Starving? Enslaved to the IMF? Just TANGO, amigo

Oh yes! Si, Siiiiiiiii!

Salvation through the realisation of a vertical simulation of a horizontal desire.

AND, It's all protected by the UN.

That's right.

They're not throwing any money at it,
which is a refreshing change.
But anyway, how can you protect a dance?
You can't provide bodyguards for it.

It's like "fighting terror" [authored by an idiot- GWB43].
You can't put it in a bottle.

Here. Have some tango.
Aaaaah! Muy bien!
How about some salsa?

How about a can of whup-ass?
Protect this, Ban Ki Moon!

What about the protection of democracy? Well, the UN has the Human Rights code. You have the right to protection on about 10 things [if you own a video camera and have access to an ethical lawyer, willing to do pro bono work]. Anything else, and your arse can be fried. [This is where the IMF, WTO free trade, and unfeterred capitalism sneak in the door.]

[pic- can of democracy]

How about holding politicians to account?
How about making them do what's good
for the people who voted,
instead of the rich people who paid for their campaigns?
How about the right to referendums?
Important issues should not be left to politicians.
What decisions do we make in this democracy?
We scratch a paper once every four years
and it's one decision which
we'll be paying for for the next four years.
Is that a right?
Sounds like a joke* to me.
It's more of a penitentiary sentence
with no chance of parole.
the 7th circle of hell!

[pic- stab in the dark]

Metaphors Abound: The box holding your democratic rights is locked. You never see what happens to your vote paper, and it's supposedly counted behind closed doors. Well, at least we don't vote on machines, unlike the US.

Wisdom from the mouths of idiots.
The truth about corrupt voting.....
is presented by a CARTOON!
Not a politician, judge or lawyer.
A fictitious orange likeness of a man.
[I'm surprised Homer and Matt Groening
aren't in jail for defamation,
for more-or-less telling the world who the guilty party is.
Oh, it's because the Democrats are almost as corrupt,
and yet don't mind losing...
because they feel they're 'rich enough' anyway.
Check the Zombie immitation, by Gore
in the 1992 election.**]

Laying bare the
chaos of modern democracy
is presented as a joke*, just like I'd said above. Is there any protection against the belittling of democracy? Shouldn't corruption be investigated?

Oh, piss off! I know the answer, already.
Later!


[from aartedafuga.blogspot.com]

[pic- pork-barrel and barrel of laughs.
portable containers of democracy.
share with friends,
pass them out at parties]

-Costick67 (8^P
pics- fotosearch.com
**- watch Rage Against the Machine video for "Testify"

"I'm preaching love and modesty." Signed Ben, B.A.,M.A., PhD, descendant of G.o.d. Himself

Don't you despise people who take every opportunity to remind you that they have a doctorate.
They seem to be telling you:
"You must not argue with a 'doctor',

for he is educated beyond all reason!"

It's especially poignant when his stock in trade is
love, peace, modesty, sacrifice
when actually he's got nothing to do with those wonderful things.
He's all about
power, money, manipulation of politics and law,
nationally and internationally.
Nazi cover-ups.
Pedophile cover-ups.
Against Aids prevention.
Sitting on a stash of money large enough
to wipe out all hunger and disease.
Support for Latin American despots,
against the grassroots work of his very own employees,
with the downtrodden poor.
Liberation....theology

You won't be surprised
to disover that I'm talking about a man with a title
and an ego big enough to choke an elephant.
He's known in Italy as Papa Ratzi (paparazzi, LOL)
He is "Benedict XVI,
Episcopus Romae,
Vicar of Jesus Christ,
Successor of the Prince of the Apostles,
Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church,
Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City,
Servant of the Servants of God"
and Phd.

Yup, he's all about love, alright;
of himself and of power!


shepherd, or

inquisitioner/executioner/tyrant ?

UPDATE: 20 Oct '09
seeing that the Anglican Church is fighting over
Openly gay & female clergy
The RC church is doing the only thing it knows how.
It's negotiating a deal that will make Anglicans nominally
call themselves Catholics, so as to fatten up the books.
They pulled this very same trick on the Ukrainians 400 years ago.
It's 600 years that they've been waiting for this revenge
against the schismatists!
checkitout: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091020/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_anglicans

-Costick67 (8^P
postscript: So what, if most of Papa Razzi's titles are open to criticism as fraudulent? Who has time for that?
pics- fotosearch.com

Atlas the stock broker shrugged, "So, the rich have an unfair advantage. Big whoop!"

[under construction]
Ayn Rand thought of doing two things concurrently,
which is saying a lot for someone

of her limited mental capacity.
She, at once, wanted to give wanton greed
the appearance of having a philosophical basis
and also desired to make herself rich.
With "Atlas shrugged",
she took a swipe at both.
I can only assume that she knew
what rich people everywhere wanted to read,
and if so, she was actually fairly intelligent.
Rich folk and their hangers-on
have been eating up her crap for decades.
Her work has a biblical-size following among some big names (more later).
On the academic side,
her ideas are full of holes
that a bus could drive through.
So, either she hadn't the brains to think it through,
or there is no way to legitimise might-is-right, philosophically,
or the last choice is ....
she was too busy getting rich to think about true philosophy.

Anyway, the T.H.E. trashes her, once and for all. More to come

The last insult is how all greedy Richies who read Rand think that her story's entrepreneurs are fantastic, which in some ways they are. They created something or realised its manufacture. Not bad.
However, that has nothing to do with the lazy layabouts pushing fradulent paper around the world. They are about as important to the world as bagel delivery boys. King of them all is Alan Greenspan, Rand's biggest (i.e. most destructive monetarist) fan. He oversaw the biggest financial collapse the world has ever seen.
What does that say for Rand's ideas when Greenspan that said he "learned everything" from her?
She's bankrupt, like all her big fans.
It gives the morally bankrupt "an easy-to-follow protocol and a glamour that serves as both corporate feelgood and marketing tool." This quotation is actually about the benefits to the real Mafia of reading (or watching- for illiterates) and following the tactics of fictional Mafia stories. Do you see the similarities to Rand and the Randies?

Mafia is as mafia does. Gabagool!
Bada-bing, it's a hedge-market thing.

-Sources:
Gerald L. Houseman 'Objectionable content' Times Higher Education no 1914 ppg 16-18
Aditya Charkrabortty 'Brain food: why the mafia study gangster movies' Guardian G2 pg13
-Costick67 (8^P

PORCA Miseria*

Stick around here for a discussion:

pigs vs philosophers. place your bets.

This idea comes from an article on mbs.ac.uk which fellow blogger urbancrazyman (see link on the right) responded to.

UCM mentioned a quote by John Stuart Mill which more or less separated people into two groups- philosophers or pigs. more later

If we, the non-philosophers are to be called pigs, it may be that we have realised that life is a big charade, orchestrated by and for rich people, philosophers and non. And as common wisdom has it, pigs are clever; "they get bored with playing the same game over and over again." The game I'm referring to usually finds the pig on the losing end of a skewer.

-Costick67 (8^P
notes:
-source: Sharon Stanford, 'Another view' Guardian G2 pg.21
*"The misery of a pig" is an Italian expression of exasperation.
-mbs article by Phillip Collins, and comments: http://tm.mbs.ac.uk/comment/why-are-there-so-few-public-intellectuals-in-britain/comment-page-1/#comment-21

a bit of tax for the little people

[under construction]

Rampant hedging, derivatives and speculation have made a dog's breakfast of our economies.

Nevertheless, some very nice people think that there's nothing wrong with speculation, and particularly currency trading. So, they want it to keep going, so governments can tax every currency trading transaction.

Where's the money gonna go? If experience is a good teacher, it'll go straight back to those same banks to bail them out when their scamming fails again. and it will.

It'll probably be 1% of the trader's fees, or about 100 quid per trade. Do you think it will stop currency speculation, which is all about gossip and band-wagon jumping? Not at all.

By the time the lobbyists are done with it, only travellers getting Euros at their travel agent's will be paying any of the tax.

coming soon: Guardian story from September
"G20 urged to fight poverty with currency tax" by Nick Mathiason

-Costick67 (8^P

Holocaust photographer rejects invite from Isr.

[pic banksy]
It makes me both

sad and happy that Janina Struck,

a person who knows a thing or two about human suffering
has seen the similarities between Nazi Germany
and a certain well-connected middle-eastern country*.
So much so, that she doesn't want to go there to speak about her work
on the Holocaust.

You no believe?
This is the blurb that appeared in Haaretz newspaper:

Janina Struck, the photographer and author of the highly acclaimed book ‘Photographing the
Holocaust’ was invited to give a paper at Yad Vashem about the subject matter of her book. She decided not to go, writing that “Since the Israeli attack on Gaza in December and January, during which time the IDF killed more than a thousand people, and due to Israel's continued violation and disregard for international law and human rights, I am afraid that as much as I respect the work of Yad Vashem, I find it impossible to accept an official invitation from an institution of the State of Israel.[..]
During the research for my book [] it was images that portrayed cruelty, humiliation, the disregard for human life and the most basic principles of human decency that I found among the most disturbing. Now I find similarly disturbing the images from Gaza that show vast areas reduced to rubble, grieving homeless families, and distressed and hungry children – the result of the abhorrent activities of the IDF.”
Apparently, the organizers did not act on her request that her statement be read out at the
seminar.
Source http://www.haaretz. com/hasen/spages/1110830. html
--
by Tim Goheen McClatchy
We're starting to wake up from a big bad nightmare, folks.
-Costick67 (8^P See my older blogs on the subject: 'Tony Blair', 'UK universities', 'prophet part 3 & 'news flash'
*Talk about your history repeating itself, the shoe being on the other foot this time. Victim becomes victimiser, without even flinching.
Oh, the humanity of it all!

Halleluyah! Oil deal with minimal loss of life

Unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere, but who has time),

the oil politics of the West only cost 270 lives, THIS TIME.

What am I talking about?

That was the cost, in lives, of the oil deal with Libya.

Is anybody counting the bodies in those other places?

Byline: Oil deal between UK PLC
(otherwise known as 'BP and its democratic partners')
and Libya

I know that the world is fighting a war on terror, but terrorists are pawns
just like everybody else.
I think that Britain signed over Megrahi to get an

oil&gas deal with Libya.
Rather cheaply, too.

Reminds me of the beads the Indians got for Manhattan Island.

Anyway, let's look at the other collateral 'costs'.

270 lives.

The people killed on Pan Am 103.

Not bad for an oil deal. Look at Iraq and Afghanistan.

They've cost the UK 400 soldiers and millions of quid, not to mention

the innocent civilians they've killed and maimed [but who's counting them anyway].

So, you pissed of the Yanks!

Well, when are John Bolton, the CIA and the FBI NOT pissed off.

Who cares? All that counts is
you Brits beat 'em to the oil this time!

Cheeky monkeys!

And remember,

the crude shall always flow, until it's all finished,

my friends.

-Costick67 (8^P

queennie to the rescue

Byline: the first woman to lead an army since

Boadicea or Joan of Arc.

[pic: anyone for martyrhood?]

Hey, warmongers!

Just when you thought that Britain just couldn't take watching any more

soldiers coming home in body bags,

along comes a queen to bribe spouses with a hunk of precious metal

in the form of a cross (they ain't POPSICLE STICKS)

with her name on it.

no, not him/her. Queen Elizabeth Windsor, numbskull.

Isn't that just what we need. More women surrendering their beloved house-husband layabouts.
More martyrs for the cause.

oil, that is.

See the Queen? Look at the pawn. That's you if you support the war,

or are unlucky enough to need a job in the army.

Sure, it's a career! riiiiight!
At least the government is saving on a lot of nasty, expensive pensions. You gotta get to 65 to collect.
I'm not betting on any soldiers reaching that milestone.

UPDATE ! [this story came up 5 days later. I swear, I feel like a prophet!]
The Queen of England has started to take her job as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces seriously. From Aol.com:

Queen 'furious' at troop shortages
The Queen has reportedly raised her concerns with Prime Minister Gordon Brown over equipment shortages in Afghanistan, a historian has claimed.

Andrew Roberts told Tatler that the monarch, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales were all worried about alleged sub-standard resources for troops serving in the war-torn country.

Mr Roberts, who once chronicled the modern monarchy in his book The House of Windsor, wrote: "I've now heard the same thing from a minor member of the Royal family, a serving general and a recent ex-Cabinet minister, so I'm certain it's true and worth passing on."

He continued: "The Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles are all furious with Gordon Brown over sub-standard equipment in Helmand, principally the under-armoured armoured cars and the lack of helicopters, and have been making their views known to him in no uncertain terms."

---the end

And I thought she was just satisfied giving out Elizabeth Crosses. Maybe she's also trying to embarrass the government by highlighting all those deaths.

Watch out for the royalist coup, folks! Prince Harry is boning up on strategy, over in Afghanistan (in other words, his fellow soldiers are being paid to protect him). Prince Chuckles is sounding out MI5 (the ones who recorded him whispering sweet nothings to his bird over the phone). You can't control the country without the spies on your side.

Costick67 (8^P
pics from fotosearch.com

Idle young not entitled to crap

UPDATE: UK Conservatives have a plan to

get poor off welfare and

into DECENT jobs*

[more later]

original byline: rich mooch tries to scare off the competition.

WE'RE SO LUCKY!

WE GOT ANOTHER SPEECH ON LAZY POOR PEOPLE

FROM A WELL-CONNECTED RICH GUY

THANKS, PAL

Michael Portillo [pic], the sometimes tv pundit and underemployed former politician recently gave the plebes a view from Conservative-town. I'll discuss some of his wisdom below, from a

slightly different perspective, no doubt.

source:
Sunday Times 30 August 2009 pg21 "the idle young should be entitled to nothing" by M. Portillo

rant first-details later

The gist of his rant is that healthy young people should, as the Brits say, get on their bikes,

i.e. "get a freakin' job, ya yob!"

even though this former MP came from humble beginnings,

his stints at Cambridge and paliament have made him

reek of privilege and champers.

It's easy for a connected politico

to find money growing on trees,

but he's not happy just vacuuming up the lucre,

he has to crap on the poor and working poor, too

otherwise he wouldn't be a true black-'n-blue conservative.

He's telling people who probably qualify for minimum-wage jobs

to stop taking welfare benefits

so that they can be indentured slaves

for the rest of their lives.

I wouldn't be surprised if exactly none of them actually listen

to old forked-tongue Portillo.

[pic. look at my money. Sniff it. Come on!]

would you give up a free or subsidised flat

and take your family to go live in a squalid rented bed-sit?

Does MP understand how little money would be left after you pay for

rent and food?

Right, so he was a politician, and the Social Services minister. Doesn't he know this stuff?

If all there is is burger-slinging jobs that don't allow you to live properly, then what's the use?

LET'S CHAT ABOUT CONTRIBUTING TO SOCIETY! YES?

It's not as if rich folk are in a hurry to pay more taxes.

In fact, most don't pay any,

so who's "leaching off the public" now?

The conclusion drawn here?
THE POOR HAVE RESPONSIBILITIES AND

THE RICH have RIGHTS.

4) BUT rich folk provide jobs, right?:

The government gives companies money all the time, reportedly in order for them to

"hire some workers", coff-coff, brbrbrbr, coff.

If you just happen to have the right connections, borrowing money is no problem, and so you just squat on your right to make money and pay staff as little as possible.

what's that you say?

"that's what the market will bear" you say.

Look who's leaching now.

Forget about people wanting to get hitched and/or raise a family.

Many are working hard

and reaching none of their financial goals

(especially when the rich are stealing their investments).

Others are feathering their nests

with the carcasses of lives wasted

serving the parsimonious rich.

5) BEHIND CLOSED DOORS:

COUNCIL HOMES vs. PARLIAMENT

(or, "Where the power really lies")

Since MP was a politician, he knows how the laws are slanted in favour of rich people, who are so rich they don't need any favours.

Slimy leechers, anyone?

Let's forget the share and share alike that we teach our kids. That ends with grade school.

The way things are now, the rich are taking from the poor.

we got some reverse/moon-walking Robin Hoods
over here!

The discussion about what the poor should be doing, is not one for rich people to be having.

They're too busy making money and bribing politicians, or 'making' politicians who will do their bidding.

So, the poor are also scrambling to get whatever they can, as always.

Just like their rich neighbours.

God bless the former lot.

Before we talk about Portillo's actual comments, some erudite opinions on employment are in order. Maestro!

Michael Portillo's words, verbatim:

[my comments, Costick 67]

"In 1834, followers of Jeremy Bentham, the philosophical radical , succeeded in shaping the poor law to discourage idleness. The reform offered relief only in workhouses whose conditions would be worse than existing on even the most meagre wage." [Nice threat. Don't you think Thatcher would have done it if she could've?]
"That dole (under Churchill) was deeply resented as undermining a man's dignity." [Verily. 'Tis better, for dignity's sake, to bend forth and accept your life of servitude, like a supository.]
"there has always been a supply of willing [read: starving] workers from abroad to clean the streets and hospitals, serve us our burgers and pull our pints." [I love globalisation. We create starvation around the world and accept the lucky few who can manage to get here, so that we can take advantage of them here as well.]
"Should we not be concerned about the spiritual poverty of so many lives spent unproductively" [The spirit he's talking about can only be gotten by years spent in private/posh education and at parliament, so 'no worries' for our poor friends.]
"But the welfare reforms of American liberals in that era [1960s] parlysed the economic progress of millions." [Ya, the Sixties was a time of stagnation. The poor live so much better now in the US. Actually stagnation started with right-wing ThatcheReaganomics, after the bloom had come off the post-war economy.]
"Because black families were among the poorest- but not because they were black [racism never existed??!! Not in Portillo's private-club life, anyway. No anti-Spanish/gay pogroms on his CV. You brute!] - they fell victim to spiralling welfare budgets." [Better to be a victim of racism and of capitalism. You'll get more handouts from the Church that way.]
"In Britain- maybe throughout western Europe- belief in work, vocation, community, family and God have declined together." [This man will say anything. This stinks of rhetoric. Since when has a gay man been interested in the traditional nuclear family and religion? 'In God and dollars we trust' say the rich. That's why He's on the currency.]
"If a few young men from sink [read: shitty] estates are now heroes in Afghanistan, why should we presume that all the others are capable of nothing useful at all." [Oh, I understand him now! The rich send the poor, who have no choice, to go do their killing for them. There's another reason for the intelligent poor to stay right where they are. If the rich had to send their kids, all wars would end immediately.]
"Whenever I asked Murray what to do, he was pessimistic that a democratic society could take measures tough enough to halt our moral degeneration." [Ya. I don't see any bankers or politicians in jail over the financial crisis. Good one, pal.]

-Costick67 ( 8^P

pics from fotosearch.com. royalty-free

*either I'm a prophet, or somebody's been reading my blog. It's more likely that some Conservatives read Portillo's article and said 'don't say THAT, NOW!, or we won't get elected'. My main argument was that the poor can only lose by leaving welfare to flip burgers for their billionnaire bosses.

Got a deathwish? Go anti-lobby in Strasbourg

[pic Pagliaccio]


[under construction]

I've just recently read a story about how the lobbyist who've set up in Strasbourg are there to get any and all legislation slanted in favour of BIG-ass interests, e.g.:

oil

banks

agri-business and fisheries

agri-chem and GM food

I'm also disappointed that

not ONE SINGLE SOLITARY

fair-minded EU MEP politician

(if there is such an animal)

is even trying to

scream "BLOODY MURDER" EVERYWHERE

just to give attention to this

twisting of democracy

which is going to cost every worker

his life savings, it seems.

I'm especially pissed off at the

Greens for this

because they talk the talk,

but they don't walk the walk.

They know that lobbying is a crucial issue,

but they're ready to deal with things as they are.

As in, "heads- the rich win, tails- the poor lose"

So, here's what you do:

[This message will self-destruct in 20 seconds]

Your mission: to bring into

the public gaze

the twisting of democracy by lobbyists.

You and a couple of likeminded skilled, devious and theatrical friends go and set up in a flat/apartment in the 'Bourg, especially if you're unemployed. Beg, borrow or steal enough money to stay for a year at least. Eat rice. Lose weight.

Get the names and addresses of the lobby firms and whom it is that they're blackmailing/bribing politicians FOR.

Find out when big legislation, like to limit fishing or to limit agri-chemicals, are due to come to vote. Find out who the responsible minister is. Also, find the power-brokers.

Watch the lobbyists go in and out.

Then, and here comes the fun part, set up

a makeshift public theatre in front of the legislature.

Wear period costumes, or anything to get attention. Make complete fools of yourselves.

[pic: sex always works]

Tell the story of the legislation as loudly as possible. Maybe somebody, perhaps a tourist will follow the proceedings, perhaps someone with a blog and watch, record you, and spread the word. Be warned: you'll have problems with the old media.

Newspapers will ignore you.

If you throw a pie at a tv journalist,

he'll just wipe off and keep going.

Point out the minister responsible as he passes by and make fun of him if he gives in to the lobby.

Watch you don't get caught for libel. So the complainants really would have to be bought- and- paid-for politicians. That shouldn't be too hard to prove, should it?

When you piss off the wrong guy though, you're going to jail, or, even worse, you'll get your deathwish.

Try it at home in your own country.

It's dangerous.

It's direct action.

It's called standing up for democracy.

You're welcome.

-Costick67 ( 8^P

pic from fotosearch.com