THE BILL OF SUGGESTIONS

1. We the People timidly suggest that the freedom of speech shall not be infringed. But we are willing to submit to “free speech zones” or to just shut up if there’s a risk of offending someone, especially if that person is religious. We also timidly suggest that we have the freedom to hold any religious belief we want to as long as it doesn’t conflict with that of the dominant religious sect.
2. We the People timidly suggest that we have the right to bear arms, but we promise only to use them on black or brown people…or hippies, freaks, gays and other “radicals.”
3. We the People timidly suggest that Corporate Feudal State forces cannot station themselves in the people’s homes…unless they really want to.
4. We the People timidly suggest that arrests, searches and seizures shall not be conducted by Corporate Feudal State agencies without evidence and authority from the people…unless they really want to. We the People trust you.
5. We the People timidly suggest that persons can only be found guilty of a crime when evidence is presented to a jury of one’s peers…or if the person has been tortured into confession…or if the Corporate Feudal State wishes to avoid the inconvenience of “due” process.
6. We the People timidly suggest that “due” process should be conducted swiftly and fairly unless, of course, the Corporate Feudal State doesn’t want to.
7. We the People timidly suggest that a trial by jury is in order in civil cases unless the case in question involves an employer, banking institution or multinational conglomerate.
8. We the People timidly suggest that fines, bails and punishments should be proportionate to the crime…unless, of course, the Corporate Feudal State feels otherwise.
9. We the People timidly suggest that there may be other suggestions we would like to make at some future time because we forgot to include them here. But we readily acknowledge that these are merely suggestions subject to the momentary whim of the Corporate Feudal State.
10. We the People timidly suggest that our state and local Corporate Feudal States cannot violate the suggestions listed herein unless they really want to.        

Is Kony 2012 a propaganda campaign for our next oil war?

Joseph Kony

As Mark Twain once observed, a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on. And the truth about Kony 2012 is slowly getting its boots on. Invisible Children founder Jason Russell has even admitted that the campaign was about evangelizing and not saving children. But could it be about oil too?

James Arnold of Tullow says there are 700m barrels of proven reserves on the Ugandan side. With likely additions from further exploration, he believes, the figure could eventually reach billions of barrels. Some speculate that, Congo included, the entire Albertine basin may yield even more than Sudan’s 6 billion barrels of proven reserves.

President Obama has already sent at least 100 combat troops to Uganda, supposedly to "capture or kill" LRA leader Joseph Kony, despite the fact that Kony isn't even in Uganda. So if Joseph Kony isn't even in Uganda, what are the US troops doing there?

It's probably also worth noting that nearby South Sudan also has large oil reserves, which could be why President Obama has given the region so much attention lately.

Obama appointed not just one but two special ambassadors to shuttle between the Khartoum government of Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the southern administration, rebels in the province of Darfur and the numerous other interested parties; he attended a special meeting on Sudan at the United Nations, thereby attracting many other world leaders, and delivered a strong speech. He dispatched Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) to lay out a detailed “road map” for Bashir’s regime: If it would allow the south to go peacefully, it could earn a release from sanctions, debt relief and diplomatic recognition from the United States.

Moreover, our sudden interest in central Africa could also be inspired by a desire to edge China out of the region. China has been spending billions of dollars in Uganda and neighboring countries in its effort to expand its sources of oil, especially now that Libya is out of their reach.

Controlled Demolition

THE LONE NUTS ~or ~ How Insane Radicals Keep Helping the Right Wing

Once upon a time, a lone nut assassinated a somewhat liberal president without any assistance from anyone. Then, a few years later, a different lone nut assassinated a prominent liberal black leader without any assistance from anyone. Then, a few months after that, yet another lone nut assassinated the even more liberal brother of the somewhat liberal president who had been assassinated a few years earlier. Yes, that's right. Inexplicably, not one, not two, but three lone nuts emerged from the recesses of society to take out only liberal leaders, all over the course of about five years.

Time passed.

Then one day, 19 lone nuts hijacked some jetliners and flew them into some prominent buildings they felt symbolized the belief system that was keeping them down, except for one plane, which crashed harmlessly due to the heroic actions of its passengers. Two of the buildings that had been hit by the airliners, plus one building that hadn’t been hit, collapsed just like those controlled demolitions you see all the time on TeeVee. However, despite the fact that fire had never before (and has never since) caused a skyscraper to collapse, that was precisely the explanation offered repeatedly by trusted authorities. A shocked and saddened nation accepted this explanation with the same alacrity with which they accepted their leaders’ proposed response to the assault, which was to invade and occupy two nations that had nothing to do with the attack, but which, coincidentally, had lots of oil and/or natural gas.

Again, the lone nuts had altered the course of history without any assistance from anyone.

Gradually, with the assistance of Very Smart People and despite the efforts of of a few malcontents, the shocked and saddened nation resigned itself to the knowledge that we would always have lone nuts and that they would always coincidentally help achieve the aims of right-wing ideologues and multinational corporations.

The end.

Stop watching sports. Go outside and play Frisbee or something.

Several years ago, when I was working in a right-wing office environment in Minne-fucking-Crapolis, there was a hockey riot on the University of Minnesota campus in nearby St. Paul. Naturally, the mostly racist, conservative sports enthusiasts who infested my workplace became convinced that the riot had been perpetrated by inner city anti-establishment ruffians and not the nice, lily-white U of M students who populate hockey games. There were two subsequent hockey riots the following hockey season, one in Madison, Wisconsin and another in Mankato, Minnesota. Several investigations were conducted by various entities, all of which determined that the culprits were indeed U of M students and hockey fans and that the mythical inner city ruffians played no role in the violence, which included turning over cars and damaging public and private property.

Now, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu is making the same ridiculously baseless assertion. “… our city was vulnerable to a number of young men and women, disguised as Canucks fans, who were actually criminals and anarchists,” he said, proudly displaying a fragment of a skull mask as proof.

I can kind of forgive or at least understand this line of reasoning from the sheltered, exurban bigots in my former workplace, but I would expect a presumably trained professional like Chu to see through this obvious canard. If Vancouver is truly a “world class city” as Mayor Gregor Robertson recently asserted, perhaps it should hire a police chief that isn’t as poorly informed and devoid of basic reasoning skills as my former co-workers.

The sporting world has long since abandoned the sportsmanship and camaraderie that are supposed to be athletics’ defining characteristics and has instead embraced a culture of cheaters, bullies and cry babies. From the hard-Right franchise owners who, hypocritically, can’t seem to keep their mouths off the public teat, to the over-indulged steroid junkies they employ, to the perpetually scandalized International Olympic Committee and FIFA and the Tour de France and the NCAA, etc., etc., sports is infested from top to bottom with humanity’s darkest elements.

Katt Williams Tells the Truth