How Would You Feel if a Massacre Like the One Yesterday in Afghanistan Happened in Your Home?

Didn't sleep to well last night, kept waking up from the same terrible dream over and over. Kept seeing storm troopers like the kind in 'Star Wars' busting down the door and shooting...and shooting...and shooting. Kept changing tee-shirts 'cause of the cold sweat. Always knowing within seconds it was a dream, always knowing how i'd feel if a massacre like the one yesterday in Afghanistan happened to my family.

There isn't a doubt in my mind, i'd do anything to get even. The Afghans don't feel the way they feel today because they are living in a medieval culture or because they are jihadists, or terrorists or any other bullshit characterization you choose. They feel and act as they must because they are you. If you want to understand how the Afghan people feel? Think of your kids.

Today's lead article at Common Dreams 'I Don’t Want To See Their Faces; I Don’t Want To Hear Them Scream', by Christopher Cooper, was some comfort to me. It may well be to you also, please read it, it says what we all must be feeling today.

Afghanistan is well-known as the 'graveyard of empires'. It cast off the imperialist likes of Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and the Mongol empire, the British Victorian colonial empire and most recently, the Soviet communist empire. After 11 years of pain, death and destruction we should concede that the stories of a this soldier's massacre of innocent women and children and Quran burnings could be the lasting legacies of the longest war in the American empire's history. The US and its vassal states in NATO must get out now even though now is already far to late.

I Don’t Want To See Their Faces; I Don’t Want To Hear Them Scream - Does it feel different to be dead by drone than dead by M-1? Does Obama have nightmares? Did Bush? Do they wash their hands, trying to scrub off the blood?

Why NDP Leadership Candidate Nathan Cullen is the Best Choice for Progressive Canadian Voters

Today in Vancouver the NDP is holding its final debate before the leadership vote to pick Jack Layton's successor on March 24th in Toronto. After listening, watching and studying the websites of the various candidates Nathan Cullen appears to be only one offering any real chance of a big change in Canadian politics.

As Nathan's website says, "After just eight months of a Harper majority, we’ve seen Canada withdrawn from Kyoto; the Canadian Wheat Board gutted; expensive, radical crime bills ushered in; and attack after attack on the values most Canadians cherish. Stephen Harper's majority government is attacking Canadian values with less than 40 per cent support. The NDP is in an ideal position to lead the conversation about how the other 60% can work together to replace Harper’s majority with a progressive majority."

Canada is in a small minority of countries that do not use proportional representation already. More than 75 democracies do in some form, including Australia, New Zealand and Scotland, all of which use Parliamentary systems like Canada's. Done right, proportional representation produces stable, productive governments -- which, crucially, reflect, not fight, their citizens' beliefs.

Cullen has gained support with controversial positions such as advocating for strategic alliances with the Greens and Liberals, and a populist-environmentalist stand against the Enbridge pipeline. Check out Project Democracy where you'll learn how Nathan's proposal for joint nominations and electoral reform can and will defend Canadian values.  Nathan Cullen attracted more people to his events in February than any other candidate. Unless the NDP, Liberals and Greens find some way to unite the 60% who vote against Harper and his Conservative Party agenda we will continue to be ruled by a Republican style right-wing minority. The right united, now the left must do the same.

The Mud Report enthusiastically endorses Nathan Cullen for the leadership of the Canadian NDP. Go Nathan GO!



Nathan Cullen 2012


Project Democracy

Is Dutch Disease Why Only McDonalds and Starbucks are Hiring?

There used to be good jobs here in BC and across Canada when my oldest daughter graduated from high school back in '78. Back then a kid could find a job in the forest industry, manufacturing or fishing industries. A good job, a job that in time would feed a family, buy a home, maybe a vacation in the camper up at the lake and probably a pension someday. Some kids also went off to university, sooner or later they too found a job in their field [though they mighta had to move somewhere inconvenient to get a start].

But by the time my youngest daughter graduated from high school things were far different. Some still went on to university and a few still got decent jobs if they were uniquely talented or well connected. Many though hoped for a job at Starbucks but ended up at Tim Hortons. A few years later, by 2010, those who had 'secured' their position at Starbucks were happy because by then mosta the heavily indebted university grads were filling out applications there too.

What happened is called Dutch Disease. every major oil exporter from Venezuela to Louisiana has suffered some form of the ailment. 'The Economist named the economic malaise "the Dutch Disease," from which the astute Dutch eventually recovered but from which every major oil exporter from Venezuela to Louisiana has suffered at some point. Phillippe Bergevin first diagnosed Canada's growing infection in a paper titled "Energy Resources: Boon or Curse for the Canadian Economy?" Bergevin detected a number of critical and telltale symptoms including "a rising resource-led export sector coupled with a struggling manufacturing sector and a rising currency."

Jock Finlayson of the Business Council of British Columbia noted that every one cent rise in the Canada's petro dollar subtracted $150-$160-million from the forestry sector; and another $50-million from the mining sector. The Tar Sands carnival and the resulting Dutch Disease is responsible for 54 percent of the manufacturing employment loss across Canada due to exchange rate developments between 2002 and 2007 alone. By exporting vast volumes of oil instead of refining and consuming it here in Canada Alberta and successive federal flunkies have chosen to export thousands of high value jobs to U.S. refineries.

The bought and paid for politicians are right when they say the tar sands is all about jobs and revenue. They just refuse to add two important qualifiers: lost jobs and squandered revenue. Please do your own research on Canadian Dutch Disease. When you do you'll see why Caterpillar shutdown its plant in Ontario and opened a new one Georgia recently and why there's a lineup to get jobs at Mickey D's nowadays.

How the Tar Sands Threaten Canada's Economic Fate - A short course in Dutch Disease, deindustrialization and the Bitumen Curse.

Does the Canadian economy suffer from Dutch Disease?

What NATO's Kids are Fighting and Dying for in Afghanistan

Yesterday was International Women's Day around the globe but instead of focusing on the achievments of Women's Rights groups the international press concentrated on Hamid Karzai's endorsement of the Afghan Council edict a few days ago which clearly said that 'women are secondary'. On last friday the Council, Afghanistan's highest Islamic authority, issued an edict saying that women were worth less than men, then on tuesday a statement released by Karzai's office endorsed it.

"Men are fundamental and women are secondary," the edict said, adding women should avoid "mingling with strange men in various social activities such as education, in bazaars, in offices and other aspects of life". The guidelines would prohibit women to be in public places unaccompanied by a male. a condition that could dissolve the Afghan legislature. Further it said women should wear "full Islamic hijab", should respect polygamy — Islam allows a man to take up to four wives — and comply with Shariah law on divorce, which severely restricts women's rights.

In a largly symbolic move Canada last year joined other nations that have withdrawn from a combat role in Afghanistan. But along with these NATO nations Canada continues training police and armed forces plus has investments funding for education and justice projects and aid programs. Other NATO countries, notably Great Britian and the US-which has over 100,000 regular military personal on the ground there as well as untold numbers of mercenaries-continue to send their young people into battle where thousands have already died or come home severly injured.

11 years later, US troops are still burning Korans out of either insensitivity or ignorance. Thousands are dead on all sides.
thousands more are maimed in body and soul and FOR WHAT? So that Hamid Karzai's government can uphold the edicts of medieval clerics. The illegal, undeclared 'war', in Afghanistan was crap to begin with and now after 11 long years the outcome is the same as was predicted at its begining. The Afghans aren't buying the supposed benefits of western occupation, instead they wait, they wait for the inevitable day when, like that last ignoble day in Saigon, the US and its vassels leave.

There are methods like the power of example that triumph over the example of power. One day perhaps the US and its allies will understand that the force of their ideas not the force of their armies can change minds. The only avenue to change in the long run is mutual respect and honest interaction. Our history of human rights in the west has slowly evolved through common cause, through mutual understanding and acceptance of the inalienable fact that we are all in this together, that, being one life-one interconnected life-any harm done to another is actually harm done to oneself because there is no 'other'. So too for the Afghans.


Hamid Karzai endorses Afghan edict that 'women are secondary' - Hamid Karzai's US-backed government is under fire this International Women's Day, accused of selling out on Afghan women's rights as it tries to woo the Taliban into peace talks.


Hamid Karzai backs restrictive code for women - Afghanistan's president endorses 'code of conduct' which activists say is a giant step backward for women's rights.

The Woody Guthrie Centennial Celebration - This Land is Your Land

The movie version of 'Bound for Glory' was on TCM recently as a follow up to 'The Grapes of Wrath'. Watched them both back to back that night and was left with a feeling of awe and a greater understanding of how, as the saying goes, 'those who fail to learn the lessons of history are bound to repeat them'. The uplifting part being that perhaps we all are, as Woody Guthrie was, bound for the glory of what can be if/when we do finally learn those lessons.

Woody Guthrie was born on July 14th 1912. This coming July would have been his 100th birthday. A centennial celebration of Woody's life and music, headlined by Arlo-his son, and many others will seek to convey some of the emotion that Woody's artistry added to the hopes of so many depression era folks and have continued to inspire us, his fellow travelers, since.

Personally, i met Arlo a few times many years ago [the early 60's] in Stockbridge Mass. where the few young aspiring hippies of Birkshire County traveled in order to feel and touch the movement that was then just begining to change the world. Arlo was part of that early movement and his song/alblum/movie 'Alice's Restaurant' was an early anthem for many of us. Later we all learned that Woody had been a mentor to Bob Dylan and Ramblin Jack Elliot two of the great troubadors of my generation. We all owe Woody Guthrie a great debt for his contribution to the ever evolving Revolution. Thanks Woody!

Woody wrote many excellant verses that will always underlie the spirit of The Mud Report. Below are a couple great ones.

Yes, as through this world I've wandered,
I've seen lots of funny men.
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life your travel,
Yes, as through your life your roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.

Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned traditional folk and blues songs. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression, earning him the nickname the 'Dust Bowl Troubadour' His most famous song was titled 'This Land Is Your Land'. The two verses below from the original song were often omitted in subsequent recordings by some singers.

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing."
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!
That side was made for you and me.

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?

Even Stupor Pacs and Billionaires' Bucks Can't Buy Mudslinger Mitt any Love on Stupor Tuesday

Poor Moneybags Mitt, seems no matter how much mud he slings at his rightwing rivals a large majority of the Republican base just aren't sufficiently hypnotized by what he's selling. For instance, Moneybags Mitt and his Stuopr Pac, Restore Our Future [yuck], spent over $12million slinging mud in Ohio alone compared to Righteous Rick's measley $1million. Yet Mitt won by less than 1% of the vote. Poor Mitt, even the reddest of rednecks, the bluest of bluecollars, bornest of born agains or the whitest of whites just aren't buying what he's got for sale.

Robert Reich said of the Republicans the other day, " A party of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers cannot govern America." Maybe, maybe not, in this writers opinion. They certainly can't win in an old fashion head to head gunfight at the OK corral kinda showdown, at least not yet. But they have been pulling the strings that make the puppets dance for years now through the dark force of fear.

What America needs, and by extension the whole world needs, is a 'High Noon' kinda showdown. We need a clear choice, we need Gary Cooper to stand up intellectually in the dusty street and call bullshit on these ultra rightwing fear mongerers. We don't need 500 national ho-hum non-choices between RINOs and DINOs, between various flip-floppers where everybody chooses the candidate that makes them puke the least.

If this electoral silly season doesn't produce a clear cut defeat of the religious rightwing robots there might not be another chance. The best case scenerio, IMO, would be if Newt got the boot letting Rick do the trick of cutting Mitt to shit. Then maybe the fork-tongued Obama might end up with a real Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, not a DINO filled mock majority like the one he and 'Rahm thre Fixer' built 4 years ago. If all this were to come true, as my inner soothsayer assures me, if the religio-fascists were slain in the political dust of Main Street, if then Obama was forced by a progressive majority to actually fulfill his promises of 4 years ago we might still see America rise to its potential as that golden city on the hill.

Is The Mighty Unity Scared of the Occupy Movement? You Betcha!

Fearing a replay of the 1968 major riot in Chicago the 'Chickenhawk in Chief' quietly announced Monday evening the move of the G8 summit in May from 'Sweet Home Chicago' to the remote fortress at Camp David. This is a major victory for the Occupy Wall Street movement and Adbusters.

Obama's decision is a humiliation for 'The Mighty Unity' and is making huge headlines all over the world. "It's hard not to see at least some of the Ghost of '68 in President Barack Obama's decision to slap his hometown and abruptly pull the G8 summit out to the Maryland woods." - Chicago Business

Those were heady days back in August of '68. Revolution was in the air. The assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the escalating doom of the Viet Nam War, the nationwide race riots and the rapid rise of the counterculture created an atmosphere where real change seemed possible. i was 20 that summer, a college kid who's world was forever changed by the terrible glorious events of that year. By year's end i had dropped out of college determined to be a part of the solution not part of the problem.

The problem, the problems, have only gotten worser and huger since my epiphany in '68. The ghost of '68 still haunts the halls of power in America. Hopefully this victory for the Occupy Movement will be a cataylst that continues the spread of the revolutionary reaction to the forces of corporate greed gaining momentum around the world.

Sweet Home Chicago: G8 Summit Moved but Protests Will Continue - Years ago, when I was at The London School of Economics, I received a letter inviting me to Chicago for the 1968 Democratic convention. No it wasn’t from then Mayor Daley but from my Yippie friend Abbie Hoffman who predicted a hot time in the old town that was burned down by Mrs. O’Leary’s famous cow. To this day, I regret not going. I am hoping to be there this time because it promises to showcase the revival of the Occupy Movement that so many are hoping for. - Danny Schechter

Rapidly Rising Atmospheric CO2' Causing the Worst Ocean Acidification in 300 Million Years

The recent study titled The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification and published in the journal Science, details the work of 21 scientists from the U.S. and Europe. In it the authors conclude, “The current rate of (mainly fossil fuel) CO2 release stands out as capable of driving a combination and magnitude of ocean geochemical changes potentially unparalleled in at least the last ~300 [million years] of Earth history, raising the possibility that we are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change.”

Who's responsible for this? Is it some big cultural mindset? Or is it the individual choices each of us makes everyday? The answer is both i guess. But they aren't seperate, the culture of consumption is simply the total of our individual choices. Each of us cooperates differently and in different amounts, from the hermit-desert rat type who lives off grid and walks to the nearest trading post once a month to the suit wearing freeway commuters waiting out another traffic jam in their air-conditioned cocoon.

Each of us performs a conscious or sub-conscious cost/benefit analysis whose output we use to maximize the mojo of our moments. Defining costs and benefits then is central to maximizing our individual mojos. Each of us solves the problem slightly different because of how our unique pasts have shaped our present worldview, that worldview is what we use to assign weights to different costs and benefits. The one thing we all share is the difficulty of our time frame.

We rogue primates seldom have any connection to deep timeframes, we have affinity or real empathy for about the 5 generations we meet in our lives, our grandparent's-our parent's-our's-our children's-our grandchildren's. These temporal blinders we all have that focus us so narrowly in time allow us to externalize the full costs of our actions somewhere into the future beyond our circle of empathy while apparently gaining the full benefits of those actions in the here and now. The Geological Record study, at least for a moment, has re-opened my focus to a grander time scale and re-validated my evolving inner desert rat.


'Unprecedented Rapidity of CO2' Causing Worst Ocean Acidification in 300 Million Years - The Earth's oceans are becoming more acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the past 300 million years due to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, a new study shows.

An Inspiring Note from Karen Willis and Clear Answers at the Dogwood Initiative

The title, Med Student Donates Scholarship Money, and link in an email this morning brought me to this inspiring note:
"Apparently, I am a radical. I am a Canadian, a proud B.C. resident and a medical student. I am currently thousands of dollars in debt so that I can achieve my dream of being a rural family doctor and bring medical care to the underserved areas of our province."
"However, something worries me more than the pressing need for rural doctors in Canada or my ability to pay my bills — it is the Northern Gateway pipeline and the proposal to put supertankers on our coast. That is why I would like to donate the scholarship money I received this year to your initiative. I know it’s not much, and I would give more if I could. I love what you are doing for our province".

Karen is donating her scholarship to the Dogwood Initiative, a non-profit, volunteer group that brings together everyday British Columbians to reclaim decision-making power over their air, land and water. Even more important perhaps than Karen's inspiring note are the clear responses given on the blog to a series of excellant questions about the Northern Gateway Project pipieline project. The answers there are great talking for us all when encountering these same basic questions in conversations with our friends, be they supporters or objectors to the pipeline.

Please check out the Dogwood Initiative website and, if you feel so moved, sign the petitions and/or join the cause, mr. mud did.

Alberta's Wiebo Ludwig is Fighting His Last Battle

The Dutch-born eco-warrior and enemy of the oil industry is a yoeman, a hero, a warrior, a free man and at peace with his god at the end, what could be better. But still it's a sad day for those many of us who've cheered Weibo on from afar, those many of us Weibo wannabes who've never been able to take the heat as he has.

Here's a couple of excerps from an interview published today, March 03, 2012, titled: Wiebo Ludwig dying of cancer:

"For those who espouse green living and turning our collective backs on uncontrolled oil and gas drilling and development, Ludwig is something of a messianic folk hero. For decades he has stood as an outspoken, implacable, media-savvy foe of the oil and gas industry, as evidenced by Toronto filmmaker David York's 2011 National Film Board-backed documentary, Wiebo's War."

"Ludwig, a carpenter, has completed his final construction project: a wooden casket. Last month his daughters finished the lining — a cream-coloured satin that covers a layer of soft foam and straw. The simple casket rests on two metal stands in one of the compound's main houses."

Not a believer myself, but if Weibo's right about crossing over the river maybe i'll be lucky enough to meet him one day on the other side.

Wiebo Ludwig dying of cancer: An interview - March 03, 2012

The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert

The Sonoran Desert is a vast irregular-shaped area of some 120,000 square miles. It stretches from southeastern California across the southern half of Arizona and extends south into Sonora, Mexico. More than one thousand years ago, the Hohokam Indians began diverting water from the Gila River in order to irrigate the arid soil. Working with sticks and stones these primal people pioneered an extensive system of desert agriculture and produced art like the clay toad pictured above.

One of the most unique inhabitants of the Sonoran Desert is the native toad, Bufo alvarius. The metabolic pathway of the venom of B. alvarius is unique within the Animal Kingdom in that it produces large amounts of 5-methoxy indole derivatives. The predominant alkaloid among these, as much as fifteen per cent of the venom by dry weight, is 5- methoxy- N,N- dimethyltryptamine (5-MEO-DMT). 5-MEO-DMT is a potent hallucinogen, psychoactive in man at doses of three to five milligrams.

When vaporized by heat and taken into the lungs in the form of smoke, this indole-based alkaloid produces an incredibly intense psychedelic experience of incredibly short duration. There is no hangover or harmful effect. On the contrary, a pleasant psychedelic afterglow appears quite regularly after smoking the venom of B. alvarius, the Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert.

In 1983 Albert Most of Gila, Arizona formed The Church of the Toad of Light. His writings, especially Bufo alvarius: The Psychedelic Toad of the Sonoran Desert which is The Bible, draw thousands of young searchers to the Sonora Desert around Gila every year. Here is a link to the best general information about Bufo alvarius. Here is another to information on the church itself. Most interestingly Bufo alvarius is a mudite in that it lives underground in the mud under year around water sources, like the Gila River and the extensive modern irrigation systems that draw on the Colorado River, during the hot daylight hours found in this harsh zone where temperatures can reach 140 F. in the shade and rainfall amounts at as little as five inches per year.

The Quality of One's Life Has Zero Correlation to the Quantity of One's Money

Today's inbox contained a this beautiful picture above and various well meant comments on compassion, love and the politics of homelessness. All the folks commenting made good points, but it's the picture itself that touches me.

In anything there's the container and its contents to consider, including this picture. The container here seems to evoke a response of-maybe pity or compassion, the contents another-maybe universal love. But those are only my opinions. My opinions are, as are all our various opinions, a projection of my worldview.

So then this photo is real art. It follows the defination, my opinion again, that art is symbolic and that all real art, like all good symbols, are windows in that it doesn't matter how they are built-rather it's what you see through them that counts.

Through this window, this symbol, this art i bask in the warm glow of appreciating that the quality of one's moments-one's life-has nothing to do with one's material circumstances-at least once that person has acheived a level of comfort above starvation.

Growing Up in the 50's or the 60's

If you grew up in the 50's or the 60's it's hard to believe that we lived this long. As kids, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat. Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention hitchhiking everywhere as a young kid.)

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. We played dodgeball and sometimes the ball would really hurt. We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank sugar soda but we were never overweight, we were always outside playing. We shared one grape soda with four friends, from one bottle and no one died.

We didn't have Playstations, Nintendos, X Boxes, cell phones, computers, Facebook, or Twitter...we had friends. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rung the bell or just walked in and talked to them. Imagine such a thing. Without asking a parent! By ourselves! Out there in the cold cruel world! Without a guardian. How did we do it? Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with it. Some students weren't as smart as others so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. No one to hide behind. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility. If you were a kid in the 50's or 60's congratulations! We had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.

Why Progressives Should Vote for Rick Insantoium in Today's Michigan and Arizona Primaries

About the only hope that progressive voters in the US have of seeing any of their agenda being adopted in the next few years is if there's such a huge Democratic landslide in November that the DINOs-Blue Dog Democrats-will lose their power. There's nobody more likely to cause such a lanslide than Rick Insantorium.

Rick made a statement yesterday slamming JFK's speech about how religion and politics should be kept separate. Righteous Rick went on to say, "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." Now there's a statement that will warm the hearts of many ultra-religious Republicans and Tea Partiers but will, in the longer run, scare the beejesus out of any rational independent US voter.

Moneybags Mitt has his moments of insanity too, but his track record of changing positions on any issue to suit the demographic audience he's addressing means he'll just disavow any rhetoric that he finds doesn't play well with independents if he were to win the nomination. Rick, on the other hand, has made so many heartfelt speeches embracing the religiously hypnotized mindset that he undoubtedly is a true believer.

So, seeing as Obama has broken every progressive promise he made 4 years ago, it seems to me the only way he'll ever to forced to actually fulfill any of his promises is if/when a truely progressive majority in both houses of Congress force him to, and as he'll be a lame duck unable to run again and not needing to play kiss-ass with his corporate benefactors after November it could happen-right after pigs learn to fly. Meanwhile, mr. mud will keep rooting for Roseanne Barr and Ron Paul to somehow be able to force the lamestream media, also totally in the death grip of the their corporate owners and advertisers, to start asking real questions about the big issues of our times.

In Vegas the morning line had the odds at 99 to 1 against the media ever asking any controversial questions and the same against Roseanne Barr for POTUS, so my next best hope today is a big victory for Rick Insantorium tonight in Michigan and Arizona. Go Rick Go!

Rick Santorum slams JFK - Kennedy said religion and politics should be kept separate, which Santorum called an "absolutist doctrine" that he rejected. "I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," he said on ABC.

Harper's Phoney Elections Canada Calls a Hallmark of Rove's Tactics

Did Harpo's Conservative Party steal the last Canadian General Election? As Queen Sarah of the North would say, 'You Betcha!'. Over the last number of years it's been reported many times that different members of the Canadian Conservative Party have met with Karl Rove, the grandaddy of Republican electoral dirty tricks. Guess these last few days we're starting to learn what they discussed eh.

Last night CBC's The National had an interview with the NDP's Pat Martin [pat.martin@parl.gc.ca] where he called the phoney Elections Canada calls directing Liberal and NDP supporters to incorrect voting stations a heinous crime against democracy. Martin also denounced the dirty tricks calls as a tactic borrowed from U.S. Republicans.

Today Liberal MP John McCallum said fraudulent calls directing voters to the wrong polling stations benefited Conservatives in the last election. Elections Canada has traced the calls to numbers in Montana and Colorado.

As of now complaints have come in from 37 ridings about false fraudulent calls from people-not robo calls-claiming to be from Elections Canada. This tactic is used by the Republcan Party in the US, especially in the deep south, as a vote suppression weapon. One of the main proponents of this and other dirty tricks, so broadly used in the US that Democrats now have attorney and 1-800 numbers setup in every state to combat them, is Karl Rove-Harpo's buddy. Week after week Canadians are learning just where and how the facist Harpo's Government is going. Soon the Conservative's will be announcing their ETA in Hades-All Aboard Eh!

Class War and 'The Grapes of Wrath'

Last night was John Steinbeck night on the Turner Classic Movie channel. 'The Grapes of Wrath' is one of the best movies ever made and even though i've seen it many times it still held the same magic. It should be mandatory viewing for graduation from school [at any level] especially now, when history is repeating itself again.

Henry Fonda's performance as Tom Joad is, perhaps, the greatest role ever in movie history. Tom Joad's legend will always live on in the music and stories of the working class as long as the class war exists. As Tom Joad says in his famous last lines while saying goodbye to his other near the end of the film, "I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."

Please take a few minutes to watch the video below titled 'Let Your Life Be A Friction To Stop the Machine'. It's a powerful, look at the history of the American empire from Class War Films.



Sunshine Came Softly Into My Dumpster Today

Sunshine came softly into my dumpster today, coulda tripped out easier but i've changed my way. [Sorry Donovan].

One California artist is taking the idea dumpster living to a whole new luxury level with his art project. Gregory Kloehn of Berkeley, Calif., is transforming a garbage dumpster into a deluxe home for one, complete with kitchen, washroom and sleeping area for his project, “Elite Waste.” He installed granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors, a gas tank, power bars, lights, a six-gallon water tank, a retractable roof with windows, and TV.

Then there's dumpster diving beyond the Freegan model as a sustainable life style where the concept is to undo your entire carbon footprint through the recycling of other people's former stuff. Treehugger recently ran an article explaining that there are many things in the dumpster that do not deserve to be buried yet. The article said, "You will see some things that do, and some that do not, belong in the dumpster. You can recycle them, repurpose them, make them into art. You can clean them up and use them, donate them or just set them next to the dumpster hoping they are adopted (Catch and Release)."

mr. mud's idea though is not the so much one of the moneyed artistic persuastion or even the moral carbon footprint version, though a bitta comfort both moral and material might tag along from time to time. No, my concept is born outta the mud, outta poverty, pride and homelessness [coming sooner or later to this mudatarian].

Right now my concept includes a bike with a heavy duty rack that could be packed up quickly each morning [after the sunlight came softly into that night's dumpster]. A person, and maybe a small best friend would need a sleeping bag, a blowup mattress, a one burner gas campstove, some candles, a library membership, maybe a pre-paid cell phone to talk to the grandkids and access to a university campus where it's usually fairly easy to use the bathrooms and showers in the gym or pool area. Granted this is an urban-ish concept and mr. mud has been living a rural life for many decades now so the plan might take a bitta tweeking. But there are good people everywhere including near urban dumpsters. Just imagine, every morning new take out pizza and sushi leftovers would be delivered airmail and as Donovan said, 'Superman or Green Latern wouldn't have nothin on me cause during the night i would use a little bucket to pee.'

Anarchy was the Answer in Argentina as it is in Greece and Beyond

Today's research led to a great, mind opening, article at Jay Walljasper's On The Commons.org titled ''Where Is Kropotkin When We Really Need Him?'. In it the reader is reminded of how our 'modern' definition of anarchism has been re-framed into a dark chaotic hell on earth from its actual historic reality. It's a short and impressive piece for its content. For today, though it also can serve an instructional container.

Perhaps the biggest story in the world right now, on so many levels, is the potential Greek default. Like everything, it's a Rorschach test in that what we see through it totally depends on the view of the viewer. Through one worldview Greece's default would be a travesty because it could very well participate a severe recession or even the big D-depression. Either of which would mean austerity for all folks everywhere, but perhaps especially for the consumptive class. Guess like Richard Fariña said in his classic1966 novel 'Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me' the perspective of a person living and dining in a dumpster is far different from that of the person throwing stuff in.

Two other bits on the pending Lazarus like rise of the Greeks, 'Economists Predict 'No Gain, More Pain' for Greece' and the little video: 'The Greek debt crisis: it's, like, totally over' are instructive on the logical level regardless of where you are on the dumpster scale. The fact is, and this portion is trying to appeal to logic, that cooperatives employ more people than multinational companies in the world's economy. The sooner the Greeks return to their roots, our roots, the better.

The ability of a Greek default to send shockwaves of contagion through the gelatinous mass of credit default swapping criminals is in itself enough to bring hope to this ol' bottom feeder. Then add to that its potential to stimulate a new/old re-localized economc solution that will be the model for other countries under the yoke of the banksters and hope rises to jejoicing. That new/old model is very well outlined by the Kropotkin article above, so too are the bright days of anarchy our ancestors enjoyed.

After Watching the Republican Debate Last Night Roseanne Barr Sounds Better Than Ever

The only good thing about the Republican debate last last night in Mesa, Arizona-it was the last one. The 3 'plausible' candidates are either ignorant religious bigots or are pandering to ignorant religious bigots. It would be a waste of time [and a blood pressure raising exercise] to list why their positions are so dangerous, so i won't. Only Ron Paul, the 'inplausible' candidate, is off the Republicn reservation as they say. Paul believes what he says and says what he believes. That in itself is refreshing.

As the monotonous monotone of ignorance wore on Roseanne Barr's statement the other day that, "The 'two part' system is clearly broken. The 1% has two political parties – Democratic and Republican – but the 99% only has one: The Green Party." seemed to ring in my ears. For sure Obama's promises, now and 4 years ago, sound far more enlightened than anything outta the 3 'plausible Republicans. But as we now know Obama's promises are worthless. Many pundits say Obama meant well 4 years ago but when he got into office he realized he couldn't fight for his ideals because the opposition to them was so vast and powerful. To which, mr. mud calls bullshit. Obama is a very well educated guy who was already in the US Senate, he knew what the story is/was but said what he knew would get him the nomination over Hillary whose much longer record made it less possible for her to pander to the yearnings of those with a triple digit IQ. Obama is a politican, he'll say whatever he thinks will get him elected regardless of the consequences.

That's why Roseanne Barr sounds so good, she's not a politician, she speaks the slang of the people, she pulls no punches, she is REAL. Can she win in a contest rigged by the two corporate parties to brook no competition? Of course not. Can she though, because of her celebrity-her common touch-her grasp of the issues and the depth of the world's despair, make the major media arise from its corporate money induced coma for a moment to allow a fresh breeze to blow through the polluted political air? YES SHE CAN.

Please take a minute and check out the Roseanne Barr for President website and read her submission to the Green Party. Her 5 main platform points are below. Roseanne is the only really plausible candidate, and is endorsed by The Mud Report.

1. OBLITERATION OF THE “TWO PARTY” SYSTEM
2. CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE
3. ECONOMIC JUSTICE
4. HEALTH CARE NOT WARFARE
5. LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA

Facebook and Twitter-Good for Social Chatting, Bad for Organizing Resistance

So many topics, so few fingers to type with. The Arizona debates-the Enbridge pipeline-slaughter in Syria-Greek default-the BC budget-nukes in Iran?, just to mane a few. But instead today The Mud Report is going to take on the limits of social media as a platform for organizing effective resistance to the status quo.

There's no doubt that social media has played a huge and vital role in the 'Arab Spring', in OWS's beginings, in Greece's uprising, in Spain, in many others this past couple of years. But as the Commondreams Article about warrentless surveillance points out, as Harper's Bill C-30 shows and as years of experience in Latin America clearly teaches us-the only really safe communications route is small scale face to face contact with trusted companions.

Social media worked well to get the ball rolling because the empire's security apparatus was behind the curve of the new media, this is no longer true. The web is an open pipe in all directions. As groups like Anonymous have shown it can be an effective tool of resistance. But the success of Anonymous, who organizies its attacks behind the scenes, also shows how they've already learned the lesson of the security limits of social media.

Spring will be on us here in the northern hemisphere soon and with it will bloom the next season of protests. mr. mud hopes that this years crop of protests will have evolved new traits in response to last year's conditions and that some of those new traits include new tactics that will have learned, as the flaura and fauna around them do each year, to anticipate the coming climate of increased repression and warrrentless surveillance ahead.

Warrantless Surveillance?: Gov't Subpoenas OWS Activist's Twitter Records - Allowing the government to gets its hands on this data with nothing more than an administrative subpoena renders the Fourth Amendment meaningless. Only with the protection of a search warrant, and the heightened judicial supervision that comes along with it, can the voracious appetite of law enforcement be curbed.

Roseanne Barr and the Rapid Rise of Rick Insanitorum

Rick's rapid rise in the polls is because the anybody but the mudslinger Moneybags Mitt contingent finds him 'likeable'. As Tony Norman's article today says "he's a principled culture warrior  who doesn't believe in evolution, man-made global warming, sex for purposes other than having children, separation of church and state...and that he'd would like to see doctors who perform abortions criminally prosecuted and that war with Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions is in America's best interests."

But is Religiously Rabid Rick really any more of a danger to civilization as we know it than Newt, Mitt or the Obomber? Not in my opinion. They're all tools of the status quo and none of them could or would change anything that their billionaire backers hadn't pre-approved.

Neither the Rebublican or Democratic parties offer any hope of any kind of meaningful change and articles like Tony Norman's that just echo the talking points of the Democrats are part of the problem not part of the solution. The only Ron Paul is offering any new ideas and the venerable Dr. Paul, despite his courageous foreign policy, monetary policy and anti-drugwar positions, basically agrees with so much other ridiculous Rabid Rick type fundamentalist crap that he too is unsupportable in the big picture.

So, as of now The Mud Report is endorsing Roseanne Barr of the Green Party for President of the United States. When Roseanne announced her decision to run she declared that she would not run as a Democrat or a Republican "because they both suck and they're both a bunch of criminals." Roseanne currently leads Moneybags Mitt in national polls and her full policy platform is available online here. Roseanne gave her first campaign speech in Zucotti Park on Sept 17th, 2011, the first day of OWS's historic occupation.

"Only three weeks into my campaign, we are off to a great start. This poll shows the deep dissatisfaction voters have with the two corporate parties of the 1% and the opportunity that the Green Party has to make a real difference for the 99% in this election and elections to come. I am in it to win it and look forward to giving the Democrats and Republicans a run for their corporate money." – Roseanne Barr, Wednesday, February 15th, 2012 

The Myths About Money

Today's reading uncovered an article-'How Greece Could Take Down Wall Street'-that says perfectly what The Mud Report has been stumbling to say recently concerning the themes of the Greek crisis and the Ron Paul revolution. It clearly explains how the $32 trillion market in credit default swaps [CDS] has everyone's economic life tettering on the brink of destruction. The author, Ellen Brown, has a new book out 'The Web of Debt' that has just become #1 on my must get and read list.

Below are a few paragraphs copied from a review, 'Exploding the Myths About Money', on the book's website:

Our money system is not what we have been led to believe. The creation of money has been "privatized," or taken over by private money lenders. Thomas Jefferson called them “bold and bankrupt adventurers just pretending to have money.” Except for coins, all of our money is now created as loans advanced by private banking institutions — including the privately-owned Federal Reserve. Banks create the principal but not the interest to service their loans. To find the interest, new loans must continually be taken out, expanding the money supply, inflating prices — and robbing you of the value of your money.

Not only is virtually the entire money supply created privately by banks, but a mere handful of very big banks is responsible for a massive investment scheme known as "derivatives," which now tallies in at hundreds of trillions of dollars. The banking system has been contrived so that these big banks always get bailed out by the taxpayers from their risky ventures, but the scheme has reached its mathematical limits. There isn't enough money in the entire global economy to bail out the banks from a massive derivatives default today.

Web of Debt unravels the deceptions in our money scheme and presents a crystal clear picture of the financial abyss towards which we are heading. Then it explores a workable alternative, one that was tested in colonial America and is grounded in the best of American economic thought, including the writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. If you care about financial security, your own or the nation's, you should read this book.

How Greece Could Take Down Wall Street - There is one bit of bad behavior that Uncle Sam himself does not have the funds to underwrite: the $32 trillion market in credit default swaps (CDS). Thirty-two trillion dollars is more than twice the U.S. GDP and more than twice the national debt.

Paulistas, Monetary Policy and 'The Golden Rule'

The establishment-GOP and otherwise-and the lamestream media belittle him and call him a threat. So why has Ron Paul been able to build such an impressive organization of enthusiastic supporters, nickamed the Paulistas, young and old? Why does he have such a strong 'ground game' especially in rural areas and college towns? If Ron Paul is a threat, who is he a threat to?

As Ron himself says, "They're right. We are a threat. We're a threat to the status quo" One of Paul's central themes in every speech is US Monetary Policy. The Federal Reserve System is as status quo as they get so in the last few days mr. mud has been trying to wade through the fog of confusing jargon and learn why Dr. Paul is so steadfast in his condemnation of the Fed.

There are plenty of sites devoted to the topic, almost all are written by economists who have been educated by, are employed by, and pay homage to the establishment point of view. The others, the non-conformists, see the system as being designed by the elites, serving the elites and creating monetary slavery for the rest of us. The fog isn't accidental, as Henry Ford once said, “It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

Another policy that seperates Ron Paul from the rest, Republican or Democrate, is foreign affairs. As Ron Paul says, "In many ways America had been 'exceptional' but in an opposite manner from the neo-con driven foreign policy of the last 20 years. If America indeed has something good to offer the cause of peace, prosperity, and liberty it must be spread through persuasion and by example; not by intimidation, bribes and war. The policy of American domination of the world, as nation builder-in-chief and policeman of the world, has failed and must be abandoned – if not as a moral imperative, then certainly out of economic necessity. My [Paul's] humble suggestion is to replace it with a policy of Mutually Assured Respect. This requires no money and no weapons industry, or other special interests demanding huge war profits or other advantages. This requires simply tolerance of others' cultures and their social and religious values, and the giving up of all use of force to occupy or control other countries and their national resources." Paul wants America to follow 'The Golden Rule' and "Treat other nations exactly as we expect others to treat us."

Ron Paul says, "The war on drugs is a failure and an expensive one at that. It's another elite power play. The elite like their welfare/warfare state."

The more a person looks into Ron Paul's positions on the most important issues of our day the easier it is to see why so many bright eyed young men and women are part of his poorly funded but steadily growing ground game, why he's called the Peace Candidate' and why he is indeed a threat to the status quo.

We Are All Greeks Now

Various groups are participating in an international day of solidarity with the Greek people today [Feb. 18th]. The show of solidarity is in response to the "dictatorship of the financial markets and the troika: EU, ECB and IMF, who have imposed austerity measures and a non-elected government on the Greek people." Demonstrations are planned throughout Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States, Sweden, and more. - Common Dreams

The brave people of Greece are standing up to the forces of facism for us all as they did before. ...Ask those who were cowering from the pounding of Luftwaffe in the tube stations of London, during the long winter of 1940, and they will tell you that the only pieces of good news they were getting for months, were coming from the Greek mountains...- The Gaurdian

The Mud Report has spoken loud and clear about the growing consciousness of the worldwide class struggle we are all increasingly immersed in. As Bruce Springsteen says in his newest alblum, "The banker man grows fat / The working man grows thin / It's all happened before and it will happen again."



When did BC sustainably manage its forests?

Below is a copy of my comment today at The Tyee to their article BC Government Killing Forest Industry: Auditor General - Scathing report says failure to replant enough trees puts future harvests at risk

When did BC sustainably manage its forests?

Certainly never in the 43 years i've lived here. If we denounce Alberta as a petro-state we must accept that BC is lumber baron-state. every government be it Social Credit, NDP or Liberal has been under the financial influence of the timber barons and the forestry unions. Remember that the largest mass arrest of protestors was in Clayquot Sound when the NDP was under pressure from its IWA backers.

None of this though speaks to question of what are sustainable forestry practices. Certainly some practices are more or less destructive but none of them, including replanting even in the best cases, is really a sustainable method. Replanted clearcuts are really an attempt to turn a diverse forest into a monocultured farm.

A natural forest, like the one europeans found here when they arrived, is mixed and successive. One type of species preceeds the next giving its unique type of self as food for the species it coexists with and to those that replace it. Every forest at every stage in its evolution is the habitat for millions of lifeforms from tiny bacteria to giant evergreens. A forest is sustainable, an herbicide managed monoculture, no matter how well intended, is not.

Like Edward Abbey said decades go,"In clear cutting you clear away the natural forest, or what the industrial forester calls 'weed trees', and plant all one species of tree in neat straight functional rows like corn, sorghum, sugar beets or any other practical farm crop. Then you dump on chemical fertilizers to replace the washed away humas, inject the seedlings with growth forcing hormones, surround your plot with deer repellents and raise a uniform crop of trees all identical. When the trees reach a certain prespecified height [not maturity; that would take too long] you send in a fleet of tree harvesting machines and cut the fuckers down. All of them. Then burn the slash, and harrow, seed, and fertilize all over again. Round and round and round again, faster and faster and tighter and tighter until, like the fabled Malaysian Concentric Bird which flies in ever-smaller circles, you disappear up your own asshole".

Drummond Was Forbidden From Recommending Any Tax Increases in Ontario Report

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty got the desired results in the report on fixing the province's projected budget deficit from former TD economist Don Drummond by forbidding any recommendation of tax increases. "Absolutely the balancing of this province's books is a priority. It's something that is extremely important. But recklessly scrapping programs that people rely on while at the same time handing tax cuts to Ontario's richest corporations is simply wrong-headed and it just doesn't make any sense." said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath adding a more “balanced approach” is required.

McGuinty [who's brain capacity is being described by Drummond in the picture above] and his 'Liberal' government aren't interested in social justice, they're into the neo-liberal agenda of austerity for the poor, tax cuts for the rich approach. "Bigger class sizes, higher utility bills, and fewer hospitals are among the bitter pills deficit-ridden Ontario must swallow to avoid the same fate as debt-plagued Greece", economist Don Drummond warned Wednesday.

Greece, of course, is being used by the neo-liberal economist as a boogey-man, but it's also an excellant example of how wrong headed this approach is. Greece's economy is in a tailspin exactly because of the austerity measures being imposed on it by neo-liberal tunnel vision. For sure there are ways that health care could be more efficiently delivered in Ontario, same for other programs, but cuttng good paying jobs, taxpaying jobs, home buying-car buying-stuff buying jobs only reduces government tax revenues and bankrupts small businesses which then further reduces government revenues. It's the downward Greek spiral. It's not the solution, it's part of the problem.

The other part of the problem and the obvious solution in Greece and Ontario is to increase taxes on the wealthy. McGuinty refuses to even consider raising taxes on those that pay for his party's election campaigns and advertising knowing it could cause him to have to go get a real job. Ontario should start by raising taxes on luxury goods, then individual incomes over $100,000-especially those of windbag economists, then bank profits-which are soaring, then a sur-tax on bankers and the financial service sector-bloodsuckers all who add nothing to Ontario's production but live off its capacity, then add in a Robin Hood tax on ' market' speculator transactions, then chase down and confiscate every dollar their benefactors have squirreled away in the Caymen Islands, Bermuda and Switzerland, then...But long before then, in this world where the rich rule and the poor drool, McGuinty would be working at Starbucks and some other neo-liberal pawn would be dancing to the bankster's beat eh.

The EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF Now Demand the End of Democracy in Greece

Today the heads of Greece’s two biggest political parties, New Democracy’s Antonis Samaras and Pasok’s George Papandreou, will meet a second demand by supplying written pledges to enact the cuts, no matter who takes power in elections in coming months, a government official in Athens said. If this actually happens it means the end of the world's oldest democracy-Greece.

During this morning's research of this distressing turn of events i read the article Greece: Your Money or Your Life. It is a must read. It sums up exactly what i'd love to be able to say, only far more eloquently. One excellent quote: "Americans [to which i'd add Canadians too] should be paying close attention to events in Greece. They are omens showing people around the world what lies in store for them when thieves in high places get their way." says volumes.

Another backgrounder is reading the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to the Greek parliament which is the terms of the new loan agreement being forced upon Greece by the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. It's chilling to realize that the banksters believe the people of Greece will so easily give up the freedoms their ancestors have so long fought for.

Finally, here's a link the some great pictures taken at the protests a couple of days ago. This May Day the city of Chicago may look very similiar when a big protest is being called for by Adbusters and planned by Occupy Wall Street when the G8 and NATO will hold a rare simultaneous summit in there.

Greece: Your Money or Your Life - The Greeks are ahead of the curve. At least they stood up and protested. Hopefully more people around the world will be like them instead of like passive Americans. Hopefully Americans will stop being passive before they end up like people in Greece.

"Stand With Us Or With The Child Pornographers" says Canada's Harper Government

First off, i'm a father and a grandfather who loves his kids and grandkids, who's never gone to a porn site-let alone a child porn site-in his life. i totally reject the statement that because i disagree with Harper's latest fascist policy to destroy my civil liberties that i in any way am siding with child pornographers. Authoritarians like Harper and his mouthpeice Vic Toews always hide behind the boogey-man of fear when they want to silence any opposition to their bullshit.

Toews statement in the Canadian Parliment yesterday echoed G.W. Bush's "You're either with us or with the terrorists" fear mongering in his State of the Union Address after 9/11. In both cases they're objective was to silence any opposition with fear. Harper, like so many fascists before him, says "if you're not a criminal you have nothing to worry about". Then again, who defines criminal? Are those who conspire to oppose the Northern Gateway Project criminals? Are those who march in defiance of government restrictions criminals? Are those who write blogs critical of Harpo and his gang of fundamentialist thugs criminals?

The list of who the authoritarians consider a criminal could be very long, no wonder Harpo is going to spend billion$ building new prisons despite the downward trend of violent crimes in Canada. Could be they're gonna need lottsa prison space 'cause soon prison may be the only moral place to be.

Online surveillance critics accused of supporting child porn  - Critics of a bill that would give law enforcement new powers to access Canadians' electronic communications are aligning themselves with child pornographers, Canada's public safety minister says.

Fascism in America - "Fascism is on the march today in America. Millionaires are marching to the tune. It will come in this country unless a strong defense is set up by all liberal and progressive forces... A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government, and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. Aboard ship a prominent executive of one of America's largest financial corporations told me point blank that if the progressive trend of the Roosevelt administration continued, he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism to America." - former U.S. ambassador to Germany William Dodd in 1938


You Either ‘Stand With Us Or With The Child Pornographers’ - This dividing comment of “you stand with us or with the pedophiles” should be pointed right back at the Harper government. Since under bill C-10 the safe streets and communities act, Marijuana growers can receive more jail time than child rapists.

Hey America...Pluck Yew!

Apparently M.I.A.'s risque gesture first appeared in 419BC when the playwright Aristophanes puns in his comedy 'The Clouds' about dactylic (finger) rhythm, with a character gesturing first with his middle finger. The Romans had their own name for it: digitus impudicus. And in 4th Century BC Athens the philosopher Diogenes told a group of visitors exactly what he thought about the orator Demosthenes by 'flipping the bird'.

My favorite story about giving the finger happened at the Wild Animal Park near Escondido, Calif. My daughter and i were riding the train around the grounds when the PA announcer warned everyone as we approached the chimp compound not to return the chimp's phallic salute as they were trying to un-train the chimps from its use.

Apparently it started when train riders started gaving the chimps the finger. The chimps musta felt the power of the gesture as they began returning it. At the time of our visit almost every chimp stopped what he/she was doing and turned towards the approaching train and gave the perfect salute to their enslavers. They held to the gesture until all the cars had passed then returned to eating or whatever different thing each was doing before the train's approach.

We went there two days in a row and rode the train each day in part becuse i wanted to see the chimps do it again. Sure enough most of them stopped and gave everybody the finger. It's hard to tell if it was the camera clicking and laughter that re-enforced the behavior or not, but of course i explained to my daughter that it was a sign of their intelligence and ability to non-verbally communicate to us, in a manner we could understand, their truei nner feelings. It was a great learning experience for us both.

M.I.A., real name Maya Arulpragasam, been praised and ridiculed for supporting the Tamii Tigers, a separatist movement that stands in violent opposition to the government of Sri Lanka. Born to Tamil parents, M.I.A. believes the Sri Lankian government to be guilty of genocide. The Tamil cause is barely understood and seldom mentioned by the American media. M.I.A.'s "fuck you” to America once again has the media missing the message. Instead of questioning the reasons behind Maya's support for groups considered by some to be terrorists the media is talking about a middle finger gesture. To bad Maya apologized.

Ya Basta!-Enough is Enough-Say the Greeks in the Streets

"Enough is enough!" said 89-year-old Manolis Glezos, one of Greece's most famous leftists. "They have no idea what an uprising by the Greek people means. And the Greek people, regardless of ideology, have risen." Glezos is a national hero for sneaking up the Acropolis at night in 1941 and tearing down a Nazi flag from under the noses of the German occupiers, raising the morale of Athens residents.

A petrol bomb explodes in front of the Greek parliament in Athens' Syntagma (Constitution) square [picture above]. Inside the parliment Socialist lawmaker Sofia Yiannaka, when introducing the legislation to designed comply with the most recent EU and IMF austerity demands Sunday, said, "We used to say 'poor state, but rich citizens' because we tolerated tax evasion for populist reasons. Is this the country we want?" Greeks in the streets, not the sons and daughters of the rich and entitled, answered "Yes! This newly risen Greece is the one that we want."

The Greek parliment, like all those in modern western democracies, is mostly made up of the privileged minority-the 1%. Of course they'll vote to accept whatever their fellow bankers, investors and ruling class members demand. The people in the streets know full well that this isn't the end of the demands. This set of demands, this set of cutbacks, are just another step in an endless series that will eventually grind working class Greeks into servitude if allowed to by Greece's ruling class.

It's the same situation in the lamestream media who's nearly unanimous spin of this story reflects their corporate ownership and their advertiser's interests not those of the population in general-the 99%. The outcome of the vote today in Greece matters not a bit. In the long run Greece will either quit or be kicked out of the Eurozone. In the longer run Greece will rise again from the fascist's current attempt to subjagate them just as they did back when Manolis Glezos tore down the Nazi flag a generation ago. Sooner or later Italy will follow Greece's example, so will Spain, Portugal, Ireland...hopefully we all won't have to throw firebombs, hopefully this generation's globalized fascists will fold their tents and quit. But don't count on it, the privileged and powerful never have voluntarily given up their entitlements before, the odds are they won't in this generation's struggle either.

Greek Default-Bad for Bankers, Good for Greeks

Most economists, those who aren't mouthpieces of the bankster mafia, say that when Greece eventually defaults and leaves the eurozone, its new drachma currency would dive in value and allow the Greek economy to become internationally competitive. Exactly the same scenerio played out ten years ago in Argentina. The IMF screamed bloody murder and warned the world of impending doom if Argentina defaulted on the debt lent to successive military juntas to buy weapons and line their pockets. Instead Argentina's industry was able to export its goods in devalued dollars, tourism cost half what it had before and now Argentina is booming.

Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein is an excellant primer on what is happening in Greece and shows how the IMF has spent decades marching around the globe impoverishing country after country, forcing the sale of natural resources and other commonly held assets to multi-national 'private' interests in their role as a hedgemonic tool of American and other western capitialist corporate owned regimes.

Greece's debts were not brought on by overspending on social programs-as the financial markets keep bellowing-but by the spending forced on them by the EU's arm's dealers-especially the German arm's dealers-when Greece panicked in response to the paranoid security fears of America after 9/11 during the lead up to the 2002 Olympics and by profit hungry bankers who now demand that the poor in Greece cover their bad bets. The exorbitant interest on Greek bonds appeared to offer a free lunch to the bankster mafia. Because of the bond insurance scheme it seemed they'd win no matter what happened to Greece. But there is no free lunch. As we've seen in the other derivative schemes the insurers can't pay so either both the insurers and the bondholders lose or the poor are forced to bail them out. It's all just carnival capitialism.

Substitute the word Greece for Argentina and you'd have a nearly perfect account of the present crisis. As in Karl Marx's famous dictum 'history always repeats itself, once as tragedy, second as farce'. The de facto imposition of a technocratic prime minister and what is essentially a demand that the Greeks suspend democracy will end as it did in Argentina who's long march back to economic salvation only began after President Fernando de la Rúa had to be helicoptered out of office with the rioters at his door. The people in the streets of Greece aren't fooled, they know Marx was right, they know who has the real power and they know better times lie ahead once the banksters get the boot..