Saturday, October 29, 2011
Divide And Conquer
From "The Devil's Kitchen" blog. Mr. Devil writes from somewhere in the U.K.
For NuLabour, substitute "Democrat" or "Republican", depending on where your bread is buttered.
For QUANGO (Quasi-Non Governmental Organization), you can safely substitute The Fed, ACORN, SEIU, or any other Band Of Brothers living off the government tit.
It's one of the oldest strategies in the book: divide and rule. And few governments in living memory have been so adept at it as NuLabour: it has been at the heart of many of their policies. They have divided the peoples of the Union; they have divided, through QUANGOs and censuses emphasising differences, black, brown and white peoples of the Union. Through jealousy they have divided rich and poor.
"Fear not," says the government, "for the state—and only the state—can save you!" And then they proceed to divide some more.
Devolved governments (but with little power), harsher sentences for "racist" crimes, and the stealing of more money from "the rich" to hand out as gifts to the poor.
The brilliant bit about this tactic, as applied by NuLabour, is that it encourages people to think of each other group not as fellow human beings, but as people below or different from them. "They aren't a person like I am, they are just a toff/darkie/Muslim/Scot/Sassenach/Taff/idiot, etc."
And so people get angry and demand solutions, they demand concessions for their own particular group and guess what?—the state can help you, friend, for the state is the friend of everyone. The state is the righter of all wrongs, the great arbiter, the generous donor of largesse. And as each group is appeased so the jealousy and resentment of the others are inflamed and they demand special treatment for themselves and more shoddy treatment for "those others".
And so it is that the government have been able to put through some disgusting laws, by aiming them at groups that the other groups dislike. 42 days detention without trial?—well, it'll only apply to terrorists, and they're all Muslims or at the very least darkies, eh?
The scrapping of double jeopardy, habeas corpus and trial by jury?—well, that'll only apply to the eeevil criminals (no matter that they have yet to be proven such). Oh, and the darkies, of course. And the poor.
The confiscation of your assets before you are even found guilty, or reversing the burden of proof for the confiscation of assets? Well, that'll only apply to drugdealers and the like.
And none of these people are really human, are they? Not like me.
And that's how they get us; that's how they pass those laws. And, they say that they won't use them except in the most exceptional circumstances, and only against those people who aren't really human.
For NuLabour, substitute "Democrat" or "Republican", depending on where your bread is buttered.
For QUANGO (Quasi-Non Governmental Organization), you can safely substitute The Fed, ACORN, SEIU, or any other Band Of Brothers living off the government tit.
It's one of the oldest strategies in the book: divide and rule. And few governments in living memory have been so adept at it as NuLabour: it has been at the heart of many of their policies. They have divided the peoples of the Union; they have divided, through QUANGOs and censuses emphasising differences, black, brown and white peoples of the Union. Through jealousy they have divided rich and poor.
"Fear not," says the government, "for the state—and only the state—can save you!" And then they proceed to divide some more.
Devolved governments (but with little power), harsher sentences for "racist" crimes, and the stealing of more money from "the rich" to hand out as gifts to the poor.
The brilliant bit about this tactic, as applied by NuLabour, is that it encourages people to think of each other group not as fellow human beings, but as people below or different from them. "They aren't a person like I am, they are just a toff/darkie/Muslim/Scot/Sassenach/Taff/idiot, etc."
And so people get angry and demand solutions, they demand concessions for their own particular group and guess what?—the state can help you, friend, for the state is the friend of everyone. The state is the righter of all wrongs, the great arbiter, the generous donor of largesse. And as each group is appeased so the jealousy and resentment of the others are inflamed and they demand special treatment for themselves and more shoddy treatment for "those others".
And so it is that the government have been able to put through some disgusting laws, by aiming them at groups that the other groups dislike. 42 days detention without trial?—well, it'll only apply to terrorists, and they're all Muslims or at the very least darkies, eh?
The scrapping of double jeopardy, habeas corpus and trial by jury?—well, that'll only apply to the eeevil criminals (no matter that they have yet to be proven such). Oh, and the darkies, of course. And the poor.
The confiscation of your assets before you are even found guilty, or reversing the burden of proof for the confiscation of assets? Well, that'll only apply to drugdealers and the like.
And none of these people are really human, are they? Not like me.
And that's how they get us; that's how they pass those laws. And, they say that they won't use them except in the most exceptional circumstances, and only against those people who aren't really human.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Why Libertarians shouldn't support the Texas Rangers
This hurts me.
I don't want to write this again.
I've written it before.
Here's why libertarians shouldn't support The Texas Rangers baseball team in The World Series.
Waaaay back when George W. Bush was just a pup, he was the front man for a group that bought The Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush brought a 2% share of the team using borrowed money. ($600,000.00) They wanted a new ballpark.
Bush's buddies could've built a new ballpark themselves, but why should they? You were there for them. Bush threatened to move the Rangers out of Arlington. His cartel spent about $125,000.00 campaigning for a 1/2% increase in the Arlington sales tax. The voters approved it. Bush and Company then trampled property rights, seizing land via Eminent Domain.
That's right. They stole the land on which the ballpark was built.
All in all, the Bush gang profited from a total subsidy of $205 million dollars.
(Did he send you a thank-you note? Me neither.)
They had paid $86 million for the Rangers.
They sold The Rangers nine years later for $250 million.
The team still stunk.
So what was different? Why the added value?
It was all in the stadium that YOU bought for them. The $164 million dollar profit was $38 million dollars less than the money that we put into the team ! ! !
My arch-nemesis Dr. Ralph likes to refer to the Iraq war as one of history's worst "bait-and-switch" deals.
The following is also David Cay Johnston's "Free Lunch", pg 79:
"What followed (after the Rangers purchase) was an early indicator of Bush's extraordinary success at marketing. Bush is arguably the greatest salesman of our time, having sold not just friends but political opponents on a war costing more than a trillion dollars and thousands of lives with the kind of pay-no-attention-to-that-pool-oil-under-the-engine polish that used car salesmen only dream about."
Ok, they stole the land, they built a mega-stadium on the land, sent you the bill, and then sold the whole thing to Nolan Ryan and kept the overage.
Why do we put up with this?
I think it's because Juvanal said it best, somewhere around 100 B.C. Give us bread and circuses and World Series appearances, and we'll support anything.
I don't want to write this again.
I've written it before.
Here's why libertarians shouldn't support The Texas Rangers baseball team in The World Series.
Waaaay back when George W. Bush was just a pup, he was the front man for a group that bought The Texas Rangers baseball team. Bush brought a 2% share of the team using borrowed money. ($600,000.00) They wanted a new ballpark.
Bush's buddies could've built a new ballpark themselves, but why should they? You were there for them. Bush threatened to move the Rangers out of Arlington. His cartel spent about $125,000.00 campaigning for a 1/2% increase in the Arlington sales tax. The voters approved it. Bush and Company then trampled property rights, seizing land via Eminent Domain.
That's right. They stole the land on which the ballpark was built.
All in all, the Bush gang profited from a total subsidy of $205 million dollars.
(Did he send you a thank-you note? Me neither.)
They had paid $86 million for the Rangers.
They sold The Rangers nine years later for $250 million.
The team still stunk.
So what was different? Why the added value?
It was all in the stadium that YOU bought for them. The $164 million dollar profit was $38 million dollars less than the money that we put into the team ! ! !
My arch-nemesis Dr. Ralph likes to refer to the Iraq war as one of history's worst "bait-and-switch" deals.
The following is also David Cay Johnston's "Free Lunch", pg 79:
"What followed (after the Rangers purchase) was an early indicator of Bush's extraordinary success at marketing. Bush is arguably the greatest salesman of our time, having sold not just friends but political opponents on a war costing more than a trillion dollars and thousands of lives with the kind of pay-no-attention-to-that-pool-oil-under-the-engine polish that used car salesmen only dream about."
Ok, they stole the land, they built a mega-stadium on the land, sent you the bill, and then sold the whole thing to Nolan Ryan and kept the overage.
Why do we put up with this?
I think it's because Juvanal said it best, somewhere around 100 B.C. Give us bread and circuses and World Series appearances, and we'll support anything.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
I am the 99%
Ken Jennings, the guy who first won big on "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" (I think) has a new blog.
Go here.
Here's a pic from the site:
Go here.
Here's a pic from the site:
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
First Mexican truck to enter U.S. interior sometime soon. I hope.
From The San Diego News, via a link from Radley Balko:
SAN DIEGO -- The first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days, but American trucking union leaders and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.
The stall has had little to do with safety concerns. It is about the political wrangling and protecting the constituents of some politicians that they've bought at auction prices.
U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner said they'll take a bipartisan stand at the border Wednesday in San Diego to voice concerns about the bilateral pilot project that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States. Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.
They will join Teamsters union President James Hoffa and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, in a last-ditch effort to block Mexican trucks from being granted full access to U.S. highways.
The trucks are crossing a river, a river that has symbolic meaning because of a war we had with Mexico. This river became known as a "boundary".
Boundary (noun) (bound*a*ry) 1. In the geographic sense, an arbritrary listing of lines of latitude and longitude to be filled in on maps with different colors. 2. In the political sense, the far edges of your cage.
Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them onto U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, the union leaders say.
Horseshit. According to Marc Levinson, author of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" the ancestors of these same union parasites once tried to unload and reload each shipping container as it entered U.S. "boundaries". They didn't understand that the entire point of the shipping container was to load the thing at Point A and not have the load touched by thieving little Jimmy Hoffa hands until it was unloaded by the customer at Point B. The unions insisted that they had a right to "strip and stuff" every shipping container, even if the load was going to be placed right back in the same shipping container.
All Jimmy Hoffa wants is to get his hands on the load.
Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.
If I want to hire Transportes Olympic to haul a load from Juarez to Fort Worth, it really isn't Jimmy Hoffa's business. It is the U.S. government's business, unfortunately. They own the roads. But they've also established that it is illegal to discriminate against people for racial reasons, and that's the only angle these clowns have to fight with.
Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.
The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.
The company was also the first approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.
As well the should have. It's called NAFTA. It is a free-trade agreement, kinda. We've been in violation of the law for about 20 years.
Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.
"We're really excited," Perez said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."
Eliminating and lowering idiotic trade barriers like this one helps you to afford the computer on which you're reading this rant. It's how you got the clothes that I hope you are now wearing.
Opponents say the fight isn't over.
Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again.
"There's absolutely no upside to the program," said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter's office.
Yes there is an upside, you flak-catching hack. If I want to hire these people to haul a load, then I get to have my way.
That's always an upside.
Plus, I won't have to hire Hoffa goons. (Remember Jimmy Hoffa? The guy who said "let's take out those sons-of-bitches", in reference to The Tea Party?)
And I get to save money, which means that in the long run, you get to save money.
"It's a good example of foreign interests overtaking American interests, at the expense of jobs, security and safety. The program was a bad idea when it was created under NAFTA and it's a bad idea now. It should be stopped right away."
At the expense of jobs? If it's about saving jobs or creating more jobs, let's just mandate that loads can only cross The Rio Grande on wheelbarrows and that they can only move up Interstate 35 on hand carts pulled by the less fortunate of our society.
If it's about security, let's end the idiotic drug war. Safety will increase 100-fold on both sides of the river that we currently use as a boundary, just like safety increased when we ended our alcohol war with Canada at the end of Prohibition.
If it's about safety, take a look at one of the trucks that Transportes Olympic will use on these loads and then compare them to the rigs that haul the U.S. Mail. Case dismissed. There will be no comparison.
Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.
And they do this because there is a fortune to be made in doing so. End the monopolies that we've granted to the Mexican Drug Lords and their U.S. Enablers, and the smuggling will end. No one ever got rich by smuggling coals into Newcastle. Or by smuggling more bullshit into a political protectionist argument.
"The beneficiaries of opening borders will be few and the casualties will be plenty," Spencer told The Associated Press on Wednesday. His organization represents small independent trucking businesses.
He doesn't represent all of the small independent trucking businesses, as the article implies. He doesn't represent mine. (I'm the General Manager of one.)
Trade runs both ways. The outfit that I work for sells stuff in the U.S., and we sell stuff outside of Jimmy Hoffa's boundaries. We also purchase stuff from overseas and sell it inside the Hoffa enclosure in which most of you folks live. I don't need Hoffa and his Washington puppets in the way.
Anything is good as long as it helps weaken the cage so jealously guarded by U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner and union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Proponents say especially strict safeguards are in place: The U.S. government is paying for electronic monitoring devices to be installed in all Mexican trucks used in the program.
Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of any drivers who will participate so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Inspectors will check out the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.
The program's long delay has cost companies in both countries millions and hurt bilateral relations, proponents say.
"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."
About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations is transported by land to its destinations according to the Mexican government.
And all of that stuff is currently being unloaded at the border and reloaded onto another trailer. That's a total waste.
End of rant.
Thanks for listening.
SAN DIEGO -- The first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days, but American trucking union leaders and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.
The stall has had little to do with safety concerns. It is about the political wrangling and protecting the constituents of some politicians that they've bought at auction prices.
U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner said they'll take a bipartisan stand at the border Wednesday in San Diego to voice concerns about the bilateral pilot project that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States. Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.
They will join Teamsters union President James Hoffa and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, in a last-ditch effort to block Mexican trucks from being granted full access to U.S. highways.
The trucks are crossing a river, a river that has symbolic meaning because of a war we had with Mexico. This river became known as a "boundary".
Boundary (noun) (bound*a*ry) 1. In the geographic sense, an arbritrary listing of lines of latitude and longitude to be filled in on maps with different colors. 2. In the political sense, the far edges of your cage.
Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them onto U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, the union leaders say.
Horseshit. According to Marc Levinson, author of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger" the ancestors of these same union parasites once tried to unload and reload each shipping container as it entered U.S. "boundaries". They didn't understand that the entire point of the shipping container was to load the thing at Point A and not have the load touched by thieving little Jimmy Hoffa hands until it was unloaded by the customer at Point B. The unions insisted that they had a right to "strip and stuff" every shipping container, even if the load was going to be placed right back in the same shipping container.
All Jimmy Hoffa wants is to get his hands on the load.
Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.
If I want to hire Transportes Olympic to haul a load from Juarez to Fort Worth, it really isn't Jimmy Hoffa's business. It is the U.S. government's business, unfortunately. They own the roads. But they've also established that it is illegal to discriminate against people for racial reasons, and that's the only angle these clowns have to fight with.
Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.
The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.
The company was also the first approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.
As well the should have. It's called NAFTA. It is a free-trade agreement, kinda. We've been in violation of the law for about 20 years.
Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.
"We're really excited," Perez said in a telephone interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."
Eliminating and lowering idiotic trade barriers like this one helps you to afford the computer on which you're reading this rant. It's how you got the clothes that I hope you are now wearing.
Opponents say the fight isn't over.
Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again.
"There's absolutely no upside to the program," said Joe Kasper, a spokesman for Hunter's office.
Yes there is an upside, you flak-catching hack. If I want to hire these people to haul a load, then I get to have my way.
That's always an upside.
Plus, I won't have to hire Hoffa goons. (Remember Jimmy Hoffa? The guy who said "let's take out those sons-of-bitches", in reference to The Tea Party?)
And I get to save money, which means that in the long run, you get to save money.
"It's a good example of foreign interests overtaking American interests, at the expense of jobs, security and safety. The program was a bad idea when it was created under NAFTA and it's a bad idea now. It should be stopped right away."
At the expense of jobs? If it's about saving jobs or creating more jobs, let's just mandate that loads can only cross The Rio Grande on wheelbarrows and that they can only move up Interstate 35 on hand carts pulled by the less fortunate of our society.
If it's about security, let's end the idiotic drug war. Safety will increase 100-fold on both sides of the river that we currently use as a boundary, just like safety increased when we ended our alcohol war with Canada at the end of Prohibition.
If it's about safety, take a look at one of the trucks that Transportes Olympic will use on these loads and then compare them to the rigs that haul the U.S. Mail. Case dismissed. There will be no comparison.
Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.
And they do this because there is a fortune to be made in doing so. End the monopolies that we've granted to the Mexican Drug Lords and their U.S. Enablers, and the smuggling will end. No one ever got rich by smuggling coals into Newcastle. Or by smuggling more bullshit into a political protectionist argument.
"The beneficiaries of opening borders will be few and the casualties will be plenty," Spencer told The Associated Press on Wednesday. His organization represents small independent trucking businesses.
He doesn't represent all of the small independent trucking businesses, as the article implies. He doesn't represent mine. (I'm the General Manager of one.)
Trade runs both ways. The outfit that I work for sells stuff in the U.S., and we sell stuff outside of Jimmy Hoffa's boundaries. We also purchase stuff from overseas and sell it inside the Hoffa enclosure in which most of you folks live. I don't need Hoffa and his Washington puppets in the way.
Anything is good as long as it helps weaken the cage so jealously guarded by U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner and union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
Proponents say especially strict safeguards are in place: The U.S. government is paying for electronic monitoring devices to be installed in all Mexican trucks used in the program.
Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of any drivers who will participate so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Inspectors will check out the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.
The program's long delay has cost companies in both countries millions and hurt bilateral relations, proponents say.
"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."
About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations is transported by land to its destinations according to the Mexican government.
And all of that stuff is currently being unloaded at the border and reloaded onto another trailer. That's a total waste.
End of rant.
Thanks for listening.
Are you going to take your stand with the drummers of the Occupy Wall Street movement?
There will come a time when every man, woman and child will have to answer this question: Will you stand with The Drummers of the Occupy Wall Street Movement?
Or are you going to stand with The Man, The Oppressors, The 1%, Those Who Aren't Palestinian Enough, and The Evil Rich?
There will come a time when you will all have to answer this question. We, the drummers, we're taking names and keeping score.
Pick a side, dammit !!!
Here's an email from the so-called Occupy Wall Street "movement", outlining their strategy to silence the voices of the people. OWS is over after Tuesday:
Friends, mediation with the drummers has been called off. It has gone on for more than 2 weeks and it has reached a dead end. The drummers formed a working group called Pulse and agreed to 2 hrs/day at times during the mediation, and more recently that changed to 4 hrs/day. It’s my feeling that we may have a fighting chance with the community board if we could indeed limit drumming and loud instrumentation to 12-2 PM and 4-6 PM, however that isn’t what’s happening.
Last night the drumming was near continuous until 10:30 PM at night. Today it began again at 11 AM. The drummers are fighting among themselves, there is no cohesive group. There is one assemblage called Pulse that organized most of the drummers into a group and went to GA for formal recognition and with a proposal…
At this point we have lost the support of allies in the Community Board and the state senator and city electeds who have been fighting the city to stave off our eviction, get us toilets, etc. On Tuesday there is a Community Board vote, which will be packed with media cameras and community members with real grievances. We have sadly demonstrated to them that we are unable to collectively 1) keep our space and surrounding areas clean and sanitary, 2) keep the park safe, 3) deal with internal conflict and enforce the Good Neighbor Policy that was passed by the General Assembly…
In the meantime, there are other drummers who refuse to acknowledge OWS or the GA as a body they are interested in, and these drummers show up on site when they fell like it and drum when they feel like it. Over the weekend, it was for 10 or 11 hours straight, until late night.
So in the meantime, while we are grateful for the negotiations and positive relations with Pulse, we recognize that the issue of whether we’re evicted over drumming or not remains. For that reason we are asking for people to show up during quiet hour shifts, to ensure that drumming does not start....
And from one of the other messages, here are some Wall Street sympathizing pigs, enemies of The People, calling for more pawns to enforce the whims of the non-rhythmic, reactionary agenda:
We’re in serious need of bodies here. The drumming will happen daily from 12-2 and 4-6pm, that’s OK. But that means that we need folks in these shifts:
2-4 PM: people here to make sure drumming doesn’t start
5:45–8 PM: ppl here to make sure drumming stops at 6 PM sharp and doesn’t start again
8–10 PM: ppl here to make sure drumming doesn’t start
This is an all-call. Really really need help, tonight. There are some fabulous drummers here who have been in mediation with OWS and the community board for weeks. There are a small handful of drummers who have been violent, agro, and committed to playing as loud as they can, for as long as they can (until 11 PM this weekend).
Tomorrow night is the community board meeting, they are logging when they hear drumming and keeping a record. If we can show that we’ve made progress in implementing the Good Neighbor Policy that limits drumming then they won’t call for our eviction (they in fact have been bending over backwards to support and defend us). If we can’t get support here tonight at 6pm, or tomorrow, then we are facing an eviction vote at tomrorow’s meeting, in front of all the cameras, and we lose the electeds and allies who’ve gone to bat for us.
This is a final ditch effort as it’s been weeks of false promises and failed enforcement, so we may be close to the end of OWS over this issue this week, but we have a fighting chance!
And finally, we see the traitors in our midst....
Unfortunately there is one individual who is NOT a drummer but who claims to speak for the drummers who has been a deeply disruptive force, attacking the drumming rep during the GA and derailing his proposal, and disrupting the community board meeting, as well as the OWS community relations meeting. She has also created strife and divisions within the POC caucus, calling many members who are not ‘on her side’ “Uncle Tom”, “the 1%”, “Barbie” “not Palestinian enough” “Wall Street politicians” “not black enough” “sell-outs”, etc. People have been documenting her disruptions, and her campaign of misinformation, and instigations. She also has a documented history online of defamatory, divisive and disruptive behavior within the LGBT (esp. transgender) communities. Her disruptions have made it hard to have constructive conversations and productive resolutions to conflicts in a variety of forums in the past several days.
DRUMMERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE ! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS !!!
Or are you going to stand with The Man, The Oppressors, The 1%, Those Who Aren't Palestinian Enough, and The Evil Rich?
There will come a time when you will all have to answer this question. We, the drummers, we're taking names and keeping score.
Pick a side, dammit !!!
Here's an email from the so-called Occupy Wall Street "movement", outlining their strategy to silence the voices of the people. OWS is over after Tuesday:
Friends, mediation with the drummers has been called off. It has gone on for more than 2 weeks and it has reached a dead end. The drummers formed a working group called Pulse and agreed to 2 hrs/day at times during the mediation, and more recently that changed to 4 hrs/day. It’s my feeling that we may have a fighting chance with the community board if we could indeed limit drumming and loud instrumentation to 12-2 PM and 4-6 PM, however that isn’t what’s happening.
Last night the drumming was near continuous until 10:30 PM at night. Today it began again at 11 AM. The drummers are fighting among themselves, there is no cohesive group. There is one assemblage called Pulse that organized most of the drummers into a group and went to GA for formal recognition and with a proposal…
At this point we have lost the support of allies in the Community Board and the state senator and city electeds who have been fighting the city to stave off our eviction, get us toilets, etc. On Tuesday there is a Community Board vote, which will be packed with media cameras and community members with real grievances. We have sadly demonstrated to them that we are unable to collectively 1) keep our space and surrounding areas clean and sanitary, 2) keep the park safe, 3) deal with internal conflict and enforce the Good Neighbor Policy that was passed by the General Assembly…
In the meantime, there are other drummers who refuse to acknowledge OWS or the GA as a body they are interested in, and these drummers show up on site when they fell like it and drum when they feel like it. Over the weekend, it was for 10 or 11 hours straight, until late night.
So in the meantime, while we are grateful for the negotiations and positive relations with Pulse, we recognize that the issue of whether we’re evicted over drumming or not remains. For that reason we are asking for people to show up during quiet hour shifts, to ensure that drumming does not start....
And from one of the other messages, here are some Wall Street sympathizing pigs, enemies of The People, calling for more pawns to enforce the whims of the non-rhythmic, reactionary agenda:
We’re in serious need of bodies here. The drumming will happen daily from 12-2 and 4-6pm, that’s OK. But that means that we need folks in these shifts:
2-4 PM: people here to make sure drumming doesn’t start
5:45–8 PM: ppl here to make sure drumming stops at 6 PM sharp and doesn’t start again
8–10 PM: ppl here to make sure drumming doesn’t start
This is an all-call. Really really need help, tonight. There are some fabulous drummers here who have been in mediation with OWS and the community board for weeks. There are a small handful of drummers who have been violent, agro, and committed to playing as loud as they can, for as long as they can (until 11 PM this weekend).
Tomorrow night is the community board meeting, they are logging when they hear drumming and keeping a record. If we can show that we’ve made progress in implementing the Good Neighbor Policy that limits drumming then they won’t call for our eviction (they in fact have been bending over backwards to support and defend us). If we can’t get support here tonight at 6pm, or tomorrow, then we are facing an eviction vote at tomrorow’s meeting, in front of all the cameras, and we lose the electeds and allies who’ve gone to bat for us.
This is a final ditch effort as it’s been weeks of false promises and failed enforcement, so we may be close to the end of OWS over this issue this week, but we have a fighting chance!
And finally, we see the traitors in our midst....
Unfortunately there is one individual who is NOT a drummer but who claims to speak for the drummers who has been a deeply disruptive force, attacking the drumming rep during the GA and derailing his proposal, and disrupting the community board meeting, as well as the OWS community relations meeting. She has also created strife and divisions within the POC caucus, calling many members who are not ‘on her side’ “Uncle Tom”, “the 1%”, “Barbie” “not Palestinian enough” “Wall Street politicians” “not black enough” “sell-outs”, etc. People have been documenting her disruptions, and her campaign of misinformation, and instigations. She also has a documented history online of defamatory, divisive and disruptive behavior within the LGBT (esp. transgender) communities. Her disruptions have made it hard to have constructive conversations and productive resolutions to conflicts in a variety of forums in the past several days.
DRUMMERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE ! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS !!!
Monday, October 24, 2011
Quotation of the day
Our quotation of the day is from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas Sowell, via a commentary from Cafe Hayek.
One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.
Yep. That nails it.
One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.
Yep. That nails it.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street movement discriminates against drummers !!!
This irritates me more than it should.
I am a drummer. Not a great one, but I get by.
I was in the drum lines at Ole Miss and Delta State.
Here's a picture of me, way off in the background, thumping the skins at Jazz Cafe.
Yes, I've heard all the jokes.
What do you call a guy who hangs out with four musicians? A drummer.
How can you tell a drummer is at your door? The knocking speeds up.
How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb? None. Thank God they have a machine for that now !!!
And now we have this freakin' outrage:
All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective. . . .
Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.
But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.
“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”
To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest,” he said. “They didn’t even give the drummers a say … Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”
The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”
(The drummers are learning that if The Collective gives, then The Collective can also take away. - TWS)
All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.
But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my f***ing tent, get that s**t off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.
First they came for The Drummers, but I did not speak out, for I was not a Drummer....
I am a drummer. Not a great one, but I get by.
I was in the drum lines at Ole Miss and Delta State.
Here's a picture of me, way off in the background, thumping the skins at Jazz Cafe.
Yes, I've heard all the jokes.
What do you call a guy who hangs out with four musicians? A drummer.
How can you tell a drummer is at your door? The knocking speeds up.
How many drummers does it take to change a light bulb? None. Thank God they have a machine for that now !!!
And now we have this freakin' outrage:
All occupiers are equal — but some occupiers are more equal than others. In wind-whipped Zuccotti Park, new divisions and hierarchies are threatening to upend Occupy Wall Street and its leaderless collective. . . .
Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.
But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.
“They’re imposing a structure on the natural flow of music,” said Seth Harper, an 18-year-old from Georgia. “The GA decided to do it … they suppressed people’s opinions. I wanted to do introduce a different proposal, but a big black organizer chick with an Afro said I couldn’t.”
To Shane Engelerdt, a 19-year-old from Jersey City and self-described former “head drummer,” this amounted to a Jacobinic betrayal. “They are becoming the government we’re trying to protest,” he said. “They didn’t even give the drummers a say … Drumming is the heartbeat of this movement. Look around: This is dead, you need a pulse to keep something alive.”
The drummers claim that the finance working group even levied a percussion tax of sorts, taking up to half of the $150-300 a day that the drum circle was receiving in tips. “Now they have over $500,000 from all sorts of places,” said Engelerdt. “We’re like, what’s going on here? They’re like the banks we’re protesting.”
(The drummers are learning that if The Collective gives, then The Collective can also take away. - TWS)
All belongings and money in the park are supposed to be held in common, but property rights reared their capitalistic head when facilitators went to clean up the park, which was looking more like a shantytown than usual after several days of wind and rain. The local community board was due to send in an inspector, so the facilitators and cleaners started moving tarps, bags, and personal belongings into a big pile in order to clean the park.
But some refused to budge. A bearded man began to gather up a tarp and an occupier emerged from beneath, screaming: “You’re going to break my f***ing tent, get that s**t off!” Near the front of the park, two men in hoodies staged a meta-sit-in, fearful that their belongings would be lost or appropriated.
First they came for The Drummers, but I did not speak out, for I was not a Drummer....
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