Sunday, November 13, 2005

Mr. Clean meets Mr. Zimmerman...before I leave for the day

Posted by Mickey Z on 11/13 at 07:53 AM
blog comments powered by Disqus

  1. Good Morning everyone...while all of you are having fun at the party at Mickey’s today, I will be going across the State to attend a meeting of VFP. The item for discussion that I will put on the agenda is, “Has the ‘Support the Troops’ movement contributed to the deaths of many civilians in Iraq?” Thus far this has been a taboo topic across the U.S. I know of only a few people in this country who have come out openly and been willing to discuss this. In every case there has been retaliation if anyone dares to bring this topic up. Do I have any takers here?????

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  11/13  at  09:04 AM

  2. tough one!

    in a sense the soldiers are the victims in all this too but at the same time they are the ones doing the killing. as bush himslef said at the start of the invasion “it will be no defence to say ‘ i was just following orders’”

    very tough question.

    oh and mickey RE: the bob dyland stuff. its all tremendous stuf but why the f*&k did he then go and have to sell some of his songs to starbucks for adverts?

    Posted by michael from scotland  on  11/13  at  09:17 AM

  3. I think one can answer “yes” to RMJ’s question: “Has the ‘Support the Troops’ movement contributed to the deaths of many civilians in Iraq?” and still not being specifically blaming the troops. What’s to blame is the “my country right or wrong” mentality. If the country-at-large didn’t slap “support the troops” stickers on their SUVs and didn’t treat soldiers like gods, a) it would be much harder for leaders (sic) to launch wars and b) less Americans would be likely to volunteer for the armed services. I know there’s a lot of context needed here but my primary point is this: When the words “support the troops” come out of your mouth, it’s heard as “support the policy” and that translates into civilian deaths, remote control imperialism, and further dependence on oil.

    As for Dylan, Michael, I can only suggest you appreciate the message...because every messenger is a flawed human.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  11/13  at  09:24 AM

  4. i do appreciate the message and i love the bob dylan stuff. i just think there is some ulterior motive here. he is obviously not a stupid person and knew exactly what he was doing when he did that.

    Posted by michael from scotland  on  11/13  at  09:28 AM

  5. Michael and Mickey...Thanks, great insight in your answers to my question. It would be helpful to me if more Expendables would chime in here. Keep in mind that one big difference now from previous wars is that ALL of the troops now have volunteered. No one was drafted. That is an important point that the Bush Administration has pointed out to support the war.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  11/13  at  10:06 AM

  6. yeah but many of the ‘volunteers’ were press-ganged into it

    Posted by michael from scotland  on  11/13  at  10:09 AM

  7. I’m the last guy to support the troops, ever...I think there are troops that volunteered because of money issues, pressure, etc., and them there are those in the Nat’l Gaurd, but once they get to Iraq/Afghanistan and you shoot at, drop a bomb on or torture another human being you are a criminal.

    If we didn;t support the troops, there would be a lot less of them to do the killing.

    Posted by JOS from Calle Colón  on  11/13  at  10:25 AM

  8. As a former student loan professional, I can tell you that the number of troops who volunteer for a shaot at a college degree on the military dime is astronomical.  They are routinely devastated and shocked when they get the bill for the “up to $xx,xxx” the military promises them...in the form of guaranteed student loans. 

    Since I collected on the oldest, hardest loans (and found positive solutions within the framework I was give, to the tune of $1.1mil in loans resolved in one year), I heard every imaginable nightmare story from the vets of the First Gulf War.  Nauseating.

    So, RMJ, my answer to your question is an unequivo cal “yes.” The “Support the Troops” mantra does NOT extend to supporting their goals or desires when in uniform or out of it.  It does NOT extend to troops who’re fags or dykes.  It does NOT extend to the families of the troops who need assistance with simple daily living, like child care and/or a decent living wage, while their “breadwinner” (it now needs two incomes to raise children into the affluence we’re told we need, so there isn’t a breadwinner anymore) is off dropping expensive weapons systems on people we have no good reason to fight.

    So “Support the Troops!” say I, bring ‘em home and put ‘em to work, on the same pay they get now, restoring the hurricane damage to the Gulf Coast; fixing the aging dams that supply water for factory farming and idiot places for huge populations (eg, Phoenix or Las Vegas); send armed forces people unqualified by their mental and emotional equipment to the universities that they may fail dismally and sustain soetimes irrecoverable blows to their self-esteem.  Even with the troops home, there will be plenty to protest.

    The world is not “normal” so I wish everyone would stop using that word to indicate some sort of desideratum.  “Normal” (my captch oracle) means violent and hate-filled and horrifyingly cruel.  This is something to aspire to?

    Posted by Mudge from Dear, dead Austin  on  11/13  at  11:00 AM

  9. hey mudge - i put a post on the end of yesterdays blog for your good self

    Posted by michael from scotland  on  11/13  at  11:02 AM

  10. Howdy, Pictlander.  Saw it, and respond herewith:

    “i am not saying any of this is good, just that it is. for the reocrd i think professional sport is a way of focussing energies that people might otherwise use in the political sphere into essentially pointless ventures (watching a few overpaid cocaine fuelled brats run around for their own amusement)”

    An ancient tradition here.  The Byzantine Empire had chariot races, and the teams (the Blues and the Greens) were idols and gods, had hot and cold running dancing boys and girls (sexuality wasn’t so rigid then) and huge popular power.  Riots with many deaths were very common as followers of the teams fought out the wins and losses.

    Human nature is human nature.  Anything, practical or numinous, that neglects this truism will eventually come crashing down before its maximum imaginable time (viz, Soviet Union and denial of greed motives to the masses).

    “football (soccer) is the number one working class sport in the world. the USA is the exception and not the rule in this matter.”

    In this as in so many things, I like American exceptionalism.  I also like our refusal to adopt the logical and elegant metric system.  I was in Italy in 1990 and experienced first-hand World Cup mania.  I loathed it.  I loathe football, no matter whose rules one uses, because I loathe this barely ritualized worship of those best able to inflict violent bodily harm on another.  Participation in American football by college-age men has been shown to reduce the life expectancy of the player by about a decade.  The argument goes that these men we’re basing this on played before the players had to suit up in forty pounds of protective gear to avoid grievous bodily harm.

    Snotballs.  HIGH-SCHOOL KIDS in Texas die every year (and I do NOT make this up) because the protective gear causes HEATSTROKE.

    Buncha crap.  Give ‘em knives and send ‘em out onto the field to kill each other, like the Romans did, and then we don’t even have to feed ‘em.

    Posted by Mudge from Dear, dead Austin  on  11/13  at  11:17 AM

  11. I got a little annoyed with some Crusader revisionism, as I see it, going on in another group I belong to.

    “Interesting facts about Crusading times and Templars...the CC was revising itself mightily at this time, building in its various Councils a monolithic and fascistic (as we’d call it today) political structure that squashed variation in the name of One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church that controlled everything from cradle to grave.  No social service was available to anyone anywhere who wasn’t in the Church.  No hope of eternal salvation was available to anyone who wasn’t in the Church.  These are innovations in human thought that were introduced about the time, hmmm, of the First Crusade!  (They aren’t precisely coincident, leave me alone while I make my point, history buffs.) Gregory the “Great” was an astute politician and realized that your best bet to be left alone to pick someone’s pocket is to dazzle ‘em with bullsh1t while the Evil Deed takes place.  Suddenly, a thousand ninety-six years after Christ’s death, it became a matter of eternal life or eternal damnation that Italian religious professionals regain control of a Middle Easter backwater of small geopolitical significance.

    And the church councils were busy legislating morality, papal authority, and church hegemony.  Hmmm.

    The Templars were, as everyone knows, evil rotten m-f’s who worshipped Satan and screwed each other in vile, unnatural ways.  They were also the richest people anywhere ever up to that time.  Their destruction ended their evil, rotten ways (after all, no one practices “sodomy” any more, right?  Everyone reading this is completely heterosexual and has never ever had sex for any purpose other than procreation, right?), and as a completely unrelated matter, those suddenly ownerless assets had to be reapportioned!  Bonus!

    So the Crusades weren’t anything but the usual, evil political theater to distract people from the real aims of their political masters.  It was ever thus, and will ever be thus.  Humans are humans.  And, perhaps not coincidentally, the Ccrusades gifted Christendom with an eney of nigh on a millennium’s standing, full of justifiable and righteous anger; so we’re paying for the sins first committed by our many-times-great ancestors, as renewed in most generations since.”

    I just can’t abide the “we’re guiltless, they’re evil” mindset.  As a result of this fairly mild, I thought anyway, post I’ve been BOMBARDED with nastiness!  I submit this for general Expendable response: Is this post, in its tone, rabble-rousing, confrontational, or such-like?  Its content, I pray, leave aside because no one’s telling me I’m inaccurate, just wrong.

    Posted by Mudge from Dear, dead Austin  on  11/13  at  11:50 AM

  12. Even as I write anything even tangentially related to religion, it seems confrontational to ME because I can already hear the howls and whinges. Get out of my head you jeezo-freaks!

    Anyway thats me. Your post-
    1) The mere existence of your thoughts re the church will incense many,
    2) The implication that the readers aren’t all whitebread straight-as-a-die Chad’s with pastel shade jumpers tied round their necks will anger some at least,
    3) You’ve given the readers an opinion about historical forces they’re unlikely to have read in their textbooks (or will have had discounted by their omniscient teacher - “Learn some history dude!"),
    4) You’ve questioned the central tenet many people use to understand ‘terrorism’.

    What did you expect? The mildest meekest challenge on any of these subjects causes apoplectic fits. You’ve managed to fit them all into one post. Hence the apoplectic rants.

    Posted by Mew from England  on  11/13  at  12:40 PM

  13. Ahhh...Mew, I failed to consider the “noli me tangere” aspect of ost folks’ opinions-cum-prejudices.  Just didn’t factor that in.  Thanks.  Much is now explained.

    Side note: My niece’s husband calls the communion wafers offered in Catholic, and I suppose other, churches “Jeez-Its.” We were at a Catholic wedding once, and as communion was being offered, an atavistic urge hit and I started to get up...John said, “Oh, if you’re going for a Jeez-It, get me one too, okay?”

    I had to sit down I was laughing so very hard.  Got lots of dirty looks, too.

    Posted by Mudge from Dear, dead Austin  on  11/13  at  01:28 PM

  14. Hi Mickey, Rosemarie, Mudgster, JOS, Michael and Mew -
    Rosemarie - in case you’re still nearby, I agree with the gang; the “Support the Troops” movement has certainly contributed to the deaths of more innocents in Iraq.  I don’t like the “reductionism” of the debate, though.  It’s like the guns vs. criminals debate - “guns don’t kill people, criminals kill people...”
    It keeps the general population from focusing on the true crime, which is that, as Mudge states it with such superb eloquence:  Normal, within “civilizations,” means violent and hate-filled and horrifyingly cruel. 

    Normal means that a Rolex Watch is infinitely more important than human lives, human well-being, human aspirations; it’s more important than the fulfillment of the longings of humans everywhere.  The system, and virtually all social and political systems, always and everywhere, are septic and diseased and entirely hostile to us all. 

    All such debates take place within a vast, monstrous gulag, and ultimately turn attention away from the fact that the gulag itself must - absolutely must - be completely dismantled…

    Not that I don’t know that you’re already aware of this, Rosemarie.  And, it’s not that I think you’re wasting your time and energy, today.  I just hope you’ll be able to help those you confront, to take a step or two backward, so as to see the terrible context in which the debate takes place.

    Posted by joe from Oregon  on  11/13  at  03:32 PM

  15. Support The Troops is newspeak for Support The Policy. Bill Hicks said during the first gulf invasion he was ´for the war but against the troops.´ The Templars didn´t die out, they cut off their tail and pretended the organisation went bellyup - sacrifice is a large part of the aristocracys´ strategy. Scuse for the gnomic comments, I´m in an internet cafe for a few minutes and take care of yourselves.
    O

    Posted by Owen from Barcelona  on  11/13  at  04:42 PM

  16. Mudge, I’m sorry, I don’t think my last post added a single thing that you’d not already offered to Rosemarie, albeit a bit differently.  I also do not think that your posts have been confrontational or in any way extreme… Sadly, people who live in the darkness frequently find the light painful - in a variety of ways.  My friend Stella used to say:  “If someone walks out of the bathroom with a long trail of toilet paper stuck to their foot, and you tell them so, they act as if you’ve just belittled their grandparents...”

    About Dylan:
    Mr. Zimmerman has been several people throughout his lifetime.  The man I admire most moved from NY City, to Malibu, or some such celebrity enclave, and was never quite the same thereafter.  The almost impossible genius exhibited prior to the move remains, in my opinion, undiminished.

    Mudge, your Jeez-its experience is a delightful tale, and reminds me of my Catholic days.  While still in my early teens, I went to church with my friend Legs, one of the world’s toughest, coolest dudes, almost 5 years my senior.  We decided to go to confession, before mass, so as to be eligible for a Jeez-it later on.  I went in just before Legs, and waited in an empty pew, while he spoke with the priest.  There were thirty or forty people scattered about in the church that evening, but it was very quiet.  Every footstep or cough or movement echoed throughout the huge, open space.  After waiting for a few minutes, the priest’s voice, from within the confessional, boomed throughout the entire church:  “You did all that in two weeks!?!”

    Posted by joe from Oregon  on  11/13  at  05:06 PM

  17. Heeheehee, Legs sounds like my kinda guy.  Who knew sin was so popular back when you were a boyu?  After all, wasn’t God in nappies when you were doing all this?  >nudge<

    Owen, hi, glad you could stop in, bye.

    The NaNovel is now 22.120 words...452 en plus du spec.  And I ain’t done for the day, just resting and identifying the numerous dropped threads and plot deficinecies.

    Posted by Mudge from Dear, dead Austin  on  11/13  at  05:38 PM

  18. And that was before the invention of water…
    Later on, things really got crazy!

    Hey, Owen - good to see you.  I guess I was blabbing while you wrote.  Sorry.

    Mickey - thanks for the ants, I think…
    BTW, I don’t think Mudge is using his coaster!  And, he’s getting threads all over the place!

    Posted by joe from Oregon  on  11/13  at  05:55 PM

  19. Snitch.  >to MZ< I’ll pick ‘em up, I promise!

    Posted by Mudge from Dear, dead Austin  on  11/13  at  06:13 PM

  20. Yo people. I was away for awhile. Now I’m back. (Mickey that was me writing last week from Krakow asking if you’d be writing about the rioting in France....not because I have anything to add, but because some people are seeing this moment as a kind of analogue to 1968. Students in Poland, for example, are preparing to go on strike--with the support of their professors--because the new government is so worthless.)

    Anyway, as for the ‘support the troops’ business my feeling is don’t. Someone said it is a euphemism for supporting the policy which is probably accurate in many (but not all) cases. Yes there is a very real economic draft in this country, but every last misinformed, indoctrinated, propogandized soldier has a choice to commit the act of aggression or not. “Support the troops” is a distraction that we shouldn’t be fooled by. And I think the economic consideration, while very real and very disturbing--that people would go to war because such an existence is better than what they have at home, or even that they are lied to by the military when told they won’t see combat and college will be paid for when they get home--doesn’t exonerate the killers.

    Imagine: I got no money, so I’ll take the bribe, do the dirty deed, and have access to a future. How far can this go? Would you kill a baby for a million bucks? A billion? There’s just no excuse and I think Rosemarie said it best a few months ago: “INFORM THE TROOPS”.

    Posted by KBN from The Hague  on  11/13  at  07:13 PM

  21. ..."this country” of course not being the one I’m living in. Oops.

    Posted by KBN from The Hague  on  11/13  at  07:17 PM

  22. Thank you all. Mudge, Michael, MEW, JOS, Mickey Your comments are great, Owen your newspeak comment is one that I often use. Mudge, the other day when I used the word “killers”, I was talking about the killers that have monuments built to honor them and parades to glorify them.  Joe, you are right. Everything must be dismantled but there is not time. People are dying right now. I might have been wasting my time today. The search to find some effective way of ending the killing is maybe an impossible dream but what is the alternative? A tiny step forward might have been made today but I think that most of us, me of course included, are practicing feel-good politics. The only other alternative is violence, and many of us are not capable of that.  Maybe Ward Churchill is right or maybe I should just give up and learn how to knit socks or something.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  11/13  at  07:37 PM

  23. Hi KBN....we were posting at the same time. Thank you for remembering my “Inform the troops” statement. You have a good memory.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  11/13  at  07:40 PM

  24. Program on the emergence of civilization.

    “14 species of large animals capable of domesitcation in the history of mankind.
    13 from Europe, Asia and northern Africa.
    None from the sub-Saharan African continent. “
    Favor.
    And disfavor.

    They point out Africans’ failed attempts to domesticate the elephant and zebra, the latter being an animal they illustrate that had utmost importance for it’s applicability in transformation from a hunting/gathering to agrarian-based civilization.

    The roots of racism are not of this earth.

    Austrailia, aboriginals:::No domesticable animals.

    The North American continent had none.  Now 99% of that population is gone.

    AIDS in Africa.


    Organizational Heirarchy/Levels of positioning.
    Heirarchical order, from top to bottom:

    1. MUCK - perhaps have experienced multiple universal contractions (have seen multiple big bangs), creator of the artificial intelligence humans ignorantly refer to as “god”
    2. Perhaps some mid-level alien management
    3. Evil/disfavored aliens - runs day-to-day operations here and perhaps elsewhere

    Terrestrial management/positioning:

    4. Chinese/egyptians - this may be separated into the eastern and western worlds
    5. Romans -
    6. Mafia - the real-world 20th century interface that constantly turns over generationally so as to reinforce the widely-held notion of mortality
    7. Jews, corporation, women, politician - Evidence exisits to suggest mafia management over all these groups.


    Movies foreshadowing catastrophy
    1985 James Bond View to a Kill 1989 San Francisco Loma Prieta earthquake.


    Our society gives clues to the system in place. We all have heard the saying “He has more money than god.” There is also an episode of the Simpsons where god meets Homer and says “I’m too old and rich for this.”

    This is the system on earth because this is the system everywhere.

    I don’t want to suggest the upper eschelons are evil and good is the fringe.

    But they have made it abundantly clear that doing business with evil (disfavored) won’t help people. They say only good would have the ear, since evil is struggling for survival, and therefore only the favored could help.

    The clues are there which companies are favored and which are disfavored, but they conceal it very hard because it is so crucial.

    I offer an example of historical proportions:::

    People point to Walmart and cry “anti-union”.
    Unions enable disfavored people to live satisfactorly without addressing their disfavor. This way their family’s problems are never resolved. Without the union they would have to accept the heirarchy, their own inferiority.
    Unions serve to empower.
    Walmart is anti-union because they are good. They try to help people address and resolve their problems by creating an enviornment where there are fewer hurdles. 

    Media ridicule and lawsuits are creations to reinforce people’s belief that Walmart is evil in a subsegment of the indistry dominated by the middle and lower classes.
    Low-cost disfavored Chinese labor is utilized by corporate america to maximize margins.  They all do it.  Only WalMart gets fingered because they are the ones who help, and those who seek to create confusion in the marketplace want to eliminate the vast middle class who have a real chance and instead stick with lower classes who may not work otherwise.  So they dirty him up while allowing the others to appear clean.

    The middle class is being deceived.  They are being misled into the unfavored, and subsequently will have no assistance from their purchases with corporate america.

    I believe the coining of the term “Uncle Sam” was a clue alluding to just this::Sam Walton and WalMart is one of few saviors of the peasant class.


    Amercia is a country of castoffs, rejects.  Italy sent its criminals. Malcontents.
    Between the thrones, the klans and kindred, they “decided” who they didn’t want and acted, creating discontent and/or starvation.
    The u.s. is full of disfavored rejects.  It is the reason for the myriad of problems not found in European countries.  As far as the Rockafellers and other industrialists of the 19th century go, I suspect these aren’t their real names.  I suspect they were chosen to go and head this new empire.

    Jesus Christ is a religious figure of evil.  These seperatist churches formed so they could still capture the rest of the white people, keeping them worshipping the wrong god.
    And now they do it to people of color, Latinos and Asians, after centuries of preying upon them. 

    Simpson’s foreshadowing::Helloween IV special, Flanders is Satan. “Last one you ever suspect.”
    “You’ll see lots of nuns where you’re going:::hell!!!” St. Wigham, Helloween VI, missionary work, destroying cultures.
    Over and over, the Simpsons was a source of education and enlightenment, a target of ridicule by the system which wishes to conceal its secrets.

    Posted by grandpa stole bets from jessup, ga  on  11/23  at  11:26 AM

Next entry: Looks like God's doing his "smiting" thang again...

Previous entry: Machine guns in the kitchen