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Life in the Empire

Just posted an article, diary, blog, comment, or whatever on some other site? Put the link here so we can see it and maybe even chime in.

I posted this comment today:

http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/70328/80521.html?124895684...

(The comment just above it might give you a laugh.)

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I SHOULD be writing a "cover letter" for a Literature gig. Will have to get myself into the standard "HR" bullshit mind-frame of "...why YOU will look good if you hire ME." Gotta be more subtle than that. It's hard.

What I am thinking is based on an E. Roosevelt quote:
"Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."

"Ideas" float in a somewhat different dimension than "events" and "people." Mark, I admire your tenacity to engage people on forums... your meticulous citations. I just don't have the energy for it lately. You ARE somewhat "combative," but screw it... that's the way ye are. And I aint sayin nothin bout you OR yer momma.

"Positive attitude" (to use a "sports" metaphor... and I HATE sports metaphors) is like a receiver who catches the pass... runs past the goal... out of the stadium... gets on a bus for Cleveland... catches an airplane for Bangkok... all the while holding the little football. It's a fucking GAME, right? Curt muses aloud if there is anyone who reads more than 100 words at a sitting. I think (to paraphrase Woody Guthrie)-- in this age of hypertext links, if ya use any more than 100 words. yer just showin off.

I'm REALLY burned out on the "NWO" this and that. Going from a stew where most believe in "republicrats" to a broth where there are space lizards in every mailbox is really loopy. The fucking H1-whatever-virus-flu-whathefuck. FUCK IT. It either kills you or it doesn't. And if the goons come to "make" you get a toxic shot... you can take it or not... and it may kill you or not. I see very little exploring of the individual-collective relationship in all this... OR Energy-Environment-Economy-Peace.

I believe I have used up my 100 words.
Only reason you think I'm "somewhat combative," Waldo, is you never met my momma. Pure fascist bitch and the happiest day of my life was the day she died. My only regret was not being able to drive a stake through her heart, but I'm quite sure she didn't have one.

I just answered an email from a friend who still believes in republicrats. He trotted out the old canard that an election where an overwhelming majority vote for one candidate, cannot be stolen. I said:

A race that is 80% to 20% CAN be stolen, if the policy-making bodies give the nod to a candidate from each major party who is committed to their agenda. The wealthy elites set the agenda, their policy-making bodies select candidates most able to carry it out, and then people can vote for whichever one they want.
Pure fucking straight-light, Marko. We "vote" for pre-selected "candidates" What is so fucking HARD to figure out?

My REAL fear is... after this all breaks down (soon)... we'll get to "vote" for a REAL "POPULIST" candidate... like Herr Schickelgruber.

"stake thru momma's heart..."YOU got "issues," Bub.
Sure I got issues, bro. Global warming, single-payer health care, direct participatory democracy--I got issues up the kazoo. But mother (the bitch would never have allowed me to call her mom or momma) dead, so she ain't one of 'em. Honor thy mother and father is like respect your President and salute the flag. Forgive and forget is like don't prosecute war criminals. What I go by is do unto others as you would have others do unto you, unless they hurt you and then you have every right to say the hell with 'em. I don't go so far as to say that you gotta hurt them back even if it is fully justifiable, just that they are no longer worthy of respect so you ain't gotta honor 'em. I guess you could say abuse of power is another of my "issues."

Anyway, I know you readin' Family of Secrets, so it should be obvious that we've "voted" for a whole bunch of Schickelgrubers. He was popular because he said he was going to end unemployment. So who caused that unemployment? And who backed him? And how'd we end up with the same wars of aggression under Bush and Obama--especially since we used to say that wars of aggression are things only Schickelgrubers would do? And how'd we get so much unemployment that the electorate would rush to vote for any sleaze who promised to end it, even if the sleaze was backed by the same people that caused it? Okay, you can add fascism, crimes against humanity, and corporate rule to my long list of "issues." I'm over a hundred words, but I'll throw in patriarchy, civilization, and your friend Bob Altemeyer's authoritarian types. Hey, I got more issues than the U.S. has prisoners--and that's another issue right there. LOL
Uh, about that last issue....the prisoner thing....would you kind people kindly sign this petition and pass the URL along.....

Petition to Mich. Gov. Granholm Supporting Release of Efrén Paredes...

Thank you.

That reminds me of another thing that I take issue with. Ya know all those unjustly convicted prisoners who were released due to strenuous efforts by the Innocence Project? Well, as far as I know, not a single one of the corrupt informants, cops, prosecutors, juries, and judges that put all those innocent people in prison in the first place, has ever been held responsible in any way. When there is any compensation to the victims, it comes out of tax money.

We exchanged Divine Right for federal immunity, official immunity, corporate immunity, and every other kind of immunity. Why the hell are we worrying about the flu when we got so damned much immunity? Our T-bills may be low, but we got one of the strongest immune systems in the world.
Waldo wrote, "We "vote" for pre-selected "candidates" What is so fucking HARD to figure out?"

So just now I see a link that Waldo posted over on COTO to this l949 article by Albert Einstein, where Einstein said, "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights."

So I dunno what's so hard to figure out, Waldo. I figured it out. Einstein figured it out. You figured it out. That makes three of us. (ROFLMAO because OGs ain't supposed to cry.)
Thanks for noticing that, Marko.

Yep, OGs aint supposed to cry... and I do it all the time. Blubber like some grandma... by myself... away from the greasepaint crowd... cos otherwise they'd laugh and I'd have to stripe their insolent young asses up wit me asp baton.

So I got lotsa blubberin time now... with the fam off to da NortWoods. Can't handle it any more meself. Too many people in too small a space doing the consume-o-rama thing-- seems obscene to me in that setting--- really obscene. O'course, in the past, I DID consume lotsa beer in that venue... and started receiving shite about it... which i also didnt wanna fucking hear. If a man cant get drunk as a fucking hootie-owl up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by family and rage against the fucking machine... what's the point? At least da beer dont make trashbags full of reeking garbage ya gotta schlep out and dump somewhere where it attracts flies and bears. Fucking greenhorns. STILL... after ALL these years. So for the rest of my time here... any trips to da Yoop gotta be 4 peeps or less... and it's best solo.

I really gotta get that "cover letter" done and I am really avoiding it. I've written lots of "cover letters" for other folk that got them right in... none of the ones I've written for meself EVER do. It kinda reminds me of my "cut-to-the-chase" approach I used to use with girls years ago when I was "dating," which was basically this: "OK-- what do I gotta PAY to sample the wares? You aint gonna sell without a contract, and I aint gonna buy without a sample. So how much does a sample cost? You have me at a disadvantage in a sellers' market."

99% of the time I got... ooooo... how "unromantic." It's not about THAT at ALL. The fuck it aint. You know it. I know it. Don't bullshit a bullshitter. I can't even remember how Herself reacted to my standard "contract" speech... but it must have worked. Here I am. And I'm too fucking old to do anything else... even if I wanted to... which I don't.

So, Marko, that's why I didn't call Korn-dude a racist asshole... even tho he is so obviously steeped in the "hard-earned-tax-dollars" bullshit, he isn't even aware of it. Here's a reasonably-fun well-read and intelligent old white dude who seems to be mechanically-inclined freaking out about "parasites" oh yeah... a former "military contractor." Wothefuck ya gonna do? Gotta pick yer hot-buttons... and these days mine is people who quack about "socialism" who obviously have no fucking idea of what that word even means (does ANYBODY?).

Definitely over my 100-word limit.
Cover letter schmover letter. Dey got files on folks like us and dey check 'em.

Things was a lot easier in my day or perhaps only in my milieu, Greenwich Village, late '50s early '60s. You just asked, "Wanna ball?" and either they did or they didn't. And everybody was so stoned that most did. Fucking was about fucking, not about relationships and contracts. Nobody would have gotten anywhere with your line. But in those days porn was illegal so we had to make do with sex.

Korn ain't the only racist on COTO. As for understanding socialism, every place gotta reach their own consensus about what it is for them. Some things are core, but others aren't. Like Venezuela. My friend Gary, who lives there, describes it as "a socialist petrostate." I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I figure it's gotta be better than a fascist petrostate.

Yeah, military contractors are the welfare queens of all time. People who spent their whole lives on the gravy train shouldn't be calling other people parasites.
Article in the New York Times:

A School Bus for Shamsia

by an American journalist trying to help Afghan schoolgirls who are endangered by the Taliban, particularly a girl named Shamsia who had acid thrown in her face on her way to school

Their comments are moderated, so I don't know if mine will appear, but this is what I wrote:

I'm an American senior citizen and I grew up in a home where my mother was a schoolteacher, my father was an upholsterer, and the New York Times was the only newspaper we subscribed to. In the late '60s and early '70s, I spent five years living in Afghanistan.

I agree with Norman and Dolores that if we cared about the women of Afghanistan, we would have supported rather than opposed the Russians and we would never have supported the Taliban. But in contrasting the two cultures, I don't think that the elimination of purdah and patriarchy can be accomplished by liberating Afghan women to American style prostitution and pornography.

Women are second class citizens in both countries, it is just that one prefers their women fully veiled and hidden away, while the other prefers their women with a lot of flesh exposed and for sale on street corners. In neither Afghanistan nor the U.S. do women have equality with men. The plight of the child bride in Kabul is no worse than the plight of the underage prostitute in New York, and, in fact, the child bride is at less risk for AIDS.

We have many Afghan refugees here in the U.S. and among them are some who are educated and successful. Perhaps one day an Afghan immigrant man or woman will start a school to shelter, educate, and provide opportunities to young girls forced into prostitution in America. I hope so, because our own citizens seem to be much too busy trying to cast the motes out of their brothers' eyes, to do anything about the beams in their own.
And another in the same NYT issue, but this one didn't allow reader comments, so I sent a letter to the editor, which is very unlikely to be published:

To the Editor:

Last night I sent an email to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking her to cancel the scheduled meeting between officials of our State Department and leaders of the illegal military coup in Honduras. While supposedly designed to discuss democratic government, such recognition will only legitimize the coup.

So I was astounded today to see Ms. Clinton quoted in Mark Landler's article, "A New Gender Agenda," (NYT 8/18/09), bemoaning the rapes and genocide in the DRCongo and accurately blaming them on militias paid by multinational corporations seeking control of mineral resources. It is these same corporations that, with the approval of U.S. officials, including some close to Ms. Clinton, using U.S.trained military forces, instigated the illegal coup and installed the new dictatorship in Honduras, which is still being funded by the U.S.

What bare-faced hypocrisy!

Respectfully,

Mark E. Smith
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Creative Nonfiction editors will award one $1,500 prize for Best Essay, and two $500 prizes for runners-up.

Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by December 31, 2009, and clearly marked “End of Life” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription); multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. (though subscription shipping costs do apply). Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information, SASE and payment to:

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Attn: End of Life Stories
5501 Walnut St, Ste 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

Visit:
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Deadline: December, 31, 2009

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