Ameripalooza : Durn! It's already taken!

But the big event was July 17 at Wetlands, long the rootsiest of NYC's alt venues: the so-called Ameripalooza Festival, two floors of music from 7:30 till whenever. Arriving an hour late, I checked out eight acts. Maybe I would also have liked Dakotan-turned-Austinite Anna Egge at 7:30 ("a combination of bluegrass, folk and Texas-style country that defies easy categorization"--No Depression). Still, much of my pleasure was anthropological. Lifestyles of the alt and country.

...and I was going to use it to describe the magnificent 7 embodiments of the Democratic spirit. And Demopalooza is taken too. Shite! Perhaps I am using a lesser metaphor anyway. I mean, who among them would ever find themselves at a -palooza anyway? None. But at least they know what music is. Earwash. And Lawd knows we need it today. Garbage in. Garbage in.

Democrats: The Magnificent 7

Graham, Braun, Gephart, Kerry, Edwards, Kuchinich, Dean

Call them the Magnificent 7. They were...magnificent!

But there are 9, you say?

Not last night there weren't! The Reverend Sharpton couldn't make it, and Lieberman wasn't magnificent. In fact he wasn't a Democrat. He was, instead, an attacker of Democrats. One, in particular...Dr. Dean...who merely rolls his eyes and stands there, everneckless, a semaphor, with a coquettish look of incredulity and mock injury swirling in eddies around his crystalline countenance.

The other Democrats, excepting Kucinich, kept their focus on the real problem, Bush Inc., but only seemed to overstep when he cacked a praeteradolescent "Helloooo". A daft move for such a smart man, IMHO. Otherwise, he looked dignified and almost holy at times, and, of course, his ideas were, in the main, valuable and timely, if overpunctuated by commas and rhetorical flourish.

Dick Gephart sounded passionate, almost human, but it may be a case of "too little, too late." Why play that role now, while sitting on your hands for decades? But that said, his passion can serve as a model of something useful. He's not the one though. Sorry. He doesn't have it. Secretary of the Interior, maybe.

And speaking of which...and one reason they shouldn't chew each other up...those who do not wind up being the standard-bearer; the next President...why you all become the now-well-known cabinet in the next administration. You may well be the first cabinet to be familiar to the majority of Americans, and indeed, the world.

Introduce yourself!

Think about it...and consider it. No bait-and-switch. No unseen, secret, merchandise. We are the administration! And you know us.

Who knows. Maybe...


Moving on...

Kerry looked the most presidential. Period. Braun looked the most sane.
Edwards is probably the best-looking and most visionary, but he really has to bring his internal gladiator to bear.

Senator Graham was very good, and actually way better than I expected, but I can't help but see him in a more supporting role.

Were I to be forced to predict who will wind up in not a supporting role, but a senior role, I would have to place my bets on Kerry, Dean, Edwards, and Braun.
I also see General Wesley Clark as, perhaps, the best choice for VP, exempting the sudden addition of a Hillary or Gore expressing interest...at which point I would give the 3 even odds. All are remarkable people. All would be better than Bush and his ludibund, monoculture administration.

In any case, I think it is important that each and every one of the candidates reassure the people that all will be well, for it will be well. Terrorizing people, on the other hand, is for terrorists. There is nothing to fear, and nothing broken that can't be mended.

Fear is bad for your health. The fastest way to improve the health of Americans is to remove the fear in their lives. Be the healer. Speak in healing tones. Be authentic. Think at the top of your intelligence, and feel from the depth of your being. Be divine and wise.

America must become a humanitarian superpower, if a superpower at all. Take us there.

Godspeed...

Can't They ALL Be President? The Democrats Debate

Except for maybe Senator Lieberman, every one of the Democratic Candidates showed that they would be better than Bush. Lieberman, for some reason, has gone insane. Must've been the stolen election. Watching him now though, I am not so upset by the result. Edwards OR Kerry woiuld have been infinitely better, and both showed why tonight.

Ambassador Braun may have been the big winner though. I can't see her bowing out, and hopes she doesn't. She may be just what is needed...

In all...a great performance by 8 great men..er...people. They should go on the road. Ameripalooza! Say it everybody! Ameripalooza!!

Got a ring to it!

Deserves it's own post...
(See future post.)

CATHOLIC CHURCH: Bush Administration Guilty of "Crimes Against Peace"

"God is not on your side", Pope declares

Pope John Paul II calls War a Defeat for Humanity:
Neoconservative Iraq Just War Theories Rejected

EXCERPT:

In the weeks and months before the U.S. attacked Iraq, not only the Holy Father, but also one Cardinal and Archbishop after another at the Vatican spoke out against a
"preemptive" or "preventive" strike. They declared that the just war theory could not justify such a war. Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran said that such a "war of aggression" is a crime against peace. Archbishop Renato Martino, who used the same words in calling the possible military intervention a "crime against peace that cries out vengeance before God," also criticized the pressure that the most powerful nations exerted on the less powerful ones on the U.N. Security Council to support the war. The Pope spoke out almost every day against war and in support of diplomatic efforts for peace.

John Paul II sent his personal representative, Cardinal Pio Laghi, a friend of the Bush family, to remonstrate with the U.S. President before the war began. The message: God is not on your side if you invade Iraq.

LINK

Future VP General Clark: "I am proud to be a Democrat."

"As I looked at where the country is now domestically and look at our policies abroad, I have to say that I'm aligned with the Democratic Party, I like the message the party has. I like what it stands for," Clark said in an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics."

The 58-year-old Clark is a Rhodes scholar who graduated first in his class at West Point and served as NATO commander during the 1999 campaign in Kosovo. Clark now works as a businessman and consultant in Arkansas.

MORE

SOME HEADLINES...

The Nation’s First Homeless Veteran of the Invasion of Iraq Speaks Out

Who Knew?
The unanswered questions of 9/11

A Lost War?

Britney & Bush: Not That Innocent

Britney & Bush: Not That Innocent

Faux journalist and blacklistmonger, Matt Drudge, hath posted a new member of the whitelist -- Britney Spears. Well, sort of...

Drudge's headline says:
BRITNEY COMES OUT SWINGING FOR BUSH

...but the "swinging" he refers to is culled from the following exchange:

BRITNEY COMES OUT SWINGING FOR BUSH
Wed Sep 03 2003 19:35:45 ET

Britney Spears came out swinging for President Bush on Wednesday during an interview with CNN's Tucker Carlson.

CARLSON: A lot of entertainers have come out against the war in Iraq. Have you?

SPEARS: Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.

CARLSON: Do you trust this president?

SPEARS: Yes, I do.

CARLSON: Excellent. Do you think he's going to win again?

SPEARS: I don't know. I don't know that.

END


Comes out swinging? Sounds more like a prepared statement manufactured for ass protection. But then again...she's a kid. And like Bush...not that innocent.

Joseph Wilson Rove handcuffs

Get your Joseph Wilson Rove handcuffs here!

What people are saying!

"At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."
- Ambassador Joseph Wilson

READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Rush: "15 years of work down the tubes"

Rush Limbaugh is hyperventilating about a report about RNC's Mr. Gillespie's having said that the Republican Party no longer holds the smaller is better government notion. Some such drivel...

His hyperventilations are geared toward getting Gillespie to reverse or deny it.
"15 years of work down the tube", carks Limbaugh.

Where will the madness end? Look. The current Republican Party seems to be capable of doing and saying anything for mere short-term gain; expediency.

FEAR: The New Slavery

"The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear."

- G. Gurdjieff

[aside: The pig-looking Rush Limbaugh, when confronted by the news that The Bush Administration has grown the biggest government in history, diverts and says..."and the Liberals are upset! And they wanted it!"
I don't know whether to say "thanks", or say "I knew you were lying..."]


"Death is not evil. Evil is mechanical."

- D.H. Lawrence

"'Progress' and 'Civilization', in the real meaning of these words, can appear only as a result of conscious efforts.
They cannot appear as the result of unconscious mechanical actions."- G. Gurdjieff

"Imagine that we are sitting here talking of religions and that the maid Masha hears our conversation. She, of course, understands it in her own way and she repeats what she has understood to the porter Ivan. The porter Ivan again understands it in his own way and he repeats what he has understood to the coachman Peter next door. The coachman Peter goes to the country and recounts in the village what the gentry talk about in town. Do you think that what he recounts will at all resemble what we said? This is precisely the relation between existing religions and that which was their basis. You get teachings, traditions, prayers, rites, not at fifth but at twenty-fifth hand, and, of course, almost everything has been distorted beyond recognition and everything essential forgotten long ago."
- G. Gurdjieff

We put the Mess in Mesopotamia

We put the Mess in Mesopotamia
Article by Alexander Cockburn for The Nation

Hell Week

My intuition (and events around the world) seem to be telling me that things are spiralling out of control, and are likely to have tragic consequences. All-out war in Israel. Rampant global warming at an all-time high. China flooding causing 17000 houses to collapse, and 200,000 to evacuate their homes. 2.8 million people in India affected by floods there. And now, a super-saturated and flooding South and midwest facing the added waters of approaching hurricanes, and the Taiwan typhoon races towards Hong Kong. Attacks on US personnel in Iraq on the rise amid massive demonstrations. Another car bomb exploded in central Baghdad outside police headquarters. Some are even saying we have already lost the war...

And I have to get my car inspected...

Expect shark stories and news blackouts...


HERE COMES THE FLOOD
Peter Gabriel


When the night shows
the signals grow on radios
All the strange things
they come and go, as early warnings
Stranded starfish have no place to hide
still waiting for the swollen Easter tide
There's no point in direction we cannot
even choose a side.

I took the old track
the hollow shoulder, across the waters
On the tall cliffs
they were getting older, sons and daughters
The jaded underworld was riding high
Waves of steel hurled metal at the sky
and as the nail sunk in the cloud, the rain
was warm and soaked the crowd.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You're a thousand minds, within a flash
Don't be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there's only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they'll
use up what we used to be.

Lord, here comes the flood
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive
It'll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

The Media: People Paid to Lie

You know it. I know it. Who, in the media, are paid the most?
Why...it is the ones who either tell the biggest whoppers (in the case of the stupid) or those who could expose the truth, but are paid to refrain from doing so.

Or as John Swinton, the former chief of staff at The New York Times, put it, while speaking to the National press Club:

There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.

I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job.

If I allowed my honest opinion to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.



We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.
We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance.
Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.
We are intellectual prostitutes."

http://www.whatareweswallowing.freeserve.co.uk/swinton.htm

The Pharmaceutical "Serpent's Egg"

DON'T DRINK THE KOOL-ADE!

http://www.whatareweswallowing.freeserve.co.uk/thebook.htm

Quite shockingly, the majority of 'epidemics' portrayed as 'needing swift state intervention' are nothing more than callous business ploys designed to boost the pharmaceutical industry’s revenue through the public’s deep-seated fear of disease. Corporate coffers swell exponentially as we obligingly line up to receive the necessary 'cure'. And as we receive these 'cures', a far more real epidemic is taking place - that of vaccine and related, doctor-induced medical injury. Are you properly informed of the facts? Could you and your family be at risk?


MORE...
http://www.whatareweswallowing.freeserve.co.uk/enterzone.htm

MSN House & Home - Best Places to Live 2003

Raleigh, North Carolina

Best Places to Live 2003

1. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill has the warmth and charm of a small southern town, while still being large enough to provide all the amenities of big-city living. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill's scores are above average in nearly every category. The city has the second-best health score in the nation, thanks to great air quality and affordable health care. The citizens of Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill are a smart bunch—91% of its 312,000 residents have graduated from high school, and nearly 19% have a four-year college degree. A healthy economy and a low cost of living cement Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill's ranking as America's Best Place to Live.

10 Liberal Commandments

1 THEN God spoke all these words, saying,
2 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
8 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.
11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
12 Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
13 You shall not murder.
14 You shall not commit adultery.
15 You shall not steal.
16 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Higher Gas? DON'T BUY IT!

Iraq is turning out to be something other than the cash cow they hallucinated it would be. So they have to fill their coffers another way. Bilking you.

They know you are afraid to travel by plane or train...which they hate anyway. They know you want to take that oblicatory "vacation" which they grant you for an incredibly short amount of time, by world standards. They know you will take that car. And preferably that SUV. The more gas sales...the better. Simple business.

But you don't have to play their game. You are in control of your own life, and there are plenty of interesting places and people right in your own neighborhood. Dig them instead. Postpone your holiday for a month, and see if the prices actually do come down by early September, as the pundidiocy promise.

Participate in history. You are fabulous. Anonymoses knows his roses.

Mars, Marduk and the Iraq Connection

Mars, Marduk and the Iraq Connection

Is it a coincidence that Mars is close to us while we are close to Marduk, it's namesake? Hell if I know!

Here's an article on the matter. HERE

Where is Osama?

Where is Osama?

new information encouraged investigators to focus their attention on the sparsely populated deserts of Baluchistan.

Read Guardian's story.

About Baluchistan

Democratic Dream Teams

DEMOCRATIC DREAM TEAMS AND DREAM SEQUENCES

Advice for Democratic Candidates

There is so much natural wealth among the Democrats, finding the best "Dream Team" becomes a challenge.

If one thinks of what I call a "Dream Sequence"...one may come up with something like this:
Clark/Dean>Dean/Edwards>Edwards/???
In other words...Clark/Dean could beat Bush...and keep it 8 years.
Then VP Dean could pick the then well-known Edwards.
After their 8 years, Edwards could pick, say, a native-American or African-American woman or some other whose representation is long overdue.

So that is a "Dream Sequence".

How about "Dream Squad"?

In this case...the focus is on putting the great Democratic wealth to work in the upcoming administration. A scenerio here would be like this:
Clark opts out, but says he would like to take over Rummy's job. Dean/Edwards then drafts him as their Secretary of Defence. Additionally, they solicit the help of Kucinich to become, say, Secretary of Labor or the Interior.
Put them all to use, in other words. We are slowly getting to know them all...despite the Media blackout.

All kinds of possibilities...

They ALL can have a place in a new Democratic Administration. But getting the right people in the right jobs is what is important. Also getting Bush out.

Another amazing possibility is this...

Gore NEVER said he wouldn't run for VP!
He may well be the perfect person for that role. He's got experience already...and a record to beat all records.

Consider Gore for VP...

Hillary too should be included in any dream package...as should war-hero Kerry.

None of this can happen if they chew and spit out each other. They should bolster each other. They could be a real dream team...if the order, structure and sequence are done right, er, correctly. At the top, though, we need to have the strongest pair, who can and will stand up to Bush Inc.

Lieberman, as nice and funny as he is, has left the building, I mean party. Seems to me. Bush Lite is still a form of Bush...

As a final note...should Edwards win the top slot, I think it would only be fair to return the favor that Gore extended to him...by including him within his short list. From my perspective, Dean, Clark, Edwards, Gore and Hillary could all beat and be better than Bush. As much as I like Kucinich, I think he might be better in a supportive role. (I'm just thinking about the visual effect during debates with Bush).

DEVELOPING...