Donkeyphant Vol. 6

My fellow Americans, I realize that most of you are too busy. I realize that most of you are too uneducated. I realize that most of you are too poor. That is why you must know the truth.

The facts of history are there for those who will listen. The US government has interfered with sovereign nations throughout its brief existence. In the beginning, it was the Cheyenne, the Apache, the Cherokee. More recently, the US has extended its interests to El Salvador, Argentina, Nicaragua, Cuba, Iraq. The US doesn't call it as such, but it has supported and carried out unspeakable acts of terror upon the innocent civilians of these and many other nations, including those within its own borders.

The facts are there. It's your job as a voting member of a democratic republic to find them. Read Howard Zinn. Read Noam Chomsky. Read Z Magazine. You will not find these voices on the television and cable stations that are owned and operated by the world's elite. Do you think General Electric, Westinghouse, or Walt Disneycorp would benefit from telling you the facts? All they're interested in is advertising revenue.

Unfortunately, the world's richest and most powerful are in pursuit of a more sinister agenda. This agenda includes the continued pillaging of the planet's natural resources for the benefit of a few. This agenda includes the forced slavery of most of the world's population under low-wage labor.

For those who read history, for those who know history, this is really nothing new. The only thing that would surprise them is the lack of such an agenda.

The truth shall set you free. Seek it. Strive for it. And, most importantly, share it.

An American Flag on an SUV

As the Northern "Alliance's" band of marauders advance upon Kabul and beyond, I must make but one observation. A mini-flag flying on an SUV somewhere in America basically says it all: "I know I'm part of the problem and I simply don't care."

The US has no energy policy. Murdering Arabs and enslaving them under the thumb of a small ruling class of puppet despots is not an energy policy. It makes perfect sense to me why the Ford family has taken control of Ford Motor Co.: after a century of sabotaging alternative energy innovation, they must continue to support their oil brethren: ExMobil, Shell, the Bushes, etc.. No matter how unpopular that may become. Alternative energy will continue to bear the brunt of a massive propaganda campaign. We won't see the end of the oil monopoly in our lifetimes.

Those in power are so good at blaming the Middle East's plight on their religion. The truth is that the Middle East's situation is a direct result of US intervention over a period of 100 years, the objective of which is to ensure a supply of oil to Americans so that Ford, GM, Chrysler, and their bought-off politicians and lawyers can rake in the profits. Furthermore, the US government actively undermined public and rail transit in the 30s, 40s, and 50s, to the same end. The auto industry, politicians, and municipalities conspired in a "massive coordinated attack" to ensure that transportation would be a major piece of every American's budget. Which is precisely opposite to Henry Ford's original vision, that is, until he realized the potential wealth of his burgeoning industry.

Today's images on CNN are at the fluttering end of a tragic causality chain that began with with Henry Ford firing up the gasoline engine on his first model A.

Not Quick to Be Proud

The US continues to fight the Taliban along the front lines of the Northern Alliance. The corporate media is unwavering in their support of the rag-tag group of anti-Taliban fighters.

Who's to say that the Northern "Alliance" is any better than the Taliban? From what I've heard, they're worse. Before the Taliban took power, Afghan women were raped and murdered in far greater numbers.

I'm not saying the Taliban should stay in power. My question is: who's going to take their place? Will the US scurry away like cockroaches once their mission has been accomplished like they always do?

The propaganda campaign goes on. As usual, the US government and its people have no real concern for societies beyond the 50 states. And as usual, innocent people continue to starve and be blown to bits.

The Irony, Hypocrisy, and Prophesy of the Sept 11th Fund

The victims of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon leave behind some six thousand families that are far better off than billions of families across the globe, including those in the US.

If only Americans cared just a fraction about Arab children who must beg for their next meal.

If only US tax dollars aided the impoverished citizens of puppet governments. Instead that money goes to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which keep the Third World in a constant choke-hold of debt.

Yes, do give to the American Red Cross and other charities from which Americans directly benefit.

But why not spread the wealth to those outside America's borders who desperately deserve a chance for a better life.

If Americans don't start actively contributing to the betterment of all human life on this planet, there will be a fund named for every day of the year.

Once Again, America's Fighting the Wrong War

So Bush Jr. tells the Taliban that if they relinquish bin Laden, the US will fly back to its roost.

All those weapons, all that killing, all that money, for nothing. So they can put one man on trial. How is that going to stop terrorism?

Even if the US apprehended bin Laden, would the Afghan people rejoice? Of course not. Their suffering at the hands of religious fundamentalists will continue. Hatred for Americans will only increase. The terrorists' torch will be passed from one hand to the other.

There were plenty of warnings that the Taliban were evil. Before 1996. The corporate media could only talk about crazy Arabs blowing up ancient Buddhist statues. Nothing about killing dissidents. Nothing about forcing women into slavery. Nothing about mandatory prayer in schools and everywhere else.

America only gives lip service to lofty topics such as liberty and human rights. What they're really after is "free trade," the code for world plunder.

Americans horde freedom for themselves. Restricting freedom is the ideal way for corporations to pay overseas laborers nothing and export the booty back to the States.

Until America is ready to act like an adult and fight for greater causes than apprehending one single man who lives in a cave, Old Glory's nightmare will never end.

Oh God, Not Again

I am so tired of the power circle in Washington killing impoverished people in my name.

What is it going to take for those deaf men and women (mostly white old men) in Washington to open their ears and hear the cries?

Apparently something catastrophic must happen in order to get their attention. "Love thy neighbor" isn't enough.

What's that? Now the Taliban are drug dealers? Is this an extension of the War on Drugs? What else can we pin on them? Let's ask the LAPD for advice.

George W's administration gave the Taliban $48 million this year because they "banned all drugs." I guess the ban only applied to their own captive citizens. Friends, this is like the president giving our money to skinheads. I'm sure that money came in handy when all those women were fired from their jobs and placed on house arrest.

What a crazy man this bin Laden is... did you hear those crazy words? "Now Americans are tasting what we have tasted for decades." Just sends shivers down your spine doesn't it?

"Americans will never feel safe until Muslims everywhere feel safe..." What insanity!

Please forgive us, Muslims, Palestinians, Iraqis, world. We did not elect this man. The election was stolen by our own rich and powerful dynasty, the Bushes, and our media and government let it happen. For the record, I didn't vote for him, or the guy before him, or the guy before him, or the guy before him, or...

Americans don't vote but the American people suffer the consequences when selfish, greedy, trigger-happy megalomaniacs (Kissinger, Cheney, Albright, Christiansen, Schultz, Powell, Eagleberger, did I forget any?) run the show.

Please, at least change the title of the War. Instead of a "War on Terrorism" couldn't we have a "War on Oppressive Racist Women-Hating Violent Religious Fanatics?"

Honey, It's the Flag Police

To some, the flag is a statement of pride and power and sacrifice. To others, it's a statement of Nazi-style nationalism. To some, it's a call to arms. Yeah, let's go kick some ass! To me, it's just an ambiguous symbol whose meaning is way too complex and confusing to put on my automobile or home.

It is an attractive flag, though. The best looking flag of them all. Thanks Betsy Ross, you certainly had an uncommon eye for ageless style.

For many, the flag represents the Constitution, unlike the Rebel flag of the South. And that very same Constitution guarantees the freedom of speech.

But the First Amendment does not protect ordinary speech. It protects unpopular speech. The Bill of Rights doesn't give a crap about the rhetoric coming out of every "Patriot's" lips. Not today and not a thousand years from now.

Flag waving on the 4th of July and Memorial Day is fine. Everyone knows when to put out the flag and when to take it down. Now we're in a situation in which nobody -- citizen, business, and web site alike -- dares retire their flag.

And that sort of fear is exactly what I'm against. Coerced speech is not free speech. I'm American, not Chinese. I have the ability to think for myself, and if I don't want to display a flag, I don't have to.

The 3,000+ souls lost in the World Trade Center were not all American. The dead represent more than 60 countries. To use the flag to represent all those lives is the typical American response. Only the dead Americans matter. Perhaps that's why terrorists want to kill us.

If you're such a patriot, stop selling your stock and stop canceling your plane tickets. You're responsible for harming the financial security of millions of Americans. So wipe the tears off your face and get on with your life. Now you know how Israelis feel. Now you know how the English feel. Now you know how African Americans feel.

Put your flag away and put one foot in front of the other.

I live in the tech vortex. Silicon Valley's excesses sickened me from 97-99 but of course I wanted and needed money too. It was obvious that anybody with any sort of connection to the Valley could get VC money, regardless of qualifications and a business plan. This was apparent even in 96.

I'm sorry that so many lives have been devastated by the market crash but it was bound to happen. There were countless people at so many high-tech companies doing nothing throughout the business hours except bragging about their portfolios, taking three hour lunches, trading stocks, chatting it up on Yahoo, and shopping online for sports cars. They shouldn't have moved here in the first place and now most of them are gone, as if the bubble never happened. Unfortunately though, it hasn't helped traffic much. Stay away.

The exuberant waste of money and resources in Silicon Valley is shameful. Millions of women and children live below the poverty line in America. The result of the New Economy in California is simply more suffering because, in the end, trillions of dollars have been siphoned away into a small number of bank accounts. US policy makers would rather play stock market roulette rather than invest in average American's lives.

Record tax surpluses are suddenly gone, victims of bad investments. And what's rest is going straight to the military complex and corporate welfare as a "stimulus" package. Exactly who is being stimulated?

Is This What Darwin Meant by Evolution?

Who knows, maybe this is the solution to global warming. It's certainly working out for Condit. Who?

If the terrorists were angry at average Americans they would have bombed the overweight poor white people in Hanford, CA. Instead they seem to be angry at the wealthy, at Wall Street, at the US government, at the military, the World Bank, the IMF, etc.. All those powers in the US and beyond who think they should be ruling the world, and for the most part, are doing so. But now of course the terrorists will kill indiscriminately because that's what NATO is about to do.

Maybe NATO will show uncharacteristic restraint this time... doubt it.

Funny thing I saw online yesterday.. some official was talking about the Iraq connection and he said "we don't have enough evidence to go bomb Iraq" and I just thought, what was your evidence last month? We don't need no stinking evidence! Like the LAPD they just make it up whenever it's convenient.

One person's terrorist in another person's holyman. Let us all recall that many self-titled Christians have gone on record (aka on Television) stating that they approve of any means necessary to stop abortions. That includes murdering doctors and nurses, even in their own homes.

Maybe Americans should put away the John Wayne talk and accept the fact gracefully that not everyone gets their way every time. Maybe we are not so smart as to know what's right for every person's situation. That applies equally to Americans as well as Middle Easterners. The occupants of the Holy Land have been fighting for their way for millennia and still haven't learned that violence begets violence. Not even the beaten down Palestinians have figured it out.

We all have to understand why Martin Luther King was extraordinary. He understood this. This one man was smarter than entire civilizations who have thousands of years of written history.

If the US evolves into a nation of Waynes instead of Kings, we'll all be dead for sure.

Flags Unfurled

If I was a terrorist, I would definitely fly a flag on my car.

Have you seen the movie The Three Kings? Good movie. There's a part where American soldiers and Iraqi rebels are driving luxury cars through the desert. The cars have Iraqi flags on them. Everywhere. The Iraqis figure it must be Saddam.

Exactly.

So when I see a flag I wonder what its owner's intentions are. A US flag on a place of business means: "We're exploiting this right out in the open, isn't this great?" A flag on a company's website just confounds me. I'm not visiting your website to donate to the Red Cross, thank you. There's plenty of other places I would go for that.

I'm sure Boeing, United, and American Airlines are flying those flags proudly while they lay off 30,000 and 20,000 employees respectively. See, they're really showing their support for Americans! Right as they show 50,000 of them the door.

What a great scam the airlines are running.. fire everyone and still take welfare from the government. Guess where that money's going? To the executives of course. You're idiots, my fellow Americans. Just idiots. You'll accept any raw deal handed to you by anyone waving that flag.

So spare me your patriotism. I already know you aren't volunteering to fight the ghosts in those hideous mountains.

Want to do something? Put your flag away and get on a plane to support those Americans who are otherwise going to have a sad Christmas. Now that takes real courage.

Gas Masks and Scuds and Israelis .. Oh My!

For those of you with short memories, I'd like to reminisce a moment about the Gulf War. Remember those images of soldiers wearing gas masks? Remember the patriot missiles in Israel failing to shoot down scuds? Remember? Wasn't that scary?

That's what real war looks like. I'm not sure what you're thinking this new war is going to be like, but my guess is you're still living in a Rambo movie.

Everyone has chemical weapons and Gulf War Syndrome is real. We'll have a whole new generation with symptoms that the military denies.

Oh, I get it -- our generals are the "good guys" again. Let's just forget the past. These aren't the same guys who left Saddam in power to crush the rebels. That was the senior Bush administration. Our guys didn't get us into this mess. Certainly they'll get us out of it!

Won't they?

The Prophesies Keep Rolling In

Nostradamus and the Book of Revelations are not prophesy when religious zealots read these texts every day as instruction manuals. Granted it's extremely unlikely that any of this would happen, but perhaps we need to close all these stupid old books and try to treat each other with kindness and respect and not try so hard to go to heaven. Perhaps we should try to enjoy our lives in the pre-afterlife first.

If it didn't happen here, it didn't happen

Brace yourselves, it's going to get worse

When JFK was assassinated, Malcom X made the damaging (both to him and the Nation of Islam) statement, "You reap what you sow." Tragically, that comment still rings true today, nearly 40 years later, September 11, 2001.

It happened. Somehow it's different when it happens in the US. Somehow the lives and the deaths of Americans, wealthy Americans, matter more. I suppose that is what the word "perspective" is all about. American perspective. When a Palestinian, an Iraqi, or an Israeli dies, it just doesn't matter much to the average blue-blooded American. They die like flies, and who can keep track of all of them?

Today I lost friends, coworkers, and associates. One day they're alive and the next they're dead with no warning whatsoever. I would have lost more if it wasn't for dumb luck. I'm afraid to go back to work in San Francisco, which seems to have a big bull's-eye on it. I don't really know how to cope with this. Does anyone ever?

There are tragedies every day all over the world, crazed gunmen and whatnot in businesses and schools, and they have nothing to do with organized terror. The world is just an unsafe, random, and often tragic place, and it has always been that way. And it will never change.

Maybe the US will become a safer place because of this. But unfortunately the dollar is used to justify nearly everything and safety just isn't a priority. Safety costs money and money is harder and harder to come by when CEOs make so damn much money.

I don't condone the inherent racism in our media and echoed by our citizenry. Be skeptical of those who think in packs. Not everyone of Middle Eastern descent is a terrorist. Ugly racism just proves the terrorists' point.

I wish that families all over the world could live nearly as well as some of us in the US. Even millions of Americans struggle at or below the poverty line. Perhaps we could live in peace if everyone, locally and abroad, was treated as if their lives were dignified and important. Instead we carpet-bomb Iraq in order to keep the price of oil low (but not too low). We enforce an embargo on Cuba, depriving children of toys and medicine, just for the Florida vote. The US treats the world as its natural resource with little regard to indigenous peoples. Decimating the Rain Forest "over there" is justifiable as long as we can get cheap steel out of it. When it's obvious that Israel is hell-bent on genocide, we turn to the sports page. Should we be surprised that there is a lot of anger directed towards Americans?

Today, ordinary patriotic Americans everywhere suffered the consequences of a foreign policy that they did not design. The arrogance of those who bombed Vietnam haunt us today as our leaders continue to bomb Iraq over an illegal no-fly zone.

And yet our leaders profess their innocence to the world as a wounded dove of peace. Even while they do nothing to help the crips and bloods escape their lives of poverty and violence. Malcom X said America is a violent society nearly 40 years ago and little has changed. The only reason why we haven't mourned another school shooting lately is because school has been out for the summer.

Our own CIA trained both bin Laden and Hussein. Violence begets violence. The wolves are already at the door, ready to tear into the flesh of anyone wearing a turban and sporting a long, black beard.

No punishment will ever erase the losses that we have to endure. Tit for tat will continue until one side annihilates the other, and that's extremely unlikely to happen. Meanwhile the losses will continue to mount. History proves it.

We are living a Greek tragedy. Clinton already bombed targets in Afghanistan in a haphazard and confusing fashion. The money he spent and the lives he risked did nothing but stir up religious fervor and resolve. They bomb and kill, and we bomb and kill, and they bomb and kill, and... Problem is, those of us in the US and other wealthy nations have a lot more to lose.

Today's terror is just a slice of what's been going on in Europe and the Middle East and elsewhere for quite some time. World history has finally caught up with us. We're reminded once again what it's like for a building filled with people to be turned to rubble in seconds. But this time, we know what it's like to have friends and loved ones in those buildings.

The only end to this tragedy is to change our foreign policy to respect sovereign nations instead of the dollar. But as anyone who has read a history book knows, that's not likely to happen until Americans suffer more grievous losses.

Afghanistan defeated the Soviet Union. They had the US's backing but our forces didn't do the fighting for them. They are a worthy adversary.

The old American leadership is ready to send America's young to kill and die in glorious battle. When the US entered the Vietnam war, these same people had one question in mind: would it take one sortie, or two?

Only time will tell this go around.

They Control the Vertical