Mean People STILL Suck

People often say that it doesn't matter who is president or who makes up congress because it has no real world effect on THEM. While in many ways I agree, especially when we only seem to have a real choice between right-wing Christian whackos who make the Taliban seem moderate and lukewarm Republican-lites. Somehow, someone defined the rules while most Americans were sleeping and made it okay to deviate from the middle on one side and not the other.

I want to know how come it's okay to be an out there whack job if you're a Republican and not okay if you're a Liberal Democrat? You mean to tell me it's okay to form a party based on such mean and cruel crap such as discrimination against people based on their gender, their spiritual beliefs, their income, their appearance, and it's not okay to form one that wants equality for all human beings regardless of gender, religion, nationality, sexual preference, income, color of skin? Who made these rules, and why are we helping to enforce them with our silence and indifference?

As for not affecting us, well yes, it does. You see, these people who are currently running things are what is referred to as "rot from the top down." When the Republican party begins to stand for things like greed, corruption on a scale that over-shadows all political scandals to date, perpetual war to enrich the War Party, and downright hatred of anyone who isn't white and strapped into a restraining suit and tie and has butt burns from endless hours on church pew, then the rot begins to infect us all.

In a government without accountability, people get the idea that it's okay to do whatever they want. Human decency gets lost in the need to be first in line by shoving others out of the way, fastest on the freeway by cutting off other cars, the quickest to buy and turn over a piece of property and put it out of reach for the average person who can't afford to speculate on a place to live--and then make laws punishing people for being homeless.

It creates a society where the wealthy compete with each other to see who can hire the cheapest labor and thereby increase the profit higher than his or her competitor. It creates a society where there are only the wealthy and those who serve them. It creates a taxation system that is more unfair than the one during feudal times. It creates a society that cares more about a blob in a Petri dish than it does a child who is forced to live on the street for lack of social safety nets. It creates a society without a heart that sucks the blood from those who have nothing left but their hearts.

And you still believe it doesn't affect you?

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Design available on over 80 different products at Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

Mean People STILL Suck

Fleecing The Sheep In An Election Year

The First Amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.

For those of you who spend more time worrying about arming bears than your rapidly vanishing personal freedoms, let me break it down for you...no branch of American government, whether it is Congress, the President, or paid lobbyists for corporate spirituality has the right to establish ANY form of religion as the law of the land.

That includes them ALL. Get it? No matter what you want to believe, America is a country of Free Thought by law. It is not a country of Christianity, Judaism, Bozoism, or any variation of the themes. It is a nation whose earliest document some are so fond of quoting when it's about guns, also says right above that amendment, that no one can force their religious beliefs on everyone else.

You can't have one amendment without the other. Either give up your guns or give up your religious freedom. It's not pick one and ignore the rest. It's all or none.

And as far as that thing with the money and god, well the truth is that the regular use of "In God We Trust" on US coins did not begin until 1908.

"In God We Trust" was not made an official motto of the United States until 1956, and the motto did not appear on paper money until 1957.

So much for the claim of that one and only deity being around since our forefathers amused themselves by shooting the crap out of each other while stinking drunk. God didn't get into the fight until your grandpa got into his first brawl over religion...1908. Unless our founding fathers had some kind of longevity serum in their veins, they were long dead by the time our money was altered to suit the political whores of religious pandering.

Therefore, when the pious pleas for your hard-earned money start flying around the pulpits and state-run media, just remember...if they lie to you about our founding fathers and religion, what else are they lying about? Do you really want to pay for that kind of misguided and foolish nonsense?

And it's a perfect time as you are calling them on these lies, to have them show you in what book, in what document, they think gives them the right to spread hate, war, intolerance and just plain stupidity without decent people calling bullshit on them?

And if you are a believer and want to be pandered to in the name of equality, I've made some designs to publicize that you too were left out of the founding fathers early days of constructing what would become the laws of this country, and it is time your palm was greased with some silver...or at least a nice bridge across some swampland or something.

Actually, since our founding fathers did not choose a religious framework for our country, Atheists might have a valid claim that American is an Atheist nation.

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Wear these designs and strike fear in the mean little hearts of those who can't see beyond their own ignorance when it comes to human rights. They will know the truth is out there and you are wearing it.

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Designs available on everything from t-shirts to mugs at:

Ursine Logic Changing hearts and minds one t-shirt at a time.

Fleecing The Sheep In An Election Year

Pink's Song "Dear Mr. President"

I've had Pink's heartwrenching song "Dear Mr. President" as my profile song for several months now. The first time I listened to it I cried. A few days ago I shared a bulletin with the song and some images that were powerful and heartbreaking at the same time. I also cried but there were tears of anger as I watched these images of war and the horrors that grew stronger because of Bush's attempt to bomb another country into his hallucination of democracy. I wept angry tears at the legacy he is leaving behind such as torture, the loss of innocent people, the complete and total destruction of the lives and homes of those who had nothing to do with the reasons, the excuses, the lies that started the Iraq war. I felt angry that because of him and his actions, much of the world sees us as inseparable from his policies. We are him in the eyes of the world. It made me more determined to speak up and let at least the small part of the world I can reach see that he does not represent ALL of us.

Then today I watched the version where Pink is singing to an audience with her other bandmembers. I saw the same anger, the same passion, the same despair in her eyes as she sang that are in me. I felt her reasons for writing it. I KNEW them as well as I know my own passion for peace, for justice, for the equal and humane treatment of all living beings. I felt her frustration and rage that such things still go in this so-called civilized world, and within moments I was crying harder than the other times. There was something in her face and in the face of her audience that was painful to watch because it was the raw emotion of witnessing mass injustice and knowing who was reponsible, and knowing he walks free while others die for his madness. I saw people singing along with the same passion, the same anger, the same disgust at this awful excuse for a President.

When the song ended I felt something growing in me, a fire to do something, a desire to not sit back and let those who shout write the script of my life and the lives of those in places like Iraq. Often I tend to adopt the quiet path of small change instead of being confrontive, or rude, or mean or abusive because I feel that way change grows stronger because it is more solid, more carefully nurtured and tended.

I still believe that and will continue to do that, but I also want to be more active, be more out there with my voice because so many people retreat into themselves when the world becomes as horrible as it is now and it us up to the loud voices to draw them and us out.

There are many ways to be loud. Write letters to the editor because the warmongers fill the space with their very loud voices. Call those same radio and tv talk shows where people yell at each other and call it news. Make your voice as loud as theirs. If you see biased coverage or stories, call the stations and complain. The warmongers certainly do when they see something that displeases them. Call advertisers and threaten boycotts if they don't start forcing publications and other media to provide balanced coverage of events instead of using them as opportunities to instill fear in the vulnerable. Get as loud and as active as those who are and continue to be responsible for inflicting the cruelest, most ignorant and shallow president on us that we've ever had. Let people know he does NOT speak for you.

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Here are the latest designs I made as a response to my anger. Buy a shirt or give one as a gift. They help spread the word that Bush needs a congress that can challenge him instead of kissing his ass so they can feed at the war trough with him.

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Designs available on many items including shirts and mugs at Ursine Logic Changing minds one t-shirt at a time.

Pink's Song "Dear Mr. President"

Are You Being Used?

It's not easy to convince someone that he or she needs to kill another human being. It takes time and effort and the right seeds. It takes a cheering section of already convinced plants to lead the call to kill, kill, and kill some more. It takes emotional language: war, revenge, payback, pre-emptive defense, spreading democracy, eminent domain, the right of kings, acquisition of territory, theft of resources, or any other variation of the same theme, to get people to agree to let others kill in their name. And it all comes down to one carefully planted and tended seed.

That seed is the product of an industry whose only purpose is war and the products of war and the selling of those products to countries at war. It has nothing to do with ideology except as something to manipulate in order to do their business unchecked. These whores of war will pretend to be fundamentalist Christians, Jews, Muslims or any other belief that will allow them to become rich on the sales of their wares. They are Atheists when they sell arms to socialist and communist regimes. They are believers when they are required to be believers. But they really believe in only one thing: the obscene profits of the armaments industry and how they can get their share by legal, illegal, and mostly immoral means.

They will create an enemy that is scary enough to rally everyone around their demands for war. They will attack with all their means those who threaten their free reign to sell weapons of mass destruction to any country they want. Those who object to their lies and manipulations are labeled treasonous traitors, liberals, extremists or any other term that is the antithesis of what their hand chosen cheerleaders believe.

And they own these cheerleaders because they bought their loyalties by holding pep rallies with free hotdogs, massive quantities of corn-syrup sweetened beverages, watery beer, and music that is the country-western version of Wagnerian calls to war. They trained them with inspirational speakers, televangelists, big box churches. They trained them to spread their seeds of hate. They use them to attack visible groups that are "not them" such as homosexuals, non-white and non-Christian ethnic groups, foreign countries, and of course--those opposed to war and senseless stupid killing. They know that people who hate are easily manipulated into doing their bidding, no matter how vile and how evil. They tell them god is on their side. They tell them their weapons will prevent another 9/11. They tell them god wants them to kill.

These cheerleaders become willing soldiers in the war between good and evil. Good is the side that makes the merchants of death even wealthier. Evil is anything that stands in the way of their excessive profits. The hatred they spread is mainlined into them with narcotic frequency. It is spewed at them from hate radio. It is regurgitated at them from fake news shows whose mission is to sow division and fear. The cheerleaders end up believing in this hate far more than they ever believed in any god.

And once they are so completely trained, they will come for you, for your mind, for your heart, for your fears, for your prejudices and biases, for your desire to belong and not be judged for being different, for your lack of love and acceptance, for your need to believe. They will use and twist you until you hate and then they will have you as a willing servant to their sick and perverted souls. And the merchants of war will have free reign to continue unchecked their pursuit of their one true god: wealth and the power it brings.

Are you strong enough to resist them? Are you strong enough to stand for peace and against war? Are you strong enough to stand down hate with love? Are you strong enough to defeat them? Are you strong enough to accept that a seed is one small piece of a very large world, but without it, there is no forest, no country, no planet. Are you strong enough to be that seed?

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Design from Ursine Logic
(changing minds one t-shirt at a time)

Are You Being Used?

Impeach Bushco

Add your voice to the growing chorus to impeach the corrupt, warmongering bastards. Go to: http://www.impeachbushco.com for instructions on how to join the choir.

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Design from Ursine Logic Changing minds one t-shirt at a time.

Impeach Bushco

Why We Love Pirates

I was trying to understand why pirates are so popular these days. Even people who turn their nose up at organized fun you have to stand in line for like Disneyland, are standing in line for "Pirates of the Caribbean." At first I thought it could be explained by people's need for escapist fantasy in a world growing meaner and more brutal everyday. Then I thought it was just the hunky guys playing the pirates or the sex symbol hollywood wax figure of the week starring alongside them. Or maybe it was the simple plot in a too complex world that gave people a nice break from reality.

It's probably a little bit of all of the above, but also has a lot to do with the fact that we ARE living in a time of pirates. Look at the people in power now. Surely they fit the definition of pirate quite well. They care only about accumulating treasure and booty, killing and pillaging their way to democracy and even sadder, still use rape as proof they can conquer and humiliate a weaker enemy.

The romantic ideal of pirates seems to ignore the bad side of piracy, if there can even be a good side to it. We think Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom instead of Cheney and Rumsfeld. We want our thieves to be handsome and driven by altruism instead of ugly old white men driven by greed and cruelty. We want to believe pirates were the last of the rugged individualists instead of hired thugs employed by expansionist-minded governments to act as cover for their crimes, much as that paid whore Oliver North did for the Reagan administration.

Today's pirate ships are called Halliburton, Exxon, Neoconism, Bushco and other names we've come to associate with our poor excuse for a government. They are here for one purpose only: to steal as much as they can for themselves and their masters before someone comes and boards their ships of corrupted state and hangs them all for the treasonous criminals they are. After all, pirates rarely die of peaceful old age. They mostly end up getting exactly what they deserve in the end and history, except for the few brief periods when romanticism takes over from reality, records them for posterity as the bastards they truly were.

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Design from Ursine Logic Changing minds one t-shirt at a time.

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Why We Love Pirates