Citizen Ray

Update 1 below...

My hat's off to Cindy Sheehan, one of the most articulate and decent women in America today. While vastly too many soccer and security moms paw the tawdry and tedious consumer choices at Memorial Day sales, Cindy articulates in this diary entry the agony that so many of us feel about what a wasteland of nebbishs America the no-longer Beautiful has become. The agony of the people of Iraq seems to hardly weight a feather on consciences of most Americans, accustomed as they've become to swallowing government propaganda whole fish, from the head down.

We wonder what the intellectually incurious and morally ambiguous American public will allow its criminal government to perpetrate in the future...

And CititzenRay has the grim determination to carry on with the good fight while Cindy Sheehan tries to rebuild her own family life after finding the American family hopelessly indifferent to decency, morality or an honest appraisal of the nation's leadership.

Update, June 8: Time Magazine has a photo essay on Cindy's efforts.

With the Congressional Democrats caving in to George Bush's monarchial machinations, one can draw solace from the past...

Henry L. Mencken was one of the most prolific writers of the early 20th Century. The test of a great writer is how well his or her scribblings stand up over time. Shakespeare, of course, comes to mind here. But for those disposed to a more curmudgeonly and cynical attitude about modern times, Mencken could have been writing most of this yesterday. Laugh, chuckle, guffaw or give a knowing wink. Here's some of Mencken's more memorable turns-of-phrase:

On Democracy: “Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”
On the Department of Justice: "[The Department of Justice] has been engaged in sharp practices since the earliest days and remains a fecund source of oppression and corruption today. It is hard to recall an administration in which it was not the center of grave scandal."

On Morons (1): "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

On Morons (2): "The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/mencken.asp

On Elections: "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."

On Activism: "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist that black flag, and begin slitting throats."

On Delusion: "The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."

On Liars and Truth: "The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."
Good And Hard: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it... good and hard."

On Democracy: "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right."

On Democracy: "I have spoken hitherto of the possibility that democracy may be a self-limiting disease, like measles. It is, perhaps, something more: it is self-devouring. One cannot observe it objectively without being impressed by its curious distrust of itself—its apparently ineradicable tendency to abandon its whole philosophy at the first sign of strain. I need not point to what happens invariably in democratic states when the national safety is menaced. All the great tribunes of democracy, on such occasions, convert themselves, by a process as simple as taking a deep breath, into despots of an almost fabulous ferocity."

On Government: "The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out...without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."

On Honesty: "It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office."

On Radicalism: "The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."

On Religion: "For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing."

On State Terror: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

On Dissent: "The great masses of men, though theoretically free, are seen to submit supinely to oppression and exploitation of a hundred abhorrent sorts. Have they no means of resistance? Obviously they have. The worst tyrant, even under democratic plutocracy, has but one throat to slit. The moment the majority decided to overthrow him he would be overthrown. But the majority lacks the resolution; it cannot imagine taking the risks."

On Voting: "There's really no point to voting. If it made any difference, it would probably be illegal."

On Democracy: "I have spoken hitherto of the possibility that democracy may be a self-limiting disease, like measles. It is, perhaps, something more: it is self-devouring. One cannot observe it objectively without being impressed by its curious distrust of itself—its apparently ineradicable tendency to abandon its whole philosophy at the first sign of strain. I need not point to what happens invariably in democratic states when the national safety is menaced. All the great tribunes of democracy, on such occasions, convert themselves, by a process as simple as taking a deep breath, into despots of an almost fabulous ferocity."

A month ago I penned "Going, Going, Gonads" about the imminent departure of Paul Wolfowitz from the World Bank.

Next on the firing line is A.G. Alberto Gonzales. Check out this brand new website from Robert Greenwald's organization.

When it comes to retirements, impeachments and other ways & means of disposing of the criminals infesting the White House and environs, all I can say is that Carrie Fisher had it right: "Do you know the problem with instant gratification? It takes too long."

Alternet has an interesting article today on the rewriting of history.

Snippet: Last Saturday, I uncovered falsified US History within the Unit 6 core curriculum for the national Junior ROTC program ; about 1/2 million American high school students each year are unrolled in the JROTC. I was astounded ; an historical fabrication concocted by David Barton, the leading historical revisionist claiming that the United States was founded as a "Christian Nation", was embedded within a national educational curriculum produced by the Department of Defense and taught, across the nation, to American public high schools students enrolled in Junior ROTC.

Condolences to the Grieving Family, i.e. those who didn't get to share in the centimillion inheritance.

OTOH, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving and despicable disingenously deceitful and depraved dick. May the other one run out of defibrillator batteries soon. Or actually, if we put Oil Slick Dick on a de-'fib'-rillator, would he explode? Would the lying S.O.B. simply explode? Is there reason for hope?

UPDATE: Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Who's Got Your Cherry?

The Stompanatos Are On The Grave.

Topic: Ruthless promotion of Al Gore's new book

Citizens,

As you well know, the greatest erosion of your civil rights since the First World War, (Latter Day Japanese Saints excepted) has occurred under the malevolent proto-fascist and pro-aristocratic mal-administration of George & Dick, the fraudy frauleins furthering the Fuhrer's Follies.

Standing in opposition to this madness of the unhinged King George is Tennessee's native son, Albert Gore, Jr.

I haven't gotten aholt of the gallies, so I do not know for a fact that this is Al Gore's best book. Heck, I don't even know who wrote it. But it's coming out under his name next week. Now get on with it

And do your part as a citizen to destroy the Bush Cabal.

Citizen Ray occasionally deigns to go off the deep end on comments threads elsewhere where he's confident that no one, other than the paid staff at the NSA, will bother reading his claims. Here's one of these instances.

Who hit the trifecta? Do some research on Bayoil and Koch Industries. The NY Times article is what you call a red herring. They want you to think insurgents are gaining an advantage. Nothing could be further from the truth. And that is that blue-eyed shieks are hauling tankers-full of free crude into the Houston Ship Canal on a regular basis, couresy of the protection (racket) of the U.S. Navy acting in cahoots with its cronies. War is Just a Racket

Check ‘em out. Bayoil and Koch. Both crazy pirate operations. Predatory capitalists gone mad, gone bad. Except that there is an inexorable logic to their scheming. You see, if you can get your crude oil at $0.00/bbl while your competitors are forced to pay $65/bbl and you can sell the stuff at retail at $150/bbl ($3.60 per gallon) you are strutin' in high cotton.

Richard Perle became notorious in the 1970s as a member of the Committee On The Present Danger which engaged in wild speculation about the capabilities of the Soviet Union's military in order to boost spending on the war machine in the U.S. The YouTube embed here is of Richard Perle lying during the Reagan era, when he served as an Assistant Secretary of Defense. Hat tip to Arms Control Wonk blog for pointing out this video .

Today Perle still influences DoD policy from his position as a member of Defense Policy Board. He was forced to step down from his role as Chairman of that Board due to many factors, not least of which is a fairly odious habit of self-enrichment based upon policy decisions impacting his own venture capital firm, Trireme Partners . Conflict of interest? Of course it is. But according to Perle, that's no problem. Why not is never explained.

Some readers may recall a book titled Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, by Stauber & Rampton. I regularly follow what is rotten in the state of public relations via their PR Watch. and Sourcewatch

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Edward Bernays was a first cousin of Sigmund Freud. Like Freud, Bernays was interested in the workings of the human mind and emotions. Unlike Freud, Bernays willingly stepped over to the dark side of psychological study for the sake of greed. Bernays is credited with being the father of one of the most dubiously worthwhile inventions of the 20th Century, public relations, or as I see it today, the black art of manipulating the public with lies, fearmongering and other chicanery.

Here's a short video describing one of Bernay's more robustly cynical and sinister efforts to manipulate the American public on behalf of private corporate interests.

Howard Zinn, author of the most successful history book in America about America spoke recently at Yale and asked the youth there to "Act As Citizens!" There was a meager response from the generation that is about to reap the whirlwind of destruction being handed to the by the unthinking, uncaring and callous people who are currently running the world with the full intent of leaving nothing for the future generations.

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Sorry about the Jeremiad, but someone has to wake up the youth from their illusions. Zinn was a lot funnier than me here.