Daily Dirt (again)

[austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net]

I've tipped off the list to this site before - just after writing my most
recent tirade I cliktit: www.dailydirt.com.

Here's a paste of something readers might find of interest:

In a recent, stunning article published in the New York Times,
investigative journalist Ron Suskind examined the fundamentalist heart of
the Bush cabal's increasingly obvious disconnect from reality. On
condition of anonymity, an official told Suskind: "You guys are in what we
call the reality-based community. You believe that solutions emerge from
your judicious study of discernible reality. That's not the way the world
really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our
own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you
will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study
too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and
you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

With a cult-like army of True Believers willing to swallow whatever lies
their Commander in Chief and his generals decide to tell them, perhaps we
should not be surprised at the flagrant arrogance, the lack of shame being
exhibited by the Powers That Be and their ink-stained courtesans in the
opinion business. If the shit really starts hitting the fan, they can
always start a civil war.

But when the dreamer dies, so must the dream, and you can't wage a war
against reality forever. The chickens that got loose when the dreamers
fell asleep are coming home to roost. Giant, ugly, five-hundred pound
chickens, with foot-long claws, jagged beaks that can gut a bison, and
feathers dripping with a wide variety of deadly chicken diseases.

Domestically, this administration has ravaged the country for generations
to come. The Great Elite Fleece-and-Cashout Scam of 2000 -- which the PTB
refer to ironically as a popping bubble -- was only the beginning. The era
of low interest rates, of so-called cheap money, is over. We can now look
forward to fifty years of steadily rising interest rates, and an
acceleration of the already break-neck speed with which the nation's
collective wealth is being redistributed to the untouchable elites at the
top of the heap.

America has gone from a record budget surplus to a record deficit, and
where do you think those hundreds of billions have gone? Not to a
"different philosophy of government", or some abstract set of economic
theories, as Bush frequently declares. No. It has gone to those who used
Bush as a skeleton key to sneak into the White House and gain access to
the Treasury.

Asking where the money went begs the question of where it came from in the
first place. The answer to that question hardly ever reaches the front
pages of our newspapers, because who cares about 1.3 million Americans
falling into poverty in the last year alone? Who cares about another one
and a half million Americans joining the ranks of the medically uninsured?
Surely the usurious interest Americans pay on their debt -- the fastest of
fast tracks for upward redistribution of a society's wealth -- in no way
contributed to these luckless losers' dire straits.

That the exploding trade gap, creating a historically unprecedented
twin-deficit effect, fuels the divide between the have-nots and the
have-mores is not just irrelevant, it's all according to plan. And
whenever the truth threatens to poke its way into the dream, it is met
with a battering ram of lies. They can always revise their numbers after
the fact. Corrections never seem to get as much press (or credulity) as
the patently ludicrous projections put out by this administration.

Meanwhile, at the so-called Justice Department, a sinister darkness
spreads. Witchfinder General Jesus H. Ashcroft -- who somehow manages to
hold onto his job despite an unprecedented regime of gross incompetence
and pernicious contempt -- is waging a Holy War against privacy, civil
liberties, and every American's constitutionally guaranteed rights and
freedoms. Ashcroft eagerly aided and abetted The Powers That Be as they
took advantage of post-911 hysteria. As a result, any American can now be
seized in the dead of night, spirited away to locations unknown and held
-- indefinitely and incommunicado -- based on pretexts so flimsy as to
border on divine revelation.

On Ashcroft's watch -- and frequently on his direct orders -- abuse of
authority has become the new normal. Even people who have never committed
a crime may find their names on federal no fly lists without warning,
explanation, or recourse to appeal. Peaceful protesters are being shadowed
by Homeland Security thugs, artist Steve Kurtz was arrested for creating
an installation that LOOKS LIKE a chemistry lab, the survellience of
private citizens expressing their opinions has been mainstreamed, he's
even trying to prevent citizens' access to civil forfeiture information by
ordering libraries to destroy those documents… and then there's Assistant
U.S. Attorney Richard Convertino, the federal prosecutor who was targeted
with a Justice Department investigation as retribution for his meeting
with a Senate committee, where he discussed his concerns about Ashcroft's
tactics.

But we shouldn't be surprised. The Preznit has spelled it all out for us:
if you're not with this administration, you're with the terrorists.
Especially if you've had an abortion. Which, incidentally, is another
thing Ashcroft and his goons are trying to find out about you…


> I grow more astonished regularly as I realize that perhaps the greatest
> influence on the american male ethic (especially in the west) is the
> "'49'er" image.
>
> This had little to do with foreign influence and colonialism as we know
> it.
> It had everything to do with an individual or very small group of men of
> European rots seeking wealth from the great mountains of the americdan
> west,
> great wealth. Anyone could particiapate. The laws were somewhat vague and
> largely unenforceable for a long time, but there was a code. It is this
> code
> which more or less governed the 50 years or so from the first gold strike
> in
> California (where the ethic was born) to the spreading of the prospectors
> all over the west and into Alaska to the final demise of the prospects of
> hitting the big one--around the turn of the century. In many ways it is
> still the rule.
>
> Although many of the particiapants in this great hunt which ultimately
> uncovered great stores of mineral wealth were educated and civil, the code
> did not (does not) favor these qualities. It does favor a cussed,
> determined
> attitude driven by the illusion of obtaining great wealth and thus being
> free from most laws that purport to rule the society of man. It is
> especially against the great threat of "big government" or a well
> organizied
> resistance to the code of "free" men.
>
> The illusion of one's obtaining great wealth and thus living "free", like
> the kings, is still very much with us. It still drives many men and there
> are those among us who have succeeded in acquiring all the trappings of
> the
> successful 49'ers and the realization of the dream of striking it
> rich...and
> they are the idols of our nation.
>
> Perhaps the best understanding of this code is to be found in the Wallace
> Stegner novel "The Big Rock Candy Mountain".
>
> Bush is attempting to play the role of one who is driven by the 49'er
> code,
> the simplistic image of resolutelness and primitive faith above all other
> values. In reality he has none of the qualifications. He is not his own
> man,
> nor even his own invention. He has never gotten his hands dirty, never had
> to scrape out a living with his wits. He is a puppet from central casting,
> and yet, he will probably carry the west again. I guess you have to admit
> that he is successful at it, that he appears to play the role to the hilt.
> I'd guess that most of his supporters can see him on horseback, riding
> into
> the sunset, shooting rattlers with a 30-30 from the hip, etc. Lord, what a
> distortion, what a mess, what a tragedy for the world.
> G
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Pepi Plowman" <pepstoil@yahoo.com>
> To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 9:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Aunty 'Murken
>
>
>> I can definitely dig the great colonizing swindle of
>> this country, and know why people screamed "americana"
>> at me when I walked down the street in Venezuela.  I'm
>> afraid we have joined the "Third World," despite
>> everyone's denial.  The marauding Huns have been
>> reinvented and are tearing the joint up.  To the
>> hills! To the hills!
>> pep
>> --- blacky@cbn.net.id wrote:
>>
>> > It was amusing to read an account in The Economist
>> > of the history of the
>> > first British investment in 'the colonies'.
>> >
>> > Guess who came out on top. Guess who held the shit
>> > end of the stick.
>> >
>> > It would not surprise me to learn that
>> > 'anti-Americanism' dated from those
>> > early days. Apart from the religious nuts &
>> > fanatics, remittancemen, draft
>> > dodgers and adventurers, the new land attracted what
>> > no prettification can
>> > avoid labeling swindlers, more commonly titled today
>> > 'investment fund
>> > counselors' and such.
>> >
>> > Most of the investment was in the ag sector. Most
>> > lost shirts for Brit
>> > investors. But it was the cash generator that
>> > started off, with a roar,
>> > the American economy.
>> >
>> > Since WW-II the same thing has been happening of
>> > course with American and
>> > European investment in fatally attractive 'emerging
>> > markets' (aka
>> > 'emergency markets') like Brazil, Kenya, and my
>> > current home, Indonesia.
>> >
>> > Locals do swell. Wall Street bloodsuckers do great
>> > on commissions, win or
>> > lose.
>> >
>> > But Grandma and Grandpa back in East Dogpatch,
>> > having sunk their life
>> > savings in those brilliant mutual funds, come a
>> > cropper alas.
>> >
>> > Thus the 'anti-American' resentment at being
>> > swindled can now be felt
>> > about countries that have in recent years ripped off
>> > the wealthy West and
>> > Japan. What goes round la la.
>> >
>> >
>> BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________
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>>
>>
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