do not give in

A dire event has occurred: a lie has been told and so oft repeated that now millions of Yankee believe it. The lie: lots of money and lots of stuff is the culmination of the American dream. Do not give in to this lie - if you do, you commit yourself to the base and abject servitude to Lord Greed.
The true essence of the Declaration of Independence is this: that each person has the right to pursue his or her Happiness. Beware, for money and possessions do little to make one happy. In fact, they do the opposite, for they demand attention and strike fear in the heart of the possessor that they will be taken from him or her. I do not advocate a naked and barren life devoid of any and all possession (as that would be a short and miserable existence that would end in a cold and starving death), rather I say to reduce, reuse, and recycle, never allowing that which you possess to become your master. Be ready at all times to lose that which you own. Be always ready to burn and smash your most prized things. It will take discipline and time to reorder your mind in preparation for this event, but the closer you get to freedom from your possessions, from the ones and zeros that you call your fortune, the greater your chances of discovering the true extent of your Potential, the parameters of your Happiness. Do not give in to greed. Do not sacrifice your time for it. Do not believe the lie.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JPR

shilling

Jill is a shill,
She works on the Hill,
For this man or that man or he,
Who pays for her bill,
Her pockets doth fill;
The downfall of our liberty.

forsooth

forsooth, it was mother.
she, and no other,
who did instill
in me the will,
to treat men like my brother

name your god

I was very pleased recently to read about Mr. Newt Gingrich's efforts to protect the role of god in society. I am also very much looking forward to viewing this man's films about Rediscovering God in America. It is truly refreshing for a worshiper of Allah, especially one so prominent as a former speaker of the legislative house of the American republic, to boldly call for the protection of Allah's role in American life. Praise be to Allah. Please hold on, for since beginning to write again, I have received increased attention by the centralized state surveillance programs, and I want to be sure they do not find me typing and sell me to the Americans.

I just received a call from my brother-in-law, who lives in South Dakota, saying that I must stop writing about Mr. Gingrich and his love for Allah. My brother-in-law claims that, when the former legislative speaker mentions god, he is not talking about the one and only true God, Allah, rather the strange deity of a small and shrinking group of Americans known as Pastafarians, who worship their own god, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Pardon. my battery died and I had to go get more diesel to run the generator. Once my computer booted back up, I found I had received an email from an angry man in South Carolina claiming that Mr. Gingrich's references to god were in reference to the Christian god, who has a name, and whose name is Yahweh, or Jehova, depending on how closely you adhere to the Christian biblical teachings that forbid you from using the name of your god in passing (see here) and that mandate that anyone who works on the seventh day of the week must be killed outright (see here). What strange and terrible ideas these people have.

I have tried to contact my brother-in-law, to clarify whether I should praise the former legislative speaker for his courage in openly championing the place of Allah in society, or whether I should write a letter to him condemning him for his poor choice in gods, as every intelligent person knows that there is only one god, Allah, and that Yahweh and the Flying Spaghetti Monster are false idols.

Ultimately, I think I will just ask Mr. Gingrich, and any other public figure in America, to name the god to which he is referring, because it is confusing for outsiders and foreigners who understand that the United States of America was not founded as a Christian nation (see here), who know that there is folly in strictly adhering to laws mangled and adjusted as they were passed down from the Iron Age, who hear some man praising a god, and, not knowing to which god he is referring, assume that his god is my god, when his god, and I am presuming by god he means Jesus, is, from one perspective, a cannibalistic suicidal zombie who impregnated his own mother.

What strange and confusing customs these Americans have. I hope they do not find oil here, for they would surely topple our democratically elected government and install straw men and dictators who would rob us of our natural resources and subjugate us in the name of regional stability.

Please stay at home, Americans. You have enough problems of your own.

Signed,
A. Randomarab

boast ye not

A very easy method exists for derailing any kind of personal development you might have gained from counseling, personal contemplation, or by surviving a significant event: boast about your success. Boasting about your accomplishments reveals them to the world incompletely, thus divorcing you from a complete understanding of the true meaning of your success (which can only come over time), and stunting the full effect of your success by forcing it into a definition that must and can only be incomplete (for it has been packaged into phrases and generalities so as to make it more understandable to others, a process which, similar to verbally describing Van Gogh's painting Wheat Field and Cypresses, inevitably ruins the fine and tender nuances of the original piece and renders it nearly impotent).

But, today, with few thinking before they speak and even fewer taking the time to contemplate a situation before beginning to ask questions (which I believe is a symptom of information-overload, an actual condition that short-circuits the brain and literally makes you stupid), we are expected to explain every single step of our day and every single thing we do, destroying whatever internal success we might have made by trying to explain that which cannot be explained to the world.

Lao Tzu says: He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak. (Tao Teh Ching #56)

What a strange and cunning little man.
X 

hemming and hawing

Our political culture has in recent years become quite aggressive. This is not our first period of vociferous and vitriolic politicking: in the 1850s, before the Civil War, there existed a similar environment of aggressive bantering and even outright, physical battle. We may just be heading for another internal struggle of similar proportions, for I do not see either side budging on the issues argued so passionately.
Part of the reason for the sharp divides being driven into the fabric of our society is, I believe, our nearly complete lack of political diversity. The Republican and Democratic parties are nearly indistinguishable on many issues, and, even though they claim to be more or less fiscally conservative or more or less morally sound, they are really just two sides of the same coin. We live effectively under a one-party system.
Nearly two hundred and thirty million Americans are eligible to vote. These hundreds of millions of individuals come from diverse backgrounds; they have diverse appetites; they dream many different dreams. Each one of these two hundred and thirty million Americans has a slightly different suggestion for solving the challenges our nation faces. And yet, they are give the choice between not two dozen, not one dozen, but two parties for which to vote. Two. Two hundred million people have the choice for one group or the other. There is certainly nothing holding individuals back legally from voting for a party other than the Big Two, but, given the capital, experience, and sheer mass of the ruling two parties, they have the capacity to all but drown out the voices of those groups looking to bring some diversity to the political scene.
If you were to go to the store today and you would have the choice between only two brands of everything, two brands that are so similar in taste and consistency and appearance, would you be happy? Would you rejoice in the nearly complete lack of choice? We have allowed our political system to stagnate. We have allowed two giant beasts to provide us with whomever they choose to lead us rather than forcing our system to stay nimble and diversified. Our legislative bodies, those organs that are supposed to represent the people as a whole, are nearly completely packed with red or blue, with two, only two, parties that are somehow supposed to represent the two hundred million Americans who are capable of voting. Have we become so homogenized that only two parties can possibly represent the millions of different opinions we commonly have? I think not. I believe that we can do better, that our political bodies should represent the diverse factions that exist within the people, that they should represent the cacophony of differing voices that exist in this country. We can do better.
To accuse one party or the other of being evil or disingenuous or out-of-touch or whatever is to miss the fact that they are both overgrown, plodding, and not truly representative of the great diversity that exists in this fine nation. The Republican and Democratic parties are like red delicious and granny smith apples, so close to one another in appearance and taste and substance as to be nearly indistinguishable. We can do better. It is often said that voting for a minority party, one that is attempting to bring new voices and new opinions to the political scene is to throw that vote away. This is true mostly because of the sheer power of the entrenched parties. We are not a people who can be truly represented by groups whose viewpoints are so overlapping at times that the tiny differences between them must be shouted from the rooftops, repeated ad infinitum until they seem so large as to be significant. Where to go from here I do not know, if I should join a minority party or found one or just try to change the system as a whole. Still thinking, still scheming, still writing. Can't nobody hold me down. Oh no. I've got to keep on moving.

UlRaRe.
JPR

not here nor there

Every single American president since World War Two has sent our country's military forces into battle. Not since 1941, however, has an American president actually declared war. An unchecked power-grab has allowed for the circumvention of the people's representatives (if one can still call them that) in Congress, so that our boys and girls can bleed and die overseas without any input from the citizenry other than massive, sustained, self-organized, and ultimately demoralizing demonstrations on their part. Instead of following a more democratic method and allowing such momentous decisions to be ratified or refused by those individuals who bear at least a modicum of obligation to the will of the American people (as intended by this nation's founders when they proclaimed that only Congress has the ability to declare war), we now allow one person and his or her close circle of advisors to make this decision. Vietnam was a police action, as is the Iraq conflict. We are not officially at war. This increase in the power of the executive branch of our government is threatening the stability of the tripartite system (executive, legislative, and judicial branches) our country's forefathers set in place, and will, unless it already has, bring our country to its knees.
    It has become a rite of passage for a president to go to war, to grandstand and to self-promote and, ultimately, to try to solve problems that exist in other countries rather than tackling the issues we face here at home. (Compared to the complex social issues that, among other things, make Americans poor and that have filled our prisons beyond capacity, military action is satisfyingly efficient, brutal, and final.) Roughly three millions of Americans live in poverty, with nearly one million American children, yes, children, starving every day. The richest four percent of our countrymen control over half of this fine nation's entire wealth, and tens of millions of our fellow citizens work themselves to exhaustion in order to barely scrape by.
    We have elevated the lure of money, the ever-damaging and ever-corrupting influence of cold hard cash, to the status of a deity, for which we sacrifice our time, our health, and our tears. Similar to the non-porcine animals in Orwell's book Animal Farm, we slave away by the millions under the impression that we are making our nation a better place for all, when we are only feeding the greedy, selfish, and bloated few at the top. This aggression will not stand.
    As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels declared in the Communist Manifesto, "Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion." Americans, awake! We have fallen into an Orwellian trap from which the only clear escape is an early death. We are wage-slaves, base and pitiful creatures kept quiet by old tricks the Romans pioneered, by bread and circuses, by fast food and television, deadly to the body and to individual creativity alike, soft and fat and unfulfilled we live, shelling out billions every year to trick ourselves into thinking we are happy while wallowing in a system (our brand of top-few-capitalism) that is specifically designed to separate us from the hard-won fruits of our most precious commodity, our labor. This aggression cannot stand, just as it did not for the Romans, who soon realized that the people are smarter than they appear, and whose empire eroded soon after the people had had enough of the panem et circenses.
    The Declaration of Independence says that government will bring our Happiness (and our Safety) into being, that it is there to make us happy and safe. Dear Washington, you must do better. You must change the system from its current configuration that funnels billions to the Few and alter it to benefit everyone equally.
    This is the obligation set forth in the Declaration. Waiting for the people, the masses, to act, to demonstrate, to tear down the walls and institutions we have all worked so long to build can only end in heartbreak, terror, and death.
    Dial back the executive powers. Realign our system of government to the promise of the Declaration, to the tender balance of the Constitution. It is not too late, but there is no time to waste.

Ultima Ratio Regum.
John Paul Roggenkamp

federal browbeating, et al.

The events portrayed here are true. They have haunted me every day since they occurred. I find myself unconsciously running through the confrontation at random points throughout my days, repeating the things I said that kept me from being black-bagged and shipped off to Gitmo. This is a therapeutic writing to try to process them better, and more fully.

 The Thai Airways jet, on a direct flight from Bangkok to LAX, banks hard from the usual approach vector (with which I am well accustomed, having flown into El Peublo de nuestra Seniora la Reina de los Angeles many times), heading over Whirlywood, around Downtown, and approaching the airport from the east. The stewardesses are tense. The mood within has become hostile. We land well, all gears touching smoothly, nary a flutter along the big plane's long axis, and taxi for an unusual amount of time. It is nine fifteen in the evening, right on schedule. Sitting by the window, I can see our police escort, lights blazing, follow us to a darkened section of asphalt.
 For nearly an hour we sit. Roughly half of the passengers are south Asian. Elderly Indian women make frequent sorties to the restrooms, but any time a man unbuckles and rises from his seat, the stewardesses, thin, elegant Thai women, scream at him to sit back down. People begin to ask questions, demanding to know what is going on, requesting a reason for our unexpected and unexplained delay. I am near the rear of the aircraft, and have not used the restroom in nearly seven hours. Having purposefully dehydrated myself to cut down on disturbances to my neighbor, a somewhat rude older man whose English sounded a little too groomed, I am in considerable need of a good long piss. I get a funny feeling about my right cargo pocket (where I always keep a pen and at least one permanent marker), and reach inside to pull out my portable gaming device. A wave of enemy troops fall before my well-placed defenses, and I beat the level.
 Finally we begin to deplane. I thank the stewardesses on the way out, bowing to them and saying sawadee krap like a good boy who has learned his manners. Dozens of officials line the mobile staircase, asking each man as he passes to see his passport. "Are you Russian?" one agent asks me. I say no. A helicopter flares its rotors overhead. We pass through a phalanx of airport police, TSA agents, and people wearing FBI counter-terrorism jackets, to board buses that will hopefully take us to the distant terminals.
 I am in the back of the third and last bus to depart. My hair is long and bleached nearly blond from three weeks of sun and surf. My clothes, of which I only brought one pair, are ripped and stained with sweat. The tattoos on my arms and chest are clearly visible. My bag, a cheap Nike knockoff I bought in Chiang Mai, is also ripped. We are packed in tightly, with TSA agents sewn heavily amongst us. The men are hyper-aware, scanning faces, trying to figure out who is looking at whom, changing locations at times to get a better view of whomever they are trying to find. A man behind me asks when we will have the chance to use the bathrooms, as we were not allowed to on the plane, and as there are none on the bus. The TSA agents answer sporadically, sometimes not at all. Having no knowledge of what is going on, and knowing that asking questions to any type of law enforcement officer is a bad idea, I stand quietly wedged against a short man with bad breath and the window, and enter a semi-trance so as to pass the time and to control my need to void.
 After nearly another hour we are allowed to leave the bus and to enter a terminal building. Shouting agents direct us toward a bank of metal detectors, through which we pass, jostling with departing passengers eager to board their flights. More agents direct us through a maze of narrow hallways into a waiting area that has seen better days. As one of the last to enter, I have no seat, but I find a space against a wall where I stand at parade rest, my torn bag at my feet. I reenter the semi-trance, eyes fixed on the far wall, and do my own time, as they say in prison. FBI agents rush back and forth clutching clip-boards, normal looking, sometimes down-right unattractive people you would never be able to pick out of a crowd.
 A tall man with a hollow chest approaches me, sweating under his counter-terrorism wind-breaker. "Did you notice anyone acting strange on board? Was anyone visibly upset?" he asks me. "I can't say I did, sir," I respond. "Someone wrote a threat against the airline in one of the bathrooms," he says. "So I need to know if you saw anything suspicious." I tell him I was asleep most of the flight, and cannot say I did. He nods and walks away, and at that moment I realize that I am a suspect. The realization churns my innards, but the semi-trance holds, and I resume my patient waiting for whatever the fuck is going on to be over, but now I am seeing everything but looking at nothing, letting my peripheral vision do the work.
 A graceful, lithe female approaches from my right. I allow her to pass, then sneak a glance at her perfect ass. She talks with the agent with the hollow chest who approached me, and glances over as I am eye-fucking her through her immaculately tailored grey suit. "Would you come with me?" Hollow Chest says. "We need to ask you some additional questions." I am led to a sectioned-off area piled high with rows of discarded seating and introduced to a TSA agent whose name I will not here mention. He asks me about my life, about my travels in Thailand, about my primary source of income, about my activities on the flight, if I have ever had any military training, where and how often I went to the bathroom on the plane. I answer his questions, and we begin to chat amicably. The lithe female with the perfect ass walks over and says, "Where did you get those tattoos. Were you in the military?" I tell her I wasn't, but refrain from explaining why I have an American eagle and a Shield of the Union cut boldly into my left forearm. (It is because I love my country, and consider myself a patriot.) "Why are you so calm, and why were you standing against the wall like that," she asks. I explain that my father was a Navy man who taught me how to stand correctly, and how to act the gentleman. I also mention that, as an unofficial American ambassador to the Thai nation, I had been on my best behavior throughout the trip. "Oh, well, sweet tatts," she says condescendingly.
 "Do you have any writing instruments in your possession?" my TSA guardian asks. I remove me permanent marker and pens from my pocket. "Oh," he says upon seeing the marker. "Better sit down, get comfortable - this is going to take a while." The bathrooms are quite close by, but I decide not to ask to use them. He asks if I have had any trauma in my life recently, and I tell him that my father died not long ago. "You must still be pretty upset about that," he says. I refute this gently, but he does not seem convinced. Hollow Chest and an airport policeman walk over and ask me to follow them.
 Rounding the partition, I discover a sea of faces staring at me. Everyone who was on the plane, flight crew included, is staring at me, some with hatred in their eyes. Flanked by federal agents, I fix my gaze on a point at the far end of the long hallway and walk calmly and steadily down it. A door opens, and I am led into a large room. Two burly gentlemen sit along a far wall, elbows on knees, shooting daggers. "This way," someone says, and I enter a room with glass walls. Seven FBI counter-terrorism agents are waiting for me, including Lithe Female. I am instructed to sit at a cheap folding table.
 "This is federal property," Hollow Chest says. "This room is wired for recording, and we can search anything we want, here." "Fine by me," I say, sitting down. Since I have not yet passed through customs, I am in international waters, where I have few, if any, rights. I stay calm, controlling my breathing. Inside, my mind is utterly still, focused to a razor sharpness. Every second bears tremendous weight, and as the eight agents lean forward to stare at me, pens poised above their notepads, I remind myself that I have done nothing wrong.
 Hollow Chest introduces himself and another agent, a short, ugly man who looks like a Tolkien troll. I have to force myself not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, at the comparisons my mind is making to every spy flick I have ever seen and their portrayals of coiffed and dashing agents grilling a suspect. "Do you have a camera?" Hollow Chest asks. I produce it, and as he is rifling through my saved images the trollish man asks me about which cities I visited in Thailand, with whom I associated, where I stayed, if I met any shady characters, and if I participated in any sort of military training. I answer truthfully while forcing myself not to look over at the three agents emptying my torn bag and fingering its seams.
 "You have a lot of pictures of graffiti and tagging in this camera," Hollow Chest says. "Thailand is full of amazing street art," I reply enthusiastically. "I never would have thought that there would be so much beautiful stuff there." My zeal bounces off their stony faces. "Have you ever done any tagging yourself?" he asks. I tell them I have not. "Are you willing to answer that under polygraph?" I answer that I will.
 "Well, the thing is, we have your customs declaration here, and, while we're not handwriting experts, we do see a fair bit of this sort of thing, and, again, we're going to have to run this past the handwriting guys, but the way you wrote the letters O and P on your customs form is very similar to the Os and Ps used to write the note," Hollow Chest says. "Again, we're not experts, but when the Os and Ps are similar, it pretty much indicates a match."
 "OK," I say, nodding, waiting for them to proceed. "Did he have any writing implements on him?" Hollow Chest says. Before I can answer, my TSA guardian produces my marker and hands it over. I can see the excitement in Hollow Chest's face. "So," he says, "we have the pictures of graffiti in your camera, and we have your marker, and we have the handwriting match on your customs declaration. It would be best for you to just get this over with now. If you admit to anything later on, it will be far worse for you. So you should probably just get it over with now." Variables flash through my mind, and I think, 'Shit, if I fuck up here, I'm looking at three to five in a maxsec federal prison. Just. Stay. Calm.'
 I nod and look around at the assembled agents leaning forward expectantly. Hollow Chest repeats himself, again telling me that I should just get it over with now before I reach a judge. "Look," I say, pointing at the items on the table, the camera and the marker and the form. "I realize that all these things probably indicate to you that I am somehow involved with the note..." Here I pause, for the agents have all perked up, straining to hear and thus indicating just how important is what I will say next. "That I am somehow involved in whatever happened on the plane, but I refuse to confess to a crime I did not commit."
 "That is your right, here in America," Hollow Chest says, thus enveloping me in the awesome and comforting blanket of Constitutional protections. "Will you repeat these statements under polygraph?"
 "Absolutely," I say. "I've been on a plane for sixteen hours, and my internal clock is way off sync, but if you need me to polygraph tomorrow morning, eight a.m., I'm there. I went to the bathroom once, just once, on the right side of the plane forward of my seat." "So you didn't go to the bathroom on the left side of the plane?" he says. "No, I did not. I didn't even set foot on the left side of the plane." I give him my seat number. "Sweep the bathroom for prints," I say. "You will find none of my prints in the bathroom where whatever happened occurred. You will find my prints in the bathroom nearest to my seat, on the right side of the plane."
 "Will you make these statements under polygraph?" he repeats. I again assert I will. Again he tells me to, "Just get it over with now." Again I tell him that I refuse to confess to a crime I did not commit. "As a matter of fact," I say, "take my marker. Run a chemical analysis on the ink in my marker against the ink used to write the note. You will find they are not a match." I slouch back in the chair and stare into the faces of the assembled feds, forcing my breathing back to normal, willing the rising anger to abate.
 "Well, we have your phone number, and we know where and for how long you are staying in LA, so, we'll be in touch," Hollow Chest says, rising to his feet. "Do you have a criminal record?" he says. I say I do not and rise also. "Thank you all for your time," I say politely as I turn to follow an agent back out into the waiting area. I take a seat next to an elderly Japanese gentleman. He looks at me and says, "What is going on?" "They think I am a terrorist," I say. He laughs so hard he shakes in his seat.
 I take a bottled water from a passing pushcart and, after a few minutes, walk with the rest of the passengers over to customs. While I am waiting in line, the unpleasant man who had sat next to me gives me a strange look from across the way, but then I am called to the customs desk, where a stone-faced agent dutifully stamps my passport. Having no checked luggage, I walk calmly through the baggage retrieval area, but, halfway to the exit, my TSA guardian, he whose name I will not mention, stops me short.
 "You don't have any checked baggage?" he asks suspiciously. "You're traveling alone, without checked baggage?" "I like to travel light," I say; "it cuts down on time and removes the likelihood of airline error." He attempts to engage me in conversation, but I have had enough, and keep my answers short. It is nearly one in the morning.
 I face no hassle at the customs desk, and exit into the main arrivals hall. After urinating for a glorious eternity, I make some calls (to my lawyer and to my arranged ride, who has long since gone back home), get money for a cab, and, just for good measure, check if the Flyaway bus to Westwood is still running (it is not). Sick of being followed around the airport by uniformed personnel, I jump in a cab, and speed into the night.

FIN.
p.s. If any agent of law enforcement tells you to confess, claiming that it would be better for you to, "Get it over with now rather than later," he or she is more than likely bluffing and wants you to sacrifice your rights and to send yourself to prison because he or she has no tangible evidence. Do not do this. Do not give up your rights. Ever. Educate yourself about your rights, and do not give the Man an inch, for He will surely take a mile.
p.p.s. I never received a call, and have not been questioned further.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JPR

worth less

Most people in America are worthless. Their opinions do not matter. Their voices will never be heard. I am one of these people. I crow and I cry, leaving no eye dry, from rooftops and cellars and places loathed by all. I try to give my take on what is happening in this country, in this world, in this community, that runs counter to everything I think should occur in order to dredge humanity from the dark and dismal state we inhabit.
I look at the state of government intervention (on all levels of society) in the lives of America's citizens and weep for the loss of liberty, justice, and the right to do whatever the fuck it is you choose that makes you happy as long as you are not restricting another's right to do the same for herself.
I look at the cookie cutter communities, the endless small towns that have had their souls ripped out to make way for identical chain stores, eateries, apothecaries and hotels, their traditions falling before the heavy evening hand of corporate cost cutting.
I weep for the millions of adult Americans who have truly bought into the lies spread by fast-food advertisers, who have tasted the food packed with sugars and fats that is designed to be addictive, and who have stuffed that food into their pie-holes until they need surgery to get thin again, dancing on the precipice of immunological disorders avoidable entirely through change in diet.
I think of the millions upon tens of millions of our countrymen who have so lost faith in the system (if they had any faith to begin with) that they can not even manage to get to the polls once in four years, one tenth of one day out of twelve hundred days, in order to participate in the democracy for which they seem so proud.
My blood boils when I see people calling themselves patriots who desecrate and violate our living Stars and Stripes, who wear depictions of our living standard and suffer it to be cut into pieces and fashioned into apparel by people living across the oceans who will and can never understand the extent to which their illegal and condescending products are contributing to the ruin of the fabric of our country.
But I am not mad. I am not angry. Deep down, I know that my opinion matters not, that my words and my voice are only as strong as the number who hear them, that I too shall die, and that my actions now, every day, every damn step of ever cold hard day, will decide if I am remembered or not, if I have made a difference or not.
To the people who don't vote - get off your fat lazy asses.
To those calling themselves patriots who desecrate our flag - stop, now.
To the fat capitalists profiting from the annihilation of our national character - go soak your heads.

My love to all, and to all a good night.
Ultima Ratio Regum
JPR

Drugs, including alcohol

This post is to serve as a reminder to myself to address the use of the term, Drugs, Or Alcohol, commonly used in public awareness campaigns and commercials when referring to substance abuse. A simple change of the phrase to "Drugs, Including Alcohol," would reincorporate alcohol into its proper place among the intoxicating substances. The current usage is somewhat misleading as it implies that alcohol is something other than a drug. Take the appropriate steps to keep our kids safe.
UlRaRe
X

on using certain epithets

If you should find yourself in a conversation with a person of color, and that person uses an epithet to describe someone of his race or the race of another, it is then perfectly acceptable for you (regardless of your sub-race or racial identity) to use said epithets.
Example: an African-American (AfrAm) uses the word "nigga" in front of a European-American (EurAm). From that point forward, said EurAm can use said racial epithet freely in that conversation.
The reasoning: if said AfrAm decides to say nigga, it would be racist of him to prohibit said EurAm (whose sole disqualification for using said word is the color of his skin) from using the term.
Conclusion: if you don't want people to use racial epithets, don't use them yourself. If you use a racial epithet and are offended subsequently by another's use of same, another who may not share your inherent characteristics, you are acting in racist fashion.
Ultimately, we are all of one race. One single race. Any man from any group of people can mate with any woman from any other group of people and have live, viable offspring. Arguments contrary to this stance are not based on fact, but on lies, fear, and hatred.
One love, people.
Don't use terms like kike, squint, nigger, honkey, or spick unless you have an elastic and deep-rooted sense of humor and an equally deep-rooted sense of inferiority.
Buck up. Stay safe. Be true.
Think about it.
JPR

on rioting in oppressed nations

Since the fall of the autocratic government in Tunisia, there have been uprisings in other states in and bordering the African continent. Pundits and politicians point to efforts of past presidents or to wars of aggression waged in the region to explain this sudden increase in democratic expression.
I, however, will suggest different causes. I will suggest that the oppressed masses in a country ruled by a ruthless and authoritarian dictator (Egypt) who is supported by the United States of America (for purposes of the shadowy and ill-defined goal of regional stability) rose up on their own, without foreign intervention, for three reasons:
1) They are sick of living under the iron boot of a ruthless dictator who oppresses his population with America's tacit blessing
2) They do not wish to be invaded in another illegal war of aggression waged by the US when the American government decides that support of said dictator has become politically or economically unsustainable
3) They have decided that since American forces are bogged down in wars initially begun for self-serving reasons (control of Iraqi oil, punishment of terrorist in Afghanistan), and since America shows no sign of removing those regimes that truly oppress their people (most notably Saudi Arabia), any progress toward an open and democratic society must come from the downtrodden populace itself.
An old maxim reads: Something given has no value.
The Iraqis do not see the value of their democratic institutions because they did not ask for them in the first place.
The Afghanis do not see the value of democratic institutions because the system they have been running since Alexander the Great passed through over two thousand years ago worked; they saw no need to change their ways in order to accommodate an upstart political philosophy.
These uprisings are not signs of democracy's success; they are signs that, via social networking websites, individuals can change their world.
The United States is resembling more a police state, a society of rigidly enforced controls and widespread homogenization. What will happen when the people here, the millions upon millions of individuals who every year are extruded from the anus of the capitalist machine to wallow in a cold pit of washed-out excrement, what will happen when they call for change? Will our government welcome their demands with open ears and mind, or will it send in the riot cops and water cannons?
Democracy fails largely because people are not intrinsically equal. Simply put, some people are better than others. The way our system is set up here in America, those citizens with better connections or a better jumping off point will have better lives filled with more Happiness and greater Safety than those people without the skills or contacts or capital needed to excel.
Have we developed in harmony with the goals enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Is our government providing for the general Welfare and creating for all her citizens a world of Safety and Happiness? Can we honestly say that we live in a democratic society and not one run by the interests of the military-industrial complex and the massive intelligence gathering and law-enforcement communities? If there were riots in American streets, our country would eventually become more democratic. If there were masses of protesters screaming for the repeal of the Patriot Act, that foul and unconstitutional piece of legislation would be repealed. If our citizens risked their lives to speak, perhaps our senators would not fight so ferociously to maintain low taxes for the wealthiest three percent of all citizens.
We can only hope.
We can only read our founding texts and demand liberty, equality, and justice for all.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP

an open letter to Gov. Rendell

Dear Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania.
I was very pleased to hear you use the "humans-have-been-doing-it-since-the-dawn-of-civilization" argument to justify expanding the gambling industry in Pennsylvania (a link). Yours is a valid argument based on sound scientific data, most notably the archaeological record (a link).
If all goes well with your efforts, humans in this fine state will be allowed to pursue two of the activities they have enjoyed since the dawn of time, most notably drinking alcohol (here) and games of chance.
Since you have used this argument to justify the expansion of gambling, the argument can now be used to justify the cultivation and consumption of cannabis, a practice that also dates to the dawn of recorded civilization (a link). The state of Pennsylvania is one of the largest volume drug dealers in the world, selling more alcohol, which is a drug, than nearly any other entity in the world (a link). Since the state is already in the business of selling drugs, it is logical to assume that it would allow its citizens (who are allowed to brew and self-distribute beer under license {a link}) to cultivate and self-distribute (under license) a fellow drug, cannabis, for their own consumption.
Access to alcohol is an ancient right of mankind.
Access to gambling is an ancient right of mankind.
Access to cannabis is an ancient right of mankind.
Please take steps to modernize the current cannabis laws (a link) so as to bring them into accord with the proud and ancient traditions that humans have been following for many thousands of years. Our society cannot afford its continued persecution of men and women enjoying this long-standing tradition.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
John Paul Roggenkamp

nipples

Every time I look at my shirtless self in the mirror, I get slightly aroused by my nipples. For a moment I imagine they are the nipples of a woman. Within milliseconds, however, my neural processors kick in and my growing excitement is squelched by the sudden and painful realization that these nipples, my nipples, are not, unlike the teats of a dame, objects of sexual desire.
But are a man's nipples really any less sexually offensive than those of a woman? Leading men in all sorts of films display their nipples proudly and without fear of censorship or retribution. Sportsmen remove their shirts in victory, flaunting their largely useless but invariably pert little man-teats. It is fact that a male's nipples are a byproduct of the evolutionary conservation of resources, their development only halted by a sudden explosion of testosterone triggered by the genetic code. Until the fetus decides what it is supposed to be, it develops male and female in identical fashion.
Sometime, it gets confused, and makes hermaphrodites.
Very few men indeed can produce milk from their breasts, although most of the plumbing seems to be in place. What I am trying to say is that man-teats are just as repulsive to some and arousing to others as the nipples of women. So why are men allowed to remove their shirts in America without fear of immediate legal retribution and vociferous communal outrage? Should not women also have the right to go shirtless, displaying their fine and shapely nipples for all who care to look? In our current world, women are not allowed to show their breasts because they are mostly larger than those of men, and because, in certain situations, they produce milk. But when was the last time you witnessed, in contemporary cinema or sport (outside of porn, of course), a woman with leaking breasts? I would hazard to say you have not. But as soon as a tiny bit of tender female teat-flesh is exposed, a film goes from PG-13 to R, while when Dan Craig emerges from the ocean all glistening and moist, his nipples cutting holes in the wind, the crowd gasps and applauds approvingly.
Get over your hypocrisies, America, and release women's nipples from their exempted status. The ladies didn't fight for suffrage in order to wear shirts all the damn time.
Release your nipples, and join the fight for gender equality.
The time is now.

Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP  

a dearth of differences

  Leave your house and drive three days and tell me what you see.

  If you are in America, you will see town upon town, city upon city, places resembling each other in so many ways as to approach homogeneity. The shops are the same, as are the drugstores. The houses are carbon-copies of one another; when seen from the air, the grids in which they are arranged are indistinguishable from the grids of the next town over. Sure, the people are likely to vary slightly in appearance and dialect, but will they vary to any significant degree? The people speak a common tongue, they watch the same shows, they bemoan in common tones the state of their lives, yet they seem to have lost the courage to break out of their self-imposed little prisons.

  Did we developed in this way because our parents came to age in the industrialization and normalization period of the post-war era? Did we reach this point because our parents' parents grew up poor and toothless during the Great Depression? Do we allow this homogeneity to spread because it is the path of least resistance, a path that nine times out of ten leeches the color from our lives, a path that leaves us with a weak and faltering sense of personal identity?

  Get in where you fit in, the saying goes, a saying that exemplifies the citizen's drive toward a supposedly perfect cookie-cutter life. Then again, if people are happy being clones, they should by all means homogenize, and shed any vestigial characteristics that might allow them to be picked out of a crowd.

  Conditions in our larger cities still appear good. Here, myriad tongues are spoken, the races mix, new culture blooms, the senses are stimulated. It is to these places that the young and the creative flee. Out in the sticks, however, out in the bumfuck boondocks, the distillation of our culture into a few scant and puny rituals progresses apace (these rituals include watching football, souping up cars, going to parades, and shopping). While these rituals seem desirable to those advanced in age, or to families seeking a quiet nest from which to grow, the erosion of the cultural diversity, nay, of our very cultural identity, this erosion bodes ill for our fine nation.

  I am not sure if the President's call to shop and the rapid cultural homogenization that followed in the wake of Nine-Eleven have anything in common, or if they even belong in this same piece, but here it stands, immutable and preserved for all time in the digital medium. I lost a large amount of respect for the people of this country when, shortly after 11SEP2001, then President Bush said, "I encourage you all to go shopping more," and an unanimous silence was heard around the country as citizens dusted off their credit cards dutifully. It is the job of our nation's leaders to inspire us to serve our country, to create programs that would allow regular people to do irregular things in an effort to make this a better place; it is not their job to call upon us to spend money simply for the sake of spending money.

  So, before you reach for the remote, before you browse the endless aisles without a clear purchase in mind, before you settle down to business as usual, ask yourself if there is something you could be doing to make a better place out of the little space call home, and out of the larger space you call country.

Spes Mea In Ratio Est - JPR

on the subtlety of fear

I am just come from the shores of the Old World, that stalwart mass whence many Americans trace their blood. I arrived still entrenched in the cold and calculating mindset in which I have spent many nights in the past seven years, a mindset of constant vigilance and persistent distrust for mister John Law. There I strode through the cobbled lanes of Amsterdam, that fine city on her Graachten, crop-dusting smoke, always changing locations, the senses trained for any sign of police, trapped in a latent and deep-seated modus operandi that had kept me (relatively) clear of the law for some time. Only slowly and via repeated conversation did I shed this fear and come to look on the cops as many Europeans do, as a bothersome but largely benevolent force tasked with assisting and serving the population.
Do we look on the police in these fine United States in the same way? Would you, as a pennyless beggar or down-on-his-luck fellow approach the cops and expect a sandwich and a warm place to sleep at night? Would you do as you pleased, pissing in the street and making a ruckus at all hours in a residential neighborhood, if you knew a police station were within the radius of a thrown stone? In the US, people do such things, but, ere long, they find themselves approached, questioned, or apprehended by the police. In Europe (at least in the larger cities), all these things are done regularly, in broadest day and darkest night, freely and without a second thought.
For lack of a less grand statement: What have we done to ourselves and to our country? Why have we acquiesced to injustices stemming from the Patriot Act and similar legislation designed to make us safer, sacrificing our liberty at the alter of a delusional sense of security? I am a sounding board in some ways, a shape-shifter who changes according to the immediate social surroundings, adjusting myself to the situation at hand, taking on the mores, hopes, and fears of those around me; and a few weeks into my stay, I realized that I had taken on the subtle fears of the greater American population, adjusted to the suspicions that pervade our land, acquiesced to the notion that the police are something to fear, that they have some sort of power over my state of mind, over my Happiness.
In this, I have erred grievously.
Again, I have erred grievously.
It is not for us to live in fear of the police, to hide our passions, to refrain from doing the things which give us joy or satisfaction, always keeping out a watchful eye for the uncouth, reporting to supposedly higher authorities that which we do not understand. My hat goes off to the brave men and women who wear their hair differently, who have tattoos, who dress in colorful thread, for those who are stared at when they walk down the street or followed through grocery stores.
We speak of freedom in this country, but I suspect that all this talking stems from the fact that we know, deep down, that our freedoms are being taken from us one by one, that we conform to the drugs society wants us to take so as not to draw attention, drugs that our states sell to us and allow to be sold, that this once free land is no longer that, but has become something altogether different.
I weep for my country, for these United States of America, for I have drunk of the nectar of a truly liberal society, and, having done and ingested and worn and said what I pleased, I have returned and seen with new eyes an increasingly militarized society, armed soldiers in train stations, police on every block, even the small towns riddled with cops, their gazes hard and menacing.
Is this the country our forefathers envisioned, a country marbled with fear of the unknown and of the unknowable (the true extent of a person's mind), a country that forces grandmothers from their wheelchairs to be frisked, a country where sickness (addiction) is treated as a crime, where the consumption of a freely-growing plant can land you behind bars?
We speak of our freedoms. We speak of the greatness of our country. And yet our prison are filled to capacity, our police officers have automatic weapons, and our new national past-time is, of all the lame and pointless things, shopping.
Recently, federal officers, agents representing the state, attempted to force me into confessing to a crime I did not commit. Although they did not use physical force (beyond detaining me for a short period of time), only methods of coercion and intimidation, I fear now that was my last straw, that point at which I had finally had enough, the point at which I am ready to leave these verdant shores in search of more liberal pastures. For when a Son of the American Revolution, a man with the shield of the American Union inked indelibly into his flesh, a 9-11 volunteer, when that man, after a brief repose to foreign lands, upon his return no longer feels at home in the country he loves and yearns for those distance places, it is at that time that his government has failed him, failed the very people for whom they are supposed to bring into existence Safety and Happiness (according to the Declaration of Independence, our society's bedraggled and ignored blueprint).
Shining Liberty has been cast out into the darkness; Restriction and Suspicion have taken her place at the nation's table.
In our modern America, we are not free in the sense of true liberty, no matter how much we try to convince ourselves to the contrary. We have allowed our government to fail us, and have made a mockery of our once fine society, preferring a torn umbrella of supposed security to the cleansing downpour of freedom.
Woe is unto the world, our nation is dying at the core.
May we find some way to save her. Hold out, fair Columbia, for all may not yet be lost.

Ultima Ratio Regum.
John Paul Roggenkamp

amstelledamme

the ultimate city, a town like no other, packed together the masses of humanity, great volumes of smells and cultures abutting one another, where a man can pass out on a bench in a coffeeshop and he will not be harrassed, where the cops exist to help you and are not out to take off your head, where business is constant and the tongues congress, a messy riotous wonderful city this Amsterdam.

X

Hale & Hearty

I am again on maneuver, and my senses are sucking in massive amounts of tiny details I otherwise normally miss. If I had the choice I would not stop moving until I had rid myself of this need to vagabond. Stay well little house and may all the Xmas dreams of the rugrats come true. - Allah, Ganesha, Pappa Legba, St. Christopherus, Hermes: please bear these passengers along their path; keep them this day frOm fate's patient wrath. Jp

through the long cold dark

Times of duress are powerful; they change the way a person thinks; they change which genes are activated, sometimes altering indelibly how a person feels, acts, and speaks. There is nothing abnormal about adverse circumstance, and without it, our human race would be pitiful and nowhere near the state to which we have evolved.

Personally, I have witnessed these changes, these rites of passage, on three primary occasions.
I learned to hate myself, find myself useless and worthless, on the night my father pistol-whipped me psychologically for an adolescent infraction; only through diligent and constant effort have I reached my current stage, and gained the ability to function within a framework of relative stability and self-contentedness.
When Mother died, I lost the only person who would ever love me unconditionally; I have since come to see the strange thing we call love not as a burden or a crux, but as a pleasant but fleeting state not subject to human needs or desires, rather a beast all its own, mercurial and fleeting, neither to be grasped after nor yearned for, but allowed to blossom and whither of its own accord.
The third rite of passage occurred on a hill in Elysian Park, a stone's throw from the boundaries of Dodger Stadium, in which I was bound to the earth by tendrils of living energy and peered deep into my soul, altering it and removing my need for booze and lessening the stranglehold of the dark hidden mass that all of us, at least those of us who dare acknowledge its presence, have faced at one time or another, that holding bay of fear and anguish and hatred that boils in the dustier corners of the psyche.

Our circumstances will vary; we will all take different lessons from these events; for every one of us who makes it through the long cold dark hale, sane, and pensive, a dozen more will emerge broken and empty, shattered remnants of their former selves.
There is no way to avoid the rites save death, and such a choice would only ruin the whole fun of the matter, which is understanding how the new you, the person who has traveled to the forbidden cave, defeated the dragon, and returned with the chalice brimming with newfound abilities and wisdom, will use her new talents for the betterment of herself and the human race.

More often than not the new you will little resemble the old, and the passenger will find previously comfortable surroundings and relationships foreign and unwelcoming. Invariably, he will seek new surroundings in places unexplored, new connections with people who have shared said or similar rites, abandoning his previous commitments and casting away all he has known in the effort to shape a world more attuned to the needs of his newly expressive genetic and psychological imperative.

There is nothing abnormal or strange about this occurrence. In fact its absence should be cause for alarm, for individuals who do not undergo sufficiently challenging circumstances, who have not bent their bodies and minds to the breaking point and come back whole, will have no true idea of their role in life, of their deepest and most magnificent potential. Without the proper rites, men will not advance beyond boyhood, and women (who undergo an early and life-altering change in puberty, thereby enjoying a head-start) will be less likely to advance from under the false shelter of those who would keep them in the confinement of societal or marital bondage. (I am in no way implying that women cannot judge or decide for themselves, only that the sense prevails that they are intrinsically weaker and therefore less prone to good judgement, regardless of volumes of data to the contrary.)

In our Western society, the rites of passage have taken on farcical appearance, robbed of their strong necessity by the development of an aversion to danger and a pervasive desire to protect: we do not en mass challenge our wits in the wild; we complain incessantly about the pressures of our lives; we have supplanted true exertion with cushioned religious ceremonies and a romp in the back seat of dad's Pontiac.

Few are those who seek the hard passage, the honest exploration of inner limits and potential, and fewer still are those who dare to brave the extremes of the world with eyes wide open, their lips parted in smiling anticipation of the impending hardships.

My hat goes off to doctors, Marines, and all those who seek the edge of reason fully aware of the dangers they will face. May your hearts see you through, may your wounds heal, and may the wind be always at your fore.

Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP

Caucasian-Americans

When in public (news)people find it necessary to use a different name for people of color, they often resort to African-Americans or Hispanic-Americans rather than blacks or Latinos. These terms alternate with nearly each sentence, thus maintaining a modicum of respect and political correctness.
Why, however, are people of European descent almost always referred to as whites, and never as Caucasian-Americans? Should this shrinking group also receive a politically correct descriptor similar to the ones bestowed upon the growing minority populations?
In an effort to be fair to all, and to clarify to perhaps uninformed listeners what is exactly meant by the term whites, the aforementioned descriptor should enter widespread and mainstream usage.
Since this is a forgotten little blog in the vast ocean of internet white noise, I fully expect it to go unread and unheeded. But still, think about it.
X

rage nocturnal

I awake to find the flag ripped and hanging limply from the wall. The thick blanket, the one that keeps me warm, is stuffed into a corner against the far wall; I shiver under the thin sheets, cold night air pouring through the open window inches away. The books on the side table are strewn about the room, along with papers and dust-covers that have been placed strategically about the floor.
Vague memories of vivid nighttime dreamscapes flourish as I prepare breakfast before diving back into the deep psyche, where they will mold and fester until their next resurfacing.
Is this torment fleeting and temporary, or will it stay with me into the future? Will I awake bruised and shaking even if I satisfy some of the more nagging wants that slumber in the dark recesses of my soul? I think I will, for the dreams are nothing new; they were with me as a child; into adulthood they have lasted; there seems no end in sight. I am not afraid, for in them I do things otherwise impossible, and I spend time with the people who wish not to spend time with me, lost loves and failed conquests, forgotten friends and faceless enemies.
In my dreams I am free to fly and maim and kill and race, defying the laws of physics and riding the great diving skywhales until my beeping cellphone cries dawn.
Wake me not before my time, but leave me to my sleep and tortured dreams.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP

mechanism: fear

Few mental states are more dangerous than that of fear.
A person living in fear of threats real or imagined will make decisions not based on rational, systematic analysis, but on preconceived notions that act as a lens through which reality is seen as full of terrible things.
I have used a simple phrase many times in the last decade to calm rising fears and thus, I hope, keep a clear and open mind. Lao Tzu, in the Tao Teh Ching, says: Must I fear what others fear? What abysmal nonsense this is.
Indeed, people are disposed to be afraid of things, a condition most likely inherited from our distant ancestors who needed that fear to keep them on guard from beasts and wild men, and whose memories of hunger and months of freezing winds propelled them to store food and to weatherproof their lodgings.
American society is a safe and peaceful one: we crack down on slight infractions and wage our wars overseas, allowing us to live our lives in relative quiet. But, like many other holdovers from our past, like obesity and blood-lust, we cannot shake our fear, and we sometimes become its victim.
Take our current political discourse. Starting with 9-11 and the release of the federal fear-meter (which was always kept near the highest level), and continuing into today's fear-mongering punditry, fear has become as ubiquitous in our national conversation as the shadowy, largely misused demand for freedom.
Streamlined fear-mongery is dangerous because: it is exhausting; it provides no clear solution to the given problem, rather highlighting the danger and thus giving it power; it gradually seeps into every chambers of a person's mind, crippling them by turning them into a purely reactionary and weak being.
Fear is with us to stay. We cannot control this ancient tool once necessary for survival, but we can reach out to those among us who operate out of fear, people who kill doctors and try to blow up abortion clinics, people who believe that our president is both Muslim and foreign-born, and let them know that their aggression will not stand, that their fears are unfounded and that they have an obligation to those around them to unwind their twisted brains and calm the fuck down.
The fearless man is he who can embrace his fears and thereby understand them.
We are not a nation of fearful, reactionary weaklings. We are a strong, intelligent people who can (and must) work together for the benefit of the human race, who do not swallow the loudest man's snake oil and proclaim it good, but who read the label, think for a moment, have a sniff, and toss it unused to the ground.
So, the next time someone starts ranting about all the scary things he sees in the world, turn off the TV and go face your fears head-on.
Ultima Ratio Regum
JP

a critique of corporate governance

I was recently involved in a discussion on reddit.com (my profile) regarding the extent to which socialism is to blame for the perceived downfall of America. My counterpart, arealrevolutionary, argued vehemently for the transfer of power from elected officials and our current system to a form of corporation-based governance that he was utterly convinced would stop local cops from killing innocent people. He also argued that a completely open drug market functioning outside of any governmental control, as opposed to our current situation in which the US federal government supposedly controls drugs, would greatly alleviate our crowded prison system and basically fix most of society's problems. He was also against low-income housing, arguing that, well, I'm not sure he was arguing anything other than the fact that he doesn't like low-income housing as it is not a profit-making enterprise. (His primary source book is: Enterprise Law, by Benson)

["A Critique of My Adversary:" The main thing that bothered me about our discussion was the fact that arealrevolutionary never answered my questions, although I asked him several. He always skipped direct answering and instead posed a counter-question based partially on the question I had asked him. While this is a good tactic occasionally, when you need to buy some time to formulate an answer or when you are simply drawing a blank, constant use of this tactic indicates a lack of courage when making direct statements; also, it indicates that you have not thought out fully the breadth of your viewpoint, and that you are incapable of direct and honest debate. A second thing that bothered me about this person's viewpoint (which I pieced together based on his counter-questions) is that] :

He supposes that corporation-based governance (CBG) would by far trump our current system of elected officials and (albeit very 18th century) representative government. He argues that a local police force owned by a corporation would never allow psychopathic or otherwise dangerous people into their ranks who might shoot an innocent person for no reason, as such behavior would negatively affect their profit-margins (presuming that all local residents have purchased the services of the corporate police force, which they would likely be forced to if they lived in a certain area). While I see his point, I cannot but shiver at the thought of granting the right to execute law and order to a for-profit enterprise that might at any time close down your local branch due to cost-cutting measures. (Consider this: you are traveling outside of your corporate police force's area and are questioned by a different corporate police force. Would they treat you kindly and with common decency? Would they be able to incarcerate you on false charges (which would, supposing that the corporation owned the jails, increase the corporation's overall profitability and therefore fit into their profit-motive) if they knew they would not face repercussions from a person not in their corporation or on her board of directors?)

Basically, the CBG system has not been tried on a national scale ever in the history of America, and therefore, as a theoretical model, it is unproven. Governments large and small have been experimenting with aspects of socialism for over a hundred years now, and while socialism has led to the betterment of countless lives (as well as to the death of equally countless lives, but so it goes), we are still experimenting with the notion of common goods and how to finance them, and American society is still to a significant degree socialist. Furthermore, neither the Constitution nor the Declaration mention anything about CBG, so attempts to establish this theory on a national level would presuppose complete abandonment of our nation's founding principles as well as the founding of a new nation (which is granted to us in the Declaration, but which should not be done for light or transient causes).

One of the dangers within this theoretical model would be the takeover of local corporate governments by larger and better financed corporations that would not be willing to adapt to the demands of each location (due to operational streamlining that mitigates losses to the profit-margin), forcing local individuals to live by the rules the corporation thinks is best rather than by rules that would best apply to their unique situations, a problem still prevalent in our current society.
Another danger of this model is the path required to reach it (think complete societal breakdown, civil war in the US, chaos on a global scale, upheavals lasting for decades). Furthermore, corporations are focused nearly exclusively on maximizing their profits. An economy, unlike the one we have today, that is supposedly free from oversight and control, would be rife with faulty and dangerous products that could kill and maim innocent people until enough were killed and maimed that someone would raised her voice and would perhaps even band together with others to boycott or close the offending manufacturer, at which point people would begin demanding quality controls on consumable products, at which point the market stops being free and socialism rears its ugly head.
One could argue that in the above case the individual would be able to sue the manufacturer, but corporations generally have vast resources and can therefore hire skilled and numerous lawyers who would relentlessly pursue the accuser and drag her name through the mud, provided of course that lawyers would still exist in this theoretical model and that they would have a place to meet and do their lawyering and someone with the authority to distribute justice to whom they could plead their case.

The counterargument to the above case will be this: corporations would not sell faulty products because they need to keep the customers happy so that their profit-margins stay high. The way to increase your profits is to sell cheap stuff that soon breaks, forcing the customer to buy new cheap stuff. This is the way it is now, and no mythical free market is going to cure corporate greed or customer acquiescence. Americans have become used to the sad reality of cheap products; we expect it and live with it.
Would we acquiesce to our local CBG shutting down because of a hostile takeover? Would we still enjoy the rights and freedoms we have today? Would our children sing songs to the heroes of Big Tobacco or to the Pioneers of the Microchip? Would we take up arms to defend the interests and boundaries of our corporation, even if the boundary cut through our neighbor's house? Would corporations wage wars not just of the purse-strings and of market-shares, but live wars with dead people and carpet-bombing?
This thought experiment about the potential benefits of CBG is still evolving within my brains; the above are some contemplations. (For a glimpse at a fictional CBG world, read Snow Crash, by Stephenson.)
word is bond.
JP

classical music for war

If I could go to war, I would not be playing heavy metal from the loudspeakers of my M1 Abrams MBT, but one of the following pieces of classical music:


Bach: Violin Concerto #1 In A Minor, BWV 1041 (listen)
Beethoven: Symphony #6 In F, Op. 68, "Pastoral" (listen)
Mozart: Symphony #40 In G Minor, K 550 - 1 (listen)

Imagine the look on some Arab's face when you're shredding up the streets near his house in a massive metal beast with violins soaring and the beat of giant kettle-drums pounding in his skull.

The obvious choice, the one portrayed in film, is the Flight of the Valkyries (listen) by Wagner, which scared the hell out of Charlie back in 'Nam, and which is perfectly suited for combat because it is heavy and it invokes the Norse gods of war.

The modern enemy however might be wise to this strategy, and might have been trained to ignore Wagner's mounting crescendo of massed brass. He will not be ready for the hopeful oppression of Bach's Concerto in A Minor, a piece so full of misery that even the most battle-hardened opponent is likely to soil his trousers.

Semper Fidelis, Blood and Steele, Lead the Way.

top 3 non-patriotic things *

* that people do thinking they are being patriotic.

#3 Complaining about people in the US who do not speak American English fluently. The US government has not designated any language as an official language. Not English, not Spanish, not Hindi. Please contact your congresswoman to push for the adoption of an official language, but until that time, STFU and mind your own business. (see No Official US Language)

#2 Complaining about socialism in America and then cashing an unemployment, welfare, or social security check, driving on the freeways, or going to a national park. Socialism is alive and well in America. Without her, we would be in terrible shape, exposed to the cruelty and greed of pure capitalism, living at the mercy of rapacious lenders and unscrupulous bankers hell-bent on reaping a disproportionate share of the nation's collective capital, which, as it has been brought into being by the collective efforts of all laboring Americans, belongs to all citizens equally. Remember, the Constitution states that: We the People, in order to create a more perfect Union... provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, etc., and by doing so expresses far more socialist than capitalist ideals. (see Socialism in America)

#1 Wearing t-shirts and costumes made out of the Stars and Stripes. The flag of the United States of America is a living entity and any mutilation thereof or affixing thereof to t-shirts or other clothing is unlawful and disrespectful to the spirit of our nation (see here, US Flag Code).

hoarfrost

the minutes grow for time is fleeting

no longer flows the tide of reason

but lies and discord rule the land

while far apart lone hero stands

from treason blight and ballyhoo

through guile and wit and self-denial

he lives to see the end of trials

and swears upon the witness-stand

that none compare when held to you

but all his words are dashed away

when you kick him out one fine day

to travel on your own true course

awash in cash and competence

and leave him there in loneliness

to always wonder what might have been

if your relationship had been less forced

and you had stayed his friend

what difference, loss or gain

I have just finished reading The Death Ship by B. Traven for the second time. Many years have separated the readings, and I am glad I have waited so long.
For anyone who has not read The Death Ship, do so, but only if you have a sound emotional and spiritual foundation - this book will shake you to the core. Anyone reading this blog will know that I am not easily shaken, and do not lightly post such things as "shake you to the core," so take heed.
Beyond the overt anti-authoritarian and anarchist leanings of the book, it underscores the worthlessness of the human cogs in the wheels of the global capitalist machine and highlights the evil that permeates the world of those wretched people whose god is money.
Give me the Yorrike any day, a fine ship on whom all are equal in their pain, suffering, and lack of statehood, a foul tramp whose every surface seems designed to rend flesh and to sear it from the bones. Her bowels so much resemble the world in which some modern fools toil, those too smart to sell their soul for pennies, those who refuse to break themselves for a shiny pair of shoes or to adjust to society's accepted standards, those who have rejected all and become outcast and shunned, abandoned, hanging onto life by a thread but happier than the banker sitting in his high and shining home.
Most shocking for me this reading around was the progression of the Yorrikkan sailors from living souls to walking dead, a process I realize I have also undertaken in the years following my father's Great Speech of Paternal Punishment, during which he tore from me the honest and deep-rooted will to live.
I am dead inside, a bunkmate to Pippip and Stanislav. Now I know why people fear me, why women instinctively grasp the hand of an errant child at my approach, why I am looked upon with sheltered fear and resignation, why I can only maintain the lie of life for so long before people become wise and seek company other than my own.
Thank you, Yojimbo, for staying with me as I cried, for being too young to ask me why, for allowing me to accept my broken inner state in pitiful silence, for not trying to soothe the pain, for loving me when I had lost the strength to love myself.
Although I may seem to walk past you, dear reader, on the street, there is forever a death ship rolling beneath my feet; I am resigned to this state, and begrudge not the Universe for the way things have turned out.

numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
X

pass ye not, proletarian

Starting with the publication of the Communist Manifesto in the middle of the 19th century, workers began to unionize, demanding a greater share of the capital they had labored so hard to produce. Governments around the world went to great lengths to hinder the actions of these previously impoverished masses toward self-betterment, sending in armed forces and passing legislation to put them down and thereby, at least for a short time, protecting the vast holdings and wealth of the aristocratic upper classes.
The efforts to stamp out the workingman's desire for a livable wage faltered largely due to the zeal of the revolutionary movement and the sheer number of participating laborers. One of the effects this struggle had on societies at the time was to allow people, who theretofore had not had the means to move beyond their village or district, to travel to places remote and foreign in order to find work. Such migrations were possible in a time of relatively open borders and, compared to today, nearly non-existent passport and border controls.
Following the calamity of the First World War, a war fought for increases in liberty, passport and border restrictions were greatly increased, to the point where nowadays it is impossible to travel anywhere within a country and especially beyond its sovereign borders without some form of picture identification. Previously, travel had been so expensive and the costs involved in obtaining traveling papers so great as to restrict travel-ability to all but the most well-to-do.
Positively, this widespread attempt at restricting the movement of workers and thereby the expansion of the socialist paradigm was unsuccessful in hindering the spread of the ideal of egalitarian earning potential.
Negatively, this worldwide traveling restriction has greatly reduced the liberty of the citizenry as a whole. It has put at risk of incarceration not one man but many. It has led to the militarization of society at large (think armed troopers in airports) and has given the federated governments of the world the ability to browbeat and otherwise strike great fear in the hearts of honest and patriotic people.
There is no going back. We will never again, at least not in our current world society, be allowed to follow the winds of shifting fortune freely. We will always be kept nicely under control, with fear in our hearts, and with a passport clutched in our sweating hands.
Let liberty once again reign free - unbind her. There are certainly risks involved, to person and to property. The greatest risk, however, is to the notion that the American government has assured us of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Once Liberty is fully taken from us, and the promise of the Declaration of Independence has been broken, our lives and our happiness are forfeit.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP

loaded for bear

The boxy car slows to a halt at a stoplight. Messages and swastikas have been drawn on its dusty windows, and trash and discarded clothing litter the interior.
"Look at those guys next to us," Goodkill says from the driver's seat, pointing at another boxy car of the same make sitting pristinely next to them, its exterior spotless and waxed, its three occupants looking as if they were just enjoying the hell out of being alive. "I wonder what it must be like to roll with a crew that isn't constantly fucking up and therefore constantly on the lookout for the cops."
Steele does a bump off the bullet and hands it up to Tall Tony.
"Are you trying to say we do too many drugs, Winston?" Tall Tony asks as he prepares a bump for Goodkill, who is at least four beers deep at this point although he is driving like a champion, texting and changing the music while steering with his knees.
"There is no such thing as too many drugs."
"Cop three streets up on the left," Steele says, peering past the headrest so he can provide the third set of eyes needed to keep the intel in the car as fresh as possible.
"I see him," Goodkill says, glaring in the rear-view mirror as the squadcar rushes past. "Is he making a u-turn? No, good. Tony, fix me up another bump - that last one was weak as shit."
Steele leans back into the trunk-space, pretending to look for something but really casing the traffic behind them for the telltale form of a Crown Victoria or a suspicious bump on top of one of the cars. "All clear to the rear," he says, fishing out a bag of grass from its hiding place and assembling the materials needed to roll a joint.
"I'm really curious what it would be like to roll clean, with your boys, not drunk, not high, not more high, just sober and going to do something kinda lame but also kinda fun, like disk-golf."
"Sounds fucking boring to me," Tall Tony says, taking the joint from Steele and jabbing the window button to ash out the window. "Could you un-child-lock the windows, Goodkill?"
"Well, my lungs are killing me so, no, I will not un-child-lock the windows because we are hotboxing this vehicle in order for me to get a contact high from you chronmonsters."
"Cop a quarter mile ahead of us, two lanes over to the right, speed dropping, blinker activated, and he's gone," Steele says. "Could someone please pass me the bullet?"

on the futility of firm beliefs

I believe in nothing, and everything. I believe in all gods and creeds and think they are all so much baloney. For many years, indeed for most of my life have I lived, although mostly secretly so as not to offend my late father the Lutheran pastor, outside of the umbrella of true and diehard belief.
For decades I have been confused and scared by this condition of non-belief, for with everyone around me praying to some unseen and unfelt god I was afraid that my lack of faith would somehow damn me to eternal hellfire and also send me down a spiraling hole of woe and discontentment. While the argument could be made that this has in fact happened, that I have descended into the rabbit hole of rationalistic pantheism and emerged a crippled and worthless soul, I argue that my path has left me with the ability to embrace and pursue avenues to Happiness that I might otherwise have missed (by ruling out avenues to Happiness that I have tried and abandoned). It allows me to question all aspects of my understanding of myself and the world and has kept me away from the shackles of belief when faced with trying times.
Were I a true believer in some sort of omnipotent god, I would not have been able to weather the Night at Elysium in which I suffered hallucinations from food poisoning that allowed me to change fundamental aspects of my personality (i.e. to ease the pain of losing my mother and thus bridle my need to wantonly abuse substances). Instead I would likely have quaked in fear and prayed for guidance for weeks thereafter and would not have had the self-control to wrest from the situation a positive ending.
One major downside to this lack of firm beliefs is the fact that, after every confidence-shattering event such as a major relationship breakup or death in the family, I must rebuild my self-esteem and work hard to right the balance of positive and negative thoughts in my head, without the help of a religious support group, without a shoulder to cry on, without assistance from the outside. (Believe me: no one really cares, and if they say they care, they are either flat out lying or otherwise trying to sell you something.)
You are born alone, you live beholden to none but those whom you choose, and you die alone. I understand that while my refusal to seek outside help retards the healing process to a large degree, each subsequent existential crisis, although unique and painful in its own fashion, becomes easier for me to recover from and the process of  restructuring my psyche happens more quickly and with fewer longterm errors.
I firmly believe that everyone I know and love will abandon and betray me at their earliest convenience. I also believe that those I know and love will support me fully until the end of my days, although I have withdrawn nearly all attempts to gain said support, which is an inhuman and unnatural state of being because people expect you to rely on them and if you don't they cut you out of their lives in subtle but profound ways.
To sum this up a bit, I have tried to stop complaining about my hardships, and try to deal with them quietly and privately, without a strict reliance on some form of scripture, with only the Tao Te Ching to get me through the hardest parts, the best book for those seeking to mold their psyche and quell internal unrest I have ever read. Most people, however, like it when people complain, because they then have an excuse to complain themselves and get all the pent up tension off their chest.
Well, this went from firm beliefs to interpersonal relationships, but as almost no one but I (and you X0) reads this blog, continuity is paramount to rambling expression.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." W. Goldman, The Princess Bride

numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
JPR

superFAIL

see more EpicFail

cinders

legacies of past torment slough off, falling like spent matches from the hands of a frantic addict, dropping like scales from my eyes, releasing the iron hold they have, through fear and insecurity, over the past decade built into the recesses of my very subconsciousness.
gone are the days of inability and indecision. here are the times of patience, mercy and productivity.

Ultima Ratio Regum.
X

Chiang Mai

The fat man with the shaved head is lying in the red ceramic tiles when I enter the temple, snoring lightly in a fitful sleep. His head is propped on a bunch of the seat coverings the old women rent to tourists wanting to sit on the broad red wooden seats that line the inner walls. Beautifully rendered scenes of the life of the Buddha cover the walls, and the rear of the main shrine is closed by a door upon which is painted a demon outlined in gold.
Wat Chiang Man sits at the the north-eastern end of the old city in Chiang Mai, close by the rippling city walls that emerge from the still waters of the moat like stone waves frozen in time. I am doing exactly what I love to do - getting lost in a foreign city, dumbfounding the natives with my slow, aimless footfalls and trying to find the cracks in the cityscape, the way to its inner core, the sweat from my brow evaporating on the broken pavement.
I had arrived at a good time, Sunday night, when the street that runs into the eastern city portal of Tae Phae Gate becomes Walking Street, a cobbled lane packed with merchants and round-eyed tourists sampling the wares of the North. The taxi driver, likely in a gesture of kindness, had dropped me off at Rux Thai, a guest house one very dark, windy and short walk from the Street of Dreams, the local massage parlor and whore hangout street.
The door to my room does not latch or lock from the outside, and there is a bloody stain in the center of my bedsheet that has faded in the wash. I stash my valuables and passport in the ceiling tiles above the sink before heading over to Tae Phae Gate, and check out very early the next morning.
"A city can only be learned through the feet," my personal traveling motto goes, and so after padding quietly past the still slumbering monk, I wade out into the blast furnace heat of the late summer sun, stopping to pay a toothless old woman 100 Bhat ($3) so I can release a few starlings - for good luck, she says - that will most likely return to their cages as soon as I clear the temple gates.
A few blind turns later and I am across the moat, walking down a street without a sidewalk, inches  from traffic, passing businesses selling home appliances and scooters, paint and furnishings, not a FamilyMart in sight, the only person, foreign or local, actually walking on that street at that time, drawing incredulous stares from the wise Thai sweating in the shade.
The trick to getting lost and finding your way back out again hale and hearty is to never stop moving. Never stop moving and update your internal map with as much data as possible so that you can eventually orient yourself by landmarks alone, in the dark, in the rain, with total confidence and zero fear.
Head up, back straight, once more into the breach, my brothers - this dark alley looks fine, only a few nice gents lounging at the far end, staring at you as you approach, watching you silently as you pass.  They probably just want to invite you over for a sit and a smoke, so do not cross to the other side of the street, or show any sort of hesitation, but march at them head on, your face a mask of benevolent indifference.
A seven year-old in a blue and green school uniform approaches me while I am buying Gatorade at the 7-11, sticks out his hand and says, ten Bhat. I shake my head and say "no" in street-Thai, but high-five him on the way out, which seems to make his day and elicits a cheer from the cluster of his classmates who have been watching from the aisle.
As I am walking down the Street of Dreams on the evening of my second night, I pass a couple of white Mennonite women standing in the shade in front of a massage/internet parlor, their bonnets and long dresses so senseless in the muggy heat, and I clamp my hand over my mouth to hide my laughter at their looks of pure and utter disappointment and disgust.
Now, here in Chaing Mai, I am seeing the real Thailand, not some fleabag tourist pit like Phuket/Patong or the big city stew that is Bangkok. It will be hard to leave.
A Honda - my kingdom for a Honda.

from Siam,
JP out

Happiness restricted

I, an emancipated adult and full citizen of these United States should and ought right be able to so pursue my Happiness, so long as that pursuit does not hinder other citizens' pursuit and does not in any way do harm to children or other beings, just as well as I see fit. In the times of the Prohibition of alcohol and that ill-forged amendment that was removed from our sacred pages, reducing the power of organized criminals and allowing the sale of a drug that Americans clamored for to be taxed and thus serve the People in their attempts to better their own lives and the lives of those around them. and now, today, another drug lies untapped, sweet sweet cannabis, of which the illicit sale generates billions for hardened groups of criminals when it could just as easily be taxed and controlled and be allowed to join the ranks of the other drugs like coffee or cancersticks but most of all foul booze, the blessed stink of it, drugs legally sold that lie within easy grasp of our children.

the consumption of said drug is one of my methods to pursue Happiness. were I allowed to grow it, a hardy plant that readily springs from the ground, and smoke it legally by myself in the confines of my property, alone or with other emancipated adults, out of reach of underformed minds, and in doing so pursue my Happiness without in any way restricting that of any other or harming any other person in any way in body or in spirit, would this not be protected under the Rights enumerated in the Declaration, protected unalienably, and bound to the nation by the unanimous declaration of the Second Cont. Congress? 

A murderer who lusts for his craft, or a thief who engineers a scheme, restricts the ability of those around him to in peace live in liberty while pursuing their Happiness. The potential of weed is vast, its resources woefully underutilized.

tax marijuana now. legalize it. remember the Pursuit! think of your children. X