February 9, 2017

'There Will Be No Holocaust.'

Is what the Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche told us at the opening ceremony of the 1982 Jack Kerouac Conference.

He explained that he believed people are often attracted subconsciously to the idea of conflagration and mass death, unwittingly helping it be realized. Anxiety and uncertainty can drive cultures into catastrophe, he said, and we should take steps to protect ourselves from such fear with conscious meditation.

I'm not generally a religious man, but what he said felt quite profound at the time. The early eighties were darkened for every intelligent, conscious person by the rise of Ronald Reagan, who may seem like a mild-mannered moderate in the dim light of history, but whose dissembling and machinations made many of us on the left think the End had begun. (?!)

The Rinpoche made us all hold up our hands in an 'OK' sign, an entire auditorium of artists and Good People making the symbol above our heads while he led us in a chant -- 'There will be no holocaust...There will be no holocaust...' -- over and over and over for far too long.

Alan Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman, Timothy Leary, William S. Burroughs, Anne Waldman, Norman Mailer, Gary Snyder, Peter Orlovsky -- all of them holding up their symbol above their heads and chanting along with the Rinpoche as all of our eyes slowly blurred out of focus and our heads swam --

I'd like to believe it helped. It certainly felt good to engage in that ritual with like minds in that turbulent time. The conference was a total blast, a formative event in my young life, and I've never forgotten that first moment.

There will be no holocaust. We the Better Half must rescue the world, and drag the Troubly Half kicking and screaming into the future with us, using the Rule Of Law and Respect For Democracy, and all the other beautiful forces that make the idea of America so powerful, so perfect --

We are the superheroes. 'There will be no holocaust.' Say it. Fight for it.

February 8, 2017

All That We Share.

February 7, 2017

Dah, Donald: Russian Blood Money and the FBI's Case Against Trump.

Dah, Donald: Russian Blood Money and the FBI’s Case Against Trump|The Weeklings

THIS IS AN ATTEMPT to assemble the pieces in the Trump/Russia jigsaw puzzle, to reveal the Big Picture.

My conclusions were heavily influenced by Louise Mensch‘s eye-opening January 17 essay, “Dear Mr. Putin, Let’s Play Chess.” Other sources include Seth Abramson’s “The Domestic Conspiracy That Gave Trump the Election is in Plain Sight,” which ran on the Huffington Post on the same day, and “A Brief History of the First Russo-American Cyber War,” by War Is Boring’s Bryan E. Frydenborg. The Steele dossier, the “Golden Shower” series of intelligence reports written by Christopher Steele in 2016 and subsequently released by Buzzfeed, was also a useful resource. I have exhaustively fact-checked assertions, linking to a wide range of news sources from across the political spectrum, from the Washington Post to Reuters to Breitbart.

The dramatis personae—the pile of puzzle pieces, if you will—is generally well known to most observers: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, James Comey, Rudy Giuliani, Anthony Weiner, Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, Trump attorney Michael Cohen, “ratfucker” Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Russian moles in the NSA and the FBI’s New York field office, and an obscure Russian hacker named Yvegeny Nikulin.

This is how the pieces fit together. This is how they connect. This is what it means.

From the last part:

In short, it’s about the money. Which makes sense, given Trump’s disgustingly obvious greed. The Russian oligarchs are laundering money all over creation, and Trump, with his opaque taxes and billion-dollar losses and cash business concerns, is somehow complicit in the scheme. Campaign finance, one imagines, is just the tip of the iceberg.

If he’s shown to be in debt to the Russians and the Chinese, Trump can explain that away. Fake news, he will say. So what. I won, people don’t care. Same with the Russian prostitutes. You can’t shame a man incapable of feeling shame. What is Trump afraid of? Prison. That would be the ultimate downfall for Donald Trump. The loss of his position, his social standing, his fortune, his golden throne, his access to beautiful women willing and otherwise. His Twitter account.

There is no “alternative fact” that can spin the very real possibility that Donald J. Trump will die in federal prison, alone.

And that’s why Comey sent the letter about the emails, but did not comment on the Russia connection.

And that’s why Trump is so deferential to Putin.

And that’s why Melania Trump walks around like she’s Carmela Soprano in Season 7.

And that’s why the Trump Cabinet is honeycombed with Russian sympathizers (I haven’t even mentioned the friendship medal Secretary of State Rex Tillerson personally received from Putin).

And that’s why Snowden is in Russia, and Assange is still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

And that’s why Rudy Giuliani withdrew his name from consideration for State.

Most of all, that’s why Barack Obama seems so chill about the whole thing. He knows how the movie ends! But thanks to Glomar, there can be no spoilers.

And so we wait for Jim Comey to wrap up the investigation and bring charges against Flynn and Stone, Manafort and Cohen, Carter Page and Donald J. Trump. Through no intention of his own, Comey gave Trump the presidency; now we hope that he will take it away. Given Trump’s disastrous foreign policy, his deplorable positions on climate change, his willingness to use nuclear weapons, it’s not hyperbole to suggest that the fate of the human race rests on Comey’s shoulders.

History suggests that Comey is up to the task. But if he’s not, we, the people, must make a citizen’s arrest. We must convince our Members of Congress to impeach our treasonous president, to make the traitor stand trial.

And if Donald Trump is found guilty of these heinous crimes? Lock him up.

Interesting read. Rings true.

February 7, 2017

Ohio by The Murder Merchants.

This is my band.

February 3, 2017

Josephine.

From the new EP '3' by The Murder Merchants.

I produced this song, and created this video.

And I'm very proud of that fact.

So there.

February 1, 2017

First song from the new EP my band just released.

The Murder Merchants

I engineered this collection, and made the videos.

January 27, 2017

Man, these are some really, really incompetent barbarians.

Posers. I could do a better job; I bet most people on this board, should they desire to try, could be much more effective villains.

They're at the gates! But they've misplaced the keys they were given. They're all set to rape and pillage! But the viagra has gone stale, and the hairdresser is late, so maybe tomorrow. Torture! Mayhem! All that is Green and Good in this world shall be put to the sword! But why is everyone saying hurtful things? What about their feelings?

RAAAAARRRGH! Tweet tweet tweet. Discuss discuss discuss. How can we blame everything on the Democrats so people will still like us?

Really, guys, if you're going to do this thing right, just do it already. But the truth is, they're not tough-as-nails barbarians, just scared little children who put on a good mean face and trash talk like that twelve year old bully who threw your homework in the creek. All Republicans are like that. Just like those overweight Libertarians with asthma who dream they're going to be the alpha males after the Libertarian Apocaplypse.

They'll be snacks, is what they'll be. Just like these snarling macho barbarians will all turn into whiny mice when the lashback comes.

Real macho manly warriors respect women, love democracy, and want to kick Russia where the vodka leaks out. And that means Us. These pretend warriors have woken up the Actual Warriors in our little village, and they should be afraid of what's coming for them.

January 26, 2017

Always look on the bright side of life.

Doo-doo, doo doo doo doo be doo.

January 25, 2017

Watch any disaster movie ever made, and then imagine Trump is the President.

Not that he is.

But if he was --

I was just watching Armageddon on Netflix -- not a good film, really. Just not. But at least the president tried to save the planet.

I've seen this movie too many times for no good reason. Suddenly, I can't watch it. Because we're in a worse one.

January 18, 2017

Resist.

Found on Balloon Juice