Agitprop: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Propaganda

Obama Nobel Post-Mortem

via Mr. Fun @ The Defeatists!

Hey, if Woodrow Wilson and Henry Kissinger can receive a peace prize, I guess anyone can.

I Address the Nobel Committee

More stuff on a slow news day, including a not-Paul Beatle birthday.

Dead Presidents

It seems like the Election of the Dead gets started earlier and earlier every election cycle.

If dead communists and socialists aren't your thing, there's now the dead occultist, reputed in life as the "wickedest man in the world" Aleister Crowley:

Aleister Crowley is dead, British, and not running for office. No, we don’t want him as President of the United States of America. We’re not trying to win an election here. We’re trying to send a message. [Aleister Crowley 2012]

The good folks behind Aleister Crowley 2012 seem earnest, with the objective "to promulgate [Crowley's] Law of Liberty." The apathetic anarchist in me is all about liberty, but the question is worth asking: can a message be promulgated through a write-in campaign for a dead guy? Because it's like Guy Debord said, "you cannot combat alienation by means of alienated forms of struggle."

Upon the realization that the electoral process is a sham, voting dies as a means of resistance. Utilizing the process, even if only "to send a message," actually validates the legitimacy of the system being rejected! (Think of the influence, say, "record voter turnout figures," have on the perception of the process. Or a breezy human interest story on the 6:00 news about the festival atmosphere at the polling station where you just wouldn't believe the wacky people you might run into.)

I first advise abstention. Or perhaps the fouling of one's ballot so it cannot be processed, thereby increasing the "undervote" and calling voting mechanisms into question.

The thing is, message promulgation, using means established by The System/The Machine/The Spectacle, (a system fundamentally opposed to the kind of Liberty the Crowley 2012ers propose,) runs the risk of the message being appropriated and reordered to suit the whims of that system.

Nonetheless, (what the hell, right?) In closing, if you simply must vote, why not consider a dead dude? Dead guys aren't superior to your standard political candidates because they're communists, socialists, or occultists. They're superior candidates because they're dead.

And if you simply must vote, for someone alive, consider this guy:

Buck-Up Reads for Monday!

American political discourse and the paradoxes of militant dysphoria and militant preciousness and the revolution will not be twittered.

We all agree we're fucked, yes? that progress can only be defined by capitalism's metrics and that the destruction of our species is progress's inevitable success, and since that success is inevitable, we typists are competing only for top Cassandra. Old news.

More, plus stuff.

This Flu Season

With the spread of Influenza A (H1N1) there are a few extra precautions everyone should take this flu season:

1. Leave official H1N1 drop areas.

2. Avoid major population centers.

3. Wear sensible shoes and prepare a "Go Bag."

4. Leave your belongings and go to ground.

5. Wash your hands properly.

6. Put all your affairs in order.

Vaccination is voluntary, but let's not make this any harder than it has to be.

Stay out of Malibu, Polanski

The tag line of an LA Times article titled "Polanski arrest draws cheers and jeers in Europe" reads:

Those in the arts community see the film director as a hounded hero whose jailing reflects America's dark side. Others see the arrest and Switzerland's cooperation in the sting as justice overdue.

We are the country who disintegrates children on a weekly basis with predator drones. We torture. We have the highest prison population in the world thanks in part to incarcerating non-violent offenders. But wanting to try a guy who druged and raped a 13 year old girl 30 years ago shows our dark side?

What the fuck are you talking about?!?

Seriously...people in the arts community...if you are suddenly frightened by the American ethos then you clearly have been trapped in the celluloid you produce for a living. There's no such thing as a get out of jail free card for artists - only politicians and white-collar executives are privy to that golden ticket.

See also: Rape-Rape.

Blegsylvanian Master/Slave Dialectic

Ezra Blegeverlard Klein v Michael Fuckface Gerson.

Which is which?

Lotsa links.

Torture is as Torture Does

Impeach Obama

Cheney/Obama

Yes We Can

Summation of Much, or: For You Beatles-Haters

Too much to read, too many links, too much music, here.

From the Annals of "Don't Tase Me, Bro!"

Celebrity bashing website, What Would Tyler Durden Do? takes a moment away from bashing celebrities to bring us the latest news in police taser use:

FUN WITH TAZERS - Police in Merced, CA. used a stun gun on a man with no legs in a wheelchair. Twice. Then his pants fell down as they handcuffed him on the ground, and they left him that way in broad daylight. Then he sat in jail for 6 days, then was released for lack of evidence. Why would they do all this? Probably because the guy was an asshole. ... (ap) -- [WWTDD]

Also, have some Wednesday morning defeatism with your coffee:

Cracker, Teen Angst

You Lie!

"[L]et's face it, the easiest way to get on television right now is to be really rude." [Obama, on every Sunday political talk show not on FOX.]

This approach hasn't been working for me at all! In reality, the easiest way to get on television, at least in this context, is to be a powerful member of the political elite. As for those having attained the requisite status: being rude is is the least of their shortcomings.

Beck and Call

Beck as stopped clock. Beck as rapper. Beck as Kurt Kobain.

Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck Beck

Beck. More stuff here.

Obama's Waffen-SS

The Pimp speaks:

ACORN has ascended.  They elect our politicians and receive billions in tax money. Their world is a revolutionary, socialistic, atheistic world, where all means are justifiable.  And they create chaos, again, for it’s own sake.  It is time for us to be studying and applying their tactics, many of which are ideologically neutral.  It is time, as Hannah said as we walked out of the ACORN facility, for conservative activists to “create chaos for glory.”

It's a novel idea, really. I'm glad to see conservatives improvise a little.

Maxstroking

Boot is back!

The Obama administration’s decision to scrap the missile-defense sites planned for Poland and the Czech Republic is bad news. Not so much because the sites are vital to the defense of America or our allies. The administration is undoubtedly right when it says that the immediate threat posed by Iranian missiles is more short-range and that it will be a while before Iran has longer-range missiles capable of hitting Europe. Thus it makes sense to concentrate for the moment on building shorter-range missile defenses. And even longer-range sites don’t necessarily have to be located in Eastern Europe for maximum effectiveness.

All that is true. It is also irrelevant.

Bolton!

Just talked to John Bolton. Here's his take. "This is just pre-emptive capitulation, although like everything else, the rhetoric is that we're doing the opposite." It doesn't make sense that we should only be concerned with the short-and-medium-range threat and not also with "the long-range threat 2 or 3 years from now." And our intelligence on Iran is manifestly "inadequate." I wouldn't "bet a lot of money on it being right," and in any case, "there's this concept called 'break-out,'" where they achieve a quantum leap in their capability. It's a "bet against the future" that leaves "us and the Europeans in a more risky situation." All the talk of the intelligence changing and an enhanced short-and-medium-range capability is "blue smoke and mirrors" because they never believed in missile defense. "It's a convenient smoke-screen to do what they wanted to do anyway, which is to give up on missile defense in the hope the Russians will be nice to us." Secretary Gates’s comments were the "most disingenuous." Yes, we want a defense against the short-and-medium-range threat, but the whole idea of missile defense is based on a "layered defense." "Gates was a problem in the Bush administration on missile defense. He was always weak on this."

Obamagasm?

Fuck to the fucketh no, but I keep forgetting to relax and enjoy the circus.

Use the Force... to Caption This!

Making Sense of the War in Afghanistan

"This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity." --President Obama

Ever played Risk? This is the board. You are the gray player. This turn you fortify your armies in Afghanistan, (the one with the bold border.) What's your next move?

This-ism, That-ism

Socialism:

so·cial·ism  (ssh-lzm) n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

National Socialism:

Nazism, known officially in German as National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers to the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.

Nazism is often considered by scholars to be a form of fascism. While it incorporated elements from both left and right-wing politics, the Nazis formed most of their alliances on the right. The Nazis were one of several historical groups that used the term National Socialism to describe themselves, and in the 1920s they became the largest such group.

The Nazi Party presented its program in the 25 point National Socialist Program in 1920. Among the key elements of Nazism were anti-parliamentarism, Pan-Germanism, racism, collectivism, eugenics, antisemitism, anti-communism, totalitarianism and opposition to economic liberalism and political liberalism.

No wonder the Nazi-Soviet pact only lasted for two years...

see also: It's Called Fascism, Asshole and Won't Hurt A Bit

Dedication

This song goes out to all the teabaggers.

Holiest Day in Americastan

More, plus stuff.

Can I Just Say One Thing?

Man, FUCK the Beatles.

Yoko Ono is a fucking hero.


Play Revolver the new Beatles, first person shooter video game! Now in stores!

Or listen to Revolver by Rage Against the Machine:

People Get Ready

Another One of My Dozens of Five Favorite Songs Ever

Arms industry, betting on death, Atwood and the Fall of Americanism, plus stuff, here.

All You Other Bloviators Ain't for Shit

How it's done:

Hey Glenny, go home and tell your mother you're a flop.

Music Break

Sit back and enjoy. I need to go prepare for 9/12.

Organic Teabagging

Since Mackey wrote his op-ed, I've been to Whole Foods about four times. Before that, I hadn't been in several months.

Others have taken notice, albeit for a different reason...

The Nationwide Tea Party Coalition kicked off a series of "buycotts" in Dallas and St. Louis on Tuesday, asking consumers to support Mackey by doing their entire week's grocery shopping at Whole Foods that evening. Meanwhile, conservatives and libertarians of various stripes are blogospherically smacking their lips so loudly you'd think they just had a helping of Chilean sea bass en papillote from the Whole Foods deli counter.

"If the brainwashed, hemp-smoking zombies of the left stop shopping there, we conservatives can fill that market hole," wrote an anonymous poster on the blog Conservatives for Change.

Conservatives for Change? Huh? Sounds like a bunch of oxymorons to me.