free humanity

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I am so tired.

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love, 99
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also illegal to send the violence up the hierarchy

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But we understand.

Police say a San Antonio Taco Bell customer enraged that the seven burritos he ordered had gone up in price fired an air gun at an employee and later fired an assault rifle at officers before barricading himself into a hotel room.

San Antonio police Sgt. Chris Benavides says officers used tear gas Sunday night to force the man from the hotel room after a three-hour standoff. The man is charged with three counts of attempted capital murder. Authorities have not released his name.

Brian Tillerson, a manager at the Taco Bell/KFC restaurant, told the San Antonio Express-News that the man was angry the Beefy Crunch Burrito had gone from 99 cents to $1.49 each.

Police say the man fired on officers during a traffic stop after the restaurant incident.

Now, don't we?

Down's fine, evidently, but up is not tolerated....

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My neighobr, Derrick Jensen explains:

Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.

Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their landbases to be damaged so that other resources — gold, oil, and so on — can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

Premise Three: Our way of living — industrial civilization — is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control — in everyday language, to make money — by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.

Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.

Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash — or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down — the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.

Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.

Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.

Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps longterm shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively — if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it — the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme.

Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.

Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture — civilization — has been a culture of occupation.

Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something — or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks — and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.

Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.

Premise Fourteen: From birth on — and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case — we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes — and our bodies — to be poisoned.

Premise Fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.

Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth — whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here — the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real.

Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.

Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology.

Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.

Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics — not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself — drives social decisions.

Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.

Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve.

Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.

Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it — if there were any heart left — you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.

I really wish I could smoke him out of his bunker—I could use the company—but he's not budging.

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love, 99
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it's illegal to make fascists look bad in a fascist state

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Just a reminder....

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love, 99
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i'ma goin' tell you sompin

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I would a thousand times rather have Kensley Hawkins as my neighbor than any of those who would do this to him.

Kensley Hawkins is a deadbeat, according to the state of Illinois.

He owes $455,203.14 to cover the costs of his stay at the Stateville Correctional Center in Joliet. Hawkins has been in prison since Nov. 19, 1982. His jailer is also his debt collector.

Hawkins is fighting in court to stop the state from seizing about $11,000 in his bank account to partially satisfy the debt. The 60-year-old earned the money by working while he's been behind bars, making about $75 a month.

I'm not kidding.

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love, 99
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great minds think alike

[click image, Daiichi reactors 1, 2, 3 and 4, counting from the bottom up]

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After stumbling across some video blather from Barackenaten about no one in the United States going to be exposed to harmful radiation, my alarm kicked into second gear. These fucks aren't going to get real. Period. It may be true that we will not all keel over from radiation poisoning, and that plutonium is far too heavy to get very far from the reactor, but it is a flat out lie for ANYONE to say we do not stand a chance of getting some darn nasty and long-lasting cesium-137 fallout and not so happy short-lasting iodine-131 fallout.... ESPECIALLY since they haven't contained the shit yet.

I can't believe they haven't dumped mountains of sand and dirt and kryptonite or whatever they used at Chernobyl on it yet. It looks for all the world as though they think they can rescue this plant, restore it to operation. Anyway, as I linked in the updates in my earlier post, the leading edge of the fallout should be hitting California any minute... or very soon... in fact a little blot of it may already have slid over onto Sacramento. So anyone along the coast with a geiger counter, please park it in front of a web cam and start streaming it on Ustream.

The government is NOT going to help.

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Rather to lose credibility if we're wrong than the chance to save lives... three-hour special program on the nukequake and radiation from Truth Frequency Radio, and actually quite informative, worth your time.

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Radiation detected on inbound flights from Japan....

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love, 99
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trouble getting used to newthink

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Don't mind me. I just got online a few minutes ago, but it seems there's all manner of clatter in Congress about Fukushima Daiichi Reactor Four and not a peep about Reactor Three, the one with the sacred antiterrorism MOX fuel in it that is exponentially more dangerous than the lethal stuff in the Reactor Four Meltdown. Scurrying around the tubes I see snippets about them dumping water on Three from helicopters and shooting it with water cannons, but the official flap is stubbornly all about Four. They admit Four has melted down. They are not admitting or denying that Three has melted down. They are barely reporting anything beside it will take some time to sort out what has happened, and some guy quit GE thirty-five years ago in protest of the design flaws in these reactors.

You might think this is disorganized, that leadership is panicked and not functioning. You would be wrong. They don't intend to function. Just like with the Gulf Blowout, their attentions will be cosmetic and they are leaving it up to the Fates to take care of the aftermath. I mean, great that they are making their feeble attempts to cool the the meltdown in Three, but, er, uhmmmm, getting the facts out or taking any measures to protect people from it will cause a vastly more vigorous opposition to this trillions of dollars worth of nukes decommissioning contracts to just bundle up all our depleted uranium with our radically not-depleted plutonium and stick it in containment systems that work until something happens. So it will not be mentioned. The public will not be bothered or frightened or angered by it, and soon enough it can be trotted out as a fabulous stone killer of multiple birds, evidence of human progress and devotion to world peace.

How many of those kids you see milling around out there will know the difference?

How many of them won't be dead of cancer in a few years?

Don't ask me! I will try to find something approximating a real expert who is discussing this stuff, but it's going to be a struggle to focus on the effort between Norwegian kelp and organic chlorophyll supplements and epsom salts baths....

Yes. I'm telling you that you are wasting your time if you are waiting for officials to tell you what to do, if you are waiting for officials to do their jobs. THEY DON'T HAVE JOBS! I don't know how people screaming about the NWO nonstop can't put it together that this means our officials are window dressing, INCLUDING the president, but, clearly, they don't.

So, after my pretend bath in my not-a-tub and I'm all warm and gulping my kelp down with chlorophyll juice in front of my machine again, I'll look for some outpost of sanity and good sense to try to hook you up with. In the meantime, the Guardian's live blogging is at least continuing, albeit harder to get to than before.

As for the multifarious pushbutton revolutions out there, every one of them is FUBAR. So this is your up-to-the-minute report on all the biggest news they don't see fit to print.

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3:30 update:

IAEA is reminding me more and more of WHO in the flying pig flu fiasco....

Footage from helicopter today....

Given the fact that Japan is thousands of miles from the United States, it is highly unlikely that Americans would be exposed to radioactive material from direct inhalation of a plume from the Fukushima nuclear complex.

While wind patterns will likely carry the radioactive plume eastward, radioactive material will be so diffuse by the time it reaches Hawaii, Alaska, or the mainland United States that it is highly unlikely to create significant health concerns.

Encouraging... for us....

I found you a really good satellite image of the four Daiichi reactors. You will note that Number One is at the bottom of the line and Four at the top. Number Two is the only unit with the roof still on it. Number Three is the one in the worst shape, with the white smoke/steam issuing from it. Please look at that image and tell me WHERE is the pool to fill with water in the Number Three reactor?

I'm in a coma somewhere, right?

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5:00 update:

Well, if they're monitoring it, anyway, there is some chance the information they don't give us will be leaked by an insider with remnant human genes.... Here's the abridged version of a link brought by BB2 just now:

The United States is deploying extra radiation monitors. The EPA is sending the portable units, to boost an existing network of monitors, according to an official, speaking on condition of anonymity, and stressed that the move is precautionary. "We don't expect any significant amounts of radiation," he said, adding that the EPA was expected to brief reporters later in the day. The U.S. western states of California, Oregon, and Washington State have also been monitoring for any increase in radiation levels from Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant, damaged by last Friday's earthquake and tsunami. Some experts says radioactivity could reach the U.S. West Coast as early as Friday, although well below levels which could harm human health.

Not soothing me much, but heck, I'm a jaded old harridan.

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7:45 update:

Oh, this is cute:

Supposedly it'll be so diluted that it won't pose any danger, but this graphic doesn't really offer much comfort.

Any chance we can line up US Navy ships along the West Coast and have them turn on giant fans to blow the plume away?

Wouldn't that be nice?

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love, 99
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the punchline is 'niagara falls'

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In the US living standards for some 16% of the population is already at poverty levels equal to the 1930s. Can you imagine where it would be without food stamps and extended unemployment, etc? This is caused by the wages of debt, accompanied by the disparity and inequality between the rich and the poor. That 16% is a total of some 45 million Americans.

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The US government, which is profligate in its wars, profligate in tax cuts and bailouts for the mega-rich, and profligate in giving unlimited monopoly power to unregulated financial institutions, blames the resulting financial crisis on “handouts” to the poor and “entitlements” to the elderly. Such deception needs more than exposure. It cries out for a 21st century Orwell.

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love, 99
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crescent city may be getting worse than water from japan

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The video at the image link is a bunch of good footage of the nukes plant explosion in Japan yesterday, but reports were that the construction of the plant was different than that of, say, Chernobyl, and new generators were being rushed to the site to replace the failed ones and it was expected that the cooling could be maintained so as not to allow meltdown. The story doesn't seem to be quite as reassuring as it was anymore.

The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

Yesterday they were saying something in the walls had done it, not the core, and I was thinking possibly pipes full of hot cooling water exploiting quake cracks, something of that ilk, but the pros aren't falling for it... or so it would seem.

However, the earthquake in Japan, in addition to damaging the ability of the control rods to regulate the fuel — and the reactor’s coolant system — appears to have damaged the containment facility, and the explosion almost certainly did. There have been reports of “white smoke,” perhaps burning concrete, coming from the scene of the explosion, indicating a containment breach and the almost certain escape of significant amounts of radiation.

...

And so now the question is simple: Did the floor of the containment vessel crack? If not, the situation can still be salvaged by somehow re-containing the nuclear core. But if the floor has cracked, it is highly likely that the melting fuel will burn through the floor of the containment system and enter the ground. This has never happened before but has always been the nightmare scenario for a nuclear power event — in this scenario, containment goes from being merely dangerous, time consuming and expensive to nearly impossible.

Now they're saying we're too far away to be harmed by the radiation, but the wind—the jet stream—is blowing right now from the general direction of poor, creamed, Japan, and it's blowing hard. So you'll pardon me if I confess I'm getting a little worried. I mean, I was worried anyway, but my thyroid doesn't need any more help malfunctioning, thank you, thank you very much indeed.

The crux of my problem, here, is that we have NO experts or authorities to trust. If anything, we can bank on them NOT providing us with the kind of information and assistance needed to maintain our health and safety and this sends me back into extreme vexation with my fellows for continuing to put up with it.

And, of course, Japan isn't our only radiation threat.

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

It took one hell of a lot of screaming to get even this far. TSA employees, stupid oxen, are standing right there with it for their entire shifts. So while it might only be contributing egregiously to our bad health, it's KILLING them.

I just keep seeing stupid and dull sheep in chutes, having their tails docked, getting vaccinated, shorn, branded. I can see the rancher laughing as one or another kicks up its heels in protest, poking it with an electric prod.

Don't mind me. I'm in a bad mood because I've been in so much pain for so long. I told the dentist she needed to prescribe twice as much antibiotic for twice as long—because I know this drill after a life full of occasions to understand my body really well—or it wasn't going to faze the infection, but she has protocols she must follow and WON'T veer from them even if I can't open my mouth wide enough to get in a bite of mush without it hurting really, really badly. I'm going to cheer myself with the thought that perhaps radiation will kill the infection.

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Did I mention that the wind is blowing? Now it's blowing RADICALLY hard. After all this rain, this does NOT bode well for my electricity. Trees whose tap roots are not deep enough tend to get blown over when the ground is this wet and they almost always take down a power line. So. If there seems to be an extra-uncanny silence from me, this could well be the cause.

Does this mean the radiation gets here faster or that it blows past so quickly that it ceases to be a threat?

I don't know how a generation of humans who were brought up with the notion that it's not nice to mess with Mother Nature turned out to be this avid to mess with her, but, well, there you have it. Gaia is outraged and I don't blame her one bit.

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Oh, and I forgot to mention that the putz who got himself killed in the tsunami here wasn't a tourist, but a newbie. Same difference, only—at least down in Mendocino—everyone gives newbies the RULES first thing.

People were advised to continue staying away from the harbor and beaches as continuing surges diminished.

The Del Norte County Sheriff's Office released the name of the only known victim of the tsunami in the United States. Dustin Weber, 25, was a native of Bend, Ore., and had recently moved to the area. He was on the beach near the mouth of the Klamath River taking photographs of the tsunami surges with his family when he was swept away by a wave.

The U.S. Coast Guard searched for his body, but was unable to find Weber in the turbulent water.

All coast residents rap down the rules to newbies till they're so well drilled they know this stuff in their sleep.

[1] Do not EVER slam on your brakes or veer to avoid an animal in the road. Number one cause of untimely death on the coast.

[2] Do not EVER turn your back on the sea, and don't get brave at low tide. Huge waves can come at any time, with NO warning, and wash you out to drown. Number two cause of untimely death on the coast.

[3] Go postal on anyone in breach of [1] or [2] and don't omit tourists.

I guess I will have to canvass locals here to see if they are giving out the rules per form. I know we do it in Mendo World, but I'm such a hermit since moving up here that I find I do not know if this strict observance is followed. I never meet anyone who is new to town, hardly ever meet anyone at all. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone ever rapped down these rules to me when I got here, but Smith River was experiencing a flux of out-of-towners at the post office and grocery store at the time....

NOW IT'S WIND AND RAIN, EVEN WORSE. Shit.

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NO. REALLY.

It's a damn hurricane out there. To the hard wind and rain has been added hail and lightening and thunder and I'm just gonna lay back and try to zone out on my doctoral work while waiting for the power to tank. I figure if I'm not flying all over the tubes to track stuff down for you when it happens, I won't be as upset by it....

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love, 99
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at least the tractors showed up — UPDATED

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It's this modified genes thing, I'm sure:

Despite the cold, protesters turned out in the hundreds to rally on Saturday, March 12, against Gov. Scott Walker's budget bill repealing most collective bargaining rights for public employee unions.

Because this would not have been doable just a few generations ago. :o[

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I did not believe I needed to look further than the CSM, but, apparently, I did.

Nearly 100,000 people surrounded Wisconsin's capitol to protest Republican moves to undermine unions and slash government services in a battle spreading across the United States.

Cheers and bells rang out as farmers riding tractors with signs declaring "Walker's budget = war on workers, middle class" and "pull together — support working families" slowly circled the towering statehouse which has been the scene of mass protests for weeks now.

Might I suggest you get Charlie Sheen to mention something about this little journalism problem cropping up? At least then it would reach enough eyeballs....

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love, 99
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oh, well, then, everything's settled now, right?

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We can all settle back and go home. The emperor has tweeted.

The Obama administration weighed in Thursday on the chaos in Madison, Wis.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s decision to force a bill on public employee union bargaining rights through the state Senate on Wednesday night was a clear sign that his top priority was not budget-cutting.

“The actions taken last night, which divorced the issue of the state’s budget problems from the issue of the rights of public sector employees, pretty clearly showed that the actions were not following the principle that we need to all come together and work together and not denigrate or vilify public sector employees, but bring them into the process,” Carney said.

He later reinforced that idea in a tweet, writing, “POTUS says we must come together & set aside partisanship to fix our budgets. Actions last night in Wisconsin violate those principles.”

Carney reiterated the president’s stance that everyone, including public-sector employees, needs to make sacrifices to cut spending, but that budget shortfalls should not be used to “denigrate or vilify public employees.”

Starving them is fine, but don't vilify them.

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love, 99
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corporate responsibility in the third millennium

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Long as you believe in your mental conditioning it stays an oxymoron.

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love, 99
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what is it?

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That messy democracy.

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love, 99
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comparable to a toothache

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And I would know.

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love, 99
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STAND UP!

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My tooth just shot lava into my mouth.

A Statement on the Events of March 9th
“A Stain on Democracy”

The Autonomous Solidarity Organization was officially formed on Tuesday March 8th, 2011. The roots of our organization date back to the early days of the original occupation of the Capitol. The bulk of our core membership were members of the drum circle and “people's microphone” which kept spirits high and allowed the voice of the public to be heard in the rotunda for the 18 days of the occupation. We worked in concert with unions, the Capitol staff, and the general public as these connections became available. We made every effort to maintain peace and order during the repeated provocations we were faced with. These roles were revisited on the night of March 9th. During the post-occupation period (after March 3rd) we decided to formally organize in order to continue the fight which we had already dedicated weeks of our life to. Our efforts, and our reach, will be much broader than the fight against SB 11 but for now that is a moot point.

To begin discussing the events on March 9th it is useful to begin by examining the Wisconsin Open Meetings Law (State Statute 19.84):

“Public notice of every meeting of a governmental body shall be given at least 24 hours prior to the commencement of such meeting unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical, in which case shorter notice may be given, but in no case may the notice be provided less than 2 hours in advance of the meeting.”

At around 4:00 pm, Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald announced that a conference committee on the Budget Repair Bill would meet at 6:00pm. This minimal compliance with our state's laws is the continuance of a disturbing trend we have seen from the Wisconsin Republicans. As stated in the Open Meetings Law, a 24 hour notice is required unless such notice is impossible or impractical. Assembly Speaker Fitzgerald has certainly not provided any argument as to why a 24 hour notice was impractical or impossible. There is no rational, intellectually honest argument behind such a claim.

Immediately members of the ASO and other groups involved in fighting this bill put out a call for the general public to get to the Capitol building as quickly as possible. At this point, access to the building was limited to only two entrances (King St. and North Hamilton St.). I specifically state this because the public entrances are constantly changed. Between 5:30 and 6:00pm, only one of these two entrances was open. Which entrance was open was periodically changed. Again, there is no rational, intellectually honest reason for doing this. It succeeded in slowing the pace at which the general public entered the building.

Despite the fact that Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca has stated that he received only the Legislative Financial Bureau memo on the new bill, the conference committee quickly approved the amended version of SB-11 and within minutes the Senate passed it. Before the Senate was even out of session, the building was locked down. No public hearings were held. Over the next several hours, there were several large breaches of the Capitol building security. Eventually the police largely stood down and the public began to flood into the building. In the past the DOA had clearly demonstrated its ability to lock the building down like a militarized zone. Even in the few days preceding March 9th, public access was severely limited. In the past, the Governors supporters were brought into the building through underground tunnels while a Democratic Assemblymen was literally tackled to the ground while trying to gain access to his own office. Members of ASO dressed in suits were offered quick passage through security while others were prevented access on March 8th. It is an interesting point that security measures were severely relaxed on the evening of March 9th.

While the massive flood of the general public into the building created a hectic scene, at no point did the crowd become violent. For a period there were no sound amplification systems in the building, which we had previously used during the original occupation to maintain order and peace. Eventually megaphones were brought in and members of ASO immediately began using them to urge the crowd to remain peaceful. It was merely a precaution that we have always taken. Despite the justifiable anger of the crowd, we have yet to resort to violence even in times where there was no control at all. Despite all of the provocations, manipulations, despite the DOA's violation of the state constitution and failure to comply with court orders, we have remained peaceful.

Eventually, after discussions with Chief Tubbs of the Capitol Police, the majority of the public left the building. All but a few members of the ASO have left the building. The assembly will vote on the new version of the bill today, March 10th at 11am. If this occurs it will be an unspeakable crime against our democracy. Governor Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans have spent weeks promoting the provisions of the Budget Repair Bill as necessary to close the budget deficit. There was never a rational, intellectually honest argument that stripping collective bargaining from public employees, that putting an unelected official in direct control of Badgercare and Medicaid, that allowing no-bid sale of power plants have anything to do with balancing the budget. However it has now been made even clearer. Explicitly financial portions of the bill were split into a separate bill and they are attempting to pass these provisions into law.

In the Legislative Financial Bureau's memo on modifications to SB 11, page 16, there is a provision titled “Discharge of State Employees.” It states that under current law, “the Governor may issue an executive order declaring a state of emergency for the state or any portion of the state if he or she determines that an emergency resulting from a disaster or imminent threat of a disaster exists.” Remember that the Wisconsin Republicans have shown a disturbing penchant for complying with existing law in the most limited sense. In the event of a Governor declaring a state of emergency, the new SB 11 would allow an appointing authority to discharge any employee who fails to “(a) report to work for any three days during the state of emergency, (b) participates in a strike, work stoppage, sit- down, stay-in, slowdown, or other concerted activities to interrupt the operations or services of state government.” There is a clear coordination between the language used to vilify those exercising their 1st amendment rights and the language used to activate this provision. The Republicans very clearly are interested in giving Governor Walker the ability to wield unreasonable, unprecedented power.

The writing is on the wall. Every day we see more of their intentions and every day our resolve only grows stronger. As always, we will respond appropriately, peacefully, and effectively in Autonomous Solidarity.

Thomas M Bird
Co-Chair, Communications
Autonomous Solidarity Organization

Obviously, Wisconsin Democrats knew these rules, knew how the Republicans would handle it. So nothing to lose by playing the good guy here.

GET. POLITICAL. PARTIES. OUT. OF. THIS.

WILL. YOU. NEVER. LEARN?

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love, 99
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of course

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The more things change, the more they stay the same.

This spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.

But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour. (Credit Justin Rohrlich with the catch.)

The work is done by Unicor,  previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.

One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts. “UNICOR/FPI supplies numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile,” Unicor’s website explains. “We assemble and distribute the Intermediate Frequency Processor (IFP) for the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and filters radio-frequency signals that guide the missile toward its target.”

The missiles are then marketed worldwide — sometimes by Washington’s top officials. Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pitched the Patriots to the Turkish government last year, a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reveals: “SecDef stressed that ‘nothing can compete with the PAC-3 when it comes to capabilities.’”

Patriot assemblers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin aren’t the only defense contractors relying on prison help. As Rohrlich notes, Unicor “inmates also make cable assemblies for the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter, as well as electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder.”

Unicor used to make helmets for the military, as well. But that work was suspended when 44,000 helmets were recalled for shoddy quality.

Government agencies — with the exception of the Defense Department and the CIA — are required to buy goods from Unicor, according to a Congressional Research Service report (.pdf). And no wonder: the labor costs are bordering on zero. “Inmates earn from $0.23 per hour up to a maximum of $1.15 per hour, depending on their proficiency and educational level, among other things,” the report notes.

Last year, Unicor grossed $772 million, according to its most recent financial report (.pdf). Traditionally, inmate salaries make up about five percent of that total.

Unicor insists that the deal is a good one for inmates — and for the government. The manufacturing work offers a chance for job training, which “improves the likelihood that inmates will remain crime-free upon their release,” the company says in its report. (Some reports suggest that Unicor prisoners are as much as 24% less likely to return to crime.)

The work also keeps the inmates in check, Unicor insists. “In the face of an escalating inmate population and an increasing percentage of inmates with histories of violence, FPI’s programs have helped ease tension and avert volatile situations, thereby protecting lives and federal property,” the company says. “Prisons without meaningful activities for inmates are dangerous prisons, and dangerous prisons are expensive prisons.”

We've been here, done this, abolished that and it hasn't gone away.

You just keep thinking laws apply to leaders, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

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love, 99
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lab rats?

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Try "toilet paper".

"I have critically high levels of chemicals in my body," 33-year-old Steven Aguinaga of Hazlehurst, Mississippi told Al Jazeera. "Yesterday I went to see another doctor to get my blood test results and the nurse said she didn't know how I even got there."

Aguinaga and his close friend Merrick Vallian went swimming at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

"I swam underwater, then found I had orange slick stuff all over me," Aguinaga said. "At that time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good. I've been extremely sick ever since."

Not to be a broken record, here, but the people of the Gulf Coast are less than zero. If they don't or can't or won't move away, their health is gone for the rest of their lives. Could be they are lab rats to see if their offspring can become impervious to these toxins, but... probably not.

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love, 99
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i'm gonna zen my way through this

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I will not make a scene. Nor will I kill anyone. I'm just going to the clinic and waiting for the doors to open. If they will not help me immediately, I will quietly proceed to get some fresh and functioning dilaudid from the impostors with prescription pads next door. I will then drive down to my dentist in Mendo World and he will fix me up.

The big news of the morning is that—through the miracle of pain killers—I have at last been able to identify THE offending tooth. It's the very last one on the bottom on the right side of my mouth. I've been just sure it was the second to last, and that one may be suffering too, but THE bad one is the last one. I can tell by pressing on it. None of the others hurt when pressing on them. Except I can't get them all to stop hurting until I have enough dilaudid in me to shut them up.

Zen. I'm going to be Zen. No one will die. No one will be knocked on their ass. This will just be handled. Or everything in Northern California is coming to a grinding halt.

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NOON: Nobody died. I was quietly emphatic and a cancellation came in just in time to give me the appointment. We are nuking me with amoxicillin and ibuprofen and the remainder of my aged dilaudid, to be refilled if I'm still hurting too badly. Back bottom tooth needs a root canal and crown, which I can get for a mere $600 since I'm so poor. Or, they can pull it. I'm getting in bed for a nice nap now. If the pain will just ebb enough. OMG, this shit just does NOT ebb once it's really made up its mind. I was SO good. None of that drama queen moaning and thumping, and people were alarmed anyway. I guess I'm in that zone where you have to be blind not to tell something's wrong... because people have been VERY solicitous toward me all morning. Total strangers.

Please let me know if the tsunami's coming to get me or Norway nukes Madagascar or the entire government suddenly drops from space rays... or whatever.....

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SIX: Well, that was fraught with difficulty! Good thing I didn't wait any longer to go have it seen to. Even taking way more ibuprofen and the dilaudid, the pain had gotten so it was still pretty bad anyway. It took me some hours to do anything more than lie there in misery awaiting naptude and I had to get up a couple times to take more pills. Now my ear and throat and side of my tongue hurt along with my teeth and gums, but it isn't as despicable.

I dreamed a lotta stuff, and most of it's long gone, but my mother was in there somewhere, and that means I was dreaming of relative reality instead of absolute reality. I'd been this lump of Zenned-out pain sculpture in the waiting rotunda. The building that houses County medical and dental and old people and lort knows what else is a really large barn-shaped building with labyrinthine halls and cubbyholes for labs and nurses stations and examination rooms and whatnot. They'd have to fit me with some sort of GPS device if I worked there. One begins to feel terror if one's escort pops out of one's field of vision. But all the waiting around goes on in one wide stretch down the middle length of the building and the roof is a long way up from there. It makes you feel as though you've come to be seen by elephants. They'd turned on a television to entertain a very young Hispanic boy whose brother was in with the elephants.

The shrill sound effects of cartoons were skewering my neurons through my right ear. I had a stately O magazine on my lap and I slowly and silently went through its pages one-by-one until such time as I would be shown what was the professional choice for me or the elephants called me in. I never got to discern my true destiny. I was still back in the ads for diamond-encrusted things and not-your-daughter's-jeans. I'd gone off to find some breakfast that didn't demand chewing while I filled out a stack of forms, dotted T's and crossed I's and had to get up to go beg a couple crusty old dairymen to tell me the date. They'd both whipped out their cell phones to find out, but I was the only one with cheaters to read it. It's the 9th. I'd known that hours earlier, but had stopped in the intervening debacle and didn't want to punt because last week I arrived at my hair appointment a full twenty-four hours early. So I'd come back and handed in my assignment before settling down to the meditation in the fires of hell bit. I thought I had another hour to endure, but I guess there must have been another cancellation because, mercifully, except if you count my need to have Oprah point out where I've gone wrong with my life, they got me in pretty quickly.

I remember taking one of those personality tests by which jackasses set so much store, and it advised I should be a counselor. Oprah probably would have done the same. So I guess my dreaming was trying to tie up that loose thread. I was counseling one woman who had taken up grieving widow duties over another woman's dead husband. I was telling her it wasn't a good idea to let the actual widow dump her grieving on a surrogate like this. She was upset by this, as though the real widow had maybe put one over on her, not, maybe, as gracefully conceding the position out of the kind of generosity and sublimity of spirit my patient had been supposing. Leave it to me. I'll wreck everything.

Somebody get me started analyzing this dream.

Anyway, I'm going to try gently going about my stupid little house without whipping up any more PAIN now, and see if I can't go back to sleep by around eight or so. I mean, I only slept for a couple forty-minute sprints last night and I've been in too much pain for fatigue to really register. I just know I must be tired back there, and that holding still while nuking with antibiotics is the best way to insure they actually work. So I'm just going to keep on funning my way out of this Zenhouse hall of mirrors, and will pop back in if this doesn't go according to the sensible plan I can just barely make out that I've plotted for myself here.

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SEVEN: It occurs to me I should point out that Del Norte County's medical and dental, etc, clinics are not like those you find in most counties. In most counties, those are just for poor people and are relatively squalid places, even when it's just the rumpled throngs of abject persons making it appear that way. Here, it's close to two hours in any direction to get to something more approximating a medical professional. We do have some dentists, and about four private practice doctors, but their waiting lists are so long you'd die of gangrene from waiting to get your indigestion seen to. So everybody but a mystical few goes to the County clinic. It's really very chic, which is unexpected in one of the last bastions of true redneckdom in all California. Exotic fresh flower arrangements are always on the redwood block coffee tables and the chairs are not hard plastic. They are remotely comfortable and there are a lot of them and usually very few people waiting. The hospital is pretty much the same thing. Chic. The Urgent Care Clinic blows chunks and I don't know about the mental health clinic. It's back in some trees with mysterious signage at the road.

The problem isn't the facilities. It's the staffing. Homeless people plucked off the street and dressed in scrubs to look authentic. They only look authentic. They have computer terminals that display all lab tests optimal for persons of the age and general description of each patient and they let you vent about your complaint for a moment and order the tests on their screen for you. They never match the complaint even remotely. This is of no moment. You can bring it up all you want and they have a designated extra-concern person to not help you then. Very civilized. Never gets out of hand. In fact, you have signed something that certifies you know you will be 86'd for life if you get out of hand.

So I guess I am lucky I had something as straightforward as an infected tooth. My dentist looks like a church lady in scrubs. She didn't even have to scrutinize my x-rays because a computer puts black bugs on them at the spots that show infection. No room to maneuver there. I wonder if they have a robot that does the root canals? I wonder if I will end up like my real estate agent, getting them all yanked in favor of false teeth, it being so many thousands of dollars cheaper than trying to keep them. Old lady waiting at the pharmacy next to me said she just had two yanked. I'm, like, pretty interested in chewing and have already paid millions to dentists to keep my mouth perfectly pristine over the course of my life. I don't think it's right to be telling me these things now.

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TEN-THIRTY: Go postal for me, please. I'm too sick.

The Wisconsin Senate succeeded in voting Wednesday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, after Republicans outmaneuvered the chamber's missing Democrats and approved an explosive proposal that has rocked the state and unions nationwide.

"You are cowards!" spectators in the Senate gallery screamed as lawmakers voted. Within hours, a crowd of a few hundred protesters inside the Capitol had grown to an estimated 7,000, more than had been in the building at any point during weeks of protests.

Monster storm barreling down on me. The surf sounds like cannon fire. I'm too uncomfortable to sleep, to stay up, to think, and so until I'm not dying of this anymore, you gotta handle dat stuff please.

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love, 99
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my efforts to understand my brothers and sisters

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Recognizing the evil of partisan allegiances, and realizing the need to deprogram myself, to drop my default assumptions and really look at things as they are, not as my conditioning bids me see them, has brought me to something like the understanding for which I set out to begin with. I highly recommend it.

I couldn't understand why people I thought were otherwise SO intelligent could be so belligerently against people stumping for clean energy and sustainable living. At length I saw it was an obsession with preventing more exploitation by the controllers that was the genesis of this seemingly suicidal position.

Yesterday, I got an email linking me to a video of an old Alex Jones show. I didn't watch the whole thing because it appears to be just Alex and his guest going over the same bit of information that should, in a perfect world, only take five or ten minutes to make perfectly crystal clear, but took them some two hours. So I imagine you could only watch the first half hour or so and get the point. The point is: Doesn't matter how good it sounds. Anything, anything, anything brought up by our movers and shakers is or will be sculpted into the means to loot our economies, turn everything we do into the means to fatten the parasites and enslave us. The news imparted in that video, no matter how long it takes you to get their point, explains perfectly why these maniacs are RIGHT and us lucid old liberals are WRONG.

I mean, I think, herein lies the key to our problems with the names we call things, that problem with some of us calling it fascism and others calling it socialism. I didn't fathom what they meant by "socialism" and they don't fathom what I mean by "fascism". We're all screaming about the same thing. 100% of the fight is the politics of lifestyle divide and rule strategy working perfectly.

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love, 99
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the capitulation in wisconsin

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Frightened Michael Moore so much he could not but go try to revive it.

Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore urged Wisconsin residents Saturday to fight against Republican efforts to strip most public workers of their collective bargaining rights, telling thousands of protesters that "Madison is only the beginning."

The crowd roared in approval as Moore implored demonstrators to keep up their struggle against Republican Gov. Scott Walker's legislation, saying they've galvanized the nation against the wealthy elite and comparing their fight to Egypt's revolt. He also thanked the 14 state Democratic senators who fled Wisconsin to block a vote on the bill, saying they'll go down in history books.

"We're going to do this together. Don't give up. Please don't give up," Moore told the protesters, who have swarmed the Capitol every day for close to three weeks.

He should have gotten there a couple days earlier, when it might have done some good.

The latest arrest came Friday, when a Madison woman attempted to charge past a security checkpoint. She was charged with disorderly conduct.

Inside the building Thursday night, Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs stood in the center of the rotunda with the last remaining demonstrators around him. A hush fell over the crowd as he explained the court's order to vacate and pleaded with them to leave peacefully.

For more than three hours the protesters asked questions — even raising their hands to be recognized — and expressed their reservations about leaving. Tubbs said he didn't want to arrest anyone, but they had to leave.

Finally, they did — singing "Solidarity Forever," they filed out the door with Tubbs there shaking their hands and thanking them for their decision.

Some of those who left Thursday night returned the next day and were joined by hundreds of union members and teachers.

Where there had been thousands, plus the assertion of ownership of the capitol until just the day before... all because... because... well... because what? What changed from the police not arresting protestors to police begging protestors not to make them arrest them? A COURT ORDER. A fucking court order meant they'd lose their JOBS, not just their bargaining rights, and so they started begging.

And, given this out, those who were on the right track capitulated, ceded their sovereignty to the very people using it to take everything from them. Allow them to work for slave wages, if they're good and obedient, else fuck off and die, you grubby plebeian twerps.

Don't get me wrong! I love the people in Wisconsin, and the same would have happened anywhere in the United States. I'm not pointing my finger. I'm pointing out the problem. The capitulation was not just in Wisconsin. It was in the United States. We won't make the right thing happen. We'll only become agitated enough to dance around it, and then we will back down and salve our failure with notions like At least I tried.

NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

WE MUST BECOME UNGOVERNABLE.

We have to stop with our PATHETIC petitioning for redress. We must completely IGNORE this "governing". If we want to unionize, we don't have to ask anyone, and we don't have to heed their stupid and corrupt decrees. They try to fuck with our paychecks and benefits, we shut them down. We shut it all down when we don't FEED it. Don't protest. Don't petition. Don't ASK for squat. Don't fight. Just yank their power from them, and let them fuck off and die.

I'm giving up stumping for revolution.

All my hopes for the Second American Revolution—which was not my first choice, just the only one I thought feasible—represent wasted time. THE no-no. My reasoning was that, even though that's still reverting to the law of the jungle, not growth, or even really improvement, the indispensable benefit of it would be to break the lock of fascism and rejuvenate courage in the people. It wouldn't ultimately fix anything. Sort of like the pushbutton revolutions won't fix anything. The difference is OUR uprising would not result in MORE power for the feudal parasites, where all the rest of them we see popping up in the other hemisphere will. I was trying to be pragmatic, trying not to be so intent on perfection that I wouldn't settle for whatever might spare Sophia, Gaia, her life.

IT ISN'T GOING TO WORK.

[1] You won't do it.

[2] Nobody good enough is near enough to the forefront.

[3] You won't do it.

[4] The lying and delusion and pleas from police insure you lose any courage you muster too quickly, anyway.

[5] You won't do it.

Do you hate yourself enough yet to work on yourself instead? Or are you too hypnotized to recognize that either? It's the way to become ungovernable. It's the way a true government arises organically. It has the potential to fix EVERYTHING. But you won't go there. Just as you won't rise up, you will not face yourself. Both options are still completely open to you, but you have been rendered too muddled and confused and frightened to choose either. Nope. It feels way better to fill with certitude about some harebrained polemic and fight like rabid dogs amongst ourselves. Never mind how clearly suicidal that is, they like it and you're "safe" from them when you're doing what they like. You've grown so used to warming yourself with your own traumas in this hall of mirrors we call the world—an entire society based on a trillion tailor-made excuses not to face either them or yourself—you won't ever face the difficulty of changing the architecture of your own brain to make a true life for yourself, let alone everyone... now will you?

You won't.

EVEN when you've gone so far as to set up a blog, or a social networking site, or join a club, or hire a shrink, with the specific goal of our betterment in mind. Still excuses, all. I can't get colorful enough to make you face it. I cannot be loving enough, or friendly enough, or strong enough to shove you into making the one indispensable choice.

You won't do it.

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love, 99
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bet real estate is soaring in new hampshire

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Or it would be if people were more like me.

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love, 99
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