The Gulag

[pan]

The U.S. has the highest prison population in the world, even more than the more populous China. Incarceration Incorporated is the biggest growth industry in the service economy. Indentured Servitude is profitable benefit to this industry.

[Cal]

If I don't stop reading Joe Bageant I shal end up quoting the whole article -:) The end bit of it brought to mind RBC .....

"Until then, we are left to play out the game day by day. That being the case, we should elect to play it out with the best among us, the ones on humanity's side, that hidden and unheralded aristocracy -- those quiet lamp lighters making their way through the deepening dusk of American civilization.

E. M. Forster described them as,

"Not an aristocracy of power, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, considerate and the plucky. Its members are to be found in all nations and classes and through the ages, and they know each other when they meet. ... Authority, seeing their value, tries to net them and to utilize them. ... But they slip through the net and are gone; when the door is shut they are no longer in the room; Their temple is the Holiness of the Heart's Imagination, and their kingdom, though they never possess it, is the wide open world."

In this they are deathless.

Like periwinkles."

[BO]

Damn, I'm gonna have to give myself a hug! ;-)

[waldopaper]

I won't document my knowledge of the local Amish just yet. I may yet walk East and speak... but as time passed that idea seemed more brain damage than anything else... what with the occipital being so close to the temporal and all. I kinda forgot what to talk about anyway... something about being in the gulag but not of it. Seems like you could avoid 98% of the Polezi fucking with you by just staying off the road. Gotta get the bicycle hoodoo together.

Speaking of polezi... I hope curt's ok.

[Mouse]

Yes, me too. He's very quiet. I've been wondering how he is after that fall. Come along Curt, talk to us, tell us your stories....

How out of touch those girls seem with the natural world and the nature of food. Not like the Amish then.

My garden was just perfect this evening, so beautiful, so peaceful. The food was good too. Free range chicken roasted with my sage and onion stuffing, followed by flapjacks I made last night. Very hard to resist, they are calling from the yellow pot in the kitchen...

[pan]

Woman, in jail for traffic tickets, dies from infection because they wouldn't give her antibiotics.

[Mouse]

Hmmm.

But look, I found something quite heartening:
Russia to Become an Eco-Village Nation? from February's Idaho Observer.
Putin has indicated full support of Dimitri Medvedev for the post of President of the Russian Federation. Medvedev, who is presently First Deputy Prime Minister has indicated enthusiastic support for the concept of eco-villages. Medvedev will be the candidate of the Edinaya Rossiya Party.
Medvedev expressed his support of the concept of eco-villages in a March 5, 2007 online conference organized by the newspaper Izvestia and the internet portal Yandex and broadcast by TV channel "Vesti-24." During the interview the host suggested that the outlook of the nation is shifting. Medvedev replied, "Yes, and [the] psychology is changing too. People feel themselves in a completely different way."
The host stated that the question of eco-villages was brought up because he had received 5,000 emails from supporters of the "Kin Domains" concept before the show asking about the plan to give each Russian family a hectare of public land to create a Kin Domain and the allowance for them to be organized into eco-villages.
The idea of "Kin Domains," greatly expands, in time and space, the tradition of families having a rural plot, called dachas, where they relax in the summer and grow gardens. The idea has grown out of a series of books by Vladimir Megre which feature the contemporary Russian-Siberian eco-mystic, Anastasia ringingcedars.com (link not in original article).
The Anastasia eco-spiritual movement has organized in most major Russian cities and has its own political party that is aligned with the parties supporting Putin. The books have also sparked eco-village organizing in many countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the English speaking countries. The basic idea of the Kin Domain is for each family to live self-sufficiently on their domain using Permaculture concepts, while those that choose, can organize their plots into eco-villages that feature crafts and local production.
Land offered
Medvedev speaks of the district of Belgorod Oblast, near the Ukraine border that he has visited, where political moves are already under way toward arranging land for this idea in that area.

[pan]

U.S. Mercenary Chickens Will Come Home to Roost
"The specter of mercenary occupation of American cities is no longer farfetched - it has already happened."

[pan]

Keep you lawn green or go to jail

[pan]

Nuns labeled as terrorists

[Mouse]

Don’t be surprised to see an Army tank rolling down a street near you.
By DERRICK MAHONE, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Friday, October 10, 2008.

The Cobb County police department has refurbished a donated Armored Personnel Carrier for officers to use in SWAT situations.
The vehicle, which retails for $500,000, is a Light Armor Vehicle that was used by the U.S. Army in Panama. The county paid $45,000 to upgrade the vehicle for police use.
Equipped with thermal sensors, computerized tracking devices, night vision, tear gas launchers and other gadgets, the all-black six-wheel unit can hold up to nine SWAT officers.
It has a new engine and transmission, which will allow it to reach a speed of 60 miles per hour.
“In these times, you don’t know what you are facing,” Cobb police chief George Hatfield said. “We want the maximum safety for our officers and the public. We want to be prepared for whatever comes up. This is another tool that will allow us to be quicker and faster in our response.”

Since 2000, SWAT has used a Peacekeeper vehicle on calls. The APC will allow SWAT officers to get closer to dangerous situations and transport citizens out of them. If officers are tracking a suspect, they can do so from within the vehicle. So far this year, Cobb’s SWAT team has responded to about 50 calls.
Walker County is the only other police department in Georgia with a similar vehicle. Gwinnett County and the state patrol use the LENCO vehicle, which resembles an armored truck. Clayton County has a Peacekeeper vehicle.
“You always hope that you don’t have to use it, but this is becoming a fact of life,” SWAT commander Lt. Joel Preston said. “You have to be prepared and make the situation safer.”
Once SWAT members complete training on the APC, the Peacekeeper will be refurbished for future use.
“These two units will eventually work in tandem,” said Det. Steve Brawner, who has overseen the project.
Beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday, the APC will be on display at Marietta’s town square.

[pan]

The end of the rule of law in the U.S.

[Mouse]

oh dear, everybody's gone. How absurd. Are you out there still, waving? There are three tall piles of freshly washed baby clothes on the table, all ready and white. The wind is rising, getting ready for a storm tomorrow afternoon, with tea and buttered toast.

Also piles of Bockingford paper, folded and cut. Written upon with a sharp mapping pen, the steel nib bends and widens on the curve. It spells dissenters. It spells perpetual taxation, sabotage and treachery.

I have only run out of ink because the nib does carry so much at a time and the long lines of the letters drink it up. But it isn't what I intended at all. Standing on the top step at the kitchen door, gold pouring out of the sky.