BTW, did you hear that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is $20,000,000 in debt? How is it she can rationalize staying in the race, even though her numbers are slipping and the extended contest is hurting either of their chances for success in November?
If you doubt the substance of this clip, Adam Curtis’ BBC series entitled The Power of Nightmares examines these men in the context of the WOOOOOR ON TEERRRRRRERRRRRR, and features video interviews with some of them making statements that directly support, and indeed may be the inspiration for, some of Dr. Paul’s assertions.
The Power of Nightmares is widely available on the Intarwebz, but if anyone would like to borrow the DVD, drop me a direct email.
Just pray theres not another repulican in the white house. This current adminisration dry raped the country preety well. Down here in Florida there is an huge increase in crime as the economy tanks people are becoming desperate. Smashing car windows, steaiing trailers.... Gas is already 4 bucks. Anyone who voted for Bush should be smacking themselves in the face about now.
McCain is senile besides being screwed up from being locked up so long and tortured. Hillary is part of the same Clinton mechanism that drafted NAFTA and Opened up Trade with China to the point were at now. Barack is the most intelligent and sincere of the three of them . This go it alone attitude has all but destroyed our military. Thats why we needed to hire blackwater(read: rent-an-army.)
A lot of people enlisted after 9/11 and they are all but done now, and Im sure enlistment has gone way down because we are in a war. But you wouldnt know it if you walk down the street. So we have almost no Military, The Economy is screwed bigtime, Crime on the rise, jails full of potheads and hookers, Housing market is collapsed, large corporations have been making record profits, weve violated the Geneve convention AND the US Constitution, whats happening to the dollar is pathetic, inflation is aroud 20% a year The National debt has exlploded and they are sending out these Stimulus checks? I have something for Bush to stimulate. Yea 4 more years! Lets see what else these guys fuck up in the next 7 months...
"WASHINGTON — John McCain dropped a little-noticed bombshell into his March foreign-policy address: Boot Russia from the G-8, the elite club of leading industrial democracies whose leaders try to coordinate economic policies.
...
But the fact that he’s proposing to try, risking a return to Cold War tensions with the world’s second-largest nuclear power after 20 years of prickly partnership, raises questions about McCain’s judgment. It also underscores that many of his top foreign-policy advisers are of the same neo-conservative school that promoted the war in Iraq , argue for a tougher stance toward Iran and are skeptical of negotiating with North Korea over its nuclear program."
I just took The Bush-McCain Challenge -- an online quiz to see if you can tell the difference between George W. Bush and John McCain. Check it out, and see if you can do any better than I did!
None can mourn more his passing than a past park tripper.
Until you walk up the hill, come around a bush to find Rat with a big ass knife stuck in his leg, then look up to find yourself in a 10 foot ring of fire before Chester Foo had a chance to tell you how he pissed in two directions and Paz wasn’t lobbing snowballs at cops, ya just haven’t had a brick thrown at you by the construction crew, have ya?
These posts are from March 1st to June 1st of 2003 and each contain the word Iraq in it (the search term). A few people were happy we were finally bombing the "towel-headed carpet-riders or else we’d all be praying to the east at sunset every day". Most were nervous about the war, or didn’t want it to happen.
Garrison Keillor’s Perspective, from March 31, 2003:
The opposition to this war is not about George Bush, or pacifism, or flabby thinking by liberals, so much as it is a simple sense of dread at the thought of the United States of America entering into a religious war against Islam. The idea strikes Republicans and libertarians as well as Democrats, that our crusade in Iraq may lead to a place we don’t want to go, and that is the Fifty Years War in which suicide bombers become a routine part of American life and we are trapped inside a bad movie that doesn’t end. A war that my grandsons will dread as they grow old.
Dread is the feeling that grips the 25% who answer to the word Opposed ---- or maybe we’re down to 15% by now, after day after day of Olympics coverage of the war, seeing the incredible firepower, witnessing the awesome and inspiring fact that young men and women are willing to face death in behalf of this country (and how would we know, except in war?) --- one sits and watches television reporters who are giddy as if they were embedded in the World Series of War, Our Very Own Yankees vs. pitiful Podunk High. But if you are not embedded, if you are a free American, you may sense that we are floating into a very deep canyon.
We of the 25 or 15 or 7% aren’t so visible. The demonstrations don’t represent us at all. How do you march under banners that say THIS IS APT TO TURN OUT TRAGICALLY and DON’T HIT THAT TAR BABY? The people marching in the streets seem to be a lot of Democrats happy for the chance to jeer at Bush. I am not one of them. I went to a vigil on the first Sunday night of the Crusade, and it was straight out of 1972 ---- same people holding the same candles and singing the same songs and not singing them nearly as well. And "We Shall Overcome" doesn’t get at what I am feeling, which is: we are caught in the grip of events and heading toward an outcome that cannot be predicted. We are bombing Baghdad and every one of those bombs is going to come back to us.
Here we are, pushing boldly into the Middle East with American troops (would Dwight D. Eisenhower have done this?) to bring democracy to a world that is utterly alien to 99.44% of all Americans. Does this add up? I wish that George Bush were right and that he’d be hailed by historians and his tight-lipped face be chiseled into the mountain. I would sit at the base of the mountain and sell postcards. But I do not accept his case for this war. I fear the worst.
Our military is tough, well-trained, disciplined, fighting in behalf of a lot of us loose, happy-talking, impulsive, dreamy people walking around eating ice cream cones at the carnival, about as disciplined as a battalion of cats. This is not a militant or religious country. I’ve been in religious countries and this is not one of them. You can buy liquor on Sunday anywhere in America, find pornography in any Marriott and every Walmart, listen to songs on the airwaves whose lyrics make you wince and turn pale. These are products of entrepreneurial capitalism, which thrives in our loose jazzy democracy, along with timeless art and comedy and enormous human kindness, but if we get caught up in the Fifty Years War against Islam, we will find out how fragile all of this is. We’ll become of necessity a much tougher and more disciplined society, in which we obey instructions and stick to the message, and that, dear hearts, is not my country.
The conservative intellectuals who did the think-tank work on our new preemptive strategy have made a brilliant case for it, that reads well in the pages of political journals and sounds brave and good on the Sunday morning talk shows, and now a few tired old liberals must try to express the old conservative objections: the world is not an abstract construct and as much as you try to reassure the Muslim world that this is not a religious war, it is one if they think it is. Everyone knows that 9/11 was a religious attack, and the crusade in Iraq is our response to it. A religious war is the worst kind, a war impossible to win and very difficult to extricate ourselves from.
I used to laugh at those conspiracy theorists, untill I did my own research. I was actually for the war at the beginning because I wrongly thought that A: The guy had WMD, as I dumbly belived the intellegence that was coming from my own government and B: I thought they had a good plan how to restart the new government and get out. and C: That gas prices would go way down. Man was I wrong!!
First link is a song written way before 911 but very prophetic and second is its lyrics.
Noam Chompsky’s Manufacturing Consent is a good one too. And I liked the Bill Hicks "Christ and Christians" video... how Pat Robertson wants to build up more nukes. Ah, Christians that kill. I thought christianity was about forgiveness and love.
Sometimes I think the only way things are ever going to get better and more humane, anywhere, is if McCain wins and everything hits the fan at the same time: escalated war with Iran and no resources left at home; peak oil passes and oil is $300+/barrel; massive droughts and rising seas due to climate disruption; millions and millions of refugees swarming all neighboring countries to get to dry land overburden the host countries resulting in widespread food and energy shortages; McCain’s NeoCon’s declare war on everyone, declare martial law and shut down the borders as the middle and lower classes slowly starve ...
Sounds grim, but only such a traumatic upheaval of all human life on earth will bring us together, as long as we recognize that greed and ultra-conservativism and radicalism are the things that are ruining the world, and we all decide to work together for life on the planet vs. life in our two-SUV, gated communities.
Call me pinko I guess, but I think helping each other is more productive for society (and thus ourselves) than just helping ourselves at the expense of each other. If you look to nature you’ll see that very few of the successful species survive if they don’t work together for the good of the whole. This doesn’t necessarily require communism or socialism, but some form of cooperationism or cohabitationism. Take care of the hand that’s feeding you and you’ll be fed. The economy really took off in this country once the ACLU and various unions enforced an 8-hour work day and five day work week.
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While we’re on the subject of "favorite people", I’d say Lewis Black is one of my favorite comics / commentarians. Here’s a great 11-minute video about "The Old Testament" and touches on evolution and belief. I have the DVD this came from ("Red, White and Screwed") and he’s damn funny and spot-on.
You and me both bub. I prefer to call it what it really was though, an unprovoked invasion.
The ongoing occupation has turned out to be very profitable for some. Meanwhile, the phony "state of emergency" continues to be maintained here at home, eroding the very liberties upon which the United States was founded.
Why did the Federal gummint build a new embassy that cost 3/4 of a BILLION dollars, with tennis courts, swimming pools, etc.? Permanent military bases? Not just barracks and munitions stores... state of the art. To me, these are not actions of a temporary occupying force.
I would love to hear sensible answers to these questions, but the vast majority of the people I’ve discussed them with fall into two groups: pinko commie fags and neocon rhetoric regurgitation units. I’m just using the technical terms here.
I believe that such polarization is bad for society. It leaves behind a swath of possibilities at the center. But if I have to take sides, it is with the pinkos: Neocons are reformed pinko commie fags, previously riding under the banner of Trotskyism. So they are not to be trusted, being treasonous by nature.
Offended? I hope so. Seems that’s the only way to get those two groups to recognize that they have anything in common. If our society is divided, who is conquering? My take is that many of the same power centers, some of which owe allegiance to no nation, and are profiting from Middle Eastern imperialism are also involved in the dividing. Therefore they have the first crack at the conquering and the spoils. While we worry about phantoms. Subject ourselves to travel restrictions that Goebbels would be impressed by.
But how did this happen? Is society so naive and malleable? Possibly. Let me show you something.
Have you heard of a man named Edward Bernays? He is a shadowy figure in American history. Mr. Bernays is considered to be the inventor of what we call "public relations." He rose to prominence as (the opera guy) Enrico Caruso’s press agent. One of his greatest triumphs was to help Woodrow Wilson’s administration promote entering WWI to the American people. He worked with the Administration throughout the entire war, helping them spin the news.
"At the age of, I think 26, I was in Paris for the entire time of the peace conference," said Bernays, "and we worked to ’Make the World Safe for Democracy’. That was the big slogan." What arrogance!
After the war, he had an idea.
"When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace," he reasoned, "and ’propaganda’ got to be a bad word because of the Germans using it, so what I did was to try and find some other words. So we found the word[s] ’council on public relations.’" It was the first time the phrase had ever been used. It is nothing more than a synonym for ’propaganda’.
Then, Bernays and his cousin Anna Freud consulted with her father Sigmund on how to tap the human mind, and carried out bold projects with an aim to using Freudian psychology to control mass populations. He, Bernays, caught the attention of corporations seeking to advance their agendas. He advised them not to provide facts about products to the public, which could be examined and conclusions drawn, but to appeal to humans’ base egotistical desires in order to build imaginary utopias and icons of power that would drive their behavior and impel them to want. It is a process which has become known as "manufactured wants."
For example, on behalf of the tobacco industry, he used the Freudian concept that cigarettes symbolized the penis, suggesting that women who smoked could have their very own schlongs. In conjunction with this, he publicly promoted a new label for cigarettes, "torches of freedom." What a brilliant strategy! He gave any woman who subconsciously bought into the penis bullshit a way to feel ’equal’ to men, and anyone who questioned that approach, *ahem* men, certainly wasn’t going to speak out against freedom, were they?
It worked splendidly. Hardly anyone noticed the absurdity. The taboo against women smoking vaporized, and the tobacco market practically doubled overnight.
It didn’t take long for politicians and by association government to catch on. They too began to use Bernays’ expertise to promote policy and election campaigns.
Meanwhile, Anna followed along a more clinical path, pushing her father’s theories and developing methodologies. This gave rise to a new generation of Freudian psychoanalysts who developed "group therapy", which was then applied by propagandists in the form of "focus groups." I know some of you in this forum participated in focus groups with me. We were test subjects for entities that wanted to figure out the best way to influence their markets in sub and unconscious ways. In retrospect, I’m glad we fucked with them. I guess on some level we were already hip to the game.
When you turn on your TV, think about this: every word you hear, every image you see, every note and harmony, every sound effect, every color, every logo and symbol, and indeed the sequence in which the events occur has gone through the "public relations" vetting process. Anyone who knows anyone in Marketing can attest to this. Remember, the goal of the presenter is to promote a concept. The methodologies are extremely fine tuned, having undergone decades of research.
"We must shift America from a needs to a desire culture. People must be trained to desire and want new things even before the old are entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America; man’s desire must overshadow his needs." -- Paul Maser, Lehman Bros., 1924
I’m not suggesting that Dr. Evil is trying to take over the world, but that the system is so large and the interfaces so familiar that the people who do punch the buttons sometimes focus so closely on their button that they don’t see how the machine itself works, what the overall effects of different inputs are, or the waste that’s produced. Or, who built the machine and why.
We need materials to make all the crap that Mr. Maser seems to think we should desire, but we don’t have enough. So, to solve the problem of resource extraction, we take what we need from other societies. Economists call this action "externalizing." It’s a fancy term that means making others pay your costs as much as possible.
Does anyone here think that $149 for a Nano really covers the costs of materials, manufacturing, shipping, retail space and waste disposal costs, etc. and still leave profit for Apple? Unless they shift some of those costs to third parties, it won’t. It is an unsustainable process that will be faced, if not by us, by our progeny.
In closing I leave you with an apropos clip of one of my favorite people.
So... it’s getting to be that time again. When and where should we meet? Should we have a couple of them for those that can’t make one of them? I think Rat is back in July sometime. One should be planned for around then for sure.
Any of you ex-pats planning on being in town this summer?
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Just wanted to drop by and say howdy. I’ve been TDY for a month and did not have computer access. Sorry I did not get to vote in the straw poll, but I’ll state my support for McCain! Favorite music? Old skool punk, OI! Rockabilly, outlaw country, Ska and raggae. Just can’t get enough Social Distortion, Operation Ivy, Dropkick Murphys and Mighty Mighty Bosstones in my ears at one time. Hope everyone is well.
Grits
And, if you haven’t updated your version of "Who’s Next" in the last year or so, it is now a double album (CD), with tons and tons of live tracks from the Lifehouse sessions at the Young Vic, and versions of some of the original songs from the Record Plant, where they first laid them down.
"Live at Leeds" is about twice it’s original length too.
Hey, looks like we have five people who took the poll so far. Unless we have any new takers, I’m going to end the poll and show the results. Get your vote in by Friday.
Hi all. Bones: That video sounded preety good. About the big screen, cant do it, already maxed out the credit card on trips to Amsterdam, Self-help books, Pop-Tarts and Regis fan club membership dues. But Id gladly pay you friday...
And that notebook you were holding was not just to fool your parents , we used to practice tagging in it too, and the seeds rolled right off that thing. I took that picture of you with the home-boy in the backround on purpose to get the true feeling of the neighborhood.
Mik: those are some great pics of everybody. Glad to see Im not the only whos gained a couple. Either that or my clothes keep shrinking every year. At least we can lose it,right? I dont have Chris Morris to keep me in shape with our weekly drunken brawls anymore. Also maybe you should add a collection to pictures called Parkies Today where we can post current pics of us and our families Did you say Hash?
This website is changing its domain name. I have been bought out by my partners and am going my own way with a copy of this code. The offshoot is that I am losing the "NetSiteServer.com" domain name, which I’ve been using for this website.
Effective immediately this website will now be located at:
I don’t recall getting my shoes stolen on the subway, but I remember in Freshman year being asked by the local thugs a couple times what size I wore. Fortunately, the Irish Curse means my feet are on the small side so I was never a match.
I do remember waking up to find my pockets had been cut lengthwise with a scissors and my shit being gone. I thought that was a pretty inventive way to rob someone.
It is with great concern that I read your acrid comments about King George and Sir Richard. Obviously, you’re not getting enough entertainment. My advice is to immediately purchase (on credit) the largest home theatre system you can find and a satellite dish. This self-help endeavour will be benefit our economy and provide for you a more balanced view of current events.
Ok. Some of you were not on the website last year. A few of you were but were sort of out of the loop for a small party that some "core" friends held at Liz’s house in NJ in July. Liz was afraid to invite the world to her place, so we kept it private, and mellow -- just those that she knew directly. Sorry to the rest. No offense we hope.
Anyway, it was a blast.
I’ve made the Group we used to coordinate on the site, public. You can now see "2007 Reunion" in the navigation, and get to both the corkboard there and the photos of the reunion. Be prepared...
Two quick Zoo York anectdotes, which share a post-parkie theme: going home from Forest Hills.
One night, I think it was New Year’s Eve after Caroline got me really drunk playing quarters with the crew, I fell asleep on the F as I tried to get back home to Park Slope. Well, I woke up at one point, it was about 4:30AM, and I was at the last stop in Jamaica. That’s right, I had nearly made a full round trip. Anyway, the train was empty except for one guy... and he was sitting right next to me... and he had his hand on my knee. I told him to fuck off and he replied, "Want to make some money?"
I again told him to piss off, and he said, "I’ll pay you $85/hour to be a model!"
I threatened him with what drunken violence I could muster, and he finally went away. I seem to recall someone else had an encounter with the same guy soon after.
OK, second story. Same situation, but I had no money and I was tripping hard enough to be too paranoid to hop the ’stiles, but at the same time thought that walking home was a good idea. So off I went. I found my way to Metro and started heading West. It was mostly uneventful, and I actually started to come down off the mesc on the way. But then, as I was nearing Williamsburgh, out of nowhere, a homeless guy (I guess) ran up behind me and screamed AAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU HUHUUHGHUHGUHGUHUHUGH UAUHAUGHUAHGUHUUUHHHHHHH ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! about 6 inches from the back of my head.
I fucking jumped out of my skin and ran-like-a-motherfucker-dot-com probably all the way to Flatbush Ave. I hopped the ’stiles from then on.
Look at all the trendy place on Atlantic Ave. Good food. The rents are pretty much unaffordable for most people. I’m glad we own our place free and clear.
The neighborhood has improved dramatically since then and is now in its second decade of gentrification. I actually lived one subway stop away from the school (Clinton / Washington on the "GG" train) from 1997 to 1999. I remember the day I moved in. I walked to the closest corner (Lafayette and Clinton Ave) and asked the first person who walked by where the nearest decent pizza place was. He said "Go to Dekalb and turn right." As I walked from Lafayette to Dekalb I thought to myself... no, this can’t be the same Dekalb, and if it is, the school can’t be just down the street, could it? Sure enough, I got to the corner, looked to my left, and nearly passed out. There it was, ten blocks away.
Dekalb Avenue now has trendy cafes and restaurants. Rents are going way up.
HEY -- don’t forget to vote in the official Parkies Politics Poll. We’ve only got three people so far... Let’s get it closer to ten if we can.
Yea that was the Cougars trunk that the fireworks went off on. As far as elections, if Bush and Cheney dont pay for their lies and corruption it wont matter much who wins beacuse they will have gotten away with dry-raping the US and their predicessors will know they can get away with it too, Not to mention world opinion of the US may never recover.
Remembert the 72 Convt. Mustang I had? Its in Sweden now, I shipped it to Hamburg and drove up to Sweden and sold it. 143 MPH on the autobahn (top down. YEE-HA ) The Kronor was 10:1 on the dollar (2002) and by ther time I changed the money a few months later it was 6:1!! Ouch. You better spend your dollars now; cause soon wiping your ass with dollar bills will be cheaper than buying toilet paper.
- Thu, May 15, 2008, 10:36 A
