from Cafe Domenico- the anarchist project

....we have been – are being – systematically robbed of the conditions that make living humanly, meaningfully, possible, including the possibility of revolt.  In the wake of the mass and mechanized slaughter of the 20^thcentury, in the context of increasingly reducing our humanity to fit ourselves into the economic system and its technological dream, we soldier unsteadily on; in some ways, our survival appears to depend upon how well we can deny and morally distance ourselves from atrocities and plunder that continue, many but not all in far off places, and from which our tattered and dying civilization obtains the means to perpetuate itself.
    -- Kim Domenico

maybe-this-is-how-the-guards-revolt

Mugger Mulvaney

It is difficult to exaggerate the relentless, savage delight that this former Congressman from South Carolina—handpicked for Trump by the brutish, oil funded Heritage Foundation—takes in attacking the most vulnerable members of our society.
    -- Ralph Nader

trumps-sadist-in-chief

the optimistic mushroom

“Without stories of progress, the world has become a terrifying place. The ruin glares at us with the horror of its abandonment. It’s not easy to know how to make a life, much less avert planetary destruction. Luckily there is still company, human and not human. We can still explore the overgrown verges of our blasted landscapes - the edges of capitalist discipline, scalability, and abandoned resource plantations. We can still catch the scent of the latent commons - and the elusive autumn aroma.”

― Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins

living-in-the-ruins-of-capitalism

homo sapiens

“The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him.”
    -- Claude Levi-Strauss

civilization-and-its-absence

the unknown

in country

By the time I reached Episode Four in this ten-episode film [The Vietnam War], I concluded it should not be touted as an Emmy Award winning documentary.

It is a cornucopia of anecdotes that gives us a glimpse of that war that I’m sure the Pentagon and the Koch brothers, who funded it, would approve of, but its priorities are misguided. The war was never “begun in good faith,” it was never just a “mistake,” it was, from the beginning and throughout, a morally depraved undertaking.

    - Doug Rawlings

does-the-burns-novick-vietnam-documentary-deserve-an-emmy?

the new Howard Beale?

“If you’re looking to understand what’s actually happening in this country, always assume the opposite of whatever they’re telling you on the big news stations.”

    -- Tucker Carlson

tucker-carlson-is-hurting-america-again

yeah

the Indo-Pacific Rim

In addition to its plans to heighten naval tensions in seas adjacent to China, the Pentagon has been laboring to strengthen its military ties with U.S.-friendly states on China’s perimeter, all clearly part of a long-term drive to — in Cold War fashion — “contain” Chinese power in Asia.  On June 8th, for example, the DoD launched Malabar 2018, a joint Pacific Ocean naval exercise involving forces from India, Japan, and the United States.  Incorporating once neutral India into America’s anti-Chinese “Pacific” alliance system in this and other ways has, in fact, become a major twenty-first-century goal of the Pentagon, posing a significant new threat to China.

    -- Michael Klare

the-pentagons-provocative-encirclement-of-china

the Methodists speak

Pursuant to Paragraph 2702.3 of the 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline, we hereby charge Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, Attorney General of the United States, a professing member and/or active participant of Ashland Place United Methodist Church (Mobile, Alabama) and Clarendon United Methodist Church (Alexandria, Virginia), with the chargeable offenses of:  Child Abuse, Immorality, Racial discrimination, Dissemination of doctrines contrary to the standards of doctrine of the United Methodist Church.

sessions-child-abuse-and-immorality

flogging a dead Russian- 2

Well, that didn't take long. A quick response from CJ on our comments (the Content Committee is high-fiving about right now) about Putin/Nazis!

Look, the point is, I’m terribly, terribly sorry for writing that offensive satirical essay, which I realize now was horribly insensitive, and hurtful, and possibly against some law, or corporate code of Internet conduct. I sincerely hope you will not read it, and that Google and Facebook caught it and deranked it before it lured any impressionable young minds into the cesspool of Putin-Nazi Denialism. As for me, I’ve decided it will be best for everyone if I withdraw from public life for a while to reflect on how I ended up here and … you know, to spend more time with my family.
    -- cj hopkins

confession-of-a-putin-nazi-denialist

flogging a dead Russian

It has been brought to our attention via a hastily prepared memo from the GeezerNation Content Committee pointing out that we are possibly getting carried away with re-posts from The Consent Factory, specifically the latest in a series on the Putin/Nazis offered up by Mr. CJ Hopkins.

Now, we love CJ but after some reflection, for the most part we have to grudgingly (the Committee can be annoying) agree with the Content Committee that CJ, isolated as he is way over there in West Germany and refusing to be in the streets of America where he might learn a thing or two, is flogging a dead Russian so to speak because most Americans don't understand the concept of a Putin/Nazi at all and many don't even know where Russia is and quite frankly we are all really tired of the whole Russia-Gate thing.

Putin/Nazi apocalypse

All I’m saying is, we were promised Hitler, or Mussolini at the very least, and it seems like all we’re getting so far is just regular old narcissistic Donald Trump.

Of course, he could just be laying low and holding back on the Hitler stuff as part of the evil master plan personally developed by Vladimir Putin to systematically brainwash Americans (with state-of-the-art mind-control Facebook ads) into embracing all-out National Socialism and marching through the streets in full Nazi regalia singing Amerika Über Alles… at which point Trump will rip off his mask, reveal his true Hitlerian face, Steve Bannon will suddenly reappear in the turret of an M1 Abrams tank at the head of a division of rebel infantry flying giant Confederate flags as they hideously rumble down Pennsylvania Avenue, and the Putin-Nazi Holocaust will begin.

    -- cj hopkins

awaiting-the-putin-nazi-apocalypse

Tune in

The Donald Trump Swampland National Park

“We’re not a livestock operation. We’re managing a national park with natural systems. We do not believe the bison population is too high or that any scientific studies would substantiate that.”

    -- Dan Wenk

Under the cover of “reorganization,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has pulled the rug out from under Dan Wenk, the highly respected superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. Citing no reasons, Zinke reassigned Wenk to Trump’s swamp in Washington, D.C. — which is not a national park. Wenk, finding no reason to join the swamp, announced he would retire instead.

crackdown-in-yellowstone

walk and eat

“If I’m an advocate of anything, it’s to move.  As far as you can, as much as you can.  Across the ocean, or simply across the river.  Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food.  It’s a plus for everybody.”

anthony-bourdains-universal-eater

so long Anthony...

....I will miss you

“Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

Oh, I'll accomodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.”

bruce

what to do with liberty

So let’s just get on with it and put the Old Lady away; she deserves a better home; one where she’s more than a holiday ritual. Where do we place her?     
    -- vern loomis

the-lady-and-the-trump

pressure and time

The gist of the story should be plain. The United States government is an imperial capitalist juggernaut that is pursuing a singular policy of global domination regardless of which half of the duopoly inhabits the White House (built by black slaves in 1792). There’s a checklist in the Oval Office consisting of the seven countries Wesley Clark named, with Russia and North Korea having been penciled in as late additions. Each president crosses one or two off the list and leaves the rest to his successor. Trump will likely attempt to wreck Iran and possibly North Korea. Whoever follows him will soon be faced with the dreadful task of toppling the Russian Federation itself, the central obstacle to total hegemony, along with its partner China. 
    Jason Hirthler

counterpunch.org/2018/06/05

obama the great

“Maybe we pushed too far; Maybe people just want to fall back into their tribe.” 

“Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early,”

    -- Barack Obama

He was being far ahead of his time, a hero of both civil rights and enlightened globalism, when he presided over “the greatest disintegration of black wealth in recent memory” by doing nothing to halt the foreclosure crisis or hold anyone accountable for the damage it caused. Surely it was only irrational traditions of tribalism that got Trump elected, and not, say, the fact that Obama’s administration was far more friendly to the banking sector than George H. W. Bush’s was, as shown for instance by the (blatantly corrupt) hiring of financial firms’ representatives to top positions in the Justice Department.
    -- Chris Wright

the-stupefying-mediocrity-of-barack-obama

ok, just kidding

seriously, fuck it!