We Need You Now

A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4377.htm

WAR is a racket. It always has been

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

Nothing Funny Here

Make A Joke About This, Stewart: http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/13219/2009-12-25.html The U.S. spends more for war annually than all state governments combined spend for the health, education, welfare, and safety of 308 million Americans ******************************************************************* Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, China, From the gun-boats in the river, Ten-inch shells for Christmas gifts, And peace on earth forever. Merry Christmas, India, To Gandhi in his cell, From righteous Christian England, Ring out, bright Christmas bell! Ring Merry Christmas, Africa, From Cairo to the Cape! Ring Hallehuiah! Praise the Lord! (For murder and for rape.) Ring Merry Christmas, Haiti! (And drown the voodoo drums— We'll rob you to the Christian hymns Until the next Christ comes.) Ring Merry Christmas, Cuba! (While Yankee domination Keeps a nice fat president In a little half-starved nation.) And to you down-and-outers, ("Due to economic laws") Oh, eat, drink, and be merry With a bread-line Santa Claus— While all the world hails Christmas, While all the church bells sway! While, better still, the Christian guns Proclaim this joyous day! While holy steel that makes us strong Spits forth a mighty Yuletide song: SHOOT Merry Christmas everywhere! Let Merry Christmas GAS the air! Langston Hughes, "Merry Christmas": Published in New Masses (Dec. 1930), p. 4.

It All Comes Home

Might Mention This Over Christmas Dinner:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_clive_bo_070921_department_of_vetera.htm

64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb. The U.S. Iraq Nuclear Holocaust represents far more than fourteen thousand Hiroshima’s.

Bony Fingers

Work Your Fingers To The Bone, What Do You Get?

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/18/world/AP-EU-Poland-Auschwitz-Sign-Stolen.html?_r=1

The Nazis' infamous iron sign declaring ''Arbeit Macht Frei'' -- German for ''Work Sets You Free'' -- was stolen Friday from the entrance of the former Auschwitz death camp, Polish police said.

Bertrand Called It

Throw Off The Mental Chains:

http://noworldsystem.com/2009/12/14/the-scientific-manipulation-of-our-reality/

"The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated” in other-words the public will not be allowed to know how it’s beliefs and opinions were scientifically manipulated by the government to think a certain way. “Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented."

Poisened Minds of Society

Scotch?:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/scotland/6818966/Recession-sees-antidepressant-use-soar.html

The recession has seen the volume of antidepressants being prescribed soar to record levels, with one in ten Scots taking the drugs every day... The Scottish Conservatives said more than a third of all GP appointments are made because Scots are suffering from stress, anxiety or depression.

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Another Drug Abuse:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/13/heart-attack-chemical-cocaine-users

Nearly half of all cocaine users are testing positive for a potentially fatal chemical caused by mixing the drug with alcohol.

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Starting Them Young:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html?_r=1&hp

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.

Turn The Damned Thing Off

Furthermore, let us not forget the role of media in terms of mind pollution. Based on their perception of their own interests, the media define one of their major roles as a kind of "spin doctor" whose responsibility is to diagnose the state of mind of the people in general, and the social institutions in particular.

Consequently, they carry out this mission by taking the pulse and temperature of the nation in order to inform it of its present condition - "a self fulfilling prophesy" as it were. The rationale for all of the work is that the media are providing society with what it want and needs. Eventually this so-called service takes on a life of its own both for the spin doctors and their patients. The people learn to need and feed upon this manufactured entertainment as it were real. The result for consumers becomes a prepackaged construction of their own reality. The more they need this merchandise, the more they believe it, ad the more they believe it, the more they need it. In the final analysis a socially patterned defective media addiction sets in and the people are hooked, booked, and cooked.

Manufacturing Social Distress: Psychopathy in Everyday Life pg.167

-Robert W. Reiber

1997, Plenum Press, NY

Matrix News

Here It Comes, The Future That Is:

http://io9.com/5423338/a-device-that-lets-you-type-with-your-mind

It's just a matter of time before this technology filters down from medical to elective, and we can all live out our cyberpunk dreams of plugging our brains directly into a computer.

Q of D

Maybe Why The World Is So Fucking Crazy, Geo.:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world.

The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself.

Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable men.

- George Bernard Shaw

Louis Weighs In

“The worst fault in our civilization here,” said Lingg, “is that it is not complex enough. It holds up one prize before all of us – riches. But many of us do not wealth: we want small competency without care or fear. We ought to be able to get that as employees in some department of State. That would remove us from the competition, and tend to increase the wages of those who live in the whirl of competition. Some of us, too, are born students, want to give ourselves to the study of this, that, or another science; there ought to be chemical laboratories in every street; physical laboratories in every town with posts attached at small pay for those who would give their lives to the advancement of knowledge; studios, too, for artists; State-aided theaters. Life must be made rich by making it more complex. By not reserving whole fields of industry to the State, by giving everything to the individual we are driving all men into this mad race for riches: hence suffering, misery, discontent, the ill-health of the whole organism. The brain and heart have their own rights, and should not be forced to serve the belly. We can turn flowers into manure.”

The BOMB, pg 88

Frank Harris

first published 1909

It's Joe's Birthday!*

An interviewer once ended his talk with Karl Marx by asking, "What is?" and Marx responded, "Struggle." 

Happy Birthday To A Guy Who Knew How To Get Things Done:

http://marxistleninist.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/celebrate-the-130th-anniversary-of-the-birth-of-comrade-stalin/

I want to get so far away, so quickly, from Marxism I'm afraid my Joe Lapchicks' are going to have a blow out. Strive and Struggle for a new hell on earth - sign me up!

If Marxs' message as reported above was simply "Struggle", man, I feel sorry for Marxists. They have to be the most bitter, disillusioned, disappointed, frustrated human beings around. Struggle brings pain. Pain brings stagnation. Incapacitation leads to depression. Then a sad, lonely death.

This so-called Socialism being promoted by the well-fed lefties is nothing more than centralized controlled capitalism. Why don't they ever call for abolition of the Federal Reserve, the root of all evil? They must be content with the exchange system as it stands, they just want to run it. "Meet the New Boss same as the Old Boss", as Townsend says.

I have seen too much false hope delivered by Trotskyites. They always fail in rallying people because they cynically don't have much of a care for those they express to represent and lead. Democracy is only smoke and mirrors to fool the liberals. Workers are cogs in the machine and when the new machine is built those workers will be placed in the same spot. No more leisure time, nothing special about it. Socialist cops will kick the crap out of you as well, or better, than the ones we have today.

Lovestoneites took over the AFL-CIO and stripped any essence of fight for the American worker. Settling for crumbs from the elites' table is all they are good for, or maybe squashing any dissent on the jobsite on behalf of the employer. All under the deceitful guise of "trade unionism". Staffers of these organizations are like hoodwinked Masons, never knowing what the game really is.

It's not the Revolution I fear, it's the counter-revolution. Health Care For All will be replaced by fear of survival. The pension crisis will be solved by supra-accelerated attrition. Food will be harvested by slave labor (slave labor being the instance communism and capitalism have in common). The one train will run on time. The oligarchs will still run the show and have a Party while doing it.

What exactly are Marxists struggling for? More struggle? I have to find another way or my mental health will deteriorate more than it has. I have to learn to deal with the pathological sickness of this society on a day to day basis and stop struggling for some perceived better future for all; all dreams and all false. I have to be released from struggle in order to find peace while carrying a deep concern for my loved ones around me, and with what is left, for those in the circle outside them. It's time for some redesign of collective thought because the old templates of organization in the working class have been co-opted and corrupted. The power is not in the myth of the Party, working class power is in our minds and our willingness to change the deeply held ideology of capitalism/competition/consumerism that is destroying our lives.

Uncle Joe ain't no role model.

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Pres. BlackBush Says "Spend"

United States of the Abused:

http://counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them?

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Western Pathology at Work:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/07/people-unable-cope-modern-life-study

Millions of people are unhappy, lonely and unable to cope with profound changes in the workplace, relationships and family life, according to a major study.

Social Distress Continues

Tis the times plague, when madmen lead the blind.

- Shakespeare, King Lear, IV.i

Apathy IS Active:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/04/nato-pledges-7000-troops-afghanistan

... the Nato figures would be achieved "only by accounting tricks". He wrote: "The Europeans have repeatedly revealed their aversion to combat."

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Voice In The Wilderness:

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/03-13

"The war is a threat to our national security. We'll spend over one $100 billion next year to bomb a nation of poor people while we reenergize the Taliban, destabilize Pakistan, deplete our army and put more of our soldiers' lives on the line. Meanwhile, back here in the USA, 15 million people are out of work. People are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings, their investments, and their retirement security. $13 trillion in bailouts for Wall Street, trillions for war; when are we going to start taking care of things here at home?" 

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30,000 More? What The Hell For?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/6747195/Afghanistan-more-than-300-US-soldiers-killed-this-year.html

The latest death pushed to the number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan so far this year to 301, according to the icasualties.org website.

World Can't Wait

Wouldn't Hurt:

http://clicktomeditate.com/

Meditation Reduces Stress in College Students (Psychcentral) Transcendental Meditation Helped Heart Disease Patients Lower Cardiac Disease Risks by 50 Percent (Science Daily) Brief Training in Meditation Eases Pain (WebMD) Secrets of How Meditation Works (Scientific American) Mindfulness Meditation + Neuroscience = Healthier Relationships (Psychology Today) Meditation May Reduce Stress in Breast Cancer Patients (Medicine Net) Can Stress-Reducing Transcendental Meditation Help CHD Patients Prevent Future Heart Attacks? (Medical News Today) Brief Training In Meditation May Help Manage Pain, Study Shows (Sciencedaily) How Mindfulness Can Make for Better Doctors (New York Times) Workplace Yoga And Meditation Can Lower Feelings Of Stress (Sciencedaily) Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop (NY Times) The Claim: Stress Can Make Allergies Worse (NY Times) 'Mindfulness' meditation being used in hospitals and schools (USA Today) Congressman: Add meditation to healthcare bill (briefingroom.thehill.com) Meditation May Help Put Primary Insomnia to Bed (Forbes) Insomnia With Short Sleep Duration Is A Risk Factor For Diabetes (Sciencedaily) Insomnia With Objective Short Sleep Duration In Men Is Associated With Increased Mortality (Sciencedaily) Teaching the Mind to Treat Insomnia (medicinenet.com) Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as a treatment for chronic depression (National Institute of Health) Meditate Your Way To Better Bladder Health (Medical News Today) Mindfulness training busts stress (CNN) Meditation and bigger brains (Reuters) New research reveals how meditation changes the brain (Scientific American)

Butch Up, Sally

NEED HELP:

http://www.livescience.com/health/080115-stress-kills.html

Growing evidence shows that our sensitivity to stress as adults is already “tuned,” so to speak, in infancy, according to the review article. Specifically, the amount of stress encountered in early life sensitizes an organism to a certain level of adversity; high levels of early life stress may result in hypersensitivity to stress later, as well as to adult depression.