Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.  
Everybody knows the war is over.  
Everybody knows the good guys lost.  
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.  
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.  
That's how it goes.  Everybody knows.
~~Leonard Cohen

I could have added hyperlinks to every word in this missive to provide “authenticity” for the contents.  It would transform the reading of this brief lament into a three-day marathon.  There is so much fact out there to substantiate the message that it would take a book of footnotes.  Why bother?  Those of you who are aware of the truth are, well… aware of the truth!  Those who have chosen to be enablers of evil wouldn’t bother to use references anyway or, being true to their nature, would simply dismiss them as more left wing ranting.  If you really want to check something, you know how to use a search engine don’t you?

Is there any area of our government, over the span of the last seven years, any area, in domestic or foreign policy, national defense, public welfare, the economy, name it, where the average, reasonably informed American might point to success, to signs of progress, of improvement, something, anything, to point to with satisfaction, with pride?

Yesterday I read an article by Steve Benin on the resignation of Karen Hughes from her post as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, a mouthful there, and a job for which she was as ill suited and unqualified as the man who appointed her and in which, during her two year tenure, she accomplished little, if anything.

In truth, she accomplished nothing, unless you want to count convincing large portions of the world that all Americans must be as out of touch with reality, as clueless and unthinking as their current Commander in Chief, and at that she excelled, as anyone might, having been dispatched to the Middle East with the rank of Ambassador, but without knowledge of the language, culture, history, religions, and general pet peeves of the various states and peoples of the region.

But Karen Hughes was tapped for her office for the same reasons as all Bush appointees are chosen, not for expertise or experience, not for performance or integrity in public service but for loyalty, for unwavering belief in the Messianic delusions of neo conservatism, and a willingness to march in lockstep, nah, goose step, against all who might disagree or dissent.

Keep yourself as healthy and as sane as possible: we're going to need you around after the inevitable collapse of the present system. Also, beware of those reductionist demons of the mind who diminish the soul-making possibilities of "mere" words. The acts of writing and reading are seen as passive; to crackpot realists, these activities seem useless, unproductive -- the feckless indulgences of a class of the thin-wristed effete.

In folk stories, when giants are about, drought and famine withers the land and starvation stalks its people. Accordingly, the ruthless giantism inherent to the Corporate-Military-Mass Media state has withered our inner lives, blighted our landscape, and left us powerless before a huge, demeaning system that devours our time, health and humanity.

Carolyn Baker interviewed by Jason Miller

Deep crimson stains mottle the pages of humanity's history. Untold numbers of souls who were skewered, decapitated, eviscerated, or obliterated in anonymity scream out for recognition as one peruses humankind's memoirs. While our historical manuscript is also generously dappled by the milk of human kindness, much of our narrative is dominated by tales of man's savage cruelty to man.

by Jason Miller

"If we ever pass out as a great nation we ought to put on our tombstone 'America died from a delusion that she had moral leadership'."

---Will Rogers

"It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them."

--Noam Chomsky

With the intensity of Dale Earnhardt, Jr vying for victory in the Daytona 500, America's mainstream media outlets have been racing furiously to imbue the citizenry of the Empire with unusually large doses of heavily choreographed agitprop.

By Jason Miller

"Non-violence is a weapon of the strong."

---Mahatma Gandhi

It is with regret that I pronounce the fatal truth: Louis ought to perish rather than a hundred thousand virtuous citizens; Louis must die that the country may live."

---Maximilien Robespierre

October 17, 2006 is a watershed date in the epic struggle between oppressors and oppressed. Events of that day undoubtedly prompted Marx and Engels to awaken from their eternal slumber and spin violently in their graves. A mere swish of the pen by a conscienceless swine effectively transferred absolute power into the hands of a relative handful of rich and powerful individuals and corporations.

By Jason Miller

"Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit."

---Emma Goldman

9/20/06: Populist Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez had the sheer audacity to stand before the United Nations and deliver an angry diatribe against the enemy of humanity. Dispensing with mealy-mouthed pleasantries, he verbally savaged Bush in his fiery oration. Chavez knows an abhorrent war criminal when he sees one and he isn't one to mince words or use polite euphemisms.

cc: of a letter sent to The Tonight Show

Dear Jay,

I caught your show last night.

It's been a long time since I've watched The Tonight Show, but George Carlin was on and who can pass that up?  You know what I'm saying.   We're from the same neighborhood.  He's a bit older than me and we traveled in different circles, but I still feel a sort of misplaced local pride in his success. Besides he's funny as hell.

Listening to him last night was an eye opener for me.  Not the "I'm a modern man..." riff.  That was just a rollercoaster fun ride.  What struck me was how long he's been in the business and how many times he's been on the Tonight Show.  It never occurred to me how much NBC has been a part of my life, especially when I was growing up.

There is a phrase that I'm sure we've all heard in one form or another which is peculiarly significant at this point for the citizens of the United States.  It is simply this:

"History repeats itself because nobody listens the first time."

In general, this phrase depicts the familiar echoes of recurrent historical themes as they cycle back in a renewed form, changed a bit in each incarnation but carrying with them similar lessons that humanity may not have fully comprehended the first time.  Some have even gone so far as to embody the concept of the phrase into a definition called "cyclic history".  Whether based on coincidental observation or actually extant within one's beliefs, we are now witnessing a recurrence of two major themes playing out across the world stage that should cause us to sit up and take notice: the "Intolerable Acts" of 1774 that spawned the birth of our nation, and the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s that led to World War II.

I took my son and 2 friends, all 8th graders,  to see "V for Vendetta" last night.  Our cinema was full - it is playing at 2 screens simultaneously.  I played the "good parent" afterwards and listened to the kids discuss the movie as I drove them to their homes.  I wanted to see if they "got it".