Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Fall of the American Empire"

I found myself facinated by C-Span's coverage of the Senate today. A HUGE bill hit the desks of Congress and the Senate this weekend. Actually, the Omnibus Appropiations Bill is over 3000 pages filled with varied legislation of all kinds that requires just one vote, yes or no. It includes everything from funding for charities that sound strangely like Bush supporters to appropriating money for education, cops and all those important community services. As some of you are aware, this is a political ploy to sneak through laws hoping no one will notice or forcing them through along with the necessary laws. In fact the Congress has already passed this bill and sent it to the Senate urging them to pass it right away so they could adjourn for the holidays.

Funny thing....somebody DID notice that included, or should I say, slipped in at the last minute, was something called "Provision 222" This little ditty would allow the govt...read carefully...to assign an agent of their choice (anyone) to have access to any citizens tax returns, make them public and use the information against them, (ex: in a political campaign) and NOT HAVE TO PAY ANY PENALTY OR BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE for this disclosure.

This law would SUPERCEDE any previous laws on our rights to privacy. On top of this outrage, the government would have access to all personal records, political associations, charitable donations and just about everything we do including the internet. I heard words like, "Big Brother", "Soviet Union" "Stripping citizens of their right to privacy" coming from our senators. If you hear about this not passing it is because of the few sane senators that voted against passing this ridiculous provision included in the massive Omnibus bill. If it does pass....be afraid, be very afraid.

"The Criminal Bee"

Hakim Bey

Nietzsche says somewhere that the true, free spirit wil not wish to see the laws of the herd abolished, lest there exist nothing to struggle against and overcome. Litle danger of such an abolishment at this point, one might suppose.

Since Nietzsche's time law has perhaps mutated from a complex but many-dimensional tool of the oppresor class to the subtle, fratal, all-pervasive self-image of the spectacle. Law simulates the dictatorship of community, forever promising & forever withdrawing the utopia of justice.

Our founding myths here in America, which take the form of such texts as a declaration of independence or a bill of rights etc. prove so infinitely flexible as to become, like all myths, their opposites. The law no longer seems like a dialctical edge, as it was for Nietzsche, but rather a viral ooze, infecting the very fabric of language & thought.

"The Dinner Party"

Stephan Pearl Andrews

The highest type of human society in the existing social order is found in the parlor. In the elegant and refined reunions of the aristocratic classes there is none of the impertinent interference of legislation. The Individuality of each is fully admitted. Intercourse, therefore, is perfectly free. Conversation is continuous, brilliant, and varied. Groups are formed according to attraction. They are continuously broken up, and re-formed through the operation of the same subtile and all-pervading influence. Mutual deference pervades all classes, and the most perfect harmony, ever yet attained, in complex human relations, prevails under precisely those circumstances which Legislators and Statesmen dread as the conditions of inevitable anarchy and confusion. If there are laws of etiquette at all, they are mere suggestions of principles admitted into and judged of for himself or herself, by each individual mind.

Communiqué of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq on:
The transgressions of groups of Islamic terrorism against people of Iraq
 
 Day after day the bloody hands of terrorist Islamic gangs are reaching to and destroying new aspects of life of the Iraqi society. Everyday they violate the civility of the society and stamp upon its secularity and all the gains in form of freedom, equality, prosperity and humanism achieved by the masses over decades. Everyday, we hear the news of crimes committed by Islamists which disgust and stun everybody for the amount of violence and wickedness embedded in the methodology use by their perpetrators.

marachiko writes:

Get Out of Your Houses and Into the Streets!

A democracy is not just about elections. It is also about freedom of speech and the right of the people to form peaceful assemblies. Liberals and everyone else who opposed Bush's re-election are still sitting in stunned disbelief that the worst US president since Nixon could have hung on to the reins of power. It is time to do something other than wring our hands or sit at home grinding our teeth.

Inauguration Day is coming up on January 20th. It is doubtful that Americans will be allowed to make any statement other than hollow cheers and obsequious fawning at the inaugural parade and festivities. Some have called for a movement to infiltrate the inaugural scene with a pretense of false joy over the event and then silently turning their backs on the dictator-elect when he begins to speak. This is an interesting thought, but I suggest a more vocal and more hard hitting protest.

"A Man and His People"

Uri Avnery

Wherever he may be buried when he passes away, the day will come when his remains will be reinterred by a free Palestinian government in the holy shrines in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat is one of the generation of great leaders who arose after World War II. The stature of a leader is not simply determined by the size of his
achievements, but also by the size of the obstacles he had to overcome. In this respect, Arafat has no competitor in the world: no leader of our generation has been called upon to face such cruel tests and to cope with such adversities as he.

eh writes:

"Nine Viable Proposals to Save the World"
Global Institute for Alternative Thought

How to return America to American values of democracy, liberty, and minding one's own garden instead of spying on and imprisoning one's neighbor? Glad you asked! You are welcome to borrow or steal, unattributed, the following ideas, generated by the Think Tankers from the Global Institute of Alternative Thought, generously funded by myself and staffed by 1 person. Of course we borrow and steal ideas too. Here's what G.I.A.T. recommends over the next few months to save the world. In fact, we believe that these modest steps, absent any revolution, represent the last best hope before the end of civilization as we know it:

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"The Truth Is that Arafat Died Years Ago"

Robert Fisk, Independent,

Yet again, Yasser Arafat is dying. We thought he'd been killed back in 1982
when the Israeli air force flew around Beirut attacking apartment blocks and
homes they thought he was visiting. Their bombs tore to pieces hundreds of
innocent Lebanese civilians but Arafat was never there. Then we thought he'd
died in a plane crash in the Libyan desert — but it was the pilot who died
and the bodyguard who shielded him in his airline seat. Then we thought he'd
bought it on the road to Baghdad when he suffered a blood clot. But
Jordanian doctors brought him back to the world of the living. Now, again,
we're preparing for the old man's death. Yet like the Pope, he seems to go
on and on and on.

translocales writes:

Building for a North American Social Forum

Translocales

The Party’s Over
Suggestions to Dry your Eyes & Organize
A North American Social Forum?

The election is over and Bush is back. It really stinks.
Despite the almost complete lack of expectations most of us had in Kerry, it was at least a message to people around the world that yes — people in the US would like to do a diplomatic act of service by at the very least ridding the world of Bush as president after all that had been done and said — so much for that.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Fuck Bush Day"
First Tuesday of Every Month

Brothers and Sisters,


Hey, we've been brainstorming over here on what to do next in terms of the farcical state of American politics, etc. And, one of the things I'm sure we all find to be absolutely disgusting is this whole deal with most Democrats and so-called liberals and the line of thinking that goes:

"This is the most reckless administration in American history",
only to follow-up with;
"but now is the time for healing..."

What a pile.