Life Behind the Velvet Curtain

Imagine that you could turn the tables on mainstream media for a week, so that normally-blacklisted news reporting and analysis was all you got on cable and network news, whereas the type of content found CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News only reached niche demographics through Facebook and YouTube. I believe that most people, if they realized what they're missing, would step up and demand that mass media get its act together. Most Americans' values are compassionate and progressive, when you poll them on specific issues rather than on polarized labels like Left/Right or Liberal/Conservative. The problem isn't that people suck, but that society is in many ways designed to bring out the worst in people while stifling their better angels.

American mass media doesn't tell the "whole story:" it's a la-la land of lies, half-truths, and spin engineered by warmongering sociopaths. The most brilliant thing about this, especially when compared to political models where the dominant media organizations *openly* collude with state actors, is that America's "Velvet Curtain" is so well-camouflaged in partial truth and allowed press freedoms that most people don't see it right in front of them. This doesn't totally absolve individuals of the responsibility to think for themselves, but the pervasive influence of social engineering in media makes this very difficult. Ego differentiation—learning to think outside of a tribalistic mindset and question common social assumptions—is an arduous uphill battle, filled with disillusionment and cognitive dissonance. It's also a lonely road, generally being the one less traveled.

Why is the dark side so good at winning? The short answer is that those who are aligned with the more compassionate and logical aspects of human nature are always trying out new ways of doing things. They are always moving forward, adapting, and changing, which requires a lot of voices coming to the table and can leave progressive movements scattered and undirected at times. The dark side, on the other hand, has a single, ancient system of social control best summed up in the word fascism: their overarching purpose is dominion by the fewest people. To achieve this, they must continually ensure that the most morally compromised people co-opt media, government, and economy and merge them into ever-more-centralized autocracies.

The Dark Forces on Earth don't waste time arguing over methods or ethics, because they are an unchanging hive mind. They just do the same tried-and-true method over and over, which invariably produces increases in poverty, war, and social divisions along with lawlessness, totalitarianism, mob rule, and an overall breakdown of infrastructure and civil society. They know that they have this effect on human civilization, too; the messes they leave all over the world suggest something more sinister than ordinary incompetence. In the upper echelons, it is often their actual intent to make things worse for millions of human beings, in order to benefit a tiny few. One of the greatest long cons in history is Western media's default position of assuming that politicians are moral people. The line is "They're moral people just like you, who want what's best for the public. They just disagree on how to get there." No, no, no... when people act like straight-up sociopaths, we should call a spade a fuckin' spade.

 In terms of the balance of good and evil, fascists ascend the ladders of power by hiding the fact that they don't represent status quo morality in the slightest. That said, I find it quite encouraging that they need to hide, because they know that they are actually outsiders who don't share most people's policy views or ethical values. They HAVE to dress in sheep's clothing, misrepresenting their actual agendas and ethical codes (or lack thereof) in order to garner enough public support to stay in power. They never stop influencing society in hopes of turning good people into cruel monsters like themselves (it's the only way to justify their depraved existence), as seen in MSNBC trying to make the Democrats over as an openly pro-war party. A lot of it doesn't take, because the human heart is magic.

Democrats: Musings on Losing [time-dated archive]

When you get down to it, the leading Democrats in Congress no longer have a message, a unified strategy, or even a point. Republicans recognize this, and they are gleefully capitalizing on their opponents' weaknesses, because they're ruthless Social Darwinist playas.

The GOP is snatching up up every talking point that ever gave Democrats an edge in the polls. They've already rebranded themselves as the Pro-Union party (see: NAFTA, TPP, labor leaders' press statements on Trump meetings), and after Obama's 6 wars of aggression, they even have a slight edge as the *more* Anti-War party (see also: Trump's "America Can't Afford More Regime Change" platform in the 2016 campaign, along with nearly everything that Ron/Rand Paul have ever said against U.S. wars of aggression).

In terms of labor alone, consider the chilling implications of a recent statement by Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa, on President Donald Trump signing an executive order to formally withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership:

“Today, President Trump made good on his campaign promise to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. With this decision, the president has taken the first step toward fixing 30 years of bad trade policies that have cost working Americans millions of good-paying jobs. The Teamsters Union has been on the frontline of the fight to stop destructive trade deals like the TPP, China PNTR, CAFTA and NAFTA for decades. Millions of working men and women saw their jobs leave the country as free trade policies undermined our manufacturing industry. We hope that President Trump’s meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto on Jan. 31 opens a real dialogue about fixing the flawed NAFTA.
“We take this development as a positive sign that President Trump will continue to fulfill his campaign promises in regard to trade policy reform and instruct the USTR to negotiate future agreements that protect American workers and industry."

And last but not least, we have the formerly leftist narrative during the Cold War, the height of GOP saber-tattling against the Kremlin: "We can't afford to escalate military tensions with Russia," and it seems like the Right has learned all the lessons about populist electoral mobilization that the Left should have learned by the late 1970s. Looks like the GOP has appropriated this Leftist platform too; Trump is all of a sudden the grownup in the room on military escalation with Russia, at least compared to MSNBC and half of the Democratic leadership... because these clowns have set the bar THAT low!

What happened, Democrats? I keep asking this of friends who seem to trust most politicians with a [D] after their name, but all I get back is people saying "Dude, you're killing The Resistance by questioning the need to have faith in corporatists and centrists who are basically 1980s Republicans. They are the leaders of The Resistance. They won't say how they plan to lead, but they're quite clear that Trump is really bad."

My response: "Umm... yeah, no shit. What's your point? What policies? What ironclad values? Any resistance to mass surveillance? How about Obama signing off on indefinite detention for anyone in the 2012 NDAA that he promised to veto if it included those exact previsions?"  Sometimes, it almost seems as if there is just one authoritarian party, which comes in "hard" and "soft" flavors...

Please tell me, Democratic Party policymakers: WHAT'S THE PLAN?! If you hold public office and these questions send chills down you spine, it's quite possible that you are a sellout. Seriously, is anyone in the party going to stand up to these crony-capitalist clowns? Call me a hypocrite, since I'm out with the DemExit and can't even influence the [D] primaries any more. Like that loathsome Vermont Indpendent Bernie Sanders, who's broadly despised within The Party for "not being a Real Democrat," I no longer have street cred. if I did, I'd be sure to spearhead a doomed attempt at a Progressive insurgency against corporatist millionaire Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

I'm not sure how. but I bet that given a week, the overlords controlling the Republican Hive Mind could get millions of people to associate building oil pipelines with the idea that "Climate change is real, and the Democrats are responsible." Republicans have vile ethics, but the Left could learn a lot from their amazingly successful strategies for turning out votes. Or it may just be that the competition doesn't even rank in terms of persuasive messages, decisive "I will do A, B, and C" platforms, or the projection of strength, all of which play well with American voters across the board.

The Looming Threat(s) of American Fascism

The downward spiral into totalitarianism goes something like this:

1. "We are the most exceptional society on Earth. What makes us so great is that our citizens and government uphold moral values such as compassion, mercy, innovation, equal opportunity, and human rights. This ethical code makes us who we are, and so we must perennially defend against any threats to it. A society only runs smoothly when people are free and prosperous; by really getting it right, we are modeling a better way of life for other societies. Working with our elected leaders, we will eventually convince more and more foreign societies to follow our example, which we hope will usher in a Golden Age of morality for the whole planet."

2. "Our society's moral code is so exceptional, compared to most others, that we must occasionally make small compromises in order to make sure that our core values are still here tomorrow. Most citizens aren't up to the job (bless 'em), so we need to elect strong leaders who are willing to make these kinds of tough decisions on everyone's behalf."

3. "As a society, we must always hold onto and defend the idea of our values, but that doesn't mean we need to follow them to the letter. Just so long as we remember the moral code that made us so exceptional before these looming threats made our situation more complex, we're good. When the major threats have passed, our leaders will voluntarily relinquish the semi-authoritarian powers society has granted them, ushering in a Second Golden Age!"

4. "Most people hold on to the antiquated idea of an absolute moral code; this is a sweet sentiment, but it is unrealistic. Absolute morality is a weakness which could potentially expose our society to Looming Threats. Because of the dire nature of these Threats, we must elect leaders who are strong enough to set aside certain ethical considerations, as well as shadowy unelected overlords with even fewer moral compunctions."

5. "We have to do whatever it takes to ensure that we can defend against all future threats to the idea of our values, or else our society will perish. Our rulers can't afford to be moral most of the time, given all the looming threats out there, but we can still romanticize the bygone days when we were a morality-based society... and this memory of the glorious Golden Age is what makes us so exceptional."

6. "We must do whatever it takes in the face of these looming threats. If this means following oligarchical rulers who constantly push the envelope on human rights abuse, then so be it. If it means establishing repressive policies regardless of whether there is currently a need for them, we will not raise our voices in protest, because we trust our rulers and know that silence is patriotic. We recall a simpler and gentler time before the Endless Threats fell upon us, but we also recognize the need to leave the past behind. It is this very fortitude—this patriotic, forward-thinking—outlook which make us so exceptional, especially when compared with societies that are holding on to idealistic notions like universal human rights."

7. "The only societal model that makes any sense is one in which people stand by whenever their government commits atrocities in the name of a vaguely-defined 'security.' Nothing should be off the table: torture, bioterrorism, sexual humiliation, wars of choice, corruption, collusion, coups, rampant inequality, undue process, assassinations, suppression of speech, brutalizing peaceful protesters, taking political prisoners... hey, whatever it takes. It is unfortunate that we've had to sacrifice so many of our original moral values, but these compromises have made us stronger as a people."

8. "We must persevere in the face of all threats. This means endless war, because when you get down to it, the Social Darwinists got it right: the world is just a bunch of sinister forces out to get us, and so we must unite and become an even bigger threat than those we face daily. It's a brave new world and we will do whatever it takes to protect our interests. Oh, right... freedom, democracy, exceptionalism, beacon of hope, terror, bla bla bla."

9. "Wake up, people; morality is for the gullible. Most of you are doe-eyed chumps with no self-control. Deep down, you know that everyone is innately selfish and mean. Like children, we all crave a strong parent figure to curb these impulses—a Stern Father with the godlike power it takes to keep us in line. You should really be grateful—if you think that all the casual violence and cruelty is bad now, just imagine what it would be like without Stern Father maintaining order.

10. Questioning the State/Corporate Complex in any way is unpatriotic, because a society only runs smoothly when most people live in abject terror of being punished by their overlords. It's a dog-eat-dog world we live in, and those people or societies which cling to moral codes deserve to suffer for their insolence. The weakness of conscience threatens the founding principle of our society ("whatever it takes to dominate"), and must never be tolerated lest we all return to the chaos of the past. We, your Supreme Rulers, are the biggest threat that humankind has ever faced... and that's what makes us so exceptional."

11. [EPILOGUE] "Please have mercy on us, society. As your self-appointed rulers, we have committed heinous crimes, but remember the bygone days when you were still moral? No? Damn... off to the gallows, then."

Mammals and Reptiles

Many of the evolutionary adaptations which we enjoy, as mammals, are often closely aligned with the common wisdom on virtuous behavior. Even from a scientific rationalist perspective, there is such a thing as "kindness:" an instinctive range of highly constructive maternal and paternal nurturing patterns that are built into our very DNA. Most reptiles lack this altogether, due to the lack of the neocortex, a sheath around the reptile brain which developed in mammals hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Most lizards are basically survivalistic bastards, though some are just really lazy. In stark contrast are human beings, who are at the top of the mammalian cognitive complexity range.* The problem with human awareness, which has caused so many global problems in turn, is that we all still have a reptile brain, lurking beneath the neocortex like a Social Darwinism-spouting tumor. Our logical centers have a kind of genetic romance with this ugly character, since they dated before the Neocortex came along and swept Reason off its feet. But for most people, reason is mostly dating the neocortex, a bit of cheating notwithstanding. It loves love; love illuminates out rational processes like nothing else. Hell, even the ego can get into it, because keener reason allows for more survivability, and the ego is basically an agglomeration of primal instinct and reason (another reptilian throwback).

PS: yes, Mr. Alligator is so ornery because of the medula oblongata.

*Except possibly for cetaceans, who have the good sense to swim around having recreational sex all the time yet maintain a sustainable level of population (think about it for a second.. wait for it.. wait for it... makes sense, right?) In any event, one could argue that humans have the most opportunities to combine those mammalian warm fuzzies with hard logic in novel ways.

Donald Trump is a Shameless Fascist

The countdown to revolution will no doubt slow its pace under a president such as Hillary Clinton, who is effectively a continuation of a long Neoliberal/Neoconservative legacy. That being said, please hear my plea, ye of the much-coddled Swing States... before you vote, consider that the alternative to this year's Corporatist Democrat is a true Fascist demagogue.

Donald Trump takes shit far beyond the usual racist or sexist dog whistles; the guy literally quotes Mussolini in Twitter posts, and re-tweets Hillary-bashing memes featuring a "Sheriff's" Star of David (the Nazi identifier for Jewish people en route to Auschwitz and other concentration camps). With every week exposing new horrors from the Trump campaign, the parallels to late-1930s Germany are piling up. At this point, anyone who denies a certain uncanny resemblance to Adolph Hitler's rise to power either lacks a basic grasp of world history, or is a party loyalist who will say anything to get another Republican elected. (I'm looking at you, six-figure earners. Ye know exactly what ye do, just like those times you voted for Dubya because he promised to cut your taxes in half).

For the record: if Donald Trump was a potential spoiler along the lines of Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Jill Stein or Ron Paul, I'd vote for him (in a blue state, mind you). I'd love to elect a president who offers specific constructive, outside-the-box suggestions for reform, even if s/he actually couldn't get a whole lot done due to the incumbent-driven, gerrymandered, pay-to-play culture in Washington politics. Even if the corporatist firewall rendered such a president politically impotent, as they did with Jimmy Carter, I would consider it a fair trade-off if it means electing a national leader who challenges Business-as-Usual Politics in key areas that the corporatocracy refuses to address.

Sad to say, Trump is hitting on a lot of those key issues as the most authentic voice in the room, rightly criticizing a "rigged" two-party system run by special interests. In doing so, he has drawn the ire of both party establishments, which has worked almost entirely in his favor. I'm not saying that Donald Trump is "honest" or has good intentions for the United States or the world, but sometimes, he is spot-on in his candid observations about systemic failures. This is the ace up his sleeve, and he is clever enough to use it to full advantage. Leftist pundits are making a grave error when they portray both Trump and all of his supporters as either the ruling class, or bigoted white working class morons.

Yes, Trump has galvanized a large mob-like constituency of racists, which is funded by the rich folks who rule the world, but he is also appealing to a huge number of people who are sick of hearing the same party lines and find his brash statements on the Iraq war or Wall Street domination of the political process quite refreshing.  In Trump's world view, the Democratic National Committee is one arm of a single Corporatist Party which spans the center-right and center-left of American politics... is this less true than the conventional wisdom in which Democrats are supposedly anti-corporate bleeding hearts who protect civil rights at all costs?  The Iraq Military Authorization, Patriot Act, and many other 21st Century pieces of "bipartisan" legislation beg to differ, as do the bipartisan attacks on regulations and antitrust laws.

In lieu of Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump has filled a populist void which Hillary Clinton and her DNC cronies have left wide open. Though his motives are highly suspect, that is beside the point, because a lot of people will take him at his word. The scary truth is that Trump may just become our next President because Hillary and the Democratic National Committee refuse to stand up to corporatist domination. This sets Trump up to boldly call out the Democrats on issue after issue, from voter disenfranchisement, to Wall Street campaign donations, to her onetime support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is conveniently the next extension of Bill Clinton's support for the job-killing NAFTA initiative. Hillary Clinton officially withdrew her support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as of a February 2016 debate with Bernie Sanders, but it is quite telling that all of her DNC Policy Committee picks voted in favor of the TPP while all of Sanders' picks voted against it.  The Democratic National Committee, as a Hillary Clinton proxy, is handing Trump a treasure trove of talking points which will not only solidify his hold among the far right, but will also attract many disenfranchised people in the Bernie-or-Bust movement.

While mass media focuses on Donald Trump's role as a prominent right-wing ideologue (without ever really calling him out on it), the buried lead is that Trump is winning over over thousands of voters from many other ideological constituencies.  His messaging actually ranges all across the board, and includes hugely popular vignettes such as "Bring the jobs back," "End corporate corruption of politics," "Stop Wall Street from buying out politicians," "Incumbent career politicians have to go," "U.S. elections are rigged," "Attacking Iraq was a huge mistake that led to more terrorism," and "The mainstream media only works for the interests of the ruling class." All of these messages, on their face, are completely correct, and the two ruling political parties are at Trump's mercy because none of their own leaders have the courage to call out the corrupt pay-to-play system that gets them reelected year after year. It's their funeral: if they continue in the status quo of total obstinacy when it comes to the more oligarchical elements of U.S. government, they will face a sloppy, cataclysmic revolution rather than the more manageable kind where none of them end up in jail.

Donald Trump is now well-positioned to take advantage of his own party's internal resistance and the Democratic leadership's flagrant cronyism, declaring both sides of the aisle hopelessly corrupt. Along with securing a large part of the Independent vote, this seemingly anti-corruption message will be catnip to the more gullible progressive voters who are fed up with a rigged political game run by transnational corporations. Trump has styled himself as an "outsider" who wants to make the system work for everyone, when the plain truth is he is an anti-government nationalist who will serve the interests of the richest and whitest Americans. He is shaping up to be a fascist ruler in the league of Hitler or Pinochet... and with every concession to Corporate America, the DNC is encouraging his rise to power.

Hating Together is the New Love

The older I get, the more convinced I am that a great deal of apparent evil is the product of social movements which lionize unified hatred and call it "love." The cult-like rationale, which is categorically fascist in nature, is that if unity is an effective change agent, members of the fascist cult are empowered and therefore morally in the clear, no matter what values, ethical codes, methods, or emotional forces bring them together. The fascists share a hive mind which is indeed a powerful force, whereas their opponents are rendered ineffective by individualistic values and ethical qualms.

Of course, the changes are generally for the worse, but "Whatever gets the job done" is a highly effective mantra in a society where the wheels of government have ground to a halt. Rampant political corruption and calculated right-wing obstructionism are meant to entice the general populace into revolting against the best ideals of government in a unified show of hateful mob mentality. Once everything breaks down into dysfunction and chaos, the proto-fascist demagogues waiting in the wings emerge victorious. Finally, when human rights are no more, they proclaim "Well, at least something changed. Look, we all did something... together! That's real love, and to hell with anyone not on our team, because we have power and they don't. See? The good guys are the ones who get things done. Losers don't deserve this amazing love we share." It's Social Darwinism codified as a national religion, which is exactly the dystopian nightmare that America is becoming.

When basic ethics take a backseat to power-worship, spiritual sickness festers. Case in point: late-1930s Germans were united behind a passionate love of country, and and they got a LOT of things done. Bioterrorism, empire-building, torture, mass incarceration, genocide... but they were definitely things, and they definitely got them done, together. Call it "love," Nazis; that doesn't make it good. Thus does state power subsume notions of true personal agency and democracy which once empowered citizens to effect change for the good of ALL. The only anodyne to this cultural cancer are democratic models of government which encourage free will and adhere to human rights principles. Bottom fuckin' line, no excuses.

‪#‎nevertrump‬

OWS Photo Stays

I won't be posting any new photos of myself for a while. It's not the trans thing; no shame there. The problem is that the mystery affliction which has been attacking my body's connective tissues for the past couple decades has now decided to move my jawbone a quarter-inch to the right, so my face is no longer symmetrical, and it shows. The plates of my skull have also shifted, so that my head now resembles a slightly rotten cantaloupe. 

Anyhoo, good thing I got rid of the crew cut; I used to have a great head for it, but since I've been mutated, I'm not sure it would look quite as cool these days. Still undiagnosed. Tentative diagnoses to date: degenerative disc disease, cervical and/or thoracic spine; Ehlers-Danlos, probably type 3 or possibly 5a-5b; Fibromyalgia; Osteoarthritis, spine/joints; cervical stenosis at discs C1-2, C2-3, C3-4, C4-5, and C6-6. Yep, C5-6 hasn't been complaining this week. Anyway, mystery medical conditions: not recommended. #gottalovescience

dot dot dot... that one stays, but for a more up-to-date version I refer you to My Facebook page.

Muhahahaha

Bernie Bros, BernieBots, Mountains and Molehills: A Call for Unity

To all the Hillary Clinton supporters who’ve been wondering why we Berniecrats are having trouble getting on board with a preemptive "unite behind our candidate" campaign, I’d like to offer a few candid thoughts and observations that I hope will help y’all refine this party unity message before you completely screw the pooch.

[1] Those calling for everyone to "rally Behind Hillary" have done so prematurely—in many cases for months, or even since Sanders first threw his hat in the ring. There seems to be a widespread bias among Hillary Clinton supporters that she is patently superior to Bernie, much more electable, and pretty much destined to win the Democratic nomination. This condescending stance is insulting to both Berniecrats and our candidate, who we are proud to say has continually defied the cynical expectations of both the Democratic and Republican political establishments, not to mention every news outlet that has been calling the primary for Clinton since day one. It also smacks of deep arrogance, and/or underhanded psych-out tactics, to constantly insist that there is no way our candidate will ever win against the Clinton juggernaut.

[2] I'm getting quite fed-up with non-female Sanders supporters like myself called "Bernie Bros" in response to comments which are critical of Hillary Clinton but which do not harp on her age, appearance, or other typically sexist digs. For those of you using this as a disingenuous and underhanded tactic that is gender-exclusive (women are never called Bernie Bros for the exact same critiques), shame on you; you're shooting yourselves in the foot by further alienating a huge number of those you claim to want on your team if Hillary gets the nomination. For others, there really does seem to be an element of male-bashing fervor, even if they tell themselves that they aren't stereotyping men as voting for Bernie simply because they are men.

I didn't call white Hillary supporters "Crackers for Clinton" when she was running against Obama in 2008, nor do I call women who now support her "Hillary Hoes" to imply that they’re only voting on the basis of which candidate has lady parts. Besides being in poor taste, these kinds of made-to-order slurs draw racists or sexists to the campaign in question. Personally, I'd like to keep Team Bernie as bigotry-free as possible. If Bernie was anything but a white man, no one would be trying to pull this shit, but a lot of vocal Hillary supporters are giving it a safe place couched in the security of attacking the dominant demographic. Unless you have a really good reason to think that someone is "just sexist" and that's why they like Bernie better, please do the math on what sort of people are drawn to this kind of rhetoric. If you think about it and then keep using the phrase because you think it is "effective," you're as much of an opportunistic bridge-burner as Donald Trump.

Bottom line, folks: "Bernie Bros" is an insidious campaign slogan whose main purpose is to characterize men, from Sanders to his supporters, as knee-jerk sexists who are opposing a woman on principle... as opposed to, say, people trying to make an informed decision who actually might listen to you if you stopped writing them off them for a second. In most cases I respect Clinton supporters’ point of view and the sincerity of their belief in her (whether or not the person in question has a vagina). Plus, to be fair, I want them to rally behind Bernie if he wins the nomination just like they hope that people like me will back Hillary in a race against Trump.

In light of this mutual goal of unity, it seems counterintuitive to denigrate people on the opposing side of the primary to the point that they come to regard the other team as “The Enemy” instead of just just “opponents for now,” in what’s mostly a respectful national conversation which delves into some very complex issues. Whatever the Bro-Bashers’ rationale may be—actual prejudice, a ham-handed campaign tactic, or the cheap thrill of putting someone down—they need to stop these broad-brush attacks. Men comprise about half the people, and they vote, so if a guy makes a sexist comment about Hillary, you’ll get a lot further in the long game with saying “That’s sexist.” You might be surprised at how many Bros back you up.

[3] I've had it up to here [gestures in the air emphatically] with people who call me a "Berniebot" or try to tell me that I simply "hate" Hillary after I'd just taken great pains to explain many of the key differences between her campaign platform and political record and Bernie's. I don't hate her, really; I FEAR her! I find many aspects of Clinton's record absolutely terrifying in their implications, from her voting for the Patriot Act and Iraq War, to her tacit backing of the Honduras coup, to her vacationing with her good friend Henry Kissinger, to her allegiance to the most nefarious big-business interests, to her ludicrous $225k minimum speaking fee. We Berniecrats view these as legitimate and pressing concerns, and to have them constantly dismissed out of hand suggests some major hypocrisy. Pigeonholing members of the opposing campaign in order to trivialize their perspective helps no one.

[4] Along the same lines, it doesn't warm my heart to have someone tell me that my grievances with Hillary Clinton are just a case of someone making a mountain out of a molehill, that she is "not that different" from Sanders, or that we should all trust that President Clinton would be far better for the world than President Trump in matters such as foreign policy, where she is effectively a Neoconservative in the league of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. It's a big world, and we're not the only country in it. #foreignlivesmatter.

As I have said many times in the past, I'm pretty sure that Clinton would be far more progressive than Trump on issues like social programs, LGBT rights, equal pay, and nearly all domestic policies except those involving anti-Constitutional infringements like mass surveillance. (See? We really DO think!). There are stark differences between the two Democrats, but I often find that when I point them out to Hillary Clinton supporters, they refuse to acknowledge anything I've just said and fall back on the hackneyed talking points "She'll get things done" (FYI: which "things" is actually kinda important) or "She's more electable than Bernie" (Nearly every poll for months has said the exact opposite).

In other words, I don’t respect the opinion of anyone who accuses me of being an unthinking robot just because I think that Bernie would be a decent enough, FDR-values Progressive president, and Clinton a terrible Neocon Overlord. My views and strategies have changed a whole lot over the course of this primary campaign, as I learn new information and seek to get over my own misconceptions and hangups so that I can make the most objective and informed decision in November. Based on most of the interactions I've had with Hillary supporters, I assume that this is also true for most of you... that said, y'all need to call each other out a LOT more on this kind of crap, the same way I call people out for juvenile name-calling tactics like "Shillary."

In the spirit of full disclosure, I've gotta admit that I agree with the scathing critique which is encapsulated in this "$hillary" taunt: based on an extensive reading of her record from the Civil Rights era to the present day, Hillary Clinton strikes me as a textbook crony capitalist with the speaking fees and campaign contributions to prove it.  This contrasts sharply with Sanders on many points, as seen in his revolutionarily ( #immortaltechnique ) populist primary campaign. Bernie is highly critical of pay-to-play politics, an approach which has allowed him to achieve an astounding underdog electoral comeback.  Think about it: Bernie Sanders is campaigning as a Democrat, against the favored candidate of most of the Democratic Party establishment.  He's playing poker against someone dealing off a stacked deck, and with all the aces up her sleeve... and all on a populist wave of donations from poor and middle class people which average about $25 to $30 per person. None of this, however, makes me want to feed the trolls who support the same candidate that I do.

Bottom line, folks: if you truly want to convince Bernie Progressives to follow Chomsky's advice and just "..Hold their nose and vote for Hillary" in November (should she win the Democratic nomination), then please do your part to reign in the trolls who are fucking over your campaign. Most of you really seem to be trying to do the right thing, but the assholish comments I keep encountering on social media are the farthest thing from a unity message, and only feed into the general sense of resentment and alienation that many of us feel toward the Democratic establishment in general, and Clinton supporters in particular. Please, please, don’t be part of the problem. It only serves Trump, and opens the door to a false equivalency that will taint your entire ticket.

There is no "Fascism Lite."

Coming soon: from the plutocrats who brought you Foreign Invasion Lite (Bases everywhere! Borderless drone wars!), Human Trafficking Lite (Thailand tours!), Money Laundering Lite (Switzerland! Caymans!), Sex Slavery Lite (Celeb nude video hacks!), and Racially-Based Summary Executions Lite, we’re proud to bring you Fascism Lite! 

Sarcasm aside, there is a growing force of real-life Fascism sweeping across the Earth.  In textbook-definition terms, this means that powerful governments are merging with distinctly amoral corporate entities and then working together to take over the world.  In the process, they demolish all legal precedents, presumably kicking it off with the Geneva Conventions and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and follow up by killing the environment. Oh, and they use virulent hatred of "The Other" to mobilize the minions.

Anyone who follows pro-torture, pro-war, pro-prejudice, anti-environment leaders expecting that utopia is just around the corner has probably been brainwashed by the likes of Donald Trump. What proto-fascist demagogues such as Trump, Bachmann, Hannity and Cruz so colorfully illustrate is that opportunistic hatemongers have no real plan but to unite people against enemies, and that this blind obsession with hatred will come to no good end. The inescapable outcome of obeying terracidal sadists is a dystopian mix of societal regression and ecological degradation. 

I normally direct these ranty missives toward the upper echelons of power, but I’d like to address the cheerleaders on the far Right for a moment.  You know who you are: the ones who equate Abu Ghraib with a "fraternity prank" because 'Papa Bear' O'Reilly gave you moral permission, or describe a largely innocent population of Muslim prisoners as "Animals" in order to justify their humiliating, categorically inhuman treatment at Guantanamo Bay.  Every casual slur, every little act of cruelty, every time you just keep your head down and try not to think about the moral implications, you bring yourselves closer to the edge. The problem is that they didn’t tell you where the race to the edge leads.  If civilization’s gearshift stays stuck between “Imperial Fascism” and “Human Rights with Sovereign Borders” much longer, we'll face one of two options, neither of which most of you would like:

In Plan A, the forces of Justice win, be it through revolution or rapid structural reform, and try to sort everything out in a way that’s fair to everyone. This quickly proves to involve a massive pile of litigation, because the Good Guys, given free reign, have unearthed decades worth of files and witness testimony detailing nefarious cover-ups from coups to germ warfare experiments... you know, the kind of stuff the Far Right always pretends not to notice if they think it helps their team. Everything is fair game: assassinations, biowarfare, unconstitutional invasions of privacy, you name it.  Hooray for the Good Guys!  The problem is, most of the Bad Guys get away clean.  By and large, those you might call "Middle Management" in the Conspiracy are the ones to take the fall: the spokespeople, technicians, messengers, and NSA contractors who didn’t go the Snowden route.  Names like Kissinger, Cheney, Gonzalez, Von Braun, Dow, GE, Bechtel, and Monsanto would no doubt arise in the course of investigations, but it’s hard to beat a billion-dollar legal team.

Plan B is a living nightmare in which the Fascists have finally won.  This would involve an undeclared empire comprised of the United States, England, France, and possibly (but not necessarily) Germany—an alliance which opposes human rights on principle, instead imposing a lawless, pay-to-play form of government across much of the developed world.  No more rights or protections, but those who play the game can ensure that their children are insulated from most of the fallout, in some cases literally.  You see, in ForProfitLand, there is no more Hippocratic Oath, and no pesky government watchdogs such as the EPA to protect the general public from nuclear meltdowns and toxic spills.  Like a bulldozer leaking oil and belching smog, the fascist juggernaut would spread to the ends of the earth appropriating whole cultures overnight, and assuming tacit ownership of assimilated citizens' bodies through the right of Toxic Trespass. Slavery Lite, anyone?

Plan C—amnesty for almost everyone—is slipping away. It stands to reason that there are only a few people out there who actually came up with the brilliant idea to bring back bioterrorism, torture, and treating people as property, since most human beings find these acts revolting. The true architects of atrocity should be only the ones to take the fall... and the good news is, there aren't many of them.

Posting nude videos of someone online without their permission isn't "Sex Slavery Lite;" there's nothing innocent or light-hearted about sexually using people against their will. Police forces killing unarmed people of color in the streets, trusting that the Blue Line will protect them, isn't Apartheid Lite; it's a murderous gestapo that hearkens back to Hitler's Final Solution. Letting thousands of children in Flint, Michigan suffer permanent brain damage from months of lead poisoning isn't EPA Lite; its a horrible act of state bioterrorism which has gone unpunished, from the Governor on down. A U.S. Predator Drone incursion into a sovereign nation which results in the mass killing of a wedding party, or a hospital full of sick people, isn't "War Lite;" any unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation is an unequivocal act of war, and attacking an enemy through civilian proxies is a war crime.

The problem isn't that there are no laws; there are plenty. They just aren't being enforced. What most plagues the world is the problem of privilege. The phonetic roots of the word privilege reveal its true meaning: Prive (private)+Lege (legal); in other words, private law, or the ability to buy your way out of accountability for any crime. Speaking only for myself, I think it's safe to say that this literal definition of privilege accounts for over half of what's wrong with the world these days. If the modern League of Nations concept actually made any sense, had any abiding principles, then no one would have the state-sanctioned right to tithe their way out of culpability for gross atrocities such as arming pre-ISIS terrorist cells in Syria or raining depleted uranium upon Fallujah. Sad to say, this is not how "justice" seems to work in the 21st Century. "Less justice, more privilege" is the Law of the Land now. Oh, also "Resistance is Futile."

Fascism Lite: “Because the only reason they hanged all those poor souls at Nuremberg is that Hitler never mobilized the moderates.”

_______________________
Afterthought: I try not to judge those who keep their head down for their own safety or that of their loved ones.  That's not selling out: these days, sometimes it's just survival.

Skepticism Vs. Faith: Give it a Fuckin' Rest, Already

Have you ever been in a situation when a bunch of people with very different world views were actually getting along in some social media venue or other, and then someone totally commandeered the discussion into a debate of "Is religion totally right, or am I?!!!" All of a sudden all your friends lose focus and so do you, until everyone is sparring with a troll.  This is more than a case of GroupThink vs. individuality: it's a case of people who are trying to learn from each other cooperatively, respecting difference, versus those who assume that theirs is the only valid opinion (trust me, I've been there).

...And thus does a perfectly awesome potential meeting of the minds in the comment on a Facebook post become a train-wreck where half the people bail for lack of Drama Attention Span, and the other half try to spar with the unwitting troll until most have given up and moved on to saner pastures.  This is a case of "the loudest person in the room gets the spotlight," not a problem of people who have religious faith or a lack thereof. The problem, in short, is zealots (including anti-theist zealots) who obnoxiously disregard basic logical and emotional considerations in their approach to cosmological disagreements.

It's perfectly normal to assume that you're right about a lot of stuff; let's face it, that's how we sleep at night and get through the day with our sanity more or less intact. Some people, however, take it upon themselves to prove to anyone who will listen that their own cosmological perspective is the supreme truth. This applies to everything from whether there is a Heaven to whether Creationism is the most factually accurate accounting of how everything got here. I mean, really: everyone with half a brain knows that you either [1] Accept carbon dating and dinosaur fossils or [2] Choose to have faith in the Scriptural assertion that when God created the world several millennia ago, He went to elaborate lengths in order to mess with our heads *ahem* test our faith in Him. It's not that complex... it's not even a debate, just fodder for people talking loudly at each other over social media (a more likely candidate for "Proof that God is testing us" in my opinion, but I digress).

Let's be realistic here: like most matters of faith vs. skepticism, if someone is really convinced one way or the other as to the Earth's approximate age, the chances of your changing their mind are slim to none. Why even try, when there are probably a lot of things you could teach one another without strife, and ultimately, alienation? Yet some just can't let it go... even long after the person' they're talking at has tuned out. These are tired, obvious arguments that leave a bad taste in the mouth of anyone with a sense of nuance, which is why a minority of extremely zealous people are the only ones actively debating them any more.

Along with browbeating, the other hallmark of a zealot is the presumption of knowing Supreme Truths. They claim to know, either through God or Science, the absolute truth on a wide range of cosmological matters, even the total ineffables. An atheist zealot insists "There is no God" or "People who believe in God are stupid" rather than asserting "I'm trying to be as objective as possible. Barring proof, I cannot believe in God" or "I can see what draws some people to religion, but it's not for me, for these reasons."

Far more obnoxious than zealots' smug dismissiveness, however, is their relentless reiteration of the same "sermons," as if the entire world is their personal mock-debate group. You'd think that people with all the answers would see that beating someone over the head isn't always the most effective way to get an idea across. Then again, maybe some do see it, in which case I must pose the question: "If your real agenda isn't to convince people, why go to all that trouble to explain yourself over and over?"

Zealots constantly alienate others by talking AT people rather than with them, because they have no humility whatsoever about their own fallibility. Whether they're preaching devout faith or "devout skepticism," once zealots start pontificating, they cease to consider the possibility that others might possess insights which they themselves lack. It's a sad corner to paint yourself into... and the saddest part is that die-hard zealots "win" argument after argument in their own minds, without heed to the collateral losses. 99.9% of the world may not acknowledge these daily victories, but that's just the price of martyrdom.

(Still) Fighting the Nazis at Age 40

I just turned 40 this past week. Not for the first time, my birthday gave me pause to reflect on the direction the world is heading, and to wonder how I might be able to help. From all this soul searching has come a burning realization: I want nothing more than to fight the Nazis. Not the old-school kind, but a resurgence of Nazi ideology in America, which threatens to destroy human civilization and plunge us into a new Dark Age. As a goal it's nothing new, but I have renewed and bolstered my commitment... so watch out, world.

 

For many years now, I have been putting the word out that there is a growing force of malevolence infesting humanity's collective unconscious like an aggressive virus. This disease has one overriding objective: to upend moral codes in every nation and culture until there are no more ironclad laws or notions of good and evil anywhere on Earth. From waging peace to overcoming prejudice, everything that we have associated with the idea of "goodness" is, in some circles, being re-envisioned as a weakness. The sales pitch is that while ethical codes like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were once the mortar and glue holding civilization together, we can no longer afford to be so naive. 

 

Some have called me an alarmist over the past two decades when I have declared that America would soon emerge as a fascist Fourth Reich that puts Hitler to shame. I see it more as an “informed opinion,” because I have been right so far. My predictions from the late 1990s were that America would fall victim to the following sociopolitical "plagues:"

 

[1] A steady erosion of civil liberties, especially privacy; 

 

[2] A return to relativistic arguments over torture; 

 

[3] Citizenship stripped of blanket legal protections (habeas corpus, "innocent until proven guilty," etc.); 

 

[4] An increasingly militarized domestic police force, which discourages dissent by brutalizing peaceful protesters and performs regular summary executions of non-Caucasian people; 

 

[5] In foreign policy, an imperialistic rejection of national borders; 

 

[6] A slow merger of state and corporate power that leads the deregulation of financial markets while transforming citizens into lab rats for Monsanto mad scientists; and 

 

[7] The rise of a bigoted New Right whose members proudly foment hatred and oppression for certain social groups... all tied together with: 

 

[8] Constant nationalistic fear-mongering and saber-rattling, a symphony of dog whistles meant to hypnotize us into accepting xenophobia as a positive force that can bring people together in a spirit of camaraderie ("Hating Together is the New Love." Gosh, nothing Orwellian about that). 

 

So yeah, some scoffed, called me paranoid, mentioned tinfoil hats, said America is a light unto the world and could never sink so low (they said I was mad!!!!)... and then along came Candidate Trump. How does that crow taste, doubters? 

 

Whatever twisted vision our erstwhile Overlords are pushing on the world, evidence suggests that their victory would lead to humanity's descent into a nightmarish dystopia. Those who pull the strings (purse-strings, mostly) have been actively fighting for LESS peace, love, and freedom wherever they have influence. They insist that the best thing for humanity is to get rid of the human rights standards which reflect the best in all of us, a ludicrous notion that only makes sense to the tragically brainwashed. They have, in short, chosen to be willfully evil. I know that thwarting evil overlords who are trying to take over the world is so 20th century, but call me old-fashioned. Plus, it's kind of epic. Like, literally. ;)

 

So in conclusion, from 40 on out, my top priority will be to thwart the torturers, warmongers, and other cells in this highly aggressive, civilization-killing virus. There is a lot to recommend modern-day civilization, most of all its steady evolution from war, bigotry and oppression toward cooperation, universal compassion, and freedom and justice for *all.* I'm not going to stand by while some people who totally reject the notion of ethical standards turn back the clock on all the major wins of the modern day. I encourage everyone with a heart to join me in defending the bedrock of human civilization against those who seek to destroy it.

Neo-Bokononist creation myth (as told by Lucius Ringwald)

1:1.  Well, it all started when this thing called the Primordial Tao, which isn't so much a thing as All the things at once, went from being an immaculate singularity into a multitudinous mess, all of which followed from a single innocent thought: “Damn, I'm bored.”  All-knowingness and all-beingness had its perks, but somehow it just didn't seem to cut the mustard.*

1:2.  And thus did Tao give birth to "I," to wonder if the Primordial Oneness reeeealy knew all the possible things to think, be, do, and feel (for what knows all cannot wonder).  But the Tao found that I could not change, and so the Tao gave birth to Time... for to self-reflect is a process of becoming, and without Time there is no becoming—only being.

1:3. And the Tao, as I, wondered if its own making meant that the Tao was no longer a true Oneness, and it realized that it didn't know the answer to its own question, and this was the First Unknowing.  It occurred to I that maybe it could find the answer by trying more than one way of looking at things, and so I talked to I for the first time.

1:4: Before long, I got into an argument with itself about some trivial detail as to what the Primordial Tao really means, and then there were two, and the two were called They.  And one argued that all apparent separation is simply Tao, perfect, all-encompassing, while the other argued that there is the Primordial Tao and then there's the regular old Tao, and yes, there is a difference.  And They did bicker so. Thus did They cease to remember that they were also (or possibly still) the Ultimate Oneness, because now there was Otherness to deal with, and the All has no Other, so they figured that They must be something else now.

1:5 There was a certain thrill to this feeling of Otherness, like They were breaking the rules for the first time.  They were rebels; “Who needs Oneness anyway?  What did Oneness ever do for me?”  Plus it was seriously creeping them out to think that deep down, They might actually be a lot more than they currently thought. And thus was anti-mystical xenophobia invented.  And woe unto them, for They knew not just how much of a Pandora’s Box that one would turn out to be. If They had anticipated all the witch burning and such, They might have just offered up some disingenuous but sheepish apologies for all the silly arguing, and gone back to being Oneness right then and there.

1:6. And so the Tao did create a giant Red Balloon in which They could carry on arguing (because it had a sneaking suspicion that it shouldn't be possible to experience Allness and Someness at the same time, yet there it was, and there They were), and its name was Cosmos.  I and I renamed themselves Me and You, and the Tao retreated to the Void, watching its increasingly amnesiac misadventures inside the Balloon as through a one-way mirror.

1:7. And Me and You, trapped in eddies of Unknowing, forgot more and more of what it meant to be One, and they felt important, and told themselves stories about what was, sometimes even when things were plainly the opposite.  And Me and You did carry on arguing all the way to the end of the Great Cycle, when They reunited as Tao in what was basically the biggest cosmic orgasm ever (and, arguably, also the most epic make-up sex).

1:8. And the scattered reflections of the Tao did remember their oneness, and the Cosmos did pop like a balloon that magically leaves no trace of latex in the air.**  And the Tao rested for a spell, basking in what seemed an eternal paradise of Primordial Oneness.

∞:1. And the Primordial Tao surprised itself by growing bored again (because boredom implies a subject/object relationship, which doesn't quite jibe with the whole Oneness thing).  And so Tao reflected on all the tiny dreams it had had in the Balloon, and All delighted in many fond reminiscences.  And reflecting led to musing, and it did occur to the Tao that pi should have been a more sensible number given its importance in geometry. And then another part of the Tao piped up that to do that, you'd have to sacrifice all sorts of cool things.  And the first part disagreed, and then there were two again.

∞:2. And the Tao did recommence to argue with itself, this time in earnest.  Me said that pi being three was totally worth losing the Fibonacci spiral and some of the better fractals, and you retorted that such a fundamental tweak to the cosmic BIOS code would require sacrificing at least two colors and one of the better notes of music.  And Me yelled "We'll make new ones!" and You became furious, and You stormed off to the furthest reaches of the newly birthed Yellow Balloon to found a decidedly conservative dimension.  And the other made a Balloon of purest blue, in which to explore all the most wacky ways to design a Cosmos. Each made a world and then sank into it, now all forgetting of the Oneness from whence They had been reborn.

∞:∞. Rinse and repeat... ad infinitum.

– In memory of Terry Pratchett​ and Kurt Vonnegut​

________
*That is to say, there was only a retroactively extrapolated post-singularity potentiality of mustard, so there was nothing to cut, per se; but if there had been a capacity for mustard at the time (or lack thereof), then knowing all the ways of being at once just wouldn’t have been cutting it.  In any event, have you tried to cut mustard?  That’s kind of what it was like, ergo the need for time in which to cut, and finite potentiality in which for there to be mustard.  Actually, the metaphor works more than I originally anticipated. I realize that I'm carrying on a bit, but honestly, who reads the footnotes on the first run?

**Except now, of course, there wasn't air.  I mean, not in the strictest sense.  Hell, there wasn’t now. There was just All, timeless, er, again... but of course not really again, again per se, because there was no time again, which is just one of those things one shouldn't think on overmuch, lest ye be smitten with a thumping headache. 

No More War President Democrats!

I will not support Hillary Clinton in 2016, because she is an empire-building corporatist. Here's my mental math, which I challenge anyone out there to refute:

First off, America has firmly established itself as the world's only military giant and the global hub of corporate oligarchy, so whatever the next U.S. President decides will have a huge impact on the rest of the world. The United States is currently an electoral democracy, but when you examine our campaign finance structure, it turns out that we are really an ad-hoc Corporatocracy. History shows that flagrant Corporatism, in which for-profit entities effectively write the laws, has often been a precursor to brutal fascism (which would take a lot longer to explain, but that's why we have Wikipedia). This makes a lot of sense: corporations, especially those that are publicly traded, are designed to NOT have a moral compass, putting them at odds with any government which tries to protect its citizens from things like slave wages, unsafe food and medications, chemical dumping and air pollution. Fascist political leaders conflate moral compunctions with weakness, and external power with strength, and don't fret much over who gets hurt as long as their own control is assured. When you put them together, you get a recklessly amoral government "of, by, and for" the power-hungry and the super-rich. It's a marriage made in... well, you get the idea.

Another essential component of fascism is the militaristic presumption of a right to invade any nation, regardless of imminent threat, which perfectly describes Hillary Clinton's rhetoric and voting record over the past decade. As head of the U.S. State Department, Clinton oversaw the bombing of various sovereign nations via drones despite their leaders' protests, which is just as much an act of war as launching a missile (drone strike fans can't seem to grasp the idea that when your country uses a new type of remote-controlled killing machine to end human lives en masse on foreign soil, it's still technically "war"). The United States is currently fighting numerous wars of choice, with no foreseeable end. This is a direct violation of the UN Security Council Charter, which is why many countries consider the drone strikes to be illegal. To wit, Hillary Clinton's foreign policy positions are directly at odds with the core notion upon which all modern diplomacy is predicated: "You can't just attack whomever you please." This does not recommend her for the job of Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Those who defend Hillary Clinton's record as Secretary of State like to point out that during her tenure, the United States didn't launch new ground offensives, so she is clearly better than George W. Bush. First off—for fuck's sake, is THAT where we set the bar these days?!! But I digress... these apologists know very well that their defense of Clinton's record doesn't hold up in light of the steady increase in U.S. drone strikes in countries like Yemen and Pakistan. Drone strikes are predicated on a chillingly relativistic argument: "Fewer American troops are dying in America's endless War on Terror, so it's OK to murder hundreds or thousands of brown-skinned foreigners, many of whom happen to be innocent." This is dehumanizing propaganda worthy of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984. Moreover, drone strikes during President Obama's first term were so indiscriminate in their killing of innocents that they actually fomented terrorism under a pretext of fighting it, so there goes the hackneyed "But now we're all safer" justification. As far as I can tell, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both represent a Washington culture of lawless empire-building, and I have yet to hear a persuasive argument to the contrary.

Another point against Clinton: she tacitly supports an environmental Apocalypse. Now, lest you start thinking I'm an alarmist, consider the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the Fukushima disaster. Crude oil and chemical dispersants have devastated the Gulf of Mexico, whereas the whole Pacific Ocean is now radioactive (people realize this everywhere but the United States, where the "free press" has dutifully covered up the shocking scope of this global catastrophe). In light of all this, it seems fair to say that corporate cronyism has already brought about the end of the world as we know it, and the best we can do now is run damage control. Seriously, these are two enormous bodies of water, which are essential components in the global food chain, and that's not even taking climate change into account. The corporatists won't stop until Mother Earth has been rendered a toxic cesspit full of genetically modified organisms. For whatever twisted reasons, they seem to actively hate any policy, plan, or technology which promises to preserve a shred of Earth's natural state... but they're all for splicing snail DNA into corn, removing mountaintops, burning stuff, and producing even more nuclear waste.

I would rather not see this beautiful planet transform into a radioactive ball of sludge where most living things are cancer-riddled and/or mutated (yeah, call me a starry-eyed dreamer), but this already seems likely to happen within my lifetime. Putting another corporate shill in office is not going to help the situation. Hillary Clinton will loyally represent Monsanto, Big Oil, Big Coal, and the rest of the Terracidal God Complex Machine bankrolling her 2016 campaign, even to the detriment of most Americans and Mother Earth itself, because she believes that this is how she will WIN. That's just how Corporate Democrats roll... because deep down, they're just Social Darwinists wearing a different costume. Social Darwinists transcend labels; they may disguise their nihilistic lust for power behind words like Democrat, Republican, Christian, Jewish or Hindu, but when all's said and done, you shall know them by their deeds.

This is the point at which Liberals out there shout that Hillary Clinton will support gay marriage (after voting against it in the DOMA decision) and any number of other goody-good social causes. Sorry to break it to you, but the "Good Guys versus Bad Guys" paradigm which lionizes these Corporate Democrats is a dog and pony show. Issues like gay marriage, women's reproductive rights, and social services are very important to many people's quality of life in the United States, but the Culture Wars have become one of the corporate imperialists' most effective weapons in the propaganda campaign which tells us that we have "choice." Social issues are a red herring which effectively pacifies the Good Liberals, rendering them not only blind but mute in the midst of a global fascist overthrow that is quite apparent to true Progressives.

The fatalistic mindset that we must settle for yet another corporatist in the White House seems perfectly normal for Democratic party loyalists, because theirs is a faith-based approach to politics best summed up in the mantra, "Everything will be fine once my team wins." As for myself, I have concluded that these times are far too desperate to support Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's style of offering piecemeal incrementalism yet never tackling the pressing need for wide-scale systemic reform... dare I say, revolution. Obama was no FDR, and Clinton won't be either.

To be fair, there are a couple of scenarios in which I would vote for Hillary Clinton—lest I appear sexist for not bringing up how great it would be to have a woman president regardless of her politics. Specifically: if Hillary Clinton ever comes out in favor of prosecuting jailable offenses on Wall Street, restoring Americans' civil liberties to a pre-Patriot-Act Constitutional standard, phasing out the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, or ending the drone strikes, I'll reconsider my decision to oppose her candidacy; any of those positions would do, but preferably all of them. In the meantime, I'll support whoever challenges the imperialistic, Terracidal, corporate machine that is subjugating humankind and destroying the natural world.

Road Map to Revolution

PHASE ONE

You may not have heard it on the news, but fundamental reform has already come to Western Europe: Iceland just had a completely nonviolent revolution against the crony capitalists and bankers whose collusion had poisoned their political system, which has opened many other Europeans' eyes to the possibility that a popular uprising could also succeed elsewhere.  As the income gap widens, living conditions become worse for almost everyone, while a privileged few enjoy ever greater opulence.  European Union leaders' response is to impose austerity measures which squeeze the working and middle classes even further, but they refuse to address the cronyism that is the root cause of the rampant injustice, social unrest, and debt plaguing these nations.

All but the EU's rapidly shrinking plutocratic elite are fed up with political corruption, but they face the same problem as the United States: the majority of their elected officials belong to that very elite.  What most citizens want has become all but irrelevant to the power structure, because the electorate is forced to choose between Corporatists most of the time.  These candidates may appear to differ on social issues, but are uncannily similar when it comes to their agenda for trade, finance, taxation, regulation, and white collar crime.  Instead of much-needed reforms, most EU leaders insist on a disastrous policy of getting deeper in debt to banking cartels, while attempting to quell social unrest with increasingly brutal state repression.  Something's gotta give, but it looks like it will take time for them to get the ball rolling.

Iceland's incredible achievements notwithstanding, the most promising hotbeds of revolution can be found further to the South.  For starters, the push for systemic reform is already well underway in the Middle East and Northern Africa, where a youth-driven mass movement dubbed the "Arab Spring" has mobilized against inequality and political corruption.  This movement has expressed itself in a number of popular revolts in which citizens demand an end to militant regimes propped up by Western Capitalist oligarchs, and call instead for an independent, egalitarian government.  After seeing the wholesale persecution wrought by despotic strong-men who are puppets for foreign powers, they realize that the vicious cycle of poverty, sectarian hostilities, and endless war will only end when the government serves the interests of all its citizens.  In this spirit, they are demanding that their leaders protect citizens' fundamental human rights, condone peaceful coexistence between people of all belief systems, and resist imperialistic meddling by the major Western powers.

It may soon become apparent that first two years of the Arab Spring were only a preview of what's come, although (to paraphrase Gil Scott-Heron) the revolution may not be televised.  For instance, the media hype which tells us that the Arab Spring will produce only dangerous Islamist theocracies is completely bogus.  Many people living in majority-Islamic countries—including a large contingent of Muslims—recognize the benefits of establishing a form of government that is both secular in the First Amendment sense of the word, and free from the shackles of American and European domination.  Nor can we rely on mainstream Western media for accurate reporting of where revolutions are occurring, considering how shameless they have been in their favoritism toward stalwart Western allies (to say nothing of the media blackout on Iceland).

Western media have been tools of U.S. and European expansionism in their coverage of the protest movement which has taken the Islamic world by storm, focusing on Egypt and Tunisia but burying the story of ongoing state repression in countries friendly to Western interests.  Specifically, CNN, MSNBC and Fox, along with mainstream periodicals like the New York times, have selectively ignored human rights abuses perpetrated by US-backed Islamist regimes in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and yet they fervently beat the war drum when Western leaders pushed to invade Syria—a government which affords its citizens a much higher standard of liberty than the aforementioned regimes on issues such as labor laws, freedom of religion, and women's rights.  On top of that, they lionized the Syrian rebels until courageous journalists like Ben Swann broke the story that the supposed "good guys" in Syria are actually al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who may have access to chemical weapons. This sort of gross hypocrisy is becoming ever more transparent in the Age of Communication, since people today can log onto the Internet and verify what's actually happening around the world by visiting reputable alternative news outlets such as Democracy Now and TruthOut.

Another area where the pace of change has been accelerating is Latin America.  I anticipate that in coming years, there will be a series of popular revolts in Right-leaning (translation: "U.S.-controlled," as with Colombia and Honduras) nations in Central and South America.   Left-wing socialist governments in Latin America that have become increasingly undemocratic will also fall under the weight of their own oppression.  Eventually, popular resistance to the extreme Left and extreme Right will meet halfway and become a collective force to be reckoned with.  As Latin American countries break away from the long legacy of veritable serfdom at the hands of U.S. corporations and the CIA, the emerging sociopolitical ideologies will coalesce into a formidable Southern Bloc, with the power and resources to give plutocratic trade organizations like the Trans-Pacific Partnership a run for their money.

By pooling resources and finances, Southern Bloc member nations will have an opportunity to create a new breed of international bank that eschews the exploitative style of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, in favor of economic development strategies that foster prosperity for all.  The new monetary entities' presence on the global stage will severely weaken the stranglehold that the old Neoliberal finance entities—a thinly veiled front for U.S. and British economic expansionism—had once exerted over developing nations around the globe.

Trade Blocs and ethically geared monetary organizations will be a game-changer in the coming global revolution, because they will offer impoverished countries with abundant natural resources a viable path to economic divestment from the United States and Britain.  After nearly a century of Neoliberal domination, poor countries will finally have an alternative to begging for high-interest loans in exchange for unfavorable trade deals or inhuman demands like privatizing their drinking water supply.

After the ongoing humiliation of being forced to jump through hoop after hoop for these imperialists, developing nations in the Global South will find that they are now the ones with the bargaining power.  The growing Southern Bloc's onetime abusers will be faced with an ultimatum: "Reform your economic, environmental and human rights policies, or we will slap you with crippling economic sanctions and cut your nation off from the raw materials that fuel your largest industries." It's almost a foregone conclusion that when faced with such a choice, America's leaders would opt out, lest they make binding agreements which constrain their capacity for militarism, exploitation, torture, indefinite detainment, and environmental degradation.  To those for whom phrases like "Whatever it takes" and "Keep all options on the table" have been elevated to the level of religious dogma, the word "ethical" roughly translates to "neutered."

PHASE TWO

On a country-by-country basis, it is difficult to predict what will happen in Western Europe over the next couple of decades. That being said, EU nations aren't nearly as conservative in their ideological orientation as the proto-fascist United States.  On the whole, Western Europe is far more progressive than America and some close U.S. allies, which has allowed for innovative political directions such as Germany's construction of a massive renewable energy infrastructure.

There is also the issue of national pride to consider: though many European Union member nations currently do the bidding of the U.S. and England, their citizens are fed up with being treated as serfs to an unjust empire.  Even their s leaders are getting tired of being treated as lapdogs whose master lives high on the hog while they get scraps from the table. Many of them would like to break ties with the most oligarchical nations, but are waiting for a moment when it seems politically and economically expedient to do so. This has earth-shattering implications for the future of the United Kingdom.  Considering the vibrant populist and anti-authoritarian sentiments among the people of Ireland and Scotland, it is possible that the last vestiges of the British Empire will soon be in tatters, which would add to the regional power of the breakaway nations and significantly weaken the influence of corporate/proto-fascist ideologies in the region.

Emboldened by the ever-expanding trade and finance coalition in Latin America and Africa, European countries that had been on the fence will decide that it's time to say no to militarism and corporate oligarchy, and will jump on the Southern Bloc bandwagon.  The resultant diplomatic ties and trade deals will add to the new monetary entities' power to support social and economic equity in developing nations.  Taken together, all of these new partnerships will pave the way for a transcontinental coalition of nations united in defense of ideals that had once seemed unrealistic on a global scale: peace, prosperity, social justice, environmental sustainability and civil liberties. The growing coalition will necessarily have to withdraw from inequitable and draconian alliances such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact written exclusively by transnational corporate entities which, as it stands, would set laws for about 1/3 of the nations on Earth and impact 40% of the world's economy.

The fledgling Human Rights Bloc will vaguely resemble the United Nations, but with the salient difference that no participating countries are afforded "Platinum Membership."  The United Nations advertises itself as a body of equals, but this is not the case: since its inception, the UN has allowed Britain, Israel, and the United States (the only country with veto power) to commit war crimes such as torture, border incursions, and the use of banned weapons, whereas all other nations must obey the "law" or else face harsh penalties.  What could have been a venerable institution and a moral compass for the world has instead become a farce—an impotent gatekeeper that is powerless to stop three of its members from flouting extant treaties and international obligations, because it lacks the means to ever punish these unrepentant wrongdoers.

For the first time in human history, the world will have a broad-based international coalition free of cronyism, which demands that all member nations observe the same human rights standards and punish war criminals according to an agreed-upon criminal code.  Now that countries can observe a modicum of morality while still remaining economically viable, many of them will opt to sever ties with the fascist trifecta (the United States, Britain, and the transnational corporations that love them).  This will give the human rights revolution a foothold in much of Eastern Europe, Northern and Central Africa, and India.  Japan may come along for the ride, but that's a tough call: they are quite economically dependent on the U.S., but the last time they allied themselves with empire-building fascists, it didn't work out too well.

Some of the stragglers will be found in the Far East and Eastern Europe, in countries where human rights abuses at the hands of military and police forces have become routine.  Many of these nations are ruled by brutal despots who are tied to the international drug trade and are well-known CIA assets.  Those nations' "undeclared exports" provide a lot of the CIA's black budget dollars, so the Cowboys will dig in their heels to preserve those funding streams, even if it means that things get really ugly and lots of people die.  Nations which serve as tax havens for the ultra-wealthy and retirement homes for US-backed war criminals, such as the Cayman Islands, may also be have trouble waving goodbye to the shadow empire that has done them so many favors over the years.

Mexico and Canada could go either way; both are on the fence about whether to embrace liberty and populism, or become proto-fascist simulacra of the United States.  It's possible that either of them will manage to wrest their leadership from from the yoke of U.S. control, but this seems unlikely because the three countries are so enmeshed via NAFTA and other mutually advantageous trade deals.  There is also the looming specter of a U.S. ground invasion over its northern or southern border—a stick which which to bludgeon them if the carrot doesn't persuade them to abandon human rights, income equality and environmental stewardship.  If this scenario ever comes to pass and either country capitulates purely out of self-preservation, it would be a Pyrrhic victory for the United States.

What will happen in Israel is anybody's guess, but the outlook right now is most dismal.  Despite being home to some prolific human rights advocates and an upstart youth movement that has staged mass protests like the 2012 Tent City, Israel's progressive voices now constitute only a small fraction of the nation's Jewish population.  Elections and national polls over recent years suggest that Israel is on its way to becoming a full-fledged theocratic regime—Judaism's answer to Saudi Arabia.  A lot depends on whether the United States and England keep offering diplomatic cover to the Israeli government whenever it violates international law; without these protectors, Israel would never have gained such disproportionate power and influence in the world.  Its prominent decisionmaking role in the United Nations is astounding, considering all of the offenses that have barred other nations from membership: border incursions, the taking of child political prisoners, mass relocations based on ethnicity, an undeclared nuclear stockpile, and the use of chemical weapons like white phosphorous on civilian noncombatants, just to name a few.

According to the most recent polling data, the Jewish population of Israel has become increasingly racist, nationalistic and theocratic over recent years.  A major factor in this regressive trend is that many people in Israel's Jewish population, and especially those in the ruling Likud party, are heavily influenced by Zionist thought.  Zionism is a literalistic interpretation of the Torah which asserts that God wants the Hebrew people to reclaim the historical "Kingdom of David," or Zion, by any means necessary.  To be fair, not all Jews are Zionists; in fact, some of the most renowned Jewish religious scholars dispute the entire institution, saying that trying to make a prophecy happen is deeply sacrilegious because it presumes the right to force God's hand and thus questions God's supreme power and wisdom.

In practical terms, Zionists in Israel support a policy of militarily occupying all of Palestine and invading neighboring countries, because without these specific portions of land they cannot reclaim "Greater Israel."  Many fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. and Britain, based on a similar literalist interpretation of John's Revelation in the New Testament, are just as obsessed with the Hebrew people achieving this goal--in their case, because they believe it will force God to bring about the Biblical end times.  In fact, Christians were working toward the reinstatement of Greater Israel since long before the United Nations and World Zionist Organization "gifted" much of this land to displaced Jewish people of the world in 1948.  Many other players in the Zionist agenda are simply motivated by greed or thirst for power, such as U.S. leaders who believe that Israel's placement makes it an essential ally in preserving America's ability to control Middle Eastern oil reserves, and kowtow to their fundamentalists in order to preserve a marriage of convenience.  (These are the people who dictate foreign policy... revolution, anyone?)

Apartheid notwithstanding, the Palestinian population within Israel is growing at a much higher rate than that of Jewish citizens.  The prospect of an Arab majority is stirring up a most unsettling nationalism among Jewish Israelis, in which more and more are warming up to the notion of ethnic cleansing. Even with so many clear echoes of the Nazis, many fail to see the glaring hypocrisy of this virulent prejudice. Between opportunistic expansionism and racist fundamentalism, it seems all too likely that Israel will soon mount a series of bloody invasions which plunge the region even further into violent conflict.  The most likely scenario would be that Israel's leaders expand settlements until they have claimed all of the West Bank and Gaza, then press on to annex and ultimately colonize much of Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan—killing Muslims on a genocidal scale in the process.  None of this will be possible, however, without the aid of Israel's Big Brothers.

Some other likely holdouts are China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea, along with the African nations that have been scarred by decades of civil war.  The authoritarian superpowers may form strategic partnership early on, but a reading of the last two World Wars suggests that they will sit on their hands for as long as possible before choosing sides. Will their leaders allow the Social Darwinists running the Empire to persuade them that resistance is futile, or will they invest in a more hopeful vision and agree to dispense with state repression altogether?  Their leaders might be forced into the latter position by popular uprisings, but it is just as likely that they will simply bow to economic pressures and join the Human Rights Club once it is ludicrously impractical to exclude themselves from most of the world's financial and intellectual commerce.

Three guesses as to which will be the last nation on Earth to decry cronyism and embrace human rights... yes, I truly believe that America is just that "exceptional."  OK, call me a cynic, but the U.S. is well along the road to becoming a corporate/fascist state whose leaders' decisions are totally divorced from popular will.  Short of comprehensive campaign finance reform, an auditing of our intelligence agencies, and the mass imprisonment of all our war criminals, it looks like the regressive trend will continue to its logical conclusion.  Although there is a growing unease among those Americans with the insight to see this metamorphosis taking place, very few people will speak out against fascism in time to save the country they love.  Right now this tacit consent arises from a well-crafted blend of conditioned apathy, outrage fatigue, toys, and a dangerous obsession with manufactured media spectacle, but as economic disparity grows in this country, other methods will be needed to keep the rabble in line.

Soon, under the watchful eye of the nationalistically named Department of Homeland Security, Americans will live in abject terror of being "disappeared," tortured, subjected to germ warfare experiments, or vaporized by one of the thousands of Predator Drones crisscrossing the skies.  Many members of the police and armed forces will be dismayed by the direction their country is taking, and will refuse to kill innocent civilians.  Those patriots who are not jailed for following their sacred oath will form the heart of an underground resistance.  Thee blowback from this mass defection will be that the U.S. government adopts a new paradigm of security forces: a gestapo of highly paid mercenaries from Blackwater and other private firms, supplanted by a new generation of Terminator-style killer robots that make today's drones look like antique biplanes.

PHASE THREE

Whatever happens to Britain proper, it is likely that England, Israel, and the United States will soon unite under the banner of fascism—a merger that is already well underway.  On the surface, this new Empire will not resemble anything so obvious as Hitler's Third Reich, but would rather present itself as a New and Improved Corporatism.  In this more nuanced answer to World War II Fascism, puppet governments tout rigged "free elections" as proof that they are democratic, and claim that state violence is never arbitrary "terrorism," when nothing could be further from the truth.  The Empire will be comprised of brutal, amoral regimes controlled by a centralized Orwellian intelligence apparatus and propped up by banking cartels, Monsanto, Big Pharma, all of the oil companies except for Citgo, and similarly malevolent transnationals.  When you get down to it, it's not a far cry from the system that we already have here in America, except that no one will believe our leaders when they claim that we're the paragon of freedom and democracy (as of the last count, there are at least twelve people on Earth who still buy it).

The Fascist Empire will have a strong start, due to its rulers' massive hoard of wealth, weapons, and resources, but it will soon become apparent that fascists are only good at one thing: control through brutal intimidation.  They categorically suck at everything else—most notably, business and infrastructure—which will turn out to be a far greater liability than they had anticipated. As the Empire delves ever deeper into this experiment in wholesale corruption, fascist-leaning nations will transform into foul cesspits where the air is polluted and there is almost no potable water, due to the dismantling and co-opting of regulatory entities like the EPA and subsequent rollback of all pollution controls.  Roads, bridges, dams, rail lines and energy grids will also fall into such disrepair that it becomes unsafe to travel, further constraining these nations' competitiveness in global commerce.

Between dirty politics, state terrorism, crumbling infrastructure, and a rapidly deteriorating landscape, Fascist Empire nations will witness a mass exodus of those citizens who have the good sense and means to escape.  By this point, many countries in the Human Rights Bloc will look downright utopian by comparison, having cleaned up a lot of their natural lands and instituted renewable energy grids that significantly reduce the average citizen's cost of living.  The bad news is, all of Earth will have to deal with the fascist countries polluting the atmosphere and irradiating the oceans, no matter how many other nations come together in a last-ditch attempt to save the planet.

In the final hour, the rest of the world will forgive the American people for standing idly by as our leaders fomented war crimes, terrorism and environmental degradation for so many years.  At this point, most of the world will come to our aid and save us from our own government... and at great cost, since the United States has 90% of the world's military might, and spends more on "defense" with every passing year.  With human rights having finally achieved global ascendance, there probably won't be a repeat of the Nuremburg executions, but there will be a deeply satisfying perp-walk in which war criminals like Dick Cheney, former Intelligence chiefs like James Clapper, White Collar thieves like Jamie Dimon, and bio-terrorists like the the heads of Monsanto finally get marched off to prison... where they will remain for a long, long time.

|THE BEGINNING.|

Lucius Ringwald

REPRISE: WHAT THE REVOLUTION WILL LOOK LIKE

The main thrust of the Global Revolution will be outlawing all forms of state terrorism, and redefining the role of governments as protectors of the natural environment and defenders of universal human rights.  This will mean a new ethical code that integrates elements of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and FDR's "Second Bill of Rights."  These liberties will be truly inalienable and will include free speech, peaceful assembly, gender equality, health care, housing, and education.  It will also include a number of protections that Western governments currently promise their citizens but selectively enforce: freedom from state-sanctioned religion, terrorism, torture, persecution, defamation, arbitrary surveillance, and indefinite detainment.

In economic terms, the Revolution will explore a range of experimental paradigms of wealth, property, and land ownership, which transcend all previous classifications but have two common denominators: [1] "From here on out, no one gets to hoard more than they could ever possibly need," and [2] "It will henceforth be considered a high crime to knowingly profit from activities that lead to death, illness, or significant environmental degradation." Communism has been an abject failure in the long arc of human history, and so, we are finding, has profit-driven Capitalism.  New paradigms of finance will probably integrate some elements of both, but without getting bogged down in the juvenile sports team mentality which asserts that people always need to "pick a side."

As far as the future of business, emerging paradigms will demand that public and private entities work for the benefit of all, rather than serve a few masters to the detriment of almost everyone else.  This concept of the greater good will extend to all living things, not just endangered species.  At present, nearly all discussion of "rights" and "protections" only includes humankind, and ignores the salient fact that our very survival depends on coexisting with all of the plants and animals found throughout Mother Earth.  We can no longer leave species interdependence out of the equation when we talk about the obligations of governments and corporations.  In post-revolutionary societies, those institutions which fail to meet a basic standard of environmental sustainability will not succeed, as much from a lack of popular support than state-level intervention.

The Revolution will bring about an end to the current era of endemic corruption by ensuring that there is no more lawless ruling class.  At the moment, the world is dominated by countries in which all citizens are promised freedom and equality, when really it is a crooked game which offers "Premium Citizenship" for a privileged few.  Nations across the world will redefine their legal codes so that the word "criminal" is associated more with things like torture, mass murder, price-fixing, political collusion, and avoidable economic crises, and less with stuff like petty theft or smoking marijuana.  It's an oligarch's worst nightmare: a world where everyone has to abide by the same rules, and there is absolutely no way to rig the game in your favor.

ADDENDA

Fun Facts

Amber Lyon, CNN and Bahrain

A classic illustration of Mainstream media bias is the story of Emmy Award-winning journalist Amber Lyon.  Lyon is a cable news whistleblower who left CNN after its international arm (CNNI) buried her story on the brutal repression facing the people of Bahrain.  Since leaving the network, Lyon has investigated CNN's collusion with the Bahraini leadership, most notably a history of running hour-long paid endorsements for their country that were bankrolled by the regime but passed off to viewers as independent news programming.

ALTERNATE SCENARIOS|

A New Cold War in Latin America

A caveat about the possibility of a Southern Bloc: the United States has long considered any successful experiment in democratic Socialism to be a threat to American interests, and has a history of replacing such governments with fascist regimes led by CIA "assets."  Latin American countries that support human rights and free elections are already halfway to forming a Southern Bloc, and considering what is at stake geopolitically, it would be unwise to rule out the possibility of meddling from the Western powers.

Latin America may soon have to endure a chilling reprise to Henry Kissinger's dark vision of a developing world that exists solely to serve the whims of the United States.  The worst-case scenario would involve a number of manufactured coups billed in Western mass media as "popular revolts."  In their wake would be miserable but short-lived Banana Republics, whose citizens are ruled by CIA strongmen and terrorized by brutal WHISC-trained death squads and secret police.  In the best-case scenario, the CIA just gives all their most progressive leaders cancer via weaponized isotopes and other nefarious methods that have been around since the 1960s (because nothing says "We believe in freedom and democracy" like using bioterrorism as an end-run around the electoral process).  Oh, never mind... that may have already happened.

World War III

There is a slim chance that the Global Revolution will happen in the wake of a global-scale war.  World War III, if it comes to pass, would probably center on brutal military campaigns led by America, the European Union, and Israel.  China and Russia might get involved, either joining the aggressors or defending the victims, depending on their leaders' political calculations.  The WWIII scenario would plunge much of human civilization into a Dark Age of mass killings, disappearances, torture, and the outlawing of free speech, which would be brief but full of atrocities the likes of which humankind has never seen.

A third World War is highly unlikely, however, because the level of state repression required for the Fascists to maintain control over conquered nations would amount to economic suicide.  First off, no country could enforce such restrictions on liberty without a complete lock-down on media and Internet.  Combined with the ludicrous cost of blanket surveillance in terms of technology, energy, and personnel resources, a modern-day Orwellian state would pave the way for a total collapse of commerce throughout the Empire.  In the 21st century, it has become impossible to remain competitive in business without participating in the free flow of information, so countries that allow their citizens free speech will have a huge information-sharing advantage over those which crack down on the media, cell phones, and the Internet.

Author's note: good luck trying to find this Google blog by using a Google search.  In related news, the original version  

ARTICLES & RESOURCES

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EZ5bx9AyI4http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-taliano/honduras-democracy_b_4267063.html

https://www.facebook.com/luciusringwald/posts/10202321104166258

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-taliano/honduras-democracy_b_4267063.html

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17898-fighting-climate-change-and-creating-green-jobs-is-hemp-the-silver-bullet