The death of Osama Bin Laden

Someone asked me today why I haven't written anything about Bin Laden's death. I've been thinking all day about what to say in return. As far as I know I haven't directly lost anyone he  killed. Yes, I experienced the horror and cried for days over 9/11.  I still tear up when I see the towers burning. I still feel anger and sadness over the senseless loss of life.

I have lived under the totalitarian fearmongering opportunistic politicians inflicted on this country, while they used Bin Laden as an excuse to do what they wanted to do all along. I have experienced the rage, the despair, the disgust over how brown-skinned Americans were made to pay for the crimes of someone they didn't even know, and more than likely didn't even agree with. For that alone, I am glad he is gone.

I share a similar sentiment with Jon Stewart who on last night's Daily Show said that while he was alive Osama Bin Laden was the face of Islam instead of the young people trying to make a better world for themselves in Egypt, Libya, Syria and other Middle East countries. As someone who had to live under the Bush regime, I know what it's like to finally be free of the world's perception that we are all like that dumb ass piece of jingoistic crap. For this reason alone, his death is important. It gives a new face to people who didn't wear the old one very well.

But I am a pacifist. I can't condone killing. And yet I know the world we live in. I know how desperate the Republicans are to make Obama fail, and so I celebrate that they have to eat at least a bit of their own shit as they are forced to congratulate their nemesis for taking out their symbolic reason for keeping this country under their oppressive thumbs. I'm not so pure that I don't enjoy that part of it immensely.

I suppose for me it all depends on what comes after. Now that Bin Laden is dead, will the fearmongers finally lose their talisman or will they find another one to take its place? As I told someone who expressed optimism that finally the Republicans/Teabaggers will accept Obama as their President now that he showed courage, determination and took the risk in spite of the political peril--not likely as he's still black, no matter how many Bin Ladens he kills. We can't change that about our country. It still has its racist snake pits in Dumbfuckistan and there's not much we can do about that other than live as opposite examples of what they believe.

Maybe that is my hope with this death, that maybe, just maybe we can come together as one people and realize the wedges between us were artificially created by the Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys whose definition of terrorism is a united America. Maybe we can realize our own best interest is to be found in coming together as one people and finally put those heartless and greedy political asshats behind us.

But it's hard to be optimistic when I see that the Republican/Teabagger trolls are still out there promoting their stupid sthit. They still earn their pennies by doing their masters' bidding. They still post their ridiculous talking points, mindlessly, stupidly, without thought of how they are the rot destroying the country from within for people who care nothing about them, who care only about power, about money, about using everyone for their own purposes.

In this sense, Bin Laden's death means nothing. It is just another dead body, another excuse to cover the airways with nonsense as filler in betweeen the real purpose of selling us more stuff we don't need but are told we must have. The mainstream news media went from covering a wedding between two figureheads that are meaningless to most Americans, to covering a symbol used to oppress us for the last ten years.

But if there is a good side of this it is that President Obama, who I perceive to be a decent man fighting against a machine fed on wealth and power, will rise a few points in the polls and will probably be elected because of it. When you consider the options on the Republican side, the mean-spirited, corporate-owned slime who want to destroy him so they can take over again, then Bin Laden's death is a very good thing.

And truly, in the end what it means to me is meaningless because to the people who lost loved ones on 9/11, to a country that was forever change by that event, his death is a long overdue symbolic act that gives us all a chance of moving forward.

Out of Afghanistan by orsobear
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The death of Osama Bin Laden

When is enough ENOUGH!

If it wasn't for the mainstream media's obsessive need to make news entertaining and spectacular instead of informative and educational, a hate-filled whack job hiding under the cover of christian preacher  never would have had a world-wide audience for his Koran burning.

The talking heads and their handlers in the media that elevated him to a household name have the same amount of blood on their hands, if not more, than he does. Without them, he would simply not exist outside his own small, hate-filled little universe.

But then, neither would the equally despicable and hateful Westboro creeps. Without the media they'd cease to exist outside their weekly hate fests held in a double-wide church in some farmer's cow pasture.

And let's not forget more of the media-created cretins whose fifteen minutes are ticking down at a faster rate than they can spout radio-induced talking points: the teabaggers and their mind boggling stupidity that allows them to be used by unethical douche bags like the Koch Brothers.

They are a completely media-created phenomenon funded by the unethical and immoral greedy bottom feeders who figured out a long time ago that a person who hates is an easily controlled tool. So all they had to do was appeal to the lowest of the racists, bigots, christian crazies, and knuckle dragging jerks and before they knew it the Teabaggers were born.

But they're on minute 14 and one half. Less than 200 turned out for their latest rally, compared to nearly 100 thousand who turned out in a snowstorm to protest a teabagger governor in Wisconsin a couple weeks ago. Soon, the Republicans who used their stupid asses to get elected will tell them to sit down and shut the fuck up. Their fifteen minutes are over. Even the most idiotic of TV viewers eventually gets tired of badly spelled signs and grown men in three-quarter pants who want the guvmint to keep its hands off their Medicare.

And let us not forget the ultimate media created shallow excuse for a human being: Sarah Palin. Ever since her target over the state of Arizona got a bunch of people hurt and killed, the media is running from her like some one-night stand who keeps sending slutty, unwanted text messages they delete unread. OMG, they don't heart you anymore!

In spite of the short shelf-life of useful idiots like Palin and the baggers, they manage to do quite a bit of damage in their brief period of time. People die because of them and their hateful rhetoric. People get hurt because of their lack of awareness of their own stupidity. If you think there's only so far dumb asses like this can go, I have two words for you: President Bush.

One excellent way to minimize the damage is to quit giving them a stage. The big lie we are told is that Palin and the teabaggers represent a very large part of the country. They don't. They are a small sect that is amplified by those who have an interest in making them seem bigger than they are.

Palin is too stupid to realize how completely she was used and then discarded once she became embarrassing instead of merely a useful idiot. But it evens out because she was only in it for the money and she got what she wanted. It's too bad that some good people in Arizona paid the price for her shameless greed.

Anyone who has spent any time talking with the kind of people who have a We the People sign stuck in their front yard knows that logic and common sense will never work on them. That's the weak point of educated people. We tend to think if only people have enough facts they will come to their senses.

Guess what? Most of these people are still angry over losing the civil war and having to share public drinking fountains. They live in a world where ignorance is prized and intellect is suspect. You'd be afraid of smart, educated people too if you couldn't read or write beyond the third grade level. Someone could say or write nasty things about you and you'd never know it or be able to fight back against it. That's how ignorance breeds with itself and infects future generations.

And the lack of education leaves them ripe for using by those who know how easily they are programmed. It isn't that big a step from having religion slammed down your throat week after week, and being told over and over again that insurance companies and banks really do care about you and only dirty filthy liberals believe otherwise.

If the news media were truly interested in being the kind of respected journalistic outlet that exists in most of the world's countries, then they'd let the ignorant wallow in their ignorance and focus on reporting news that was geared toward adults instead of simple-minded cretins.

But they're not interested because the media exists only to sell us shit. They know that old white men watch the evening news so they advertise boner pills and adult diapers to them. And interviews with teabaggers. And Republican talking heads. And war criminals who have found Jeezus and a new scam to run and need to address the sheep directly to put it into effect.

And it all works because most of the country is more concerned with the sex lives of celebutantes, the  hidden peek into the homes of wealthy douche bags who would sic the dogs on them if they ever got within a mile of their compounds, and what the latest status symbol are to make up for the empty, meaningless existence they so desperately need to escape.

War On Women by godless_heathen
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When is enough ENOUGH!

To the Next Generation

I had an interesting discussion with a woman close to my age today. She wrote to me after I posted a comment on a facebook discussion about needing to step up the fight against the Republican Party's War On Women. I said that while I would continue to actively play a role in the battle, it was no longer my generation's fight, and that it was up to each generation to choose their battles.

At the risk of sounding like one of those tedious old folks blathering on about young whippersnappers who just don't understand the sacrifices we made for them, I still feel it's important to do a bit of generational back slapping for what we did accomplish and explain how all of that is at risk now.

As archaic as it may sound, I grew up in a time when birth control was limited and not very affective. For women who don't even think twice about filling their prescriptions for the varieties of protection available out there, here's something to think about.

When the pill first came out, women couldn't just go and get a pack or two for themselves. They had to be married and in far too many cases, had to have their husband's permission to get a prescription. No, this wasn't the dark ages. This was the late 60's, early 70's. We wrote notes for each other pretending to be each other's husbands saying yes, we give our permission for our property to get something to put in their bodies.

Can any of you imagine doing that today? But we did and we also began to object, to protest, to demand the right to get our own prescriptions, to take charge of our own bodies. It wasn't easy and yes, some of us lost our jobs over it, were considered no better than prostitutes if discovered that we had a prescription without being married. And today, any woman has the right to get any kind of birth control she wants. It's so easy, most women just take it for granted and ignore there's politicians in office right now who consider birth control as a form of abortion.

And speaking of that topic that is guaranteed to stir up heat in any discussion, try this one on. Women of my generation and before either gave themselves abortions that often killed them or left them torn up so bad many of them never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy again. Or they went to some backroom butcher that did the same thing, only he/she charged them lots of money to do so.

Or they did as my mother did and went to Mexico to some dirty little clinic just over the border that was a short bus ride there and what can only be described as an horrendous bus ride back. I was about nine or ten when a cab pulled up to the house (an unheard of luxury as they were expensive and rare) and the driver half carried my mother to the porch and left her there bleeding. She wouldn't let us call an ambulance because she'd probably end up in jail for having an illegal abortion. I became pro-choice that day and along with other women of my generation, fought hard for the right for women to have safe and legal abortions.

And now we live in a time when women can find a safe abortion, even though they may have to travel to another state. They really don't think about how they may not be able to get one, or that they can't afford it, or that it could kill them or leave them seriously infected or butchered.  Thanks to my generation they know they will not have their insides ripped up, infected, destroyed, and then left bleeding on a doorstep.

But we also live in a time when immoral bastards on Fox News and hate radio promote the active killing of Abortion doctors. If this doesn't get women's attention and compel them to action, then maybe it's time they woke up because those same crazy politicians that consider birth control as a form of abortion, want to classify  abortion as murder. So the next time you pop that pill in your mouth, remember that some vicious little tyrant is plotting on how to charge you with murder.

And even though racism and discrimination against women, gays, and minorities exists, it was our generation who took to the streets and demanded change, who protested and got ourselves arrested, and walked arm and arm with each other until equality for all people is the norm instead of the exception.

But we aren't there yet. There are still far too many people who use all kinds of blatantly transparent bullshit to cover up their racist hatred of Obama. There are still parts of this country where Gays and Lesbians get beat up and murdered just for being born homosexuals. There are still places in this country where women are second and third class citizens and who are routinely beat up, raped, and killed.

And far too many people look to their friends of color, their Gay and Lesbian friends, the women who hold public office and positions of authority and think not much has to be done anymore. This is where my new email friend said she felt like we did almost too good a job in changing the mindset of our culture away from racism and bigotry and toward tolerance. Because it's no longer so blatant, it no longer seems like such an important thing to fight.

But even as I write this there are people in power who are working to find ways to take away the equal rights we fought so hard to make ordinary. There are people fighting to roll back all the work we marched in the streets for, made phone calls to politicians for, wrote books for, composed music for, made art for so that equality and tolerance and acceptance of each other as human beings would seem ordinary.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint, my biggest whine as a 60 year old aging activist: how dare you not vote! I get really angry when people tell me there is no difference between the two parties, that they don't even bother voting anymore. To these people I say they need to go read up on the women who took to the streets, who got beat up, who got shunned and had their families destroyed so you unappreciative little shits could say voting was meaningless. And oh yeah, it wasn't exactly ancient history. Women in America got the right to vote in 1920. It's a good chance your grandmothers had baseball bats taken to their heads so you could stay home on election day.

And finally on that there's no difference between the parties crap...it's not the Democrats who are trying to take away the rights my generation fought so hard to make sure you could take for granted. Educate yourself and find out who the real dangerous party is right now in America and get off your ass and vote them out or everything my generation worked so hard for will disappear.

But as I told my friend, maybe that's the way the cycles move. Maybe you don't want those rights. Maybe they mean less to you than other things. Maybe the concern with the state of our planet is so dire that you can't afford to take time to fight any other battles. I have to admit I partly agree with you on this. It is a battle that must be fought.

You also have to continue the work we put into peace because it sure didn't work out too well. We still have stupid wars, stupid bought and paid for by defense contractors politicians, and too many ways the wealthy get even richer from war.

So yes, I can see there's a lot to choose from but I'd sure hate for all the work the women of my generation put in to go to waste. It's much more valuable than that and hopefully you will realize that and fight to keep it for the next generation to take for granted.

Fight For Rights by orsobear
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To the Next Generation

What if...?

What if Sarah Palin were Muslim? Would we ignore her map with a rifle scope situated over Arizona? Would we dismiss her calls to overthrow our government to replace it with one she prefers? Would we brush aside her hateful and divisive comments as free speech?

What if Glenn Beck were black? Would we consider him a terrorist, a White Panther bent on destroying America from within? Would we denounce him, parade his image on television and refer to him as an enemy of America?

What if Rush Limbaugh were Hispanic? Would we accuse him of sedition, of Treason against the United States for refusing to accept the elected President of the United States as our country's leader?

What if Fox News was an Arab station? Would we demand it be taken off the air for perpetuating hatred and division? Would we label it a terrorist organization?

What if one day we woke up and realized the terrorists were not Arab, not Muslim, not Black, not Hispanic? What if we woke up and realized they were white racists bent on destroying America from within? What if we realized the terrorists were the very people we gave a pass to simply because they were white? What would that say about our intelligence as a species? What would it say about us as human beings? What would it say about our ability to be used, abused and manipulated by those who realized long ago the biggest rope we hang ourselves with is our own hatred?

Penguins Message To Sarah Palin by orsobear
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What if...?

James Tillich For President

World English Dictionary FASCISM (ˈfæʃɪzəm) — n


1. any ideology or movement inspired by Italian Fascism, such as German National Socialism; any right-wing nationalist ideology or movement with an authoritarian and hierarchical structure that is fundamentally opposed to democracy and liberalism
2. any ideology, movement, programme, tendency, etc, that may be characterized as right-wing, chauvinist, authoritarian, etc
3. prejudice in relation to the subject specified: body fascism
[C20: from Italian fascismo , from fascio political group, from Latin fascis bundle; see fasces ]

Fascism finds its useful idiots in every period of time and excels at getting the most ignorant of the population (Right Wingnut Christians) to support the puppet it holds up for them to salute.(Fox News, George Bush, Sarah Palin)

 In order to create the most perfect idiot, it has to first find someone who is poorly educated but not smart enough to realize it. (Texans, most of the Bible Belt)
 
The second step is to manipulate any inadequacies so they, and their favored corporate entities, benefit from the manipulation. (Mussolini and his desire to be accepted by the aristocracy who were disgusted by him, and the Teabaggers who publicly beg their corporate masters to beat them some more).

The third is to convince the  masses that they, the self-appointed elite who detest those who must work for a living, are their only friends in the corporate monolith called America. (Republicans, Astro-Turf Teabaggers, Glenn Beck) as they slowly strip away any protections our forefathers died to give us.

When you add all this together, one candidate squirms her way from the ooze of ignorance to claim her throne. In Sarah Palin, the Fascists have their perfect tool, their sublime puppet, their easily manipulated idiot child. I have no doubt she will be the Teahadist Queen of the Ball come nomination time as she fits all the requirements on their list. She's dumber than a bag of clubbed halibut. She's so greedy that she'll bite at shiny money the way a bear bites at salmon climbing a raging waterfall to spawn. And she's so easily manipulated, all you have to do is scream "Jesus" and she'll scream back "how much?"

In order to prevent the horrible atrocity of Bush III, the horrible sequel, those of us with still functioning brains that haven't been pulverized by fear into a quivering mass of ignorance via Fox News, must put up a viable candidate to run against her. It can't be someone as mundane as a Democrat because they are spineless Corporate tools-lite who will roll over for the promise of a group hug.

And it can't be Republicans because they've become too obvious in their servitude to their rich masters and are just embarrassing to anyone with a spine.

I propose a candidate who is new on the scene, who is beholden to no one, who has no masters, no corporate sponsorship, no PAC dollars to turn into political favors. He is James Tillich. And best of all, he is the perfect anti-Palin candidate without crossing into the minefields of Liberal, Democrat, Progressive, or bitter Nader-Squad of Punitive Asshattery.

Like Sarah Palin he exists as a viable Presidential candidate only in the minds of those who get up in the middle of the night to swat at things crawling on the walls. Some refer to these hallucinations as Jesus, others refer to them as silly mushrooms. But the mainstream media refers to the voices in their heads as President Palin.

And that's what makes James Tillich such a perfect candidate to run against Sarah Palin. Like her, he does not exist. Like her, he was and continues to be manufactured and created by those who have an ulterior motive in seeing her succeed. And like Sarah Palin, he is empty and lacking in substance enough that he can be manipulated, directed, re-created and elected by anyone who has an agenda they feel strongly enough about to devote time to campaigning for him as they champion him as a true man of the people.

Let today, the last day of 2010, be day one of the campaign to elect James Tillich to public office. It doesn't matter if it is mayor, city councilman, dogcatcher, or President. James Tillich--the man who doesn't exist, never existed, and never will exist is the perfect candidate to represent an America headed by idiot puppets controlled by corporate masters. Rather than the blatherings of Sarah Palin, let America regain some minimal status in the world again by having as President a man who stands for nothing, says nothing, and obeys no one and no thing. It beats being clubbed to death on public TV for the sake of entertainment.

James Tillich For President by godless_heathen
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James Tillich For President

All Hail The Poo-Flinging Masses

When Historians look back on this time, they will divide the causes and effects into neat little groups easily studied and defined. We can't see as well right now as they will because the flung poo is getting thick enough to affect our vision. And most of the time, we're too busy being useful idiots for our respective sides of the poo wars to take time to brush away some of the bigger chunks.

So we walk around half-blind and inflamed with some transitory passion that will one day die like a rotten fish beached on the shore. Think about it for a minute. All those personal obsessions in your life, those passions that brought you such painful bliss, are now stories you tell once too many times after a few drinks, as if to deny what once mattered so much is now drunken party mundaneness.

That will be us, our whole existence churned down to a bite of a tale too often told but never with the necessary insight to learn a damn thing from it. And future generations will consider themselves fortunate they didn't have to suffer through the Age Of Ignorance, as our time will be called, the time when entire populations allowed themselves to become a bunch of poo-flinging savages.

When I look at some of the people sharing my world, when I make the mistake of listening to them go on about what any sane person would consider voices in the head gone wild, I wonder if maybe there really isn't such a thing as evolution. After all, those who choose to believe in Creationism instead of Science have only to look in the mirror to see evolution does not exist in everyone. In their case, it definitely does not exist.

I really think sometimes we are going backwards instead of forward. Many of the craziest of the rightwingnuts want to take the country back to the 1950's or earlier because they think something was better then. They don't realize the only thing that was better then was their knees. And their teeth. They had real teeth then. Maybe that's what they really miss and think if they just move the country backwards a few decades, they could eat steak again without chopping it up into hamburger first.

But because they miss their teeth and because they see no proof of evolution when they look in the mirror, then they are useful tools for the greedy asshats of the world. The same people always show up in Congress after an election. They're like the uninvited wedding guests who sneak into the reception and eat all the shrimp before anyone else gets some on their plates, and then they grab the bride's butt on the way out the door clutching one of the good bottles of champagne.

This is who the American people elected this election, the shrimp-scarfing, champagne-chugging greedy asshats they threw out in the previous election. But they didn't recongize them for the same reason most people still see someone twenty years younger when they look in the mirror. They see what they want to see. They hear what they want to hear. Monkey see. Monkey do. Monkey fling poo at his/her own image in the mirror.

The same old asshats will kick the new ones to the curb soon. All that passion, all that enthusiasm, all that fervor, will become just plain old ordinary racist hate again when they go back to Dumbfuckistan with nothing but bitter drunken stories about the ultimate reality show called "Politics." They will avoid admitting they got fucked like a whole bunch of cheap, gullible whores who believed they really would get paid afterwards.

They'll get paid alright, just like the Fundie Christians got paid when they realized eight years later abortion was still legal, Gays and Liberals could still move in next door, and they couldn't burn people at the stake who refused to become Christians--no matter what they were promised for their vote.

They'll get paid just like the Teabaggers will get paid by being told to sit down and shut up as the corporately-owned Congress and their Lobbyist handlers explain to them that Wall Street and the Banksters are their new masters and they'd better bow deep if they want to come and play again next time.

And when they have to return home to their districts, they'll learn to duck when the poo comes flying at them from the angry mob stirred up by hate radio. But at the same time, they'll look at the rage, the anger, the outright hatred, the bigotry, the racism, the mean-spirited poo-flingers direct at them and wonder how they can channel it into something useful to get them elected once again.

And you know what? They'll find it because we're still earning our time in History as the Age of Ignorance, and each day we fill our lives with the finest poo we allow ourselves to swallow. They will have mountains of the crap to pick through.

Atheist Quote by godless_heathen
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All Hail The Poo-Flinging Masses

Terrorist Babies! They're coming for you!

"...Anderson Cooper hosted none other than Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), the main propagator in Congress of the "terror babies" conspiracy theory -- an alleged diabolical 20- to 30-year plot by terrorists to have babies born in the United States, then taken abroad and trained as terrorists before eventually returning here as U.S. citizens (thanks to birthright citizenship) to commit heinous crimes." read more

Terrorists Babies by orsobear
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Terrorist Babies! They're coming for you!

Boycott Arizona

Governor Jan Brewer, poster child for everything that's wrong with the Republican Party and their Teahadist minions, signed one of the most bigoted pieces of legislation into law today since blacks were ordered to drink from different water fountains. read more

In doing so she guaranteed that anyone who isn't a white, christian Republican in Arizona will be pulled over to produce their papers to whatever passes for authority that day, whether it is legal law enforcement or some whacked out racist Teabagger who's convinced his white power militia membership gives him the right to terrorize anyone with a different color of skin.

If you think this is an unlikely scenario then you haven't been paying attention to the bigoted violence and hatred that is the root of the militia/teahadist/white power/neo nazi groups in America. They don't need facts. They don't need equal rights guaranteed by the Constitution they are so fond of parading around. They don't need anything but a law like this and hate radio/Fox News's Talking Morons to move them toward what they really want to do: create a country where only white assholes like them have the right to live.

Think I'm wrong? Here's video proof of what manipulated hatred does:



On days like this I sometimes think I should just crawl into bed and stay there until the stupid hatred goes away and human beings return to the planet. Just yesterday I had the unreal experience of trying to explain to someone that being nice to bigots and racists doesn't teach them love and tolerance; it makes them think being bigots and racists is okay.

I ended up nearly screaming at this person that I would continue to challenge, humiliate and shame bigots and racists every time they opened their mouths in my presence. I would continue to call someone a racist who generalized and tried to box one race of people into some stereotyped category, no matter how good a person they were/are in every other aspect of their lives.

That one bigoted statement is enough to tarnish their humanity and I really do consider it my job to let them know that's how it sounds and why. I also expect everyone else who cares about humanity to have the same job because that is how hatred is wiped away, by stopping it in its infancy when it's still a harmless joke, a mild stereotype, a seed of bigotry waiting for a weak moment to grow and become something far far worse that leads to laws like the one passed today.

And if you think Arizona made a bad decision today to embrace hatred, racism and bigotry, just be thankful America didn't make that same decision when its Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) was running for President. We'd all be having to show our papers to the militia thugs running the country if he had won.

Boycott Arizona by orsobear
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Tax Political Churches by orsobear
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Boycott Arizona

Religion, the oppressive master.

One of the mistakes people make about me is believing because I'm an Atheist, then I must live in some kind of empty, immoral and inconsequential world. They believe this because religion has created a wall between them and the world beyond things. Unlike those who live behind this wall, I have no problem seeing myself as part of the greater whole that is nature, that is earth and sky, that is me in everything and everything in me.

The believers try and claim this sense of wholeness by calling it "the world god created." To me this is putting oneself in the position of renter on the planet instead of an inseparable part of it. No god created me or any such nonsense. I AM just as a tree is, just as a mountain is.

The advantage to this is huge because it means I can't be disconnected from myself by something as shallow as religion. I can't be led around by prejudices about the world to the point where scientific evidence is dismissed to pacify superstitious nonsense. I can't be swayed by material rewards or pacified by the promise of a life beyond the reality of the present.

That makes me dangerous because if I can't be bought then I am neither for nor against. If I can't give up my ferocious hunger for peace and justice for the lie that my perfect world exists somewhere I have to die to see it, then I become even more dangerous because I am never satisfied with platitudes. I want actions. I want tolerance. I want equality.

Most of the people in this country right now have been fed so much divisive crap they can't even consider anything but their place in the herd. Everything outside it is a threat, complete with color coded fear levels. Everyone who isn't them, who doesn't go to their church, who doesn't believe exactly as they believe, is somehow defective, wrong, or gasp! a socialist leftist terrorist who aspires to nothing more than sitting on a death panel that will get to off grandma.

I don't know if we can ever come together again as a country, as a people, as a nation. Maybe America is still too young. Maybe this country is like a belligerent teenager who has to say no to everything to establish its independence, no matter how much he or she needs what they are rejecting.

We've created these caricatures of human beings in people like Sarah Palin and her Paliban followers. We've scraped the bottom of the human barrel and out came the Becks, the Limbaughs, the Teahadists and their hateful rhetoric fed to them as talking points with no substance to distract them from what their masters want them to believe.

Maybe America is the stupidly materialistic hell where all the dumb people who valued things over anything else, ended up to wallow forever in their misguided ignorance. Maybe we're all dead and this is how it ends, buried in a landfill with all the insignificant crap we were convinced meant true happiness. Maybe hell is that house we over-bought to impress who the hell knows. Maybe hell is everything in that house, in its closets, in its garages that were supposed to buy happiness but failed miserably. Maybe hell is the pile of discarded relationships that lost out to the things mattered more than love. Maybe there really isn't much hope for us as a species. Maybe we're a worthless pile of failed ideology that someday will be studied and used as an example of how not to live a life.

Or maybe we will wake up and realize how badly we've all been manipulated, how efficiently we were taught to hate with no facts to back up the reasons for our hatred. Maybe we'll realize that we allowed ourselves to be led and herded into like-minded groups so we would never become dangerous, never explore outside our comfort zone, never accept anyone different than ourselves, never demand that our leaders lead instead of herd. Maybe one day we will turn off the TV, throw out the hate radio, use the propaganda that passes as newspapers to start a great big bonfire we can dance naked around together and start over as a species.

And maybe, just maybe we'll come to the realization that religion was and always will be the problem. Not god, not spirituality, not dancing naked in the forest, but religion--that evil, dogmatic chain so many willingly strap around themselves. On that day, a whole lot of people will finally understand that the best way to make someone your obedient puppet is to lead them around by their hate, and that religion is what mainlines the hatred directly into the human being. And hopefully the desire to escape, to finally live free and by their own terms, will allow them to throw off the shackles of religion forever and grow that perfect world without having to die first to see it.

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Religion, the oppressive master.

Teahadist Oath

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.
I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

· Social Security
· Medicare/Medicaid
· State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
· Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
· US Postal Service
· Roads and Highways
· Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
· The US Railway System
· Public Subways and Metro Systems
· Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
· Rest Areas on Highways
· Sidewalks
· All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
· Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
· Public and State Universities and Colleges
· Public Primary and Secondary Schools
· Sesame Street
· Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
· Public Museums
· Libraries
· Public Parks and Beaches
· State and National Parks
· Public Zoos
· Unemployment Insurance
· Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
· Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
· Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
· Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
· Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
· Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
· Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies
If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care
I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:
· Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
· The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
· The government-operated Statue of Liberty
· The Grand Canyon
· The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
· The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
· All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC
I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.
I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.
I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.
I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.
Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.
Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.
SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.
_____________
Signed
_________________________
Printed Name/Town and State

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Teahadist Oath

Fighting back with Humor

One of the best counter-protests to hatemongers was this one and others that used humor to fight back. I laughed so hard when I saw the signs protesting that cesspool of religious bigotry called Westboro Baptist Church with silly signs. And of course because this manner of protest was so unique and funny, the media focused on it instead of helping spread Phelp's sick and twisted message with their coverage. It effectively neutered him and his message in a non-violent and uplifting way. What a wonderful way to fight back!

Let's face it, folks. We live in a world where wingnut tools like Limbaugh/Palin/Beck serve masters that benefit from a divided country. Hate is the most effective method of control ever invented, and these bile-spewing cretins are doing everything they can to make sure we are so filled with hate we can't think for ourselves. So, here are some suggestions to neutralize the poison they spew on a daily basis.

1. As a political junkie, I tend toward seriousness and present the assorted crimes of congress critters with varying degrees of outrage. Lately I've tried to find the humor in what they do, because it certainly is there. For example, there is no more worthy of ridicule figure in the Health Care Reform battle than Mr. Fake Baked Boehner.

Rather than spend a lot of time writing about his ties to corporate masters which has been discussed to death already, why not start a movement to outlaw tanning booths because they cause cancer? We could call it the Bad Boehner Skin bill. Or we could do something like tax tanning booths to pay for Health Care Reform.

2. One of the most ridiculous and twisted things I've seen are the anti-choice idiots waving jars of pickled fetuses around at their demonstrations. Why not show up with canned hams and wave those around with signs that beg people to save Babe the Pig?

3. And of course there's the pathetic teabaggers who named their grassroots movement after a sex act and then got screwed by the astroturfing of their little party by the Goposaurs, who did the exact same thing to the wingnut Christians. So guys, how did that promise from Karl Rove to outlaw abortion and send Gays to Gitmo work out for you?

But I digress into a painful memory for the poor deluded American idiot version of the Taliban. They really did believe Rove and just don't want to talk about it anymore. But you can show up at the next Teabagging party with your own signs demanding that Karl Rove produce his birth certificate.

Seriously, the best way to fight back is to lift up the rock and let everyone see who these people are. Any video clip of Michele Bachmann is good for hysterical laughter because she puts the crazed in fucking crazy. Same for DeMint, Bunning, and the assortment of bottom feeders who crawled up from the sewers to represent the most ignorant and inbred of their bible-thumping constituents, and moral cretins like Gingrich, Limbaugh, and Beck. Sometimes embellishment gives the fake veneer of truth to their words, and letting them speak for themselves does far more to discredit them than any amount of ridicule could. And of course, a funny sign or two can't hurt.

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Fighting back with Humor

So Many Stupid People, So Few Asteroids

I read a lot of blogs. I read the comments section of blogs. When I'm not working, I read. And as in real life, the quality and subject matter varies according to the authors. But it's in the comments left behind where the real consistency is often found, where the types wrap themselves up in their predictability and let everyone know who and what they are almost immediately. Here are the types I see most often:

1. SPAM In the top position are spammers, the cut and pasters who want to give me a huge penis and also gigantic breasts. Yeah, those work really well together. And I don't have to worry about paying for them because everyone wants to lend me money so I can also afford to buy all the drugs I'm offered on a daily basis.

2. GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY TALKING POINT is the winner of the second position. These are the equivalent of the seedy looking guy handing out leaflets on the street corner. Once upon a time when the Goposaurs had endless money to buy propaganda, they paid shills to go post the daily talking point on the opposition's blogs. Now that they spent all their money on tea bags, they have to rely on the "one issue crazies" to spread the word for free. That's why you'll find badly spelled and grammatically creative diatribes about birth certificates and other whacked out conspiracy fantasies smack in the middle of a discussion of northerly bird migrations. Nothing stands in the way of them posting their talking point, no matter how bad the fit.

They do have their counterparts in the Liberal version who post passionate and tediously long polemics on what they perceive should be obvious to everyone who has at least a graduate level degree in political science, and the fact that most people don't is usually proof that the world really is going to hell...and they'll be glad to postulate why in postings that exceed the length limit and have to be carried over to the next post, and sometimes the next.

3. THE FETUS MILITIA In third position are the absolute crazies who turn every discussion into the holy fetus war. And they always make a point of mentioning how they're guaranteed the right to bear the arms they're going to practice the sanctity of human life with by killing abortion doctors. Often you don't even have to read their posts because they're instantly recognizable by their incomprehensible sentence structure and words that were never in their miserable little lives, meant to be spelled so atrociously.

4. GOD'S IDIOT CHILDREN In position number four are the real whacked out loonies who go on about how we're such a great nation because we have freedom of religion and goddamnit they will fucking kill your ass if you don't happen to share the freedom of their own particular religion and prefer one of your own, or none at all. They've taught me that the most fervent the believer, the greater variations of fuck they will use in their posts, as in fuck you you fucking fuck go fucking rot in fucking hell.

5. HELP MY CAPS KEY IS STUCK In position number five is angry white male who can't figure out how to unstick the caps key. Usually has an assholes on line email addy and is fond of phrases such as Nobama and Obamacare with various references to nazis, stalin, commies, socialists, birth certificates and patriotism. No matter what the discussion, he will leave an angry, hate-filled, conspiracy-theory fueled, badly spelled attack against Obama all typed with HIS CAP KEY STUCK.

These are just a few of the regulars who frequent some of the blogs I read. I chose them because they're so common and so predictable that you can almost see the next word before it's typed. The phrases are so similar, the sentence structure so wonderfully creative, the ideas so deliciously insane that in some strange way, they make my day as it lets me know once more that when whoever the great "they" is with the nets, there's a whole shit load of crazies in line for capture before me so I can slip easily away unnoticed for a long long time.

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So Many Stupid People, So Few Asteroids

So many stupid people, so few asteroids

Today has been a veritable bonanza of the lesser human species. Those who read this blog or subscribe to it see only a small portion of the hate that god's less intelligent bastard children like to direct my way. I delete them almost immediately so as not to give them the attention they so desperately crave.

Once in a while I'll actually respond publicly, mostly because my way of fighting is no violence allowed, but I am allowed to use mocking and humiliation to expose how ridiculous some of these wingnut losers are, so ridiculous are they in fact, that I can't possibly take them or their idiotic ideas seriously.

For people like that, all you need to fight them is a good dose of ridicule. They have nothing to fight with but slogans handed to them by others and so they get stumped if they have to think outside the words they were given. Eventually their tiny little minds get confused at having to come up with a thought, so they slink away beaten and bewildered with a mob of other people laughing at them all the way home.

Anything loses its power and mystique when it becomes a joke. And there's nothing as funny as someone who fails to realize they're that stupid and that manipulated until the asteroid lands on their dumb asses.

But you don't get to see the real crazies. They always save the best of their RANTS typed all in caps and filled with the most juvenile of badly spelled words for my private email. I suspect because deep down inside their cheesy little souls even they are embarrassed being them and they don't want too many others knowing how lacking they are in just about everything.

So you didn't get to see the gems that arrived today and had that baked in musty scent of having recently left a Palin teabagging party where they all sucked each others...ideas...until there was nothing left but a dank cesspool left behind by their now drained communally shared brain.

These are the ones who desperately want to believe they are part of some movement that's bigger than the parking lot outside the convenience store, or the church hall they got a discount on because no one got the stench of intolerance out of the walls enough for anyone to pay money for it, or the Palin rallies where a huge crowd is defined as having to take your shoes off to count the rest of the people.

You see, they really do know that they're irrelevent. They suspect the Goposaurs used them to get other Goposaurs elected but weren't really on their side when it came to passing the draconian social restrictions they wanted to inflict on the rest of the planet. They got nothing from their darling little W except used and it must sting like, well...hell.

And they're being used again by their teabagging masters who see they're too dumb to not make the same mistake twice, and so they manipulate them once more to get the new version of Goposaur elected, the real crazies that will be even easier to manipulate than that pathetic fool, Bush. The idiots see Sarah Palin as their savior, and their masters see her as an easily manipulated tool motivated by greed. It's almost too easy.

But what makes it really easy is religion. These people who write me are so fucking stupid that all someone has to do is claim Jeezus and they'll let you abuse them and use them and manipulate them until there's nothing left but an empty sack of used up shit.

It's not that difficult to see how some whacked out christian nut job like Huckabee heard only that the piece of shit wanting a release had found Jeezus, and so let him go without further thought so he could murder four cops in Washington state. To believe the fundamentalist whacko shit Huckabee believes in, you almost have to suspend independent and critical thought. And the moment you do that, you open yourself up to manipulation by others who use their brains for something other than a hat rack.

The kind of people who write me these letters are no better than the goosestepping morons who believed that god wanted them to kill Jews for him. In religious wars, no matter how big or small, all it takes is one fool manipulated for his intolerant ideas wrapped up in religion to convince him to kill. And they don't even have to look for others because he will find them for his masters as long as they feed him the bullshit he craves. Yes, they tell him, this time you will win. This time we will make everyone follow your religion, your hatred, your bigotry, your intolerant world view.

And he believes it because if he had half a brain he wouldn't believe the crazy crap he thinks is religion but is really hate wrapped in a godly body bag. He's the kind of person that allows himself to be used and used and used until he's just another old diseased and burned out whore for the rich and powerful.

He's the one carrying the signs at the health care reform rallies begging the insurance companies to fuck him one more time for Jeezus. He's the one pasting pictures of holocaust dead on a piece of cardboard so he can demonstrate his undying faith in the sanctity of human life--as long as that life is not dead Jews. He's the one drooling over Sarah Palin as President while his own wife still has a black eye from his fist and is only allowed the Bible as reading material. He's the one who bellows against the Taliban for demanding everyone follow their religion and give up all their rights, and yet fails to see how he's demanding the same thing and is therefore no better than the Taliban he condemns.

You know I could go on and probably will in the days to come because I'm finally fed up with these pathetic excuses for human beings. But for now I'm going to make myself a cup of tea, put some music on, and allow myself a nice break from having to deal with anything more today.

I've said my piece and I will say it again because I can't work for peace, I can't be an activist for the planet earth if I don't expose the dangers that threaten us. There is nothing more dangerous than ignorance because those who are ignorant are the tools of anyone and anything who sees a temporary use for them. I've said it over and over again and I'll say it again--those who hate are easily manipulated and owned by any master who comes along, while those who love are the ones who are truly free.

I prefer to love, but woe to him or her who mistakenly perceives that as a weakness. Unlike you, I don't succumb to phony color-coded terror threats, monsters under the bed, or hate filled preachers spewing intolerance from the pulpit. I am my own woman and that makes me far far stronger than any of you weak and intolerant haters will ever be. And love is MY higher power.

Blue Tattoo Peace Art by orsobear
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So many stupid people, so few asteroids

On this moronic topic of hate

So Cafepress decided to take down the assassination gear after all. I suppose I should be happy they came to their senses but instead I'm left with this gnawing suspicion that they crunched numbers, talked to lawyers, measured the cost of indignation, were appalled (and not totally understanding) why they were singled out for shame on TV and Zazzle was not, and then went with the bottom line that favored them, which is the way they make all their decisions. It would fit their "profile" as they've refined it over the last year. It would solidify their standing as just another corporate crap shop that cares only about money. Yeah, thanks guys, but you already revealed who you are and doing the decent thing came too late. As they used to tell us slutty girls who actually enjoyed sex as much as the boys back then, you can't get your reputation back.

I really wish that they and others would have immediately recognized it as the hate-fueled crap it was and taken it down immediately, or at least been the leader and kept it down once they made the decision like Zazzle did. But that would imply a decency and intelligence they, and a lot of people do not possess. There's times when we seem to have become a nation of poorly educated morons goosestepping to either the almighty dollar or some barely disguised hate group.

I don't know at what point a human being can say I've had enough of this crap and I'm going to start fighting back, but that pretty much sums up where I'm at right now. I've always tried to have a live and let live approach to life. But damn it, when crazyass hating jerks who use the Bible or whatever book they choose to wave in my face to justify hate, then I'm done letting live.

I'm not a violent person and I will never, unlike these hate groups, advocate violence, but I do have ways to make my voice heard. I use my art, my words, my helping others to fight back. Those are more effective and lasting ways to effect change. If you kill someone or piss them off then you haven't really done something that will create positive change. All you've done is create more enemies, more hate, more victims.

Yesterday two of those pure little Mormon converters made the mistake of knocking on my door. All I could see were representatives of a church who used money and power to deny citizens of another state the right to marry. I still remember when African-Americans were not allowed to hold positions of power in that church. And now I see that same bigotry directed toward gays and lesbians. How dare they come to my door and push that crap on me? How would they like it if I went to their doors and lectured them on Atheism?

I sent them on their way without too much verbal damage because it's not their fault they're ignorant of what their church really is, but with enough warning that coming back would not be a pleasant experience for them. It did leave me feeling as if religion is its own worst enemy,  that politicized churches have created more Atheists than believers in the last few years.

Maybe there's a downward spiral they've sucked themselves into that has to happen, and right now the pool is just starting to whirl. Maybe some day history will look back on this time the same way they looked back on the fall of the Roman Empire, the end of Hitler, the disgrace of Nazism and Facism, the cruelty of tyrannical dictators.They will be able to point to certain people who were the propagandists who stirred up the ignorant with hatred and created enemies/scapegoats for these uneducated and mostly stupid rabble to rail against. There is no easier person to control than one who hates. They are truly the tool of any master who feeds them hateful crap.

This may seem like the most idealist nonsense you've ever read but I really do believe love and tolerance can defeat all that. As I said, you can control a hater with no problem, but a person who loves is fairly hard to turn into a missile of evil. Love is a power that only works for good and immediately recognizes when not good is threatening them.

I'm not talking about the kind of love that happens in relationships. That's a whole different kind of love, a sort of willful blindness that only hurts those who choose badly. I'm talking about the kind of love that most religions conveniently forgot were the basis of those precious books they're so fond of waving around. Maybe if people were required to actually read their bibles, their religous books, and not go on just the word of some unholy intermediary with an agenda to push, we might create that better world that religion promises so deceptively to its followers.

But in the meantime, it's up to us as individuals, as artists, as human beings to take over the message of hate and replace it with love. It's up to us to take the negative crap and replace it with positive goals. It's up to us to stand up to the haters, to call them on their hate and make as much noise over love as they do over hate. It's up to us to realize we do have the power to fight back against mean, against cruel, against hateful, against bigoted and intolerant.

We all have the means inside our hearts and it's time to start digging or the haters will win.

Hate is an STD by orsobear
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On this moronic topic of hate

Let's Kill The President For Jesus

People ask me all the time what made me decide to become an Atheist and more and more lately I point to stories like this that call for the assassination of Obama, as proof of what religion does to the human brain. It is hatred and bigotry shrouded in biblical language. It is the new face of the Republican party, encouraged and abetted by their unholy mouthpieces on hate radio and propaganda disguised as news. It is what happens when you suspend rational thought and let those with an agenda based on murder, intolerance, hatred, and bigotry take over your brain. And it points out the sheer hypocrisy of those who fear putting the 9/11 terrorists on trial in the US will expose the American people to danger because what these tools of the right wing extremists demonstrate, it's people like them who are the true terrorists. Without the easily manipulated, hateful, and completely stupid rabble, no dictator, no terrorist regime ever has a chance of getting their agenda off the ground. It takes teabaggers, birthers, evangelical crazies, and fundamentalist whackos to get that done for them. Congratulations, Republicans. You've officially become the new face of terrorism.

One People by orsobear
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Let's Kill The President For Jesus