Martin Luther King, Jr. and #OccupyWallStreet

The war in VietNam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. We will be marching and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. [...] With such activity in mind, the words of John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken — by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profits and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs re-structuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say: "This is not just." It will look upon our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

[...]

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-anti-revolutionaries.

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Politics: Incitement to Violence

ICHC FTLOL

The Foofaraw-Of-The-Day (hereinafter FoTD) was that some motherfucking idiot butthole surfer decided to create a poll asking whether his fellow FaceBookers thought that President Obama deserved assassination.

For those who don't use FaceBook, lots and lots of third-party developers write little apps that you can use to do silly stuff on FB, like create stupid polls that actually go to your FB account and pull all kinds of data about you and your friends and then sell it to people who want to pay money to find out what kind of people use FB and how dumb they are and also how likely to pay money for the dumb things these people want to sell them.

So there's this third-party app that lets you create polls. And most of the polls are really silly, harmless stuff like "What flavour of ice-cream are you?" and "Do you wear frilly panties?" and shit like that.

Well, this bright soul (not) decides to create this fucking poll about whether the President should be assassinated, and the choices it gives you are (Yes), (Maybe), (If he cuts my healthcare), and (No).

Some 700 or so other idiots found this poll and decided to take it. Well, actually, the first person to take it probably sent it to five other friends, who sent it to 25 other friends, and it snowballed. To the credit of most of the idiots who took it, the answer was NO by a staggering margin. And the total number of responses was very small in terms of the total number of users on FB. And, the Internets responded by reporting the dumb motherfucker to the Secret Service.

To FB's credit, they immediately suspended polls when this was brought to their attention. They then had a little talk with the app developer, asking him to fix his code so that no one could ever do such a revoltingly swinish thing again. Which he is, I believe, doing as we squeak. They also had their little session with the Secret Service and, no doubt, have turned over captured IP addresses and the like.

Welp. It won't be too long before the Men In Black have a little conversation with the feckin' eejit who wrote that feckin' poll, will it, now?



Good luck, you scum-sucking swine. You're going to need all of it that you can get. Not that we think you should be allowed much of anything, with the exception of bread, water, and shelter from the elements in a jail cell for some years, but hey. You get your day in court while the prosecutor tries to prove you guilty.

Maybe this will stop the likes of Annhole Coulter, Glen Blech, and Flush Rimbowl from making their unacceptable and unwarranted cracks about poisoning Supreme Court Justices, or the Speaker of the House, or shooting at the Speaker or the President.

Listen up, Fuckwits, one and all: US Code TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 115 § 2385:

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or
Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or
Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.
As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

So before you form into astroturfer organizations carrying placards advocating the violent overthrow of the government, please note that it is a fucking CRIME as defined by law. There are penalties for this kind of hate speech. You can't run around flapping your ugly gobs about killing people without consequences.

Do you understand, you cone-headed dimwits? The Free Speech amendment to the Constitution gives you the right PEACEABLY to assemble. Read it, idiots:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

If you're not assembling PEACEABLY, without guns or hate speech or threats or incitements to crime, well, there are consequences for that kind of behaviour. You have to take responsibility for your bullshit, assholes. Better start sending money to the ACLU now, motherfuckers, because they're the only ones that will bail your oversized useless lardy asses out of the hoosegow.

Moreover, these heah threats you're making against your freely and fairly elected President? That shit is laid out in the same fucking code, you worthless buttfucks. Read it and meep: TITLE 18 PART I CHAPTER 41 § 871.

Threats against President and successors to the Presidency

(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(b) The terms “President-elect” and “Vice President-elect” as used in this section shall mean such persons as are the apparent successful candidates for the offices of President and Vice President, respectively, as ascertained from the results of the general elections held to determine the electors of President and Vice President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 1 and 2. The phrase “other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President” as used in this section shall mean the person next in the order of succession to act as President in accordance with title 3, United States Code, sections 19 and 20.

OK, assholes? Didja get that? Do you understand the words of more than one syllable here? The next time one of you motherfuckers starts making that cocksucking pout of the lips and spouting off about the tree of liberty being watered with the blood of tyrants? Y'awl better be prepared to see some Men In Black coming through the front door, the back door, or both.

What part of PEACEABLY TO ASSEMBLE do you pointy-headed assholes not get? "Peaceably to assemble" does not mean "bring your fucking Uzis and AK-47s to the town hall and terrify little children and old ladies," do you get that yet?



Because by all you fucking hold holy, you brainless walking excrement, if you harm one hair on the head of our lawfully elected President, our Vice-President, or our Speaker of the House, be prepared for some real patriots to kick the holy fucking shit out of your cheetos-laden ass.

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China, The Olympics, and Tibet

Photo from Tibet Travelogue

Disclaimer: We are strongly pro-China in most things. For us, China is the Peoples' Republic. We admit that abuses have occurred throughout China's post-Revolutionary history, but when weighed against the benefits brought about by the Revolution of 1949, and the long history of pre-revolutionary abuses, they are relatively minor.

That does not change the fact that China is currently at a pivotal point in her history. The issue of Tibet has long been a thorny and difficult one. China has throughout history considered Tibet part of her empire, but the days of empire are past, are they not? Tibet has a distinctive and ancient culture that is not the culture of the dominant Han Chinese. The Tibetan people do not consider themselves Chinese.

The Revolution brought benefits to Tibet, such as education, sanitation, health care, and the destruction of a rigid hierarchical priest-ridden social order. On the other hand, it attempted to eradicate much that the Tibetans value about their culture, including their religion. Now the always difficult situation has exploded, right around the time of the Olympics.

There is a great deal to be said about China's long and complex history and her finally rejoining the community of nations, as symbolized through the hosting of the Olympics. However, this is not the time and place to say it. The PRC government is distressed because the Tibetans have chosen this moment to bring the spotlight of the world to bear on their quest for greater autonomy. But given that most of the world ignores what is going on in its own backyard day after day, what better time to raise their issues? Otherwise, just like Darfur, and Burma, and Irian Jaya, and Comoros, and Iraq, all these issues are simply ignored.

At any rate, if you would like to join with the many people who are calling for a boycott of the Olympics over the issue of Tibetan autonomy, here is a petition that you might care to sign.

If you prefer to leave the matter of Tibet to the PRC government, reasoning that America, and every other country in the world, has human rights abuses occurring within their own borders that they should be attending to before lecturing anyone else, you might want to address the PRC government on the issue of animal rights instead.

The PRC government is rounding up and killing cats all over Beijing. Please help put a stop to this cruelty by signing this petition.

Concerned animal lovers are also pressuring the PRC government to crack down on the slaughter of dogs for food. Having our own dietary quirks, we prefer not to lecture others about their choice of food (as our Esteemed Parent once said to us, what's the difference between a cow and a dog? A question we couldn't answer, to our great embarrassment, without invoking our own quixotic notions of what constitutes acceptable eats). However, the cruelty with which animals are stolen from their owners and then killed, is simply unacceptable to the terminally tender-hearted of La Casa de Los Gatos. So we urge you to wander over to this site and sign the petition there.

You might also wish to put pressure on your purveyors of food and other necessities to boycott PRC products until the little matter of food contamination and oversight has been resolved.

La Casa de Los Gatos thanks you for your assistance. Incidentally, if you are fond of animals, you might not want to read the attachments to the petitions. They are graphic and highly disturbing. Psychoactive medication and Drugs of Choice are recommended. Also, not eating for a while &mdash maybe a day or more.

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Human Rights: Burma

Pic courtesty of Auntie Beeb

The International Herald Tribune tells us that Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s special envoy on human rights in Myanmar (Burma) has been invited to that country by the military junta for a discussion next week.

The junta, which seized power in 1988, refused to hand over power to Aung San Suu Kyi's National Democracy League when it won a landslide victory in 1990. Aung has spent 10 of the past 17 years under house arrest.

Things heated up again this year when Buddhist monks led protests against the junta, and the brutal military response caused worldwide reaction. Although the reaction so far has been limited to apparent fainting spells followed by enthusiastic application of fans and smelling salts, one can only hope that eventually governments everywhere will do the right thing (we're looking at you, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia), and let the junta know that its actions are beyond the pale.

According to The Independent, the scale of the protests have the military worried. Major General Hla Htay Win was "permitted to retire," as the junta euphemistically expresses it, for being "too lenient" with protestors in Rangoon. Given that this is the same general who ordered bloody predawn raids on monasteries resulting in the arrest, imprisonment, torture, and beating deaths of many monks, and firing into unarmed crowds of peaceful protestors, one wonders what General Than Shwe, the despotic monster of the dungheap that constitutes the military junta, had in mind.

According to rumours, that worthy (Than Shwe)

... was worried enough as the street protests grew, that he sent his family to safety in Dubai.

"The stories are that he is isolated and that his staff are afraid to give him bad news but we do believe that he is the one to give the orders to crack down, so he is not totally out of touch,'' said Shari Villarosa, the US charge d'affaires in Rangoon.

Meanwhile, Pinheiro, who has been barred from Burma since 2003, had this to say:

... he "welcomes" the invitation to visit Nov. 11-15.

The statement, issued by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, said Pinheiro noted that the invitation "sends a positive indication of the desire of the authorities to cooperate with his mandate" to investigate human rights in Myanmar.

After getting initial permission last month for the visit, Pinheiro said he would demand access to prisons and try to determine the number of people killed and detained by the military government in September's crackdown on peaceful protesters.

"If they don't give me full cooperation, I'll go to the plane, and I'll go out," Pinheiro said.

Mr. Pinheiro, could you lend one of your testicles to our Democratic party? They seem sadly lacking in that respect.

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Politics: The Media Anoints The Candidates

Or not. We here at Casa de Los Gatos are no Ron Paul fans, but we really think that the media is going too far in promoting Giuliani and denigrating Paul. We don't agree with a lot of Paul's positions, but clearly he's saying something people want to hear.

At issue here is the fact that, in a democracy, the will of the people determines the winner of an election. Not the will of the mainstream media, not the will of lobbyists, paid shills, corporations, the existing power structure, the political machine.

Paul has said that he is flatly opposed to the Iraq occupation. Right there, he is siding with the majority of Americans who want the war ended. He is also pro-medical marijuana. There, he is in tune with a number of people who use marijuana for relief of chronic pain. His insistence on adherence to the Constitution must resonate with the populace who, for seven long years, have witnessed Bush and the Republicans treat the founding document like a piece of toilet paper.

He is articulate, unwavering in his opinions (unlike Mitt Romney the flip-flopper, Giuliani the panderer and McCain the political whore), and principled. What's not to like?

Okay, I don't like his stance on abortion. But I also don't like conservative commentator Joe Scarborough's hysteria over the recent fundraiser that netted Paul millions:

Scarborough noted the significance of the Guy Fawkes tie-in, explaining, "I don't know if you saw V for Vendetta, but Guy Fawkes is a guy that tried to assassinate some king -- King Henry or King George or King -- James! ... So I guess that's a libertarian thing to do. Try to assassinate kings. And so they had a celebration of this dastardly act."

It would appear that our media is as ignorant as our political class. Don't they realize that the movie V for Vendetta is supposed to rouse an abject apathetic populace against a criminal and oppressive ruling class?

Sort of like what we're going through today with King George. Sort of what this country went through at it's founding with another mad King George. Revolution is what this country was founded on.

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

That is a ringing call to the people to ensure that their wishes are truly reflected in the composition of those that they choose to govern them. Ron Paul is saying something that the people want to hear. Instead of being terrified of him, why don't you, the mainstream media, talk about how you anoint certain candidates and refuse others the slightest coverage? Instead of labeling Paul crazy, or telling us for the umpteenth time about Edwards' hair or Hillary's cleavage, start telling us their positions on the issues. What do they plan to do about the crashing economy? Inadequate healthcare? Inflated CEO salaries? Stagnation of working people's wages? The housing market crash? The coming credit crunch? The ridiculous price of gas? Global warming? "Free" trade agreements?

Give us some news we can use, guys. We're sick of the pap you've been feeding us all these years.

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Politics: What the HAIL

are they puttin' in the water today? Anyone know?

Because I'm looking at the top headlines here, and this is what I see:

• Cafferty File viewers: Let's start another revolution
  
  
• White House: Fake FEMA news conference won't happen again
• Democrats have votes to hold two White House officials in contempt by full House vote: report
• Rumsfeld hit with torture lawsuit while visiting Paris
• Plame: Disclosure of classified status amounted to 'treason'

Wha' hoppen? Did the country wake up overnight? Did the Feds forget to put valium in the water this week?

Let's see, did the MSM publish any of these stories?

Well, the NYT did carry the story about Rumsfeld, under the much more innocuous title of "Torture Complaint Filed Against Rumsfeld" in its World news section. I don't see any coverage of the fake FEMA press conference, Cafferty's viewers' reaction to the Chimperor, the contempt vote, or Plame's labeling of her outing as "treason."

The WaPoo covered the FEMA fake press conference on its front page. Nothing about the other stories. The local fishwrap has its usual amazing dearth of stories of any import, although there's always the sob-sister front pagers about dead people and the naughty bits about nekkid people running amuck in the public bogs. Nothing in the Boston Globe. The L.A. birdcage liner, understandably, is dominated by news of the fires.

Okay, maybe it's all a dream and I'll wake up in a bit. But for now, some tasty snippets:

Cafferty: apparently made this remark yesterday, and why the press isn't chasing their tails like mad dogs, I just don't know. Buncha worthless dolts we have in the Fourth Estate:

"The president of the United States didn't have the power to spy on Americans ... operate secret prisons ... suspend due process ... torture ... hide the conduct of the government from the public," Cafferty stated. "It's not like anybody gave President Bush any of these powers -- he took them, as a brain-dead Congress just stood there and watched."

His viewers were even more enthusiastic, opining:

"Remember the 60's?" wrote one Baby Boomer. "Well, they're back. Only this time it's not a decade. It's the age on our driver's licenses. Let's start another revolution. ... It's time to overthrow the government."

"King Bush. Queen Hillary. America is now a democratic dictatorship, nobody is going to change that. Power is everything; get used to it."

An[other] suggested. "George Bush is the next president. He and Darth Cheney will be surrendering none of their bounty. Forty years of planning to hand it all to Hillary Clinton? Not a chance. If you think there'll be a November 8 election, give my regards to the Easter Bunny."

I call that news. Sounds to me like The People are Mighty Pissed Off. And it's not as if Cafferty gets Far Left viewers or dirty fucking hippies (as they're known in the blogosphere) tuning in. View the video clip here.

Fake FEMA press conference: The WaPoo reported today that FEMA held a "press conference" in which members of its own staff pretended to be representatives of the press. They got busted, thank goodness, and the White House quickly distanced itself from the ensuing fallout.

Perino said FEMA alone was responsible for the decision to go ahead with the event.

"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to get out a lot of information to reporters, who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regard to the wildfires in California," she said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they, I'm sure, will not do it again."

Upon reading the FEMA equivalent of an apology, it seems to me that the White House might want to mandate courses in apologyology for FEMA staff. They suck ass at it, although I guess it's par for the course.
White House officials face contempt charges: John Conyers says he and Nancy Pelosi are surveying the House Democratic caucus on the issue of bringing criminal contempt charges against Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten. The vote could happen within the next two weeks, although the Justice Department had earlier stated that they would not pursue criminal charges. But now that the criminally corrupt former attorney general is busy alienating his family in Texas, perhaps that's changed too. Anyway. Keep an eye out.
Dummy - oops, Rummy's torture complaint: A coalition of international human rights groups slapped Mr. HappySlappy with a suit that alleges that during his tenure, the former defense secretary "ordered and authorized" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military's detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

One of the groups responsible for bringing the charges is the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

"There are Guantananamo detainees who were tortured that are living in France," said [its spokesman]. "It gives French courts another reason to prosecute."

Ratner says Europe is "getting very hot for Rumsfeld," and suggests a French court could at least issue its version of a subpoena.

"We hope that this case will move forward," he said, "especially as the US says it can continue to torture people."

Other groups involved in the complaint include the International Federation of Human Rights, the French League for Human Rights and Germany's European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

Would that be the "Old Europe" you derided back in those heady days of power when you sat at the right hand of that guy you're too busy to miss, Li'l Boots is his name?

For a PDF file with details of the allegations against Rummy, go here.
And finally, Valerie Plame told Chris Matthews on Hardball where to stick it.

Matthews asked Plame how, if she believed the Bush administration had covered up a "false case for war," that she didn't also anticipate that the White House would strike back at her personally.

"Call me naive," she said, "but that wasn't on our list of options...we didn't actually consider they would betray our country's national security to get at me."

That's exactly what they did by blowing her cover. Her job was to keep an eye on acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, especially in the middle-east. She was trained to manage a group of intelligence analysts who cultivated sources of information, analysed the derived data, and prepared reports for our government. Keeping her status secret required the setting up of cover organizations complete with identities and cover stories, personnel, offices, locations, covert and noncovert staff.

In one fell swoop, the petty Darth Cheney destroyed all that because he was pissed off with Joe Wilson. You might not like Mr. Wilson or Ms. Plame, but the fact is that blowing the cover of an intelligence operative is not something to be undertaken lightly. Intelligence networks take time and effort - sometimes decades - to build. Destroying them has far-reaching implications.

Every single person who ever had any contact with Valerie Plame over the course of her entire service and her trips around the world has been placed under scrutiny by multiple intelligence operatives of other governments as a result of that contact. Whether it was a friend's friend, a casual acquaintance, a friendly reporter, or a hotel clerk, they are all going to be followed, sussed out, maybe even questioned, to determine the exact nature of their relationship with her. If any of them were operatives that she turned, or sources of information, their usefulness has been destroyed.

The entire network will have to be recreated, slowly and painfully. Meanwhile, every American living or working abroad will be subjected to additional scrutiny, especially anyone in the diplomatic corps. All because one nasty old man wanted revenge. Yes, it's treason. I'm disgusted that no other fishwrap reported it as such.

See the video clip here.

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The Revolution will put YOU in the driver's seat

Still relevant today: Gil Scott-Heron.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, see it here.

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