Feeling It

It is what it is. Happy Monday.


TS

Sail Away

In America you'll get food to eat
Won't have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
You'll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day

It's great to be an American
Ain't no lions or tigers ain't no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Everybody is as happy as a man can be

Climb aboard little wog sail away with me
Sail away sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away-sail away

We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
In America every man is free
To take care of his home and his family
You'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree

You're all gonna be an American
Sail away sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away-sail away

---Randy Newman


TS

Jill Stein: Against Tyranny

We support the investigation of potential concrete crimes related to corruption, quid pro quo deals, money laundering, financial conflicts of interest, and obstruction of justice. Such investigations should not be tainted by misuse of “Russiagate” in broader political discourse for the purpose of promoting censorship, warmongering and politically-motivated efforts to intimidate and silence political opposition to the bipartisan political establishment.--JS

Congress is unfairly and unconstitutionally infringing on Jill Stein's American rights of citizenship, including but not restricted to her rights of free expression, association, political opinions and third-party campaign activities.

Her lead attorney's comments to the neo-McCarthyites in the U.S. Congress who would slander Stein or otherwise impinge on her right to lead an opposition party's quest to unseat the corrupt stooges and tyrants who now hold sway in the American polity.

The complete story.

And one more.


TS

USA! USA! USA!

An alien visitor, or even a foreign observer, might find it peculiar that the United States military falls under the auspices of the Department of Defense. The army I was a part of never defended a damn thing. In hindsight, I fought for little that was tangible, except maybe deluded policymakers’ notions of American interests, or to ensure a steady flow of hydrocarbon resources or to distract an apathetic nation from the unrelenting assault on its civil liberties.--Maj.DS

Major Danny is at it again.

He should show up on campuses and in stadiums around the country and tell it to the jingoists in sports who are forever thanking the troops for giving us our "freedoms."

Sure, that's exactly what the troops are doing.  Right...


TS

It Must Be Time

So I woke from a nap this afternoon and heard this in my head.


TS

Looking Backwards

We in 2018 are beset with signs of impending collapse. The droughts, wildfires, flooding, soaring temperatures, crop failures, poisoning of the soil, air and water, and social breakdown from global warming are leaving huge segments of the world’s poor without adequate food, water and security. Desperate migrants are fleeing the global south. Crisis cults carry out nihilistic acts of terrorism, often in the name of religious beliefs. Our predatory elites, who have retreated to their own versions of Anasazi Great Houses, with access to private security, private education, private medicine, private transportation, private sources of water and food and luxury items that are unavailable to the wider population, have walled out reality. Their hubris and myopia, as well as blind obedience to an ideology—global capitalism—that benefits them but accelerates social and environmental destruction, mean they have only bought a little more time before they succumb like the rest of us.--CH

Hedges in New Mexico.


TS

Mind-Controlled and Mined Out

Yahoo is now partnered with Oath and a new privacy and terms warning appears every time one attempts to log onto email.

It states explicitly:

We’ve updated some of the ways we collect and analyze user data in order to deliver services, content, relevant advertising and abuse protection.

This includes: analyzing content and information when you use our services (including emails, instant messages, posts, photos, attachments, and other communications), linking your activity on other sites and apps with information we have about you, and providing anonymized and/or aggregated reports to other parties regarding user trends.

And much more...

The jackasses won't quit, will they?  When the revolution comes this crap will be illegal, finally.

In the meantime they have us by the balls.


TS

Joe Covers Van the Man

TS

In My Own Mind

Fuck you if you think Russians have anything to do with my disappointment in America!

The American government doesn't need any help in pissing people off.

You must be some kind of rich bastard. A genuine asshole, or an idiot--or quite possibly an American bureaucrat!

Most are doing the best they can to stay afloat in a rigged game.  There is absolutely nothing Russia can do to harm the U.S. that the country hasn't already done to itself.

Who's telling you that the Russians are threatening "democracy?"

Bezo's Washington Post?  Rachel Maddow?  Big-ass corporate media in other words.

Why can't people comprehend that the new Cold War with Russia is a ruse perpetuated by neocons in order to fleece the public out of even more money in support of perpetual war and its resultant profits for the few, including the big-ass media who exalt the entertainment value of televised wars, and moronic presidents, btw.


TS

The Mother of All Mothers

Hunter S. Thompson: “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world—a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. . . . No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.

“Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today—and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.

“Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.”

Jeffrey St. Clair provides a Hunter S. Thompson quote and much more in his weekly column, Roaming Charges, at CounterPunch.


TS

I'm All In

Portlanders are ready for some good weather finally.  It won't last very long, but any breaks from the clouds and drizzle are fine with me.

Summer in Oregon is the best, and it'll be here soon.


TS

O the Irony

I recently heard on cable news that special counsel Robert Mueller wanted to interview some “Russian oligarchs” about their supposed influence on the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Liberal talking heads at such organizations as MSNBC and CNN keep warning that nothing has been done yet to protect the integrity of our voting process against “Russian interference” as the 2018 midterm elections loom ever closer on the nation’s horizon.--PS

This Paul Street essay is not for the squeamish.

TS

Here We Go

So now I have a new phone, a smartphone that is a lot smarter than I am.

If I figure out how to use this baby I'll be rolling.

I wonder how I would have reacted in the last century seeing the horse and buggy upset by automobiles? 

Would I have felt a similar dread, sensed that I was out of my league, wished against technology? 

I remember years ago trying to teach myself DOS 5.1, thinking I might land a job.

By the time I started to grasp it the system was obsolete. I never got the job.

Some of us never learn.  I don't care.  I live with things as they are, have accepted my fate.  I could never operate the cotton gin either.


TS 

Dullsville

For the past few days and nights I've been trying to think of something to write.

I have failed.  I've been kind of depressed of late.

Perhaps something will click later.

Check back sporadically if you feel like it, maybe I'll think of something.


TS

Essays

Seeing that the Democrats have no real alternative to Donald Trump, they can only engage negatively and superficially. They have obsessed over why he won, but they give little thought to why he will win again. And at this rate, he will again. The moment they nominate Joe Biden and limit their politics to the pretentious side of a cafeteria food fight, it will be the bully Donald Trump who will triumph as the only consistent character in this theatrical farce that postures as American politics. The Democrats say Trump’s win must be excused, rather than explained. They say it was Russia, it was Assange, it was young people, it was Cambridge Analytica, it was Bernie, it was poor people. Forget the fabrications behind all these excuses. Even if they were true, exposing them does little to address the possibility of a 2020 Trump victory.--NP

This kid is bright.

This old geezer is still trying to figure it out.  Good luck with that!

The rest of the story.

Enjoy your weekend, if you get one.


TS