avoid the modicum of public disapprobrium that might occur if they went after peace activists and such.

Well, here it is. It's happened. Massive sweeps, "administrative" arrests (i.e. fake, illegal arrests), portable kangaroo courts, the whole nine. Apparently the logistics went swimmingly. Delightful.

Coming as it does on the heels of an unusual number of other national insecurity drills adds another dimension of oddness.

There was USNORTHCOM’s National Level Exercise 2-08 which ran between May 1-8 with scenarios including multiple terrorist attacks in the state of Washington, an accidental chemical agent release in Oregon, a Category 4 hurricane impacting the mid-Atlantic Coast and the National Capitol Region region and aerospace events throughout North America. It all gave NORTHCOM (in its own words) "the opportunity to work with other federal agencies, state and local officials, as well as Canada, in the response to multiple events." Swell.

As reporting in the Washington Post, the hurricane hitting D.C. was used to test the largest "continuity of government" drill since 911 with thousands of executive branch employees only "being whisked from the Washington area by helicopter and car for a three-day test of their ability to run the government from remote locations during a disaster."

Executive branch employees only drilled. National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Dictatorship Directive in effect.

?!

Since 911 and the London subway bombings occurred during drills simulating exactly those types of occurences, these types of drill always make me a tad nervous.

What I find curious, however, and in its own way oddly hopeful, is some of the symbolism involved in the Iowa raids. For all of the effort the deviant elite occasionally put into the symbolism of much of their most repressive measures, it seems odd that in this one, they are tone-deaf to how bad the symbolism looks for their own "interests" (sic).

"Endgame" - yes, this whole arrival of full-blown fascism to Amerikkka was only enacted because the TPTB are at the "endgame" of the maturation of their karmic debt for 10,000 years of evil, top-down, hierarchies of control.

And while they may think they have just implemented a smashing success for their collapsing paradigm, where did it take place?

At Waterloo, a byword for the definitive collapse of the grandest, most sweeping schemes of hubris and violence.

The selling and shaping of our souls

(This is an edited version of a sermon delivered on May 4, 2008 at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas by Robert Jensen.)

"The last time I was in this pulpit to deliver a guest sermon, I spoke of the need for each of us to take up the role of prophet, to not be afraid of speaking in the prophetic voice, even when doing so involves risk.

Today I want to talk about the other kind of profit, the allure of which can so often quiet the prophetic voice within us.

Living in the most powerful and affluent country in the history of the world, this is not mere word play with homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings). Can we resist the seductive nature of the material rewards that come with profit to find within us the spirit of the prophetic? If we cannot, what is the fate of this country? What is the fate of the world that this country seeks to dominate? And my subject today: What is the fate of our souls?

Let’s start with one of the most well-known verses from the gospels, from Mark, where Jesus says: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” [Mark 8:36]

What do we gain when we covet the wealth of the world that can come with accepting the systems and structures of power? When feeling self-righteous, we are tempted to say that we agree with Jesus, that when we place too much value on material rewards we lose something greater. But if we are to be honest, we have to acknowledge that those material rewards in the world can be extremely seductive. If you doubt this, when you leave church go visit a shopping mall. No doubt we all know where to find one nearby. Even when the reward is not “the whole world” but just one little piece of it in a store in the mall, the pull of those rewards can be strong.

That’s perhaps the cruel edge of this truth -- the fact that in this culture when we talk about “selling out” or “selling our souls” we realize the selling price is typically quite low. That’s what Robert Bolt was getting at in his play A Man for All Seasons, in which Sir Thomas More is convicted of treason on the perjured testimony of Richard Rich, who in exchange for his capitulation to King Henry VIII is appointed Attorney-General for Wales. In the play, More asks one final question of Rich after noticing that the Attorney-General is wearing the medallion of his new position. The stage directions call for More to look into Rich’s face, “with pain and amusement,” saying, “For Wales? Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to lose his soul for the whole world. But for Wales?” [1]

I don’t we want to take sides in British regional and class conflicts, but his point is well taken. We can find amusement in the crumbs for which some people will sell their souls, but there is also much pain in recognizing ourselves in the mirror that Thomas More holds up for Richard Rich. For what would I sell my soul? For what have I sold my soul? Do I ever dream of Wales?

At some point in our lives, we have all sacrificed a principle or undermined another person to get what we want, though most of us have never lied under oath and helped send someone to the gallows. But the fact that there’s always a Richard Rich to point to, always someone whose soul-selling is more egregious than ours, is of little comfort. As Rev. Jim Rigby reminds us, week after week in his sermons from this pulpit, the job of theology is not to comfort us in our conceits but to challenge us to go deeper.

That means not only reflecting on our own failures in such moments, but going beyond the idea that our souls are at risk only in a single moment in which we might be tempted to sell out. Just as important is the slower process by which that state of our souls can be eroded. I want to frame that challenge in the words of the writer Wendell Berry, using the first stanza of his poem “We Who Prayed and Wept”[2]:

We who prayed and wept
for liberty from kings
and the yoke of liberty
accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Berry trains our attention on the day-to-day reality of the world in which we live, in the most powerful and affluent country in the world, in which many of us hold the freedom to enslave ourselves. So, let’s expand the question beyond the dramatic moments in which we choose whether we will sell our souls at what price and focus on how our souls are shaped by the everyday realities of power and privilege.

My focus today is not on the injustice of this system, not on the suffering that inevitably results in a world structured by empire and capitalism. I’m not going to talk about the cruelty of a world in which half the population lives on less than $2 a day. Of course we should remind ourselves constantly that our affluence is conditioned on that suffering around the world, and that we have obligations to change that. But right now, I’m heading down a different path.

Since we live in a country that seems only to know how to speak in economic language that assumes capitalism is the state of nature, let’s examine this question in the language of profit and loss. If we live in “the land of the bottom line,” to borrow a phrase from the songwriter John Gorka, then let’s talk in those terms. How might we approach a die-hard capitalist who cares only about maximizing self-interest and make an argument that it profits us not to sell our souls for the whole world, let alone for the shopping mall.

I’m using the mall as a stand-in for the readily available pleasures in a consumer-capitalist society that absorbs a disproportionate share of the world’s resources, the pleasures that come with what we might call the cheap toys of empire: big houses, fast cars, abundant food, nonstop spectacle entertainment, and an endless variety of numbing drugs. When we capitulate to the system, most of us get some combination of those things. Maybe there are some among us who have tapped into real wealth and real power, but my guess is that most of us here today are somewhere in the middle and upper-middle classes. We aren’t the ruling class, but we live well, at a level that in previous eras only the elite could expect. But look closer and what do we get? How do we feel when we are alone with ourselves in our big houses; when we park the fast car in the driveway; when we push back from the table after eating too much; when we switch off the television or drive away from the stadium; when the effects of those drugs -- whether legal or illegal, obtained from the pharmacy or on the street -- wear off.

An important note: I don’t want to ignore the fact that to those who have never had much in this world, access to material goods is not a trivial matter. For those who struggle for the basics, this kind of reflection on affluence likely seems self-indulgent. But still we have to ask: When we go so far beyond material security into the level of consumption common in the United States, and when we are through consuming the things that profits can buy, where are we and who are we? Do we like where we are and who we are?

For the moment, put aside empathy and compassion for those suffering with less. We don’t need to be told that the injustice of this system hurts others and that the fate of those others should be our concern. For the moment, ask yourself what have been the consequences for you and your soul of living with the cheap toys of empire.

It’s enticing to want to wiggle out of that one by pointing a finger at those who consume more -- Richard Rich in a Hummer, perhaps -- but that’s at best a temporary diversion. There are always others making choices that are easy to critique. I’m suggesting that instead we ask a more troubling question -- not about our empathy for others in the world who suffer with nothing or our contempt for those wallow in everything -- but about ourselves. How do we feel, deep down in the place where we don’t allow others in, where we often won’t go ourselves?

This country is awash in abundance of most everything except the two things we cannot really live a decent life without -- the meaning we desperately seek in a world of endless mystery, and the sense of real connection to others that we crave so that we can share that meaning.

There are big moral moments in our lives, times in which we must choose between allegiance to our principles and our fear of power, between our obligations to others and our desire for material comfort. In those moments, we should struggle to make sure we don’t sell our souls for the temporary pleasures of the world. But every day we also recognize that our souls -- our sense of what it means to be human beings -- are being shaped day-to-day by the same systems of power and privilege.

Let me be clear one more time: My pitch today is not just that all this matters for the sake of justice, but that it also matters for more selfish reasons. In this system, we lose when we allow systems of empire and capital to shape our souls, day after day in ways sometimes to subtle to see. We lose no matter how many toys we accumulate.

This is one of the main reasons I come to church and look forward to Rev. Rigby’s reminders of how hard it is to be a decent person in this world -- not because I’m so noble but because I’m so weak. I need to be reminded, over and over, that most of the pleasures of the empire are mostly illusion. The irony is that typically we work so hard for money that buys those cheap toys, yet we often are unwilling to do the hard work to get something more. That’s why we need some kind of church, some place to come to support each other in that struggle to be more than the culture expects of us.

That is always a struggle, even for the strongest among us. Wendell Berry has done more than most of us to resist this culture of greed through his efforts not only to theorize about sustainable agriculture and rural community but to live those practices, yet he reminds us that he struggles. I’ll finish with the last lines of Berry’s essay “Feminism, the Body, and the Machine,” in which he asks difficult questions about how we are to make these decisions. He ends not with a critique of others but an accounting of his own life. He laments the ways he still is caught up in the system and its machines, one of which is the chainsaw he uses to cut wood because of the speed and efficiency. But he also recognizes that it is “inconvenient, uncomfortable, undependable, ugly, stinky, and scary.” He ends that essay on a difficult, but hopeful, note:

I am not an optimist; I am afraid that I won’t live long enough to escape my bondage to the machines. Nevertheless, on every day left to me I will search my mind and my circumstances for the means of escape. And I am not without hope. I knew a man who, in the age of chainsaws, went right on cutting his wood with a handsaw and an axe. He was a healthier and saner man than I am. I shall let his memory trouble my thoughts."

Quite so

H. L. Mencken

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars. The men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.”

Says a lot about the sad state of affairs at the end of empire, doesn't it?

Apocalypse Now

Of course, it is easier to manipulate the figurehead of a system if he is so insane that he will continue serving the insane elite faction which is his true master, no matter how low his approval ratings get or how isolated he is internationally.

The minions read the unspoken cues of the system loud and clear: the elites want a police state in Amerikkka and they want it now.

That's why the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act," which would put some of the finishing touches on home-grown fascism by codifying Orwell's chilling prediction of "thoughtcrime," is curently under consideration in the Senate after having recently passed the House by 404-6 with no debate or media attention. With the next false flag terror incident, it will fly through the Senate faster than greased lightning.

That's why reactionary scumfucking technicians of misery like John Yoo are rewarded with prestigious academic positions after providing the legal niceties to justify the torture desired at the apex of Amerikkkan government, torture that even includes interrogative drugs, harkening back to the bad old days of MK-Ultra. A few bad apples my ass.

Yoo's Dean at the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law refuses to contenance firing or even sanction of Yoo.

Someone should remind Distinguished Dean Edley about the law. The Constitution makes ratified international treaties the "supreme law of the land" in Amerikkka. Therefore, Yoo is clearly a war criminal for drafting a memo that attempted to justify the aborgation of the Geneva Conventions. One would think that criminal conduct aiding and abetting crimes against humanity in violation of constitutional obligations might trump "academic freedom."

That, however, would misapprehend the relationship of the academy to empire, a misapprehension no ambitious professor or dean at a "top tier" university ever makes. In fact, the higher you go up the prestige pyramid, the more they function of bulwarks of empire, as sniper units patrolling the boundaries of an insane, immoral, and unsustainable "conventional wisdom," even as that paradigm collapses in flames all around us.

If St. Obama sent a few dozen Bush administration officials to the Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity within his first 100 days, I would call that a good start. But I am not holding my breath, in part because he and I both know he'd probably be killed or impeached for even trying.

Clearly, there is no cause for optimism that any of this will be rolled back. As the Jeremiah Wright flap proved, the media will flay and crucify anyone who gets anywhere near speaking even the most basic, incontrovertible truths about Amerikkkan empire. Similarly, education continues to fulfill its primary function of keeping the nation retarded.

Everything is going to hell in a handbag. For god sakes, they are rationing rice at Costco and Sam's Club! Is there nothing at all capable of waking the sheeple? Apparently. Maybe starvation.

But when the food riots start, it will be legal for the cops to kill you.

Amerikkka grew from infancy to senility without ever having become an adult, from barbarism to decadence without ever having passed through civilization, and now the apocalypse has arrived to punctuate that abysmal failure.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled (trauma based mind control) programming.

The Disneyfication of Amerikkka's insane body image

In case you needed more evidence that Amerikkka has entered the gates of hell, how about this new book for the children of mothers going in for elective plastic surgery. It's so unbelievable, you'd be forgiven for thinking it might have come from The Onion. In fact, there was a very similar story in The Onion a few years ago. I guess reality is getting so bizarre it is starting to outstrip parody. What a morally repulsive book. Think of its impact on children, especially girls, who are already subjected to so much deeply insane, consumer capitalism-driven female body image rubbish.

When a liberal sees a homeless person

They think the system isn't working.

When an anarchist or a socialist sees a homeless person they think the system is working exactly how it's designed to.

I can smell hope and it

The typical liberal democrat would probably say that although the system is slanted towards the rich and powerful, you still have to engage with it if you want incremental change for the better (and incremental change is the best you can hope for). I would argue that, judging by its effects and not its rhetoric, the function of the system is far different. Instead of serving democracy and the people, the function of the system is to serve the interests of the people as little as possible consistent with maintaining the illusion of democracy, so the real business of Amerikkkan government can continue impeded: transferring vast amounts of wealth from the working and middle classes to the rich and powerful and the national insecurity state in the most sophisticated refinement of slavery and feudalism the world has ever seen, the Amerikkkan simulacra-phantasm.

You don't rise to the level of being a "credible" candidate for national "leadership" unless you agree to all of these constraints on your freedom of agency, unless you agree to serve the true function of the system, unless you agree to deftly uphold all of its essential lies. Indeed, your deftness in upholding these lies is one of the primary things TPTB are looking in the job interview often mistakenly refered to as a "presidential campaign."

For that reason I don't share many people's hope that an incoming democratic president will roll back fascism in Amerikkka. Fascism in Amerikkka is not an anomoly. The only thing that is slightly unusual about it is the speed with which the hypocritical pretenses that Amerikkka wasn't already fascist have been abandoned. This is just the cultivation domestically of the mayhem Amerikkka has been dishing out abroad since WWII. The only vaguely surprising elements of this are its speed, brazenness, and total lack of any appreciable reaction from the people about to suffer under it.

TPTB may be evil but they are not stupid. They see the writing on the wall. They know Amerikkka is heading for economic, geo-strategic, and ecological convulsions of the first order of magnitude. The GWOT (global war on terriers) is a way to provide a new enemy to reinvigorate the permanent war economy in the wake of communism, and before the new long-term product, the "Chinese menace," can be rolled out. As importantly, the TPTB also see it as a wonderful tool to justify prompt, proactive preparations for keeping a lid on the civil unrest that is going to start exploding as the people finally start to feel the effects of the unimaginably massive economic, geo-strategic, and ecological catastrophes that are underway, feel them through even the miasma of their ignorance and consumer contentments.

Do you honestly think the president or Congress has any interest in bringing the two-headed hydra of the GWOT and the police state to heal? Give me a break. Congress isn't merely subservient to it, it's making money from it. Members of Congress have $196 million personally invested in war. Perhaps that played a small role in the doubling of the US offense budget in 2007 to from $790 billion dollars in 2000 to $1.6 trillion dollars in 2007.

And Washington can also be relied upon to ensure that education is given no chance to lift the people out of their willful ignorance. In fact, they even ensure that one of education's primary functions remains to serve the "school-to-war pipeline"

"which connects the three main things happening in education today: the regulation of what people know and how they come to know it through a regimented curricula, the noosing of that process through racist and anti-working class standardized exams, and the militarization of education." - Rich Gibson and E. Wayne Ross

The courts concur. A recent California appeals court ruling on homeschooling quoted a 1961 court decision to say that "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare."

I cannot say I am in favor of "patriotism and loyalty" to a state that, since WWII, has

"attempted to overthrow more than fifty foreign governments, it has dropped bombs on the people of around thirty countries, has attempted to assassinate some sixty foreign leaders, helped to suppress dozens of populist or nationalist movements, has tortured many thousands, and seriously and illegally intervened in one way or another in virtually every country on the planet, in the process of which the U.S. has caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair." - William Blum

Meanwhile, the gubmit is filling its tool box of total control as fast as ever:

Pentagon now using FBI to spy on Americans

FBI has national eavesdropping program that tracks IMs, emails and cell phones

"Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports"

DHS reckons US cops' access to satellite surveillance is a go

2003 Justice Department memo justifies torture, presidential dictatorship

So what should subject of the Amerikkkan empire do? Give up hope? Damn straight! Because to

"hope for some result means you have given up any agency concerning it. Many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world. By saying that, they’ve assumed that the destruction will continue, at least in the short term, and they’ve stepped away from their own ability to participate in stopping it." - Beyond Hope by Derrick Jensen

With the loss of hope, we become dangerous, because we become impossible to bullshit and committed to action. We achieve everything the system is designed to prevent us from achieving. We achieve lightness.

"Were I to choose an auspicious image for the new millennium, I would choose that one: the sudden agile leap of the poet-philosopher who raises himself above the weight of the world, showing that with all his gravity he has the secret of lightness, and that what many consider to be the vitality of the times - noisy, aggressive, revving and roaring - belongs to the realm of death, like a cemetery for rusty old cars." - Italo Calvino "Six Memos for the New Millennium"

We become capable of shutting down the war machine, like the
Longshoremen who are going to close West Coast ports on International Labor Day (May 1) to protest the war.

I call that a good start. Actions like these help start to chip away at

"one of the main barriers to reaching millions of Americans, (their) deeply held belief that no matter what the U.S. does abroad, no matter what horror may result, no matter how bad it may look, the government of the United States means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on the odd occasion cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are always honorable, if not divinely inspired." - William Blum again

Not until Amerikkkans abandon their most cherished illusions will they find their strength and finally be able to bring abiding sanity and morality to their lives and government.

Trouble

A number of topics crossed my mind for this post.

Like how 95% of what Jeremiah Wright said should be common knowledge to any high school student, and that Obama felt compelled to "disavow" it demonstrates a total and extremely dangerous lack of intellectual seriousness in Amerikkka, and how important it is to pander to that idiocy to remain "credible," or how central that idiocy is to keeping "American democracy" alive as a functional brand name, how much the ruling elite relies upon it. The lack of ability/willingness to use reason or engage in sustained thought among the people of a wounded, dying empire that still has the power to kill millions within hours is terrifying.

Like how it finally occurred to me to be pissed off that I have to face TEOTWAWKI now that I'm coming into my prime of life. The Baby Boomers had decades of prosperty and fun and are leaving the world with a catastrophic mess they are too old, worn-out and guilt-ridden to fix and the Echo Generation/Generation Y/the Millenials are so thoroughly distracted by the gadgetry that has been with them their whole life, so totally uncurious, so proud to be stupid, so utterly indifferent to all gratifications that are neither material and instantaneous, that they will be of no use either. So ironically it will be left to the relatively small generation sandwiched between them, generation x, who never got any of the gravy those generations got. Instead of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, we got herpes, the AIDS pandemic, "just say no," the War on Drugs, and Vanilla Ice. Instead of the tech boom, we had McJobs. And yet we will be forced to sort everything out when the shit hits the fan and people start actually fucking paying attention.

Like how much of the far left, progressives, activists, whatever you want to call them are too sectarian, sanctimonious, and unhip to culture to be of much help either.

Like how maybe wanting shit to hit the fan is just another variation on millenarialist thinking and maybe capitalism is a parasite that enough sense not to kill its host (the people and the planet), or at least kill it slowly. But I doubt it.

Like how this subprime mess and collapsing dollar that has everyone in a tizzy is only the fuse and $500 trillion worth of derivitives sitting on a global economy of $60 trilion is the bomb.

Like how ironic it is that the scum fucking predators that created this economic catastrophe are being bailed out of the disasters they created to the tune of hundreds of billions while New Orleans was left to die. Now some of the victims may even be forced to pay back what little they were given.

Like many signs appearing indicating that a fool blown aerial assault on Iran seems back on the menu, perhaps even imminent.

But you know what, everything has become such a living nightmare that I can't be bothered. Current events have cycled me through fear, rage, contempt, and sadness so many times in the last six years, with a depth and intensity "normal" people can't even begin to fathom.

Today, a visceral sense the attack on Iran will happen. Or, even if it doesn't, as worse has already happened and only worse remains yet to come. Shuddering, tears.

There's just too much trouble out there and my antennae is just too sensitive. Hit the circuit breakers.

"Trouble
Oh trouble set me free
I have seen your face
And it's too much too much for me

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me

I've drunk your wine
You have made your world mine
So won't you be fair
So won't you be fair

I don't want no more of you
So won't you be kind to me
Just let me go where
I'll have to go there

Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You have made me a wreck
Now won't you leave me in my misery

I've seen your eyes
and I can see death's disguise
Hangin' on me
Hangin' on me

I'm beat, I'm torn
Shattered and tossed and worn
Too shocking to see
Too shocking to see

Trouble
Oh trouble move from me
I have paid my debt
Now won't you leave me in my misery

Trouble
Oh trouble please be kind
I don't want no fight
And I haven't got a lot of time"

- "Trouble" by Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)

You've read the lyrics. Now watch the movie and download an Elliott Smith cover.

Brit spies confirm Dalai Lama's report of staged violence

Chinese soldiers getting ready to pose as Tibetan monks

"Britain's GCHQ, the government communications agency that electronically monitors half the world from space, has confirmed the claim by the Dalai Lama that agents of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the PLA, posing as monks, triggered the riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured."

more at the link

Spirituality

I would say that my spiritual side is one of the most intense aspects of my self even though it is extremely unconventional and unnamable with existing labels. I can't separate it from my political, ecological, or economic views either. Buddhism, Daoism, mysticism, animism, indigenous and shamanic traditions form the base, all fused together. The ethical values of compassion, charity and peace found in the best parts of the sky god traditions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) are of value too, although they are really only a social distillation of what already exists in a more primordial way in the traditions that form my base.

I think I can break it down to these principles:

1) Spiritually is an ontology, a way of being in the world, and an epistemology, a way of knowing the world, not a time of the week or a place that you go to.

2) Spirituality can exist completely independent of "organized religion."

3) Spirituality can be extremely personal, and still exist as a powerfully religious experience even when not accredited by conventional labels or legal precedents as "religious."

4) Most importantly, we are all interconnected with everything in the universe, "the one in the many and the many in the one."

The genius of the crowd by Charles Bukowski

Hank

there is enough treachery hatred violence absurdity
in the average human being
to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

Amerikkka is a nation of piss ignorant idiots

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." - Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820

Tom, I couldn't agree more. That is the ideal not only of democracy but of the dharma.

Unfortunately, the people don't want their discretion informed.

Sure, I've heard it a million times. It is "elitest" or "uncompassionate" to think the masses fools. Yet, if you deal with facts and utilize reason, only one conclusion appears. The masses are fools. Worse yet, they are diffidently proud to be fools.

This complaint has been leveled against the Amerikkkan public many times from many perspectives. Never before, however, was it this all-pervasive and this responsible for impending catastrophe on every front: political, geostrategic, economic, ecological, and so on and so on.

Beware

Suicide rate at 25-year high for middle-aged Americans

Bush vetoes U.S. bill outlawing CIA waterboarding

Diebold stock soars after $3 billion takeover bid by defense contractor conglomerate United Technologies

In signing statement, Bush asserts right to open your physical mail

NSA quietly expands domestic spying program, even as Congress balks

Derivatives the new "ticking bomb" Buffett and Gross warn: $516 trillion bubble is a disaster waiting to happen

"The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention."

World central banks unite to ease credit strain

Dana Perino: “I'm under strict instructions to not talk about the dollar”

The motive is simple

greed

Big ups to new reader ddjango and his blog P!

Nice quote from ya: "Because the soul has such deep roots in personal and social life and its values run so contrary to modern concerns, caring for the soul may well turn out to be a radical act, a challenge to accepted norms." - Thomas More

Ain't that the everlovin' truff?

After some attenuated spttuerings, House democrats are poised to cave into to Boosh on telecom immunity for unconstitutional spying.

I am shocked, shocked. Fuckin' sell outs. Why are they drawing a paycheck? They sure as hell ain't working.

Harkin sez potheads wanna sell their children.

What is this, "Reefer Madness," 70 years later? What a dipshit. Gotta love those democrats.

San Jose police to use crowd control sound wave weapons.

As I've been saying the whole time: all of these "non lethal crowd control" weapons will be beta tested in Iraq and rolled out in Amerikkka when the shit starts hitting the fan in earnest. Which is any day now.

MSNBC hopes 911 truth activists are being sent to the "secret" CIA torture prisons.

The MSM not only mocks those who want truth and sanity in government, but wants them physically hurt and psychological tormented, in illegal and unconstitutional ways.

How cute! How hilarious! How "saavy!" How "wise!"

Expect much more of this in the near future. Good to know clearly whose side they are on, however. We can plan accordingly.

A new day

Since 911 and the London bombings occurred during "training exercises" paralleling exactly these kinds of attacks, it pays to keep an eye on what cities are on deck for "exercises." Houston, Chicago, Portland - remain vigilant this year.

If you don't like this bullshit, quit paying for it.

Not to say that the going won't continue to be hard. The rot in the system continues unimpeded. The GOP wants more telecomm cash in exchange for their efforts to give them immunity for their brazen criminality. Killer robots are about to run amok. Democratic "leadership" in Congress continue you be gutless cowards totally unwilling to do fuck all about ending the occupation of Iraq. The dissident - I mean terrorist - watch list has swollen to an absurd 900,000 names.

I am going to be so releived when TPTB appoint Obama. It will be a new day.

The constitution is a dead letter

"Fat Tony" Scalia tells the BBC that the US Constitution allows for torture - forgets about the Eighth Amendment (prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment”) and the Fifth Amendment (protects against self-incrimination).

The Supreme Court refuses to hear a suit brought by the ACLU challenging the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program, even though it directly violates the FISA law - forgets about the Fourth Amendment.

Their retarded reasoning was based on the narrow question of "standing." Only those individuals and organizations that can prove they were they were the object of government surveillance have "standing" to bring suit. But no evidence proving this is admissable because it is a "state secret" necessary to protect "sources and methods."

What Orwellian horse shit! So much for the separation of powers.

As Bush said in 2005: "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face! It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"

As reactionary is this sounds, he is actually right. Law, constitutions, jurisprudence, are nothing in and of themselves. They are simply collectively agreed upon fictions. Once key stakeholders disengage from this consensus, they become what they really are: pieces of paper. But let's be clear about the ramifications of the cumulative impact of eight years of savage assaults on bedrock American freedoms:

The US Constitution is a dead letter and the assaults upon it will never be rolled back, even if a democrat is appointed pResident.

They were never intended to "protect the general public from terrorism." They were enacted to protect a predatory federal government from an enraged citizenry.

Obama-mania!

It looks like TPTB will be appointing Obama.

My standard line when I talk presidential politics is that, except for Ron Paul, there isn't a single candidate that represents any departure whatsoever from business as usual for the military imperialist-corporatist state, that participation is utterly pointless, and there is nothing to do except wait and rebuild on the wreckage of Empire after it collapses.

Almost to a person, the people I say this to wince in pained frustration. How immature! You have to support the lesser of two evils! You have to participate in the system to effect incremental change!

Spare me. I've heard all those bromides countless times before and have incontestable rebuttals for each and every one of them. The people who utter them are afraid to hear this kind of truth. If they were to admit it was true, it would shatter the foundations of the conventional wisdom upon which they have built their lives.

Nevertheless, it is true - and on a subconscious level, very near the conscious level, they know it. The game is rigged.

As Arthur Silber has written: "Any individual who rises to the national political level is, of necessity and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system."

The World Socialist Web Site distilled all of my inchoate misgivings about Obama when they wrote that his campaign "is a preemptive attack by the ruling class against (a leftward movement in the United States). Its function is to delude the American people and divert their growing opposition to war, economic crisis and attacks on democratic rights back into the dead-end of the Democratic Party.

The president who enters the White House in January 2009 will face immense crises both at home and abroad. To address these crises from the standpoint of the needs of the financial aristocracy will require the imposition of unprecedented sacrifices on the American people. That in turn will require a new political approach—a turn to the Democratic Party, which has always been relied upon by big business to use its image as the “party of the people” to defend the profit system.

The typical Obama speech is a mass of nebulous phrases about uniting America, without the slightest acknowledgement that social and economic interests of working people, the vast majority of Americans, are diametrically opposed to those of the corporate and financial elite."

Native American prophecy

"If you don't have a moral question in your governing process, then you don't have a process that is going to last."

The information for us to save ourselves and fulfill our role as good stewards for our spaceship already exists, people. Use it.

Elders Speak 1

Elders Speak 2

Elders Speak 3

Elders Speak 4

Elders Speak 5

Triumph of the heartless over the clueless?

For now, but not indefinately

In 1937, the German air force dropped 45,000 kilograms of bombs on the Spanish town of Guernica. The international community was mortified and Pablo Picasso was inspired to paint Guernica, one of the greatest pieces of political art of the 20th century. The Amerikkkan air force recently dropped the same amount of explosives on a small Sunni farming district in Iraq, and no one utters a word. We go about our daily lifes as if it was not happening.

We live in a society that is run and structured by clinical psychopaths. Mass murder is the new normal. Wholesale theft of everything the working and middle class own is the new normal. Lockdown in Fortress Amerikkka is the new normal. People accept it as a given and don't make a peep about it, as long as their rudimentary creature comforts are not materially affected.

Our natural state is one of estactic communion with the universe. Unfortunately, the people let the psychopaths running this ancient, top-down system of control commandeer the collective unconscious to separate us from our natural ecstasy and simplicity of needs. Through control over the mainstream media (MSM), an education system in tatters, the political and economic sectors, and the creation of an illusory rat race, they trick us. They replace our natural ecstasy with a desire for things external to our selves, commodities. When the people look to things outside of themselves for satisfaction, instead of adjusting their attitude towards themselves, society and the universe, they are doomed to failure and perpetually heightened dissatisfaction.

Step off of the hamster wheel. Step out of the game. Step out of the charade. Re-embrace your orginal nature as a perfect and holy child of the universe. We are 99%. They are 1%. Another world is possible, and will come, although not before profound social dislocation - and the violent initiatives of the slaves to retain their own slavery. But ultimately even those demented idiots will finally come to see this as a pointless cul-de-sac and recognize their own self-interest.

As gratifying as the image may be, there is no point whatsoever in lining these scumfuckers up against a wall and hosing them all down in a hail of bullets. Approached that way, it would just be a hydra growing more heads. More properly, we need to heal the perception of the masses and cultivate the paradigm shift to another world of sanity and goodness, so that these fools are simply seen as the fools they are, and easily ignored.

The Care and Feeding of the Practical Psychopath

The Trick of the Psychopath's Trade: Make Us Believe that Evil Comes from Others

More on consumerism

"Although each described it differently, Buddha, Spinoza, and Jesus concluded that the source of our misery is avarice, material attachment, and self-absorption. "

"Financial success in modern industrial societies is associated with heightened awareness of financial self-interest, resulting in greater self-absorption, which can increase the likelihood for depression; while a lack of financial self-interest in such an economic system results in deprivation and misery, which increases the likelihood for depression."

"In Fromm's culminating work, To Have or to Be? (1976), he contrasts the depressing impact of a modern consumer culture built on the having mode (greed, acquisition, possession, aggressiveness, control, deception, and alienation from one's authentic self, others, and the natural world) versus the joyful being mode (the act of loving, sharing, and discovering, and being authentic and connected to one's self, others, and the natural world)...And he most certainly would be sad that mental health treatment has increasingly become a component rather than a confrontation of modern consumerism."

"The perversion of the pursuit of happiness to mean that it is our duty to be chronically upbeat has, according to psychologist and journalist Lesley Hazleton, resulted in the labeling of anxiety and depression first as weakness and now as illness. In 1984 she published The Right to Feel Bad, which confronts this unhappiness taboo: "Feeling good is no longer simply a right, but a social and personal duty.""

from Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy by Bruce E. Levine

As Anomie commented on this article on Alternet: "The more isolated we are, then the more lonely, frightened, vulnerable, impressionable, and pliable we are."

"What does the damage is the combination of inequality with the widespread relative materialism of Affluenza - placing a high value on money, possessions, appearances and fame when you already have enough income to meet your fundamental psychological needs."

"Capitalism stokes up relative materialism: unrealistic aspirations and the expectation that they can be fulfilled. It does so to stimulate consumerism in order to increase profits and promote short-term economic growth. Indeed, I maintain that high levels of mental illness are essential to Selfish Capitalism, because needy, miserable people make greedy consumers and can be more easily suckered into perfectionist, competitive workaholism."

"Depressed or anxious, you work ever harder."

"Is Selfish Capitalism Driving Us Mad?" by Oliver James

What happens if you point these things out? The MSM shuns, taunts, ignores, and ridicules you.

Although Glen Greenwald was talking about something else when he wrote this, it also captures the punditocracys' sentiment towards those who speak passionately against consumerism (or, indeed, those speak passionately about anything). They would recoil against it "because they believe in nothing. They have no passion about anything. And they thus assume that everyone else suffers from the same emptiness of character and ossified cynicism that plagues them. And all of their punditry and analysis and political strategizing flows from this corrupt root."

"Not only do they believe in nothing, they think that a Belief in Nothing is a mark of sophistication and wisdom. Those who believe in things too much - who display political passion or who take their convictions and ideals seriously - are either naive or, worse, are the crazy, irrational, loudmouth masses and radicals who disrupt the elevated, measured world of the high-level, dispassionate sophisticates."

"They operate from a set of completely unexamined, empty premises that reflect their own character and belief system, but nobody else's. They have no core convictions and no passion and think that those attributes are the marks of sober, responsible people. And they project those character flaws onto everyone else and assume that nobody other than unserious lunatics are motivated by real belief."

"So knowing and sophisticated. So wise and insightful to the hard-core political realities. Always above the lowly impassioned masses and their misguided, simplistic notions (such as the belief that there should be consequences for presidential lawbreaking - how excitable and stupid that is). So cleverly restrained and calculating."

But the smug satisfaction of a minuscule clique of soulless pseudo-intellectuals will pale in comparison to the raw fury and unbelievable magnitude of the eventually populist response to the collapse of consumerist lifestyles in Amerikkka: an orgy of feel-good violence that ushers in fundamentalist Xtian theocratic fascism.

“A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cultures of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.” - Robert O. Paxton

Consumption, desire and contentment

neo-conservative economic development policies

As the prominent anthropologist Marshall Sahlins has postulated, perhaps the "original affluent society" was the hunter-gatherers, in largest part because their needs were so few, and included almost nothing they couldn't carry themselves. Their health was good, their diet varied, their social ties strong, and the amount of time needed for subsistence activities minimal. In contrast, modern man has become a slave to artificially manufactured desires masquerading as "needs."

Unfortunately, international political economy has been progressively more tightly organized around these manufactured desires since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Since the emergence of unfettered personal consumption guided by a professional marketing sector highly skilled in using non-rational cues to stimulate desire starting in the inter-war period, this has only continued to intensify enormously. Now that highly populated "developing countries" - most obviously China and India - aspire to "first world standards of living" - and stand poised on the brink of "achieving" it - this vector threatens to eat the world.

Advocates for China, India and their ilk will say "But the first world has already achieved it. It would be unfair for us to deny it to ourselves, especially after we have lived in poverty so long, a poverty in many ways caused by the imperialist actions of the so-called first world nations."

To which I would answer. Yes, it is all extremely unfair but do the math. It is not possible. For India and China alone to attain American "standards of living" would require the material resources of FIVE ADDITIONAL PLANET EARTHS. It's already absolutely obliterating every component of the environment of China, although few actually notice or care and they continue, full speed ahead. Water, soil, you name it, the Chinese have already destroyed it, even with their endlessly yacked about "3,000 years of culture." It is even canceling out all of their illusory GDP gains.

What is the use of the "3,000 years of culture" every educated Chinese prattles on and on about if it doesn't help them make better, more pragmatic choices for national development? After 25 years of loving study of the language and culture, I'm unclear as to the answer.

More importantly, the dirty secret of consumerism that everyone universally fails to comprehend is that the manufactured desires of consumerism actually fail to satisfy. In fact, they make us permanently unhappy. The so-called rich countries are unhealthy, depressed, and economically addicted to war. They try to solve this by still more consumerism and medicalization of private reactions to public structures of grotesque inequity as "personal pathologies."

Indeed, they continue to double down on ontologies predicated on having, not being. "I am what I own." Worse yet, many people (like those who go in for fake boob jobs) actually fuse commodities into their very bodies. But the sad truth about commodities is that they fail to satisfy immaterial needs.

The biggest problem here is that the so-called War on An Abstract Noun (Terror) is actually the Anglophone elites' last gasp attempt to preserve the final tattered remnants of their prerogatives of consumption-based "lifestyles," the preservation of which is the only thing that prevents open revolt in their jurisdictions.

But in the end it will fail, destabilize the world, and usher in police states in all of the major Anglophone countries.

The lunatics in charge of the agenda-setting global economic and political systems are clearly on the way out over the long-term because they are inbred, their power base is shallow, and their ideas are unskillful. The real question, however, is how much damage will they do on the way out? They keep trying to make their repression "legal."

Dog knows they will hang on to power just as long as they can. I mean, some of these world leaders are really clinically insane. It is rather disturbing.

Edmund Hillary dead at 88

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay

The ancient dream of total control

Zbigniew Brzezinski's 30 year old prophecy of "the technotronic era" is being fulfilled.

"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. The capacity to assert social and political control over the individual will vastly increase. It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date, complete files, containing even most personal information about the health or personal behavior of the citizen in addition to more customary data. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities." - Zbigniew Brzezinski "Between Two Ages" 1971

Finally technologically feasible, it is being implemented with all possible speed.

(BTW Brzezinski, founder of Al Qaeda and unindicted war criminal, is mocha hope Obama's main "national security" advisor, proving yet again that there are no essential differences between the corporatist-imperialist objectives of Democrats and Republicans.)

One of the pioneers of geographic information systems (GIS) is warning that, used in conjunction with with global positioning systems (GPS), it could lead to the geoslavery, 24/7 tracking of people.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency, a new DARPA-like entity, is going beyond the data mining that all of the telecomms are cooperating with the feds on to create a new program that, according to the request for proposals, "intends to explore automated methods of correlating socio-cultural features with human language indicators."

Although it is safe to assume the feds have been using their spy satellites on amerikkka illegally for some time, a new spy office - the National Applications Office - would legalize and institutionalize the practice.

The FBI has begun building the world's largest computer database of biometrics, digital images of irises, faces, fingerprints and palm patterns.

These are some of the new tools that will be used to round up thought criminals guilty under the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, a horrifically fascist bit of legislation (hat tip to mammadrama for the heads-up) that has passed the House and is now being considered in Lieberman's Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Bill analysis from the National Lawyer's Guild here.

And just to put an insanely, morbidly ironic point on it, a cofounder of the company that best exemplifies the modern incarnation of the military-industrial complex that is conjuring up this nightmare, the Carlyle Group, just bought the Magna Carta, one of the foundational texts of the human freedom they working so diligently to repress.


David Rubenstein and his new toy

100 items to disappear first

1. Generators (Good ones cost dearly. Gas storage, risky. Noisy...target of thieves; maintenance etc.)
2. Water Filters/Purifiers
3. Portable Toilets
4. Seasoned Firewood. Wood takes about 6 - 12 months to become dried, for home uses.
5. Lamp Oil, Wicks, Lamps (First Choice: Buy CLEAR oil. If scarce, stockpile ANY!)
6. Coleman Fuel. Impossible to stockpile too much.
7. Guns, Ammunition, Pepper Spray, Knives, Clubs, Bats & Slingshots.
8. Hand-can openers, & hand egg beaters, whisks.
9. Honey/Syrups/white, brown sugar
10. Rice - Beans - Wheat
11. Vegetable Oil (for cooking) Without it food burns/must be boiled etc.,)
12. Charcoal, Lighter Fluid (Will become scarce suddenly)
13. Water Containers (Urgent Item to obtain.) Any size. Small: HARD CLEAR PLASTIC ONLY - note - food grade if for drinking.
16. Propane Cylinders (Urgent: Definite shortages will occur.
17. Survival Guide Book.
18. Mantles: Aladdin, Coleman, etc. (Without this item, longer-term lighting is difficult.)
19. Baby Supplies: Diapers/formula. ointments/aspirin, etc.
20. Washboards, Mop Bucket w/wringer (for Laundry)
21. Cookstoves (Propane, Coleman & Kerosene)
22. Vitamins
23. Propane Cylinder Handle-Holder (Urgent: Small canister use is dangerous without this item)
24. Feminine Hygiene/Haircare/Skin products.
25. Thermal underwear (Tops & Bottoms)
26. Bow saws, axes and hatchets, Wedges (also, honing oil)
27. Aluminum Foil Reg. & Heavy Duty (Great Cooking and Barter Item)
28. Gasoline Containers (Plastic & Metal)
29. Garbage Bags (Impossible To Have Too Many).
30. Toilet Paper, Kleenex, Paper Towels
31. Milk - Powdered & Condensed (Shake Liquid every 3 to 4 months)
32. Garden Seeds (Non-Hybrid) (A MUST)
33. Clothes pins/line/hangers (A MUST)
34. Coleman's Pump Repair Kit
35. Tuna Fish (in oil)
36. Fire Extinguishers (or..large box of Baking Soda in every room)
37. First aid kits
38. Batteries (all sizes...buy furthest-out for Expiration Dates)
39. Garlic, spices & vinegar, baking supplies
40. Big Dogs (and plenty of dog food)
41. Flour, yeast & salt
42. Matches. {"Strike Anywhere" preferred.) Boxed, wooden matches will go first
43. Writing paper/pads/pencils, solar calculators
44. Insulated ice chests (good for keeping items from freezing in Wintertime.)
45. Workboots, belts, Levis & durable shirts
46. Flashlights/LIGHTSTICKS & torches, "No. 76 Dietz" Lanterns
47. Journals, Diaries & Scrapbooks (jot down ideas, feelings, experience; Historic Times)
48. Garbage cans Plastic (great for storage, water, transporting - if with wheels)
49. Men's Hygiene: Shampoo, Toothbrush/paste, Mouthwash/floss, nail clippers, etc
50. Cast iron cookware (sturdy, efficient)
51. Fishing supplies/tools
52. Mosquito coils/repellent, sprays/creams
53. Duct Tape
54. Tarps/stakes/twine/nails/rope/spikes
55. Candles
56. Laundry Detergent (liquid)
57. Backpacks, Duffel Bags
58. Garden tools & supplies
59. Scissors, fabrics & sewing supplies
60. Canned Fruits, Veggies, Soups, stews, etc.
61. Bleach (plain, NOT scented: 4 to 6% sodium hypochlorite)
62. Canning supplies, (Jars/lids/wax)
63. Knives & Sharpening tools: files, stones, steel
64. Bicycles...Tires/tubes/pumps/chains, etc
65. Sleeping Bags & blankets/pillows/mats
66. Carbon Monoxide Alarm (battery powered)
67. Board Games, Cards, Dice
68. d-con Rat poison, MOUSE PRUFE II, Roach Killer
69. Mousetraps, Ant traps & cockroach magnets
70. Paper plates/cups/utensils (stock up, folks)
71. Baby wipes, oils, waterless & Antibacterial soap (saves a lot of water)
72. Rain gear, rubberized boots, etc.
73. Shaving supplies (razors & creams, talc, after shave)
74. Hand pumps & siphons (for water and for fuels)
75. Soysauce, vinegar, bullions/gravy/soupbase
76. Reading glasses
77. Chocolate/Cocoa/Tang/Punch (water enhancers)
78. "Survival-in-a-Can"
79. Woolen clothing, scarves/ear-muffs/mittens
80. Boy Scout Handbook, / also Leaders Catalog
81. Roll-on Window Insulation Kit (MANCO)
82. Graham crackers, saltines, pretzels, Trail mix/Jerky
83. Popcorn, Peanut Butter, Nuts
84. Socks, Underwear, T-shirts, etc. (extras)
85. Lumber (all types)
86. Wagons & carts (for transport to and from)
87. Cots & Inflatable mattress's
88. Gloves: Work/warming/gardening, etc.
89. Lantern Hangers
90. Screen Patches, glue, nails, screws,, nuts & bolts
91. Teas
92. Coffee
93. Cigarettes
94. Wine/Liquors (for bribes, medicinal, etc,)
95. Paraffin wax
96. Glue, nails, nuts, bolts, screws, etc.
97. Chewing gum/candies
98. Atomizers (for cooling/bathing)
99. Hats & cotton neckerchiefs
100. Goats/chickens

From a Sarajevo War Survivor:
Experiencing horrible things that can happen in a war - death of parents and friends, hunger and malnutrition, endless freezing cold, fear, sniper attacks.

1. Stockpiling helps. but you never no how long trouble will last, so locate near renewable food sources.
2. Living near a well with a manual pump is like being in Eden.
3. After awhile, even gold can lose its luster. But there is no luxury in war quite like toilet paper. Its surplus value is greater than gold's.
4. If you had to go without one utility, lose electricity - it's the easiest to do without (unless you're in a very nice climate with no need for heat.)
5. Canned foods are awesome, especially if their contents are tasty without heating. One of the best things to stockpile is canned gravy - it makes a lot of the dry unappetizing things you find to eat in war somewhat edible. Only needs enough heat to "warm", not to cook. It's cheap too, especially if you buy it in bulk.
6. Bring some books - escapist ones like romance or mysteries become more valuable as the war continues. Sure, it's great to have a lot of survival guides, but you'll figure most of that out on your own anyway - trust me, you'll have a lot of time on your hands.
7. The feeling that you're human can fade pretty fast. I can't tell you how many people I knew who would have traded a much needed meal for just a little bit of toothpaste, rouge, soap or cologne. Not much point in fighting if you have to lose your humanity. These things are morale-builders like nothing else.
8. Slow burning candles and matches, matches, matches

link

The horror

If we could reduce the world's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12
Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and
Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
51 would be male, 49 would be female
82 would be non-white; 18 white
67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian
80 would live in substandard housing
67 would be unable to read
50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
33 would be without access to a safe water supply
39 would lack access to improved sanitation
24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that
do have electricity, most would only use it for light at
night.)
7 people would have access to the Internet
1 would have a college education
1 would have HIV
2 would be near birth; 1 near death
5 would control 32% of the entire world's wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
33 would be receiving --and attempting to live on--
only 3% of the income of "the village"

Some of the dangers of saline breast implants

If you have saline breast implants (which last approximately 10 years before they should be replaced or explanted) and you or your children start experiencing several of the following symptoms:

* Overwhelming, abnormal fatigue
* Widespread pain, can't always discern if it is muscles, joints, or both
* Morning stiffness
* Digestive problems (frequent nausea, acid indigestion, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps)
* Irritable bowel - alternating constipation/diarrhea
* Sleep disorder (trouble getting to sleep or remaining asleep)
* Hair loss
* Blurred vision
* Numbness, tingling, or sharp shooting pains in legs, arms, face
* Mouth sores
* Dry eyes, nose, mouth
* flu-like symptoms that don't go away
* Muscular weakness
* Difficulty concentrating
* Memory problems
* Chest pain
* Unexplained rashes or other skin anomaly
* Low grade, frequent fevers
* Weight gain

Then it might be the result of nerve damage during the implant surgery, mold, bacteria, or other growths in the saline of your implants leaking out into your body, or your exposure to the cocktail of chemicals from the silicone implant container, chemicals like:

* Methyl Ethyl Ketone
* Cyclohexane
* Isopropyl Alcohol
* Denatured Alcohol
* Acetone
* Urethane
* Lacquer thinner
* Ethyl Acetate
* Epoxy Resin
* Epoxy hardener
* Amine
* Printing ink
* Toluene
* Freon
* Silicone
* Platinum
* Lofol (formaldehyde)
* Flux
* Metal cleaning acid
* Eastman 910 glue (Cyanoacyryiates)
* Talcum Powder
* Color Pigments as release agents
* Oakite (a cleaning solvent)
* Ethylene Oxide (ETO)
* Carbob black
* Xylene
* Hexane
* Hexanone 2
* rubber
* Zinc Oxide
* Naphtha (rubber solvent)
* Phenol
* Benzene - known carcinogen
* Polyvinyl Chloride (liquid vinyl)
* Methylene Chloride/Dichlorom