Tarted Up Media
A left-leaning Facebook page I like posted a picture of an attractive Fox News anchor in the usual tarted-up uniform characteristic of most female mainstream media figures, seeming to imply that this only applied to right-leaning outlets like Fox News.
Begging to differ, I posted the response below.
Yeah. Pretty much.
Shit Jim says: Sometimes, the voters are wrong.
I’m hearing a lot of bellyaching about the 9th Circuit Court’s decision that California’s Proposition 8 is bullshit. Some argue that if the voters pass a law, no matter how fucked up it is, it shall be gospel and is beyond reproach.
The judicial branch of our government strongly disagrees with this sentiment with many instances of precedent. The voters aren’t always right. In fact…
Sometimes the majority of voters, as a bloc stirred up by potent enough propaganda, can be quite cruel. In 1967, the SCOTUS decided that any state law banning interracial marriage was unconstitutional. Many of us, to include myself, are quite grateful that bullsh*t laws such as this one, be they passed by a majority or not, can be stricken from the books. The purpose of the judicial branch is to enforce Constitutional law. While they aren’t perfect at doing so, they do provide a valuable mechanism to fend off tyranny of the majority. In decisions like 1967′s Loving v. Virginia and the one made by the 9th circuit court, the judicial branch served their purpose. To make laws denying people civil rights has been determined unconstitutional by judicial precedent. Just because a majority of voters agrees that something is just, doesn’t mean it is. No matter how long the homophobes hide their hate behind this weak ass argument, history tells us that theirs is a losing battle.
Hopefully their ideologies will die with them. I’m sick of this shit.
Shit Jim Says: Obama the GOP-slayer for 2013-2017
A comment I made to a post a buddy of mine made on her Facebook wall follows:
I think Obama will get a second term. I figure he’ll be in a position to do whatever the flying f**k he wants starting 1/20/2013. If he is EVER going to activate for the people to the level he promised in ’08, if he IS going to be the next FDR, then will be the time. If he doesn’t make the GOP his cuckolded love slave in his second term, call my family the latest group of fascism refugees.
The Day The LOLcats Died.
Please keep your old-time religion in your old-time church.
Back in September, officials at New Heights Middle School in Florence, (SURPRISE!) South Carolina blatantly disregarded the First Amendment’s establishment clause when they yearned for kids to have Jayzus in thar li’l hearts so badly they decided to make it mandatory for all students to attend the local Jayzus Fest .
Yes, mandatory. No, I’m not joking.
As the parent of a middle-school-aged child, I think I would have reacted in the same way as the parents who lodged the complaint against the school for this lunacy. Here’s a clue-by-four for any American Taliban Christian ass hat with intent to proselytize my kids in a public school: you are not permitted to appropriate, in any way, our taxpayer money to spread your religion at will. No, no, no, and…wait for it…fucking no! In fact, don’t talk to my kids about your religion at all. Practice your religion on your own time, in your own home, and in your own church. It has no place in our schools.
Were I in these parents’ situation, I wouldn’t withdraw my kid(s) either, because that school belongs just as much to them as it does to the fundies. In fact, churches don’t even pay taxes, so exactly what say should they have – as entities – in anything involving public schools? Furthermore, Christofascists tend to conveniently ignore their own scriptures. Matthew 6:1-8 is a passage in the Bible they tend to omit while they’re trying to exact dominion over our schools with their hateful doctrines. They should learn it, live it, love it, and leave us godless heathens alone. Why is that so hard for them to grasp? I won’t hold my breath.
Occupation v. Insurgency: The war comes home.
This phrase popped into my head while I was in the shower:
“I’d rather be an insurgent on my own soil than an occupier on someone else’s.”
Maybe somebody already coined this phrase. Either way, it is poignant to the present and applies geopolitically – marking the difference between staying home to fight our battles against forces hell bent on destroying our republic versus fighting battles abroad, occupying someone else’s land, killing their people – all on behalf of a motley crew of rich sociopaths that could give less than a flying bat fuck about anyone but themselves. I’d rather live for justice than kill for profit.
Now, I would have remained one of the elite’s foot soldiers had I stayed in. I, too, would have ended up in the Sandbox. Though my service was technically voluntary, the hand that signed my signature to the contract was forced by socioeconomic conditions. Not surprisingly, many folks join the military for the same reasons. Anti-recruitment organizations refer to it as the “Poverty Draft.” To wit:
“The pentagon dropped $13,000 recruiting each person who enlisted. Compare that to the $1,115 that is spent on education per student, and you’ve got a pretty clear picture of the government’s priorities.”
This shouldn’t be at all surprising to those of you who haven’t lived under a rock since WWII. With war profiteers fully exposed for all to see and the “Occupy” movement in full swing, I’ll say exactly what I’ve held back for the twelve years since I left the Marine Corps: Military service makes cannon fodder out of mostly marginalized, impoverished, and disadvantaged people by convincing them that they’re fighting for freedom when they’re really fighting for profit. For years, they’ve preyed upon people of color, the poor, convicts, folks unable to find work, or anyone desperate enough to sign their lives away for eight years. They essentially are paying us to kill so their corporate campaign donors can make a profit, which is one of the many complaints the “Occupy” movement has lodged against the profiteers and their political enablers – and what our country’s marginalized have been telling us for years. Malcom X spoke on this.
Poor people of color have been the fresh bodies for the white profiteer’s wars for him since our country’s inception, as have poor whites. While working and middle class white folks have been ignoring the grievances of people of color, we’ve been fighting the profiteers’ wars right alongside them while fighting against our working and middle class brothers and sisters at home – just because their skin is darker. In his speech, “You Are Afraid To Bleed,” X discourages the black man from fighting the white man’s wars for him. Now the black man fighting the white establishment certainly isn’t the same as the 99% fighting the 1%, but is merely a parallel. In that spirit, I am discouraging poor folks from warring at the behest of the elite, who will never touch a gun.
On the subject of race: Only now that the profiteers have made their agenda very clear and the spectre of corporate tyranny is plain as day right on our doorstep have we begun to wake up and listen. Make no mistake, the war is here, not in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Kuwait. Now, we white folks are saying it’s about class. Meanwhile, the folks that have been putting up with high unemployment and poverty rates and being ignored by the powers that be are shaking their heads and saying, “I told you so.” They’ve been hurting from the way our system is set up for centuries. It’s about damn time we joined the fight, isn’t it? It’s fucked up that we’ve fought against who should have been our allies against the elite all this time. So, white folks, when they bring up that topic, you damn well better listen. Shut up…and listen. You’ll learn some valuable history. You aren’t one of the elite just because you kind of look like them.
Poor and middle-class folks, white and nonwhite, listen up. You have to write your congress(wo)men. You have to support your local Occupy movements. You have to hold your representatives’ feet to the fire. Yes, they’re representatives, not leaders. We elected them, remember? If they don’t respond, elect someone else. Above all else, we have to be louder than all the money the fat cats will ever be able to spend. We have to stay right where we are and fight, come what may. Those of you thinking of the military as a career option: I’ve been in your shoes. Still, it’s much more effective to struggle for your country while you’re physically in it. Sure, you can do battle for something you don’t believe in because it pays better, but we need you here in the efforts against the tyranny of corporate power. Tell you recruiter to eat shit.
Please stay, because the war has come home.
Cops make more money than Marines? WTF?
Well, here in Vegas they do, anyway. Dig:
With benefits, your average beat cop pulls six figures (source: transparentnevada.com) – as much as high-ranking commissioned goddamn officers in the armed forces. I know their jobs are hazardous, but not near as hazardous as a Marine Lance Corporal risking getting his balls blown off in Iraq or Afghanistan. Just saying.
AND before you cop-lovers get on your high horses, compare how many Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department cops have been wounded in the line of duty in the last ten years to the number of Marines who have been wounded in battle in the last six months – just the Marines – then try to convince me that somehow they deserve better pay. I’ll try to contain my laughter. 
Dissolve the major parties…
REAL progressives… listen up! If the Green Party can get 5% of the popular vote in 2012, it can get millions in funding from the government in the 2016 election. For me, this solidifies that I will NOT be voting Lame-O-Crat in 2012. I suggest, unless we WANT to continue with the spineless status quo indefinitely, folks STOP voting for the candidate who, in their eyes, is the lesser of two evils. Vote for someone you believe in, even if you have to write them in.
So, progressive-minded people who are sick of the bullshit, we DO have an option and DO have incentive to vote outside of the establishment.
Besides, evil is fucking evil. If a candidate does not match live up to his promises and is too weak to stand up to Wall Street, s/he will NOT get my vote. Period. When the Democratic Party starts standing up to the profiteers and sociopaths, maybe I’ll vote for Democratic candidates again. The major parties need to learn to stand up for the 99%, or be doomed to fail.
Just so we’re clear…
The Occupy movement isn’t a mob or some menacing, unruly crowd, it’s a peaceful protest. The only thing these folks have been guilty of so far is getting in the way. If that’s all you need to support brutality against these folks, might I suggest Syria as a new home for you. They don’t mind violently crushing peaceful protests…and sometimes people in their homes minding their own damn business who just happen to disagree with the elite. But PLEASE don’t stay here. You’re tainting the political processes of our republic – not to mention the air we breathe. Get the fuck out… for the don’t benefit of us who DON’T want a theocracy or a kleptocratic, fascist banker/police junta.
Thanks, and may the Void have mercy on you.
A rapist is a rapist, even if he coaches football. #occupyjockdom
This following is a rant. It’s vulgar and goes for the jugular on all counts. If it offends you, good. Go leap from something tall.
Fuck Jerry Sandusky. Fuck Joe Paterno. Fuck the Penn State cretins who protested Penn State doing the right thing and shit-canning these two lowlifes. In fact, fuck football and the coronation and virtual handjobs we give sports figures and to people with the “right” credentials and who occupy the “right” positions in society. Yes, a seasoned college football coach is capable of pedophilia. No, he’s not beyond reproach because he holds a high status in the community and has coached for a few decades. High status doesn’t make a person incapable of any form of treachery. Castrate this guy as well as the coach that helped cover it up. Put their old asses on trial and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. One thing we shouldn’t do is elevate either of them any more than they’ve been elevated already. They don’t matter any more than the rest of us. Kim Jong-Il holds a high status in his society, as did Joseph Stalin, Augusto Pinochet, Adolf Hitler, and others, ad infinitum. They’ve all turned out to be treacherous fuckheads that were/are revered by their people – guilty of all sorts of atrocity. At one time, though, many of their subjects insisted they were somehow beyond reproach – to their folly. Fuck them, too.
Oh, and if Penn State has a few losing seasons – in fact, if they never see another winning season – as a result, SO BE IT. These assholes who feel otherwise need to rethink their priorities because they clearly care more about their precious ball games more than these kids’ dignity and sense of safety. For them, raping kids is okay; covering it up is okay; but heaven forgoddamnbid we lose a single football season. Watching a bunch of guys chase an oblong piece of leather around a field for an hour a week is all they care about.
The worst type of human being is the hybrid of a rape apologist and a sports fan/jock. Here’s another example of a rape apologist who can eat a bowl of dicks with a side of his cauliflower ear. His behavior and the behavior of folks surrounding the Paterno/Sandusky RAPE case is clear evidence that most of them should be hauled out to the desert and left to fend for themselves. Society has no use for them. Occupy Jockdom!
Happy Birthday Hip-Hop!
Today I learned that the official birth date of hip-hop culture is November 12, 1974.
Hip-hop has occupied a place in my heart ever since I the first time I heard “Ladee Dadee” as a child and later jammed out to Public Enemy and Rakim as a pre-adolescent. The music means so much to so many people. It became the voice of a community. Even though some more unscrupulous individuals have taken it in more dubious directions in the name of profit, it is still alive and well in the hearts of its true fans.
Indeed, happy birthday, hip-hop. We love you. Though some have appropriated the Culture, perverted your message, and commercialized your sound, your true fans know that what the suited plastic people generate with their jewelry-clad operatives is a lie. You still have soldiers out there keeping the music and the culture alive. True hip-hop is the voice of the people, not the misogynist, homophobic, materialistic, capitalist agents of treachery. To paraphrase Malcom X, I say to those CEO’s banking off the cannibalization of a culture and a message, get your fucking hands out of our pockets. Ravenous thieves!
What they don’t realize is that hip-hop will outlive all of them.
At this location on 11/11/11, NOTHING happened.
I find it amusing that people honestly believe that the cosmos have a special event in store for us…one they saved for a specific date and time – in a time system WE developed (read: MADE UP) which, to said cosmos, is of no more consequence than our planet, star, galaxy, or galaxy cluster.
We humans are an ignorant, yet arrogant, lot.
I can assure you, folks, that ANY cataclysm that befalls us as a species today or at any time in the future will be one we made ourselves. The universe doesn’t abide by our rules. We abide by its rules – rules we’ve only begun to discover and with which we’d be much more familiar if we’d stop clinging to rumors and superstition.
Fear put a god in the pledge, not wisdom.
I know that already, though most American voters have no freaking idea:
Jay Smooth NAILS IT!
Columbus Day is nothing to celebrate.
Charming guy, isn't he?
I think America has about as much business celebrating Columbus Day as we do celebrating anything to do with the Confederacy. This article asks how Columbus became a villain and provides a pretty solid answer. Indeed, just ask what little remains of the Taino people:
…given how quickly the Europeans began murdering, enslaving and pushing aside indigenous peoples here, to them there isn’t much to celebrate, which is why there’s a card widely posted on Facebook: “Let’s celebrate Columbus Day by walking into someone’s house and telling them we live there now.” A fair synopsis of what happened, minus the genocide.
via Columbus Day is more complex than it looks – Chicago Sun-Times.
Failing at feminism: girls who say “I hate other girls”
Shit Jim Says: MISDIRECTED ANGER
So, this idiot posts the following comment about an admitted rapist/killer here in town:
How does this happen? Instead of all those folks protesting on Wall Street, why don’t they protest against real criminals being released until someone gets around to charging and arresting scumbags like this guy?
Of course, I couldn’t let this one go. Attacking the protests on Wall Street in your silly little vitriol? Really? Because, clearly, that’s relevant to this case:
Really, buddy? Clearly this is the appropriate forum to deliver a cheap shot to a legitimate movement against legalized thieves. Bravo!
BTW, there IS a movement against rapists and the misogynist culture that enables and encourages them. It’s called FEMINISM.
I’m awaiting his retort. I’m sure it’ll be some “oh, you silly little liberal” tripe.
#occupywallstreet: First Declaration.
The first declaration from Occupy Wall Street, is reprinted in its entirety below:
As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.
They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*
To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!
*These grievances are not all-inclusive.
1 in 3 vets don’t support perpetual war…
You think, dear local CBS affiliate?
I’m one of those one in three veterans. We are locked in a perpetual state of war to benefit monied interests. It’s not about freedom, nor has it ever been. If you believe it is, you might as well live under a rock. When you stick a vague but all-encompassing label on this conflict like “global war on terror,” you give the military-industrial complex carte blanche to kill anywhere, any time, for as long as it takes to annihilate a very loosely defined “enemy.” Meanwhile Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and the like can depend on my fellow Marines and other service members to be their foot soldiers, so long as we keep the poor as poor as possible and afford them few other options than to fall for predatory recruiting strategies. Make no mistake, folks, the neo-conservative movement in this country wants nothing more than to make your children cannon fodder for the interests of the elite. Yeah, it’s a goddamn class war, but the billionaires started it.
What are we going to do about it? Keep allowing ourselves to be distracted by consumerism and empty, mindless entertainmment? Yeah, probably. Our society is on the verge of collapse, but we’re fighting over petty bullshit and paying no attention to the sociopath behind the curtain. Wake up!
Questions re: #occupywallstreet…
Yeah, I’m becoming more and more ambivalent about this movement as time wears on, and people who have no business whining about how they’re “suffering” under this system open their pie holes. Are the #occupywallstreet people fighting the save the middle class or fighting to save EVERYONE? The more I see websites with people holding up signs of how Wall Street’s criminal shenanigans have hurt them the more I see shit like, “I can barely pay my daughter’s way through college,” and “We barely get by on $3000 a month.”
Now that we in the middle class are uncomfortable, are we going to remember the poor and the marginalized who can’t even afford consider college for their children and whose schools do little more than prepare their children for prison? Are we going to begin to acknowledge that their plight existed long before this economic collapse, or will the whole system have to rupture before we pull our privileged heads out of our asses?
One woman – who speaks for the poor and marginalized who have always struggled under capitalism – has a message for us: http://bit.ly/qdYDCe
I believe continuing to embrace capitalism will be our downfall. With all the technological progress it has brought us, it has stripped away our humanity and made us all a bunch of goddamn sociopaths. We don’t care until our own lives are inconvenienced in some way. During times of “prosperity”, we ignore the plight of those who struggle, whether it be for economic, social, racial, or all three of those reasons.
