War

Never big or strong as the others
Still did I find myself in the lead
And for reasons never really grasped
They followed.
And when I pointed in some dark direction
All ran to get there first.
As ambition grew
So too did daring
And no matter ere I led
They were at my side.
Having no taste for war
Only reluctantly there did I lead
Fighting by no rules
'Cept those seen in dreams.
Under my colors they charged
And many kin fell.
But for reasons never really grasped
Each battle was won.
On their shoulders I was hoisted
By their sweat and their blood and their faith
A great political champion I became.
I challenged the old line
And once again with reluctance
We did do battle.
I watched in horror
As they marched off to war
Believing I knew some great secret
And before the sun set
Six thousand legions clashed
And five thousand fell
Still for reasons never really grasped
This day too was won.
Some Cosmic clock declared this
To be my time
And so we took our pleasures.
But wanting ever more
I pointed toward bigger prizes
And in my name
Like mad animals they did stampede
To plant my flag.
But the day finally came
When our match was met
And all who followed me fell.
Before my adversary's court I was paraded
And while condemning my soul,
He confessed of some envy for me.
In his dark and lonely eyes
I saw a familiar look,
The same seen in my mirror.
He thought if he had my head
He would have my wisdom.
But there was none to be had
He was where he was
And I was where I was
For reasons neither could ever really grasp.

The Oil Company Deal

It probably happened sometime in the summer of 1999, before the Bush/Gore presidential race. It obviously was a clandestine meeting, probably at Cheney's ranch. Cheney would have had the CEOs of the major oil companies in for breakfast, playing "good cop" to GW's "bad cop." Of course GW wasn't there. Just in case word of the meeting leaked. He'd have some plausible deniability. Maybe it happened while George was giving a major speech somewhere public so he had an airtight alibi.

The CEOs and Cheney would have been sitting around a large antique wood table at his ranch house. Everyone would have been searched to make sure they weren't carrying recorders or anything else unwelcomed by secret societies. No one else would have been there. No one.

Cheney: "Okay fella's, here's the deal. You put all your weight behind us and here's how it will go down. We get in there and we give you about four or five years to ramp up the price of gas at the pump. You squeeze every dime you can out of the public, make record profits and stash tens of billions into your coffers."

Oil Comany CEO: "And your man is on board with this?"

Cheney: "He is. But only like I said about four or five years worth. Then it's up in the air."

Oil Comany CEO: "I don't get it, why's that?"

Cheney: "Okay, look, if George gets a second term... and the little whippersnapper really means to... his way of avenging his dad's loss to that asshole Clinton... he's gonna make getting the U.S. off our addiction to oil one of his major goals. You know, it's all that leg-a-cy crap."

Five Oil Comany CEOs (all jump up and scream at once): "What!? Off oil!? No frikking way!"

Cheney: "Settle down! Listen up! By then you guys will be raking in windfall profits. You'll be on Easy Street. And it's all legal, don'tcha see? Well, sorta legal anyway. You take a good chunk of that dough and you buy into whatever's gonna replace oil. It'll be something domestic, so we don't have to send another frikking nickel to those frikking Ay-rabs."

Cheney sticks a long piece of well-cooked bacon in his mouth, it crunchs loudly, he looks straight at the CEOs as he raises a clean white linen napkin to pat his lips, then smiles that devilishly cute crooked smile of his.

The CEOs look at one another and suddenly they are all nodding and smiling and reaching for their own bacon.

Oil Comany CEO: "Y'know Dick, maybe that Georgie Boy of yours is smarter than he looks. But why only five years? Think of how much more we can contribute to your campaign if we just kept on going with the big profit thing."

Cheney: "Oh yeh. Dubbya's a lot smarter than that dumb ass Gore. Look, he's smart enough to know that people will take just so much pain at the pump. I tried to get him to stretch it to six or even seven years, but he flew off the handle. He slammed his jelly sandwich down and shook his fist at me... After five years of screwing the public, he yelled, the folks'll demand we hang your damn oil pals, Dick. You know that. So you go to them and you tell them that's the deal. Four, five years tops."

Oil Comany CEO: "Okay, so what's your plan after five years?"

Cheney: "After he gets re-elected in 2004, he waits awhile till you guys are so fat you can't even fit in your suits anymore, then he gets up there, makes a big speech, maybe the State of the Union Speech in 2006, and lays out how we're going to get off our addiction to oil, and stop shoveling dough at those frikkin camel jockeys. Knock 'em down a peg or two. Maybe give the frikkin Jews a break."

Oil Comany CEO: "Sounds like a plan. As long as you can keep feeding us crisis after crisis so we can jack up our prices." All the CEOs nod in agreement. "And, y'know, Dick, I like the sound of that... 'addicted to oil' ... it's got a ring to it."

Cheney: "There ya' go! I knew you fellas would see it our way. You can see the future. That's why you're all CEO's. Think of it this way... you'll be doing something good for your countries, and making a shitload of dough while you're at it. Now how often does that happen?" They all laugh.

Oil Comany CEO: "So give us a hint. Where do we put our chips next? Solar power? Waterfalls? Nu-cue-ler? Windmills?..."

Cheney: "Pfff! That's all whacko environmental crap. Look Dubbya will let us know when the time comes. He figures if he gives it up too early, one of us guys or our big mouth wives will let the cat outta the bag. He doesn't want that. You know how these spoiled brat rich kids are, he's into the 'draaammma' of the whole thing."

Oil Comany CEO (reaches over and offers his hand to Cheney): "Okay Dick. You got yourself a deal. Incidentally, the eggs Benedict were great. You have to give me the recipe."

Cheney (shakes his hand briskly): "Glad you enjoyed breakfast. Now, who's up for a little quail hunting?"

Dumbest Oil Comany CEO: "Dan Quail's here?"

Cheney: (Laughs loudly) "No. Quail. Quail! Birds, (mumbles) you dumb ass." Cheney reaches behind him and grabs his shotgun. He swings it around clumsily and knocks over a pitcher filled with orange juice and shatters several pieces of expensive china.

Oil Comany CEOs (in unison): "Uh, love to Dick, but umm... gee... my helicopter's waiting... gotta go... meetings... you know how it is..."

Cheney (shoves a round into the breach and mumbles to himself): "Chicken shits."

Oil Comany CEO (winks knowlingly at Cheney, sure that Bush/Cheney are headed for the White House): "See you in four years 'Mr Vice President'...." Everyone laughs and shakes Cheney's hand, careful not to get in front of his shotgun.

Cheney sees the fellows out to their waiting helicopters. As they board, he yells above the roar of the chopper rotors: "Now don't you worry boys, we'll come up with some kind of crisis for you to jack up your prices... say by September of 2001."

The choppers lift off and Cheney waves a broad goodbye. He whips out his cell phone, looks around to make sure no-one is within earshot and touches a button.

Cheney: "Dubbya? It's Dick. Tell Laura to start packing her things. We're all going to Washington."

The Noose Tightens Around Liberty’s Neck

 Originally posted in 2006, truer today:

 
For a long, long time now, I’ve had the sense that enemies of the U.S. have been quietly weaving a noose around Miss Liberty's neck, waiting for the right moment to kick that heavy base out from under her feet.

Make no mistake, America has more enemies than friends. They are all over the planet. Worse, many of them are Americans inside our own borders. Our enemies talk to one another. Perhaps our enemies outside the U.S. are guilty more of envy than hatred, but let’s not quibble, either one can visit terrible violence upon the object of their passion. Our enemies will have no hesitancy to do us in as soon as they feel they have drained us of everything we have. Our friends, with perhaps a couple of reluctant exceptions, will have no hesitancy to look the other way, trying to build their fortunes from our misfortune. And aside from bluster, our own people show little indication they are ready to do anything about the noose. Quite the contrary, our leadership, especially on the Left, seems all too eager to teach our enemies where to find a rope.

They encircle us in plain sight. Perhaps you are secure in your feeling that our government sees what’s going on and has its eye on the ball. Has it not occurred to you yet that even our leaders live in the illusion that America is invincible? Our enemies have learned our elemental weakness. They know the U.S. is like a giant old-fashioned overweight battleship. Once underway and steered in the right direction, there’s no stopping it. But because of events such as 9-11, our enemies have learned how long it takes to get this battleship underway and steered on the right course. How long it takes to load her cannons. They know if they can strike in a hundred different ways and places all at the same time, our clueless leaders will be so hysterical, shell-shocked and confused they won’t know which way to steer the ship.

China gains footholds in Panama, Canada and even our western ports. In echoes of the Cuban missile crisis, we hear about nuclear-hungry Iran cozying up to Cuba, a mere 90 miles south of Florida. Millions of illegals have flooded in through our southern border. Gangs of illegals have infected every big city. More slip into the U.S. every day, caught and released, and our brilliant Dept of Homeland Security claims they don’t know where they are now, and the Justice Department doesn’t seem to have time to prosecute any of them for anything.

Russia feeds heavy weaponry to rogue nations and has its eye on the Aleutian Islands. The UN plots against us at every turn. The EU sharpens its financial claws. North Korea, ha! Venezuela threatens to starve us of oil. Many countries continue to flood our ignorant population with mind-numbing drugs. India slowly assumes many of our our financial services. China absorbed most of our industrial capabilities while stealing our precious secrets, increasing its military and space capabilities, and threatens to knock the dollar off its world-wide pedestal in favor of its own currency. Japan challenges our steel industries. Iran threatens to hand out nukes to all who hate us. And now we have the United Arab Emirates making bids to "operate" our ports on the East Coast. And your government, the Dept. of Homeland Security, which you believe is protecting you... well... this suicidal government, says hey, it’s just fine!

None of this is just fine. It’s decline. Do you understand decline? The Romans learned the hard way. It means the end of this way of life you and your ancestors have bled, sweated and cried so long and hard to realize.

Or maybe a cyber attack to cripple our entire system. Or maybe an EMP brought down upon us by foreign satellites weaponized right before our eyes, and even with our technology. Or maybe collapsing our economy. Or maybe our own secret armies within the U.S. are ordered to turn on us. Or maybe our savings are confiscated by the government. Or maybe any one of a hundred other things. Who the hell knows. “Death by a thousand cuts.” Check and mate. Game over. That’s all she wrote. The fat lady sings.

But what reason could there possibly be for the people of the greatest nation in history to embrace its own decline?

a) Ennui? We’ve had it so good for so long that something inside us yearns for it to end? Perhaps this is the reason some hard-core liberals no longer want to defend their own culture. But, no, this can’t account for everything that’s happening.

b) Asleep at the switch? Well, after seeing how our brilliant National Security Team takes its lead from Inspector Clouseau... almost always wrong about everything... I suppose there’s some element of this at work here. Perhaps the CIA missed the part in Clouseau’s "Pink Panther" movies where despite his clumsiness, the inspector always comes out the hero in the end.

c) Treason for money? Good God, this is the worst possibility but, sadly, plausible. There are powerful people who fight to control our destiny, people who call themselves Americans but who are not really “American”... people who think of themselves above all that flag-waving trash... who for profit will blindfold and walk their own countrymen to the gallow’s pole.

d) Some outside force acting upon us all? The Illuminati? The Bilderbergers? Aliens from another Galaxy? An angry God... One who feels He has been rejected in the land He blessed?

I don’t know, maybe there are other reasons I am not aware of. But what I do see are liberals so self-loathing they would gladly help tighten the noose if it would free them from guilt. Or help them get rich. I see giant corporations willing to look the other way while others tighten the noose just so they can add one more piece of Judas’ silver to their coffers.

I don’t see any third party coming to our rescue either. Do you ever feel like it’s getting harder to trust anything with “Federal” or “National” or “Agency” attached to its name? Do you ever feel no matter which governmental entity you look at, you see blank, soulless eyes staring back at you? Some may call this paranoia. Call it what you want. But if you calculate by major world news events, watch what is actually happening, not allowing yourself to be distracted by sideshows or “entertainment,” or sports, or any of this era’s seducing distractions, you must... must... feel the rough hemp fibers slipping over your head, prickling on your tender neck. Tightening just a bit more every so often.

In my lifetime it’s happened more than once. Pearl Harbor. Nobody believed it would happen. 9/11. Nobody believed it could happen. Are we going to get caught yet again playing with ourselves? Maybe next time it won’t be a local tragedy. Maybe next time it will be a national cataclysm. Maybe the collapse of a great nation. The nightmarish sound of Miss Liberty choking should awaken us to the very real danger. Freedom is costly. Are we willing to pay the price?

The ACLU and The Beast

 

“It's very, very difficult for us
to have a transparent debate 
about secret programs  
approved by a secret court
issuing secret court orders
based on secret interpretations of the law.”  
  ~Tom Udall




The Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU seem to have a paranoid dread of The Beast. Carnivore.


Carnivore and it’s computer The Beast, and its successor “PRISM,” NSA code names for its program of massive interception, collection and analysis of world-wide communications. All are part of its mandate to discover and disrupt plots against the security of The United States and its citizens. Leftists, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood, and their mouthpiece, the ACLU will not have any of this.


Their argument boils down to this: privacy trumps security. How dare the U.S. Government "spy" or intrude on private conversations of its citizens! How dare the Government diminish the right to privacy in order to spare U.S. citizens further terror attacks! Listening-in on secretive conversations is so un-Constitutional, argue  the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU that it makes America hardly worth saving.
 

Let's say Mr. A in some foreign nation known to harbor terrorists, is phoning Mr. B in America. Let's say NSA’s Beast routinely “listens” and hears certain key words which lead it to conclude Mr. A is trying to enlist, encourage or in some other way support terrorist activity with Mr. B, for the explicit planning of imminent violent acts upon U.S. soil. The Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU want NSA to cease and desist. They argue if The Beast reports the communication between Mssrs. A and B, it will have infringed on their Constitution rights to privately discuss and plan violent acts. Intruding on free speech of any kind, they say, is far worse than the effort to thwart those planning to kill Americans, trafficking in drugs, or child pornography or whatever. Why, if our government monitors such conversations, we no longer live in a country which is free. And perhaps such a wicked government... one which places the safety of its citizens above the ACLU's cabalistic interpretation of the Constitution... has overstepped the legal bounds of its authority. Therefore what? That wicked government should be abolished and replaced by the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU?
 

It seems fairly clear that the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU would prefer that Mssrs. A and B be allowed to carry out their plans uninhibited by Homeland Security, the FBI or anyone else charged with protecting Americans. To the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU it must be preferable to allow Mssrs. A and B to blow up a building, gas civilians in a mall, or spread biological terror through a grade school than to infringe on your grandmother’s phone or internet conversations about her quilting party. Deaths are preferable to the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU because they can be treated as crimes, in which case their lawyers will volunteer to represent Mssrs A and B in their Constitutional right to a trial by their peers. They will look the other way to avoid the pained eyes of the parents, spouses and families of the innocents who lost their lives in a terror attack. The Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU will perform rhetorical dances upon the graves of the victims, glowing with pride at saving grandma’s freedom to pass along her Johnny cakes recipe and quilting party details in complete privacy.
 

Perhaps the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU actually believe America is invulnerable to defeat. That we are so mighty we can suffer a thousand cuts and still stand on The Constitution and the right to privacy. Or free speech or whatever the hell the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU read into their Phantom Constitution.


Today’s legal Left views The Constitution as a document written by and for a cabal of Freemasons and old religious white slave masters. It must be like The Bible Code, right? Undoubtedly, the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU read every fourth letter or fifth word of their Phantom Constitution and somehow divine that  free speech and privacy trump the survival of the nation’s citizens.
 

I’m not a mind-reader. I don't really know why the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU want to shut down The Beast. The thought occurs to me that they are, plain and simple, unforgivably wrong. I believe many of them don’t give a rat’s ass if we are subjected to further attacks. Is it any wonder that so many Americans consider them to be traitorous? Thriving on chaos. Another terrorist attack on U.S. soil will give the Leftist media more video of carnage. More propaganda for their fight against gun rights (a right they can’t seem to find in their Phantom Constitution). More legal cases to fight. More movies to produce which uncover the evil involvement of the U.S. government in attacking its own citizens. But never once will they look at themselves and wonder if maybe, just maybe, they were wrong to interfere with the work of the NSA or The Beast.
 

But one day, Mssrs. A and B will communicate how they have been inspired by the Left, Progressives, Liberals, Hollywood and their mouthpiece, the ACLU. On that day, The Beast will have their number.

Chewing the Constitutional Fat

We often hear politicians and civil rights champions such as the ACLU, citing "The individual's right to privacy." This is somehow supposed to be a trump card in the twisted game of bridge called "law." Oh my God... weak-kneed conservatives begin to crumble under the mere suggestion that they might be undermining some God-ordained "Individual right to privacy." But just what the hell is this?

There is really no unconditional right to privacy, just as there are very few other unconditional "rights" expressed in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. These are interpretations invented in the modern era by secular-progressive lawyers arguing for an "anything goes" society.

If you don't believe me, men, next time you are standing at a urinal doing your business, and another guy walks in the bathroom, tell him he is intruding upon your right to privacy and is not allowed to be within viewing distance of your, well, privates. That expression you see come over his face should tell you he agrees with me.

When you go to your doctor's office you'll notice all kinds of aides running around you while you are being examined. Your blood tests and other tests and their results are routinely handled by half a dozen people before they are put in your file. You mean to tell me you expect that no one will look at your test results and whisper "Oh my God, he's got THAT!?" There is no privacy here either. Have you ever been in a hospital? Talk about invading an "individual's right to privacy!" I'm sure there's a bevy of ACLU lawyers trying to make a case for suing all the people who touched you while you were in the emergency room. Privacy? Everyone who touches you and has a license to practice anything, whether or not you needed it, gets to submit a bill for it.

Am I Constitutionally guaranteed a private room in a hospital? Or a private seat on a plane or train or bus? How about a restaurant? Or is the right to privacy conditional upon whether or not I can pay for it?

When you do some banking and the teller has to look up your account on his or her little screen, don't you know that your entire banking records are displayable right then and there? What if the teller looks at your current balance and can't help laughing out loud? Maybe the teller asks the supervisor a question and the supe has to also look at the screen... then looks you up and down and tries not to burst out laughing. Or what if you sold your house and are depositing an eight hundred thousand dollar check? Do you expect the teller to not look up and see who you are? Maybe he or she will look over at the next teller and make a sign with his or her eyes. A sign that, without uttering a word, says "Hey Darlene, check out this dude, man, he's rich." Darlene, who never even paid you any attention, suddenly smiles and in her beady little eyes, you have become a god. Do you expect there will be a pulse of energy at the end of your transaction, whereby, just like in Men In Black, the teller and the supe's memories will be erased? Or your real estate agent's? Or your insurance agent's?

What about when you shop at a supermarket (or most other larger stores now)? They're not just using the scanners to add up product prices. They digitally store your buying patterns which are then correlated to your credit card so somebody up there knows what you like to eat and how much you are willing to spend doing it. What in hell do you think all those "cookies" on the internet are doing with your "private" information?

What about all that nasty info on your license, ladies? Your age. Your weight. Who knows what else is in that code?

No, there is no real right to privacy. You simply expect that your doctor's staff and your bankers and your business partners are descreet professionals who will not burst out laughing or e-mail your info to Matt Drudge. But there is no legal "right" to descreet representatives at your bank or elsewhere. It's less a "right" and more a reasonable "expectation." Just one of the niceties of our decent culture. Descretion.

Likewise, when the President meets with his advisors and Cabinet. Or when any high level meeting occurs. The person who called the meeting expects the participants to adopt the same sense of descretion. But most of the time there is a leak. Oh it doesn't have to be by the participants per se. It could be a low-ranking aide who was enlisted to transcribe or otherwise document the meeting. Has this individual abrogated anyone's right to privacy? Yes, of course. It's illegal to leak confidential information. But it happens every day. Otherwise, the newspapers and internet "news" sites would be devoid of anything to publish.

So, I ask, why is it any different with intercepting international phone conversations between Al Qaida in Pakistan and someone in a mosque in Detroit? Or for that matter between any two people, anywhere? Isn't there an implicit understanding that as long as any conversation monitored is mundane that it will merely be relegated to the dustbin of cyberspace?

Personally, if anyone wants to listen in on my conversations - I've elevated mundane to an art form so I suggest they get themselves a good supply of No-Doze if they do - I say have at it! But then again, I am not so self-important that I feel even my snooze-making conversations are sacrosanct.

I suggest everyone get off their Constitutional high horses and let the NSA do its job. Only witches think there is a witch hunt going on, and no one cares about your insipid cell phone conversations, not even the dope you are calling.

If an intercept can thwart another 9-11 in America, maybe even in the very building you are making your vapid phonecalls from, then I say "Go get 'em Carnivore and The Beast!" Let's let 'em loose and let 'em chew the fat.