punch in the face

“I think my art is a head butt, a punch in the face, a kick in the balls, a kick in the ass...I am preaching to the choir. But I’m not preaching, I’m fucking screaming to the choir. What the fuck are you going to do about this?"
    -- Robert Longo

amerika

as Notre Dame burned

On August 2, 2014 the Israeli army bombed the historic Al-Omari Mosque in northern Gaza. The ancient mosque dates back to the 7th century and has since served as a symbol of resilience and faith for the people of Gaza.

As Notre Dame burned, I thought of Al-Omari too. While the fire at the French cathedral was likely accidental, destroyed Palestinian houses of worship were intentionally targeted. The Israeli culprits are yet to be held accountable.

our-mosques-and-churches-are-also-burning

certainty

“Yes, and we think that the whole society should be sealed off in a hyper-controlled state. This desire for sterility has escaped the lab on the back of technologies like AI. Techno-logical thinking now dominates daily life, and we begin to desire what the technology desires – a world perfectly cut off from all the poisons we project beyond our borders. It’s a false Self, national or personal, a cell where we keep ourselves jailed.”

“No, we’re only beginning to notice the origins of the storm. Now we have to leave this page, leave words behind for now, the inherent certainties of words, and notice all the traps of positivity that keep the things we fear from opening into larger questions. We have to move via the negation of cold, virtual certainties into the real world of pain and trauma, courageously, without resistance.”

“Yes, we either make our lives real, or we get blown away in a storm of delusion.”
    
    -- Jeff Shampnois

negative-geography

in DC

On March 18, representatives of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido took over the military attaché building on 2409 California St. in Washington DC, with the help of the DC Police and Secret Service. On that same day, they also took over the Venezuelan Consulate in New York City.

against me dour fest

With zero bandwidth there is no calling for backup.
With zero bandwidth the advantage is ours.
With zero bandwidth there is no many.
With zero bandwidth there is no legion.
With zero bandwidth we are singular.
With zero bandwidth there is no time to hesitate.
With zero bandwidth there is only opportunity.
With zero bandwidth opportunity is our only weapon.

whack-a-mole

A massive redistribution of income favoring the capitalist class–at the expense of everyone else–is underway. Only now approaching April 15 ‘tax day’ in the US are the dimensions becoming apparent.

Polls show 80% of the 170 million taxpayers in the US are saying they’re paying much more this year.

    -- Jack Rasmus

trump-whacks-the-middle-class

endless war

moto.........

Uncle Tom’s Empire

But seriously now, all joking aside, it’s always instructive (if a bit sickening) to watch as the mandarins of the corporate media disseminate an official narrative and millions of people robotically repeat it as if it were their own opinions. This process is particularly nauseating to watch when the narrative involves the stigmatization, delegitimization, and humiliation of an official enemy of the ruling classes. Typically, this enemy is a foreign enemy, like Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, Milošević, Osama bin Laden, Putin, or whoever. But sometimes the enemy is one of “us” … a traitor, a Judas, a quisling, a snitch, like Trump, Corbyn, or Julian Assange.
    -- c. j. hopkins

uncle-toms-empire

lest we forget

Assange

This thing is surrealistic now, and it is getting nastier and nastier as we are more and more kept in the dark about those things which most affect us, which are war and peace, prosperity and poverty. 
    — Gore Vidal 

As Assange was being dragged out of the Ecuadoran embassy by cops dispatched from New Scotland Yard, he was clutching a copy of essay by Gore Vidal on the National Security State. This prompted The Express to ask, “Who is Gore Vidal?” The entire culture must be demyelinating very rapidly now…

meanwhile....

Country Joe

killer tax

It’s probably no surprise that a significant portion — 24 cents out of every dollar — of your taxes go to the military. But where those dollars go from there should be a national scandal.

Out of those 24 cents, just 5 cents go to our troops. But 12 cents go to corporate military contractors.

All told, the average taxpayer handed over $1,704 to Pentagon contractors last year...The king of all the Pentagon contractors is Lockheed Martin, the maker of the ill-conceived F-35 jet fighter....The $225 you probably paid to Lockheed Martin is more than you probably paid for disease research at the National Institutes of Health ($155), K-12 education ($100), or free and reduced school lunches and other child nutrition programs ($107). And that’s just for one corporation.

making-a-killing

my god what have I done?

cream

its official

....the conclusion of the Mueller inquiry should be welcomed by everyone because it frees up resources that can now be used to determine whether God had a hand in electing Donald Trump. In a story reported by the BBC and elsewhere, dispensationalist Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded oddly to a question regarding the Jewish Purim holiday, which commemorates the alleged rescue of the Jewish people by Queen Esther from the Persians. When Pompeo, at the time in Israel, was asked if “President Trump right now has been sort of raised for such a time as this, just like Queen Esther, to help save the Jewish people from an Iranian menace” he answered that “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible. I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”
    -- Philip M. Giraldi

corporate homicide

......the outrageous corner-cutting and suppression of engineering dissent, within both Boeing and the FAA (there were reported “heated discussions”) produced a worst case scenario. So, Boeing is working overtime with its legions of Washington lobbyists, its New York P.R. firm, its continued campaign contributions to some 330 Members of Congress. The airlines and pilots’ union chiefs (but not some angry pilots) are staying mum, scared into silence due to contracts and jobs, waiting for the Boeing 737 Max planes to fly again.    -- Ralph Nader

boeings-homicide

frightwig

population bombers

The importance of viewing demography in social terms becomes even more apparent when we ask: would the grow-or-die economy called capitalism really cease to plunder the planet even if the world’s population were reduced to a tenth of its present numbers? Would lumber companies, mining concerns, oil cartels, and agribusiness render redwood and Douglas fir forests safer for grizzly bears if — given capitalism’s need to accumulate and produce for their own sake — California’s population were reduced to one million people?  The answer to these questions is a categorical no....

Murray Bookchin, The Population Myth, 2010 

population-bomb-or-bomb-the-population?

As a Dead Canary in the Twitter Coal Mine

by Elizabeth Keyes

Growing censorship was a given.
How long for me in Twitter heaven?

Like Paul Revere I spread the alarm.
Countless cases of corp/government harm.

My tweets to mass peeps found on-line.
We citizen journalists of like mind.

TWEET, RE-TWEET, LIKE, REPLY – four precious years.
My missionary zeal enjoyed no fear.

Twitter’s ex-glorious platform of access
Finally struck me dumb for Left excess.

“Account suspended” lowered boom’s epitaph.
(Three weeks and counting, I’ve gotten the shaft!)

Assange’s fate awaits us, one by one.
Remember him when your own time comes.