Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America

Profuse apologies for the two-week gap in posts here at Jefferson Weeps - I imagine that my unindicted co-conspirator RoadPoet-NY was waiting for your humble host to actually post something for a change, yet I so hate bumping his creations further down the page...

Anyhow...

This evening's bee in the proverbial bonnet combines two favorite topics for discussion around here... America's steady march toward fascism contrasted with the potential saving grace of the Dennis Kucinich presidential campaign.

Over at NewsTarget.com, they have a major article bearing the same name as this blog post - Senate Bill 1959 to Criminalize Thoughts, Blogs, Books and Free Speech Across America - which you should definitely take a moment (or two) to read at http://www.newstarget.com/022308.html. This bill poses a direct threat to our civil liberties and rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution - in other words, a topic that should be of grave concern to all Americans.

Contributor Mike Adams does an excellent job of explaining the provisions of the bill, and why it should matter to your ordinary citizens - plus, he includes a frightening look at the "Ten Steps to Fascism" as explained by author Naomi Wolf in a lecture available on YouTube as well as in her book, The End of America - Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot."

So far, so good... right? A very important article containing very important information and additional reference materials with which to pry open the eyes of the teeming masses, so that they might awaken to the abominations taking place directly under our noses and begin fulfilling their obligations as responsible citizens as opposed to the media-driven role of sheep-like consumers.

Well... It seems that Mr. Adams has been afflicted with a particular type of convenient factual blindness that is endemic amongst the fervent supporters of Republican Texas Representative, Dr. Ron Paul, which leads the supporters to loudly proclaim that the honorable doctor is the one-and-only staunch defender of the U.S. Constitution.

Now, it is completely understandable that in this day and age - where the convenient illusion of a two-party system serves to hide the reality of one single war-party, whose members are bought-and-sold by moneyed interests and beholden to big business, certain foreign governments, and the military-industrial complex - regardless of the letter appearing after their names - it is completely understandable that one might lose sight of the few rare individuals who take their solemn oath to defend the Constitution very seriously. However, is it unreasonable to expect a little homework from members of the Fighting 101st Keyboard Corps, these pontificating pundits, before the bloviating begins in earnest? We here at Jefferson Weeps think not...

It is with this responsibility in mind, to present *all* the facts, not just the "cherry-picked" variety so valued by the current regime in Washington and so eagerly regurgitated by the so-called "mainstream media," that the following letter was written. You see, there is at least one *other* staunch defender of the Constitution currently running for the highest office in the land, and his name is Dennis J. Kucinich. With any luck, Mr. Adams now knows this as well. The text of the letter follows:

Bravo on the article and the link to Naomi's 10 Steps... however, I must call you out on the carpet for an out-and-out falsehood in your article.

When you wrote, "...In terms of the upcoming election for U.S. President, there is only one candidate that actually believes in freedom: Ron Paul. He needs your support to win: www.RonPaul2008.com ...All the other candidates are nothing more than tyrants of different political affiliations. Ron Paul is the only candidate that truly understands the fundamentals of freedom." you did your readers a MAJOR disservice...

Ron Paul is NOT the only candidate whom actually believes in Freedom... there is one other, and he has been fighting just as long and just as hard to defend our Constitution. His name is Dennis J. Kucinich, the Democratic Representative from Ohio, and excluding Congressman Kucinich from your article makes you guilty of the same tactics that others use to marginalize the campaign of Dr. Paul

I admire Dr. Paul greatly, and believe that his campaign is doing wonders for our political process - however, Congressman Kucinich deserves the same attention and respect - so perhaps the rhetoric could be scaled back a wee bit, eh?

Meanwhile, thanks for your time, your articles, and for alerting the public to this grave danger to our Republic!

In closing, Mike Adams deserves great praise for his attempts to shed some light on Senate Bill 1959, and anyone who reads this article owes it to themselves, their families, and their country to spread the word far and wide in order to defeat this appalling piece of legislation - just do yourselves another favor while you're at it... Remember Dennis Kucinich, and don't let the media pick your candidates!

Torture...

...and why it only works on (and for) fools.

Ok, it comes down thus…

Big Bad Terrorist (BBT) is captured, questioned at length and threatened with waterboarding and/or other torture. BBT has trained against such tactics, knowing full well that such would be his fate if captured, so he tells the powers that be to pound sand.

The captors think that he know something… anything…specifics are irrelevant or worse, inconsequential.

They torture at length, and…

Lo, what words, through yonder lips do break?

He sputters, coughs and finally lets slip the fact that there’s a cell in LA planning to blow up Ahhnold and, with any skill, thousands of civilians, at some major sporting event. He provides a salient name. A location or two. The Feds go wild… LA is locked down and indeed three men are bagged with a truckload of ammonium nitrate and appropriate hardware. Trial is scheduled for August.

Big win… until the next day, when Manhattan, Boise or Houston is incinerated by the main bomb the main cell installed while BBT was bullshitting the bullshitters.

If terrorists (or anybody else) can find volunteers to die on multiple airplanes, they can certainly find volunteers to create multiple bomb plots. No cell members will need to know that under torture, leaders will ‘cave’ with one set of names to preserve the main objective.

Its called misdirection, and as Penn & Teller regularly demonstrate, it ain’t rocket science. Sad to say, it would make ‘saving’ LA quite the Phyrric victory.

OTOH, it’ll turn the vast majority of Americans into the same raving holy warriors they supposedly tortured people to stop. Exactly the lose/lose scenario desired by extremists.

Are they really that smart? Yes.
Are we really that dumb? Jury's still out.

Math and Loathing in America...

Your math, my loathing...

[WARNING: This post ends with an obscene, if justifiable, gesture.]

What do you worry about? Drunk Drivers? The house catching on fire? Colds and Flu in the fall? The kids being abducted?

Terrorists?

Well, here are some statistical tidbits, based on the latest stats I could find for the United States…

17,602 people killed by drunk drivers. That’s about 48 people every day.

725,000 children reported missing – about 2,000 every day. So, it would appear that having a child abducted would be forty times more likely than being involved in the above drunk driving accident.

406,500 house fires, resulting in 3,390 deaths. Just short of ten a day.

25 – 50 million cases of flu each year, 30-40 thousand deaths. For argument’s sake let’s call it 137,000 sickened and a hundred dead every day.

Suicide bombings? Just about one per day, based on the 3,000 Americans killed in the six-plus years since the bombing.

The art and science of deciding what is or is not a reasonable worry is called Risk Assessment, a skill which Americans notoriously lack. We jump at shadows, fearing whatever the nightly news succeeds in tossing out as ‘dangerous’, while refusing to heed warnings that make perfect sense about things that really might kill us.

According to the above figures, your chance of being killed by a drunk driver is some forty-eight times higher than the chance of being killed by terrorist attack. Probably less if you don’t live in a major population center. Yet the President hasn’t authorized sweeping wiretaps on the telephones of repeated drunk driving offenders. Congress hasn’t passed legislation incarcerating anyone who does bodily harm while driving under the influence without trial or counsel.

We are willing, if not eager, to cancel the Bill of Rights and put an end to freedoms that have stood since the Magna Charta because we fear terrorists. These putzes in bomb-belts get far more attention than they deserve, as we look warily over our shoulders and build fruit-picker-proof walls across the southern border.

Funny thing is, these mad bombers have an undisputed one-hundred-percent failure rate. Terrorists have not now, nor ever, been able to convince any government anywhere to give them what they wanted by blowing up cars, buildings, people or things.

America is being guided by a tunnel-visioned fear of some generic ‘terrorist’ attack. We are swayed by unproven and unprovable allegations of plots thwarted. Riled up by pundits who, in the name of national security, rain the nastiest of epithets down anyone who questions this lemming march toward the cliff of repression.

The United States of Afraidia is brought to you NOT by nineteen clever low-tech fanatics. It was built brick by speech in Washington and in New York City. Through histrionics and hyperbole. The numbers don't back it up this level of fear... nothing does.

I say "Kiss my pasty white butt!" to the terrorists. I say "Bite me!" to political murderer and religious fanatics.

But I save the "F" bomb for the pathetic, terrified, lying cowards who want to cancel the Bill of Rights because they can't count.

To legislators, pundits and racist-jerkwads I say "Fuck You."

...And the Constitution says "Right-on, Bro."

May I quote you?

I am a regular reader of, and responder to, the wide range of views found on the blog Obsidian Wings.

As a proponent of civil discourse, played out over enough time to really delve into the whos, whats and wherefores, I find OW a thoughtful and balanced place - there is neither party line, nor a rush to remove every thought with which one (or the original poster) might disagree. I hope we can provide such an environment hereabouts.

I bring this up because there are times when I read a comment that, IMHO, beautifully expresses a view on some issue that I care about.

The issue in question is the balance between the 'better angels' of various world religions - that is to say the positive, uplifting, supportive things that are encouraged by a belief in a higher power, and the darkest, angriest, "kill-them-all" dogma that is usually used to exemplify why religion is not merely the opium of the people, but also the psychotic break of choice for serial killers with delusions of grandeur.

I herewith quote one Phil Roberts (with his permission, of course):

Admittedly I don't understand the Koran as much as I understand Christianity, but my pretty in-depth knowledge of Christian scriptures has given me a fairly good appreciation of how absolutely batpoop insane genocidal ramblings mixed with weird poetry can inspire religions as disparate as that practiced by St Augustus, noted Anti Semite Martin Luther, Fred Phelps, Fred Clarke, and my granddad. You've got to give me some pretty compelling evidence that the Koran is more batpoop insane or genocidal than the Bible, and even more compelling evidence that, even if it were, this would somehow mean Muslims didn't just use the bits of the book they liked as post hoc justifications and enforcement mechanisms for their particular social morality just like every other religious practitioner in history.

It's not that I'm saying Islam is a wonderful thing that we should all take twice a day in easy to swallow capsule form, it just annoys the crap out of me when people try and insist that our brand of tedious, delusional superstition is SOO MUCH BETTER than the superstitions of other cultures. If you want to play a game of "who can find the most hideous thing people did in scripture" I'm up for it, but really we're probably better off not arguing about whose religion makes them irreconcilably inhuman and rather assuming that religious intolerance and fundamentalism is a problem to be overcome, regardless of the supposed scriptural origins.

It is astonishingly easy to engage in whatever the religious version of nationalism is. Whatever I believe is correct and comes from the right God, for the right reasons and brings light and good to the world - whereas whatever YOU believe is based on ca-ca and provided by the devil.

Sounds just a tad unbalanced, no?

Whatever religious pretensions our founders held, they certainly didn't want us to devolve into a theocratic monarchy, ready to kill anyone who looks, sounds or acts differently.

Thanks, Phil.

The Seven Commandments...

Of Blogging...*

A lengthy browse of the verbal expectorations know as Internet Blogs reveals that the multiverse of computer-savvy (or at least keyboard-capable) humans, is simply replete with…Nothing.

The world of blogs – if random clickage on ‘Blogger’ is any evidence – is populated with the most mindless, self-centered, boring yutzes since God decided that it was his/her universe and we were just visitors in it.

So the time has come for a set of commandments. The Seven (so far) Commandments for Bloggers. Unfortunately, as I do not have the alleged powers of the alleged almighty, this list will have to be accepted as an advisory, and my recommended response to infractions against this list (drawing and quartering, followed by incineration and use of the ashes as fertilizer) will go, sadly, unenforced…

1) The word ‘My’ SHALL NOT appear in blog titles and/or subtitles.

We know it’s yours, genius. There has never been a immaculately conceived blog. They are writ by humans (or guys like Ann Coulter) and if this is the extent of your ability to present yourself, you might want to go back to composing grocery lists and greeting cards.

2) The word ‘Blog’ SHALL NOT appear in the title unless said blog is a parody.

Think parody movie titles… like Scary Movie or Kentucky Fried Movie… As with the first commandment. As above, we already know it’s a blog, too. Sheesh.

3) We will NOT be having this whine with dinner.

The litany of misery and suffering you have experienced is yours to carry for the duration. Deal. There are bartenders and friends who will gladly share said suffering, and therapists who will gladly decrease the size of your wallet while responding pretty much like bartenders and/or friends. Thus, unless you are paying me, I do not give a tinker’s damn who took your candy when you were a child.

4) Pictures of babies or pets are a sure cure for being read.

Whoever made the leap from blogging as a way to communicate to blogging as a replacement for vacation-picture-torture or child/grandchild gloat-overing was a terrorist of a magnitude that leaves groups like Al Queida, Hamas or Jehovah’s Witnesses green with envy. The internet, that bastion of freedom and truth, is mired in prattle about how cutesy wiw bay-bees look on the way to Wal-Mart with mommy… or the nanny… or funny Uncle Mervyn. New ways to toilet train are things to discuss in an goddamn email, please.

5) Just say no to exotic background art and zero contrast type.

The definition of communication is simple: Message sent… same message received. If your page looks like Ralph Steadman designed it, it may get a "first in show" from the local Art forum, but ain’t nobody going to hurt theyself trying to decipher your brand of hieroglyphics… same-same for silver-type-on-gray-backgrounds… If your page isn’t easy to read it won’t get read at all. Why would a total stranger work that hard for your thoughts when thoughts on the web are retailing for .0000000000000000001 cents a pound?

6) If you allow comments, some perfectly reasonable people will disagree with you. Unless those disagreements are provably dishonest, obscene, or exceedingly uncivil, you don’t delete their account.

Blogs are opinions and everybody has one – the marketplace of ideas is NOT consistent with “if you wanna talk, get yer own blog.” Allowing for comments is a tacit acceptance of the possibility that you’ll learn something from others. If you cancel every though that isn’t yours, you may revel in the gloriously unanimous accolades of those who agree, but you won’t be engaged in Democracy nor will you be the one who collects enough divergent viewpoints to synthesize an original opinion. Any parrot can repeat what they heard, just listen to the Political Sci Fi Channel (Fox News).

7) On the other hand…

Dogma, jingoism and irrational nonsense, as well as circular logic (“I believe in the Bible because the Bible tells me to.”) is just cause for redirecting your energies toward some useful form of therapy. Or an increase in the quality and quantity of your meds. It is not a reason for your comments to be tolerated by fully functional industrial hominids. Write in your journal and leave bandwidth for those who are not wearing tin-foil hats, looking under the bed for aliens, or commenting on the Faux News.

* = Subject to addition of commandments at whim.

Confession is Good for the Soul

...It’s also a REAL Patriot Act

I stand before you this day to declare that I, your obedient servant, to confess that I could be in violation of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. That’s the part of the Patriot Act that allows the President to arbitrarily declare that someone… anyone… is an enemy combatant and than take them into custody. As in no lawyer, no notifying next-of-kin… no nothing. You are just gone.

Taken into custody. Just like the Nazis. Just like the Commies.

We’re half way around the world, bombing people who have done nothing to us. (If we really attacked people because of 9/11, we’d have bombed the crap outta Saudi Arabia) This administration seeks to influence policies and elections in other countries, and threatens intervention if they do not toe our political line.

Isn’t that what we fought against during the cold war? Didn’t we stand against the Communists to keep them from venturing into other countries? I am way past offended that this administration sees their job as remaking the United States of America in the image of the late UNlamented Soviet Union. Democracy at gunpoint… if that isn’t an oxymoron, then President Bush can pronounce ‘nuclear’.

Keeping quiet simply isn’t an option anymore.

I cannot and will not be silenced by toadies like Dick Cheney, who has never risked his overweight, coronary-prone backside for his country, but presumes to tell ‘the faithful’ that he knows what will make us victorious in war. What he ‘knows’ is how to profit from corporate involvement in war, and how to make a few bucks for his friends in the bargain.

I shan’t be deterred by the religious right, put off by the neocondescending disinformation machine, or undermined by the unfair, unbalanced, untrue and unprincipled Fox News Network (The Political Sci Fi Channel).

I will not be haunted the Coultergeist, shadowed by the government, governed by the incompetent or overruled by the supposed rulers of what was, until the laughably misnamed “Patriot Act”, a country both democratic and free.

Calling this law wrong is the understatement of the century. I am, as all Americans should be, ashamed for my nation and for the Great American Experiment, whose demise this law may very well portend.

Why is it that when half the world was under the control of the Nazis, we didn’t need to curtail freedoms as much as our government says we need to now, to fight a ragged band of outlaws? If we sell out our freedom and our liberty in an alleged ‘war on terror’, there will be nothing left to defend.

With that, a final word…

I have a house that’s paid for, a really cool motorcycle and a life I like…… if I disappear, I sure as hell didn’t run away and not tell anybody.

Kucinich to force vote on Cheney Impeachment

According to an article in RawStory, United States Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio announced he would move to force a vote next week on his resolution calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. This news comes just days after Rep. Kucinich questioned the state of President Bush's mental health in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board discussing the [P]Resident's comments about a nuclear Iran precipitating World War III.

Seems that on most days, Rep. Kucinich is the only person in Washington to grasp the reality that the Emporer hasn't a stitch to wear...

Having been a staunch defender of the Constitution and ever-vigilant caretaker of the Republic for many years now, Dennis is finally riding an overdue wave of popularity in numerous high profile polls, despite the mainstream media's attempts to marginalize him and his presidential candidacy. (God forbid we have a candidate who wasn't hand-picked by the powers-that-be, or even more hideously, actually has the gall to speak the truth!)

The heavily-trafficked Democracy for America (DFA) Pulse Poll has Kucinich leading with more than 24% of the vote as of noon on October 30th. In the largest Democratic straw poll in California, Kucinich's 24% finished a strong second to John Edwards 29%. According to last week’s Rasmussen Report, Kucinich is tied for fourth place in New Hampshire polls at 7%, only seven points behind John Edwards and in a Zogby America poll earlier this month, Kucinich was fourth, six points behind Edwards, and ahead of Bill Richardson.

Learn more about Dennis Kucinich and his 2008 presidential campaign at: www.dennis4president.com

Time to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to our second month of existence here at Jefferson Weeps... We are looking to ramp up and start providing some meaningful content on a more-or-less regular basis, so it is with great pride that we announce the arrival of the newest member of the Jefferson Weeps team, RoadPoet-NY himself, J. Barrett Wolf! Barrett (or "Bear," as some are known to call him) will bring knowledge, wit, a flair for language, and some views that are bound to be very different than those expressed by your humble host - which should make for a good time to be had by all! (Well, maybe not for those liberty-hating neo-con weasels, or those who wallow in ignorance and abject stupidity.... but just about everybody else should manage to find something suitable to their tastes....) Anyway... Onward and Upward!!!