MLK RIP
March 31st, 2008 gennaroOn April 4, we’ll be commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.
Here’s Kennedy’s talk honoring King just minutes after learning he had been assassinated. Kennedy himself, who like King was an outspoken opponent against the Vietnam War, was assassinated just three months later.
“Listening to Robert F. Kennedy it’s hard to imagine a single politician active today who could deliver such a speech in the moment, without notes and without a team of speech writers.
Even those with such resources would be hard pressed to equal his dignified, decent eloquence in this moment of horror.
Just three months after this talk, Kennedy too would be assassinated, paving the way for Richard Nixon, a common criminal and associate of gangsters, to be elected President of the United States.
Against all logic and decency, Nixon prolonged the pointless and brutal war in Vietnam eight years resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of US servicemen and women and over 1,000,000 Vietnamese civilians.” Brasscheck.com
And here is MLK last speech. He was a true messenger of God.
Here is MLK reaction to JFK assassination. And of course, a cameo by Dan Rather 
Tags: Kennedy's talk, Martin Luther King, video
Cool Photos
March 30th, 2008 gennaroHere are some photos I took from the TV. I used color negative film. After taking the pics I dumped the roll of film, canister and all, into dirty water. Then I took it to the lab to be processed. The results are coll.
Star Wars Review
March 30th, 2008 gennaroI’ve been wanting a good review of Star Wars for years!
Cool Performance Piece
March 30th, 2008 gennaroChavez, Venezuela, Mass Media and individual souls seeking happiness.
March 30th, 2008 gennaroFrom my limited perspective and from the little investigation I have done, I do not think Chavez is the devil that Western Mass Media makes him out to be.
Perhaps he is a destabilizing force. But the question is, destabilizing to WHO??? To the western powers that be maybe. But to poor people? I think he seems to be a benefit to them compared to the alternatives.
Sure he is rough on the edges. He is a strong religious Christian. He is a military politician. All things I am dubious about in a position of such power.
But I support him. ‘Nuf said.
Please take a look at the comments below the videos on YouTube.
They are overwhelmingly positive… these are not mass media pundits. These are normal people, a lot of them Venezuelan. For me that is a much stronger statement than any article in the NY Times.
Below is an interesting movie that shows a pro Chavez perspective. 74 minutes long.
Tags: Chavez, pro Chavez perspective, Venezuela, video
The Revolution will be televised, blogged and turned into a reality TV show
March 29th, 2008 gennaro
How things have changed…or have they. I think the revolution will be televised. But the real question is: will it it be televised or live for YOU???
Will you watch it happen or be part of it. The revolution is no longer one mass group of people against another. It is many little cells against many little cells. It is many little events.
Certainly there are big events that symbolize change, like the falling of the Berlin Wall, the shooting of a President, of the invasion of a country.
But they are small compared to the torrent of many little events leading up to and beyond the symbolic big events. Are you living your revolution???
And then the other question is: WHICH revolution?
There is always a revolution because life can not exist without change, second by second, day by day. We are never NOT in a revolution. The real question is WHICH one are you taking part in???
Every choice you make is another little penny into the jar and as any investor knows, those pennies work on compound interest. A penny now is a dollar later. What are your efforts investing in today???
The revolution is happening now. Once it gets to the point of being televised it is practically over!!!!
Don’t let the broadcasters decide what revolution to televise: live your revolution and televise it yourself! If you don’t make your decisions outside forces will make them for you. Either way decisions will be made, revolutions will happen. Be Part of them! Be alive!
Ok. Pep talk is over, now go back to your life.
Where does Cheney put his money?
March 29th, 2008 gennaroThe article below by Rense.com is interesting in two ways. First it claims to show where Cheney puts his money. I think Cheney has a pretty good idea of where the economy of the US and the world is going. He is betting that US is going down and Europe is not.
Other facts show how China is full steam ahead and other places are losing steam.
But the main interesting point in the article below is the concept that the US is not immune to the same economic rape that all other banana republic countries experience.
I had always presumed that the US was the home of the elite and thus they would not crap in their own home. But I see now that the elite have absolutely no national allegiance and the US is completely open to pillage. It has already been pillaged.
I might be naive but I am only just realizing this. I thought that the middle class in the US could stay safe, like little children under the protective glow of the elite wealthy.
But I am wrong. I see now that the middle class is leaning on the edge of a long downward hill and that the difference between the middle class and the lower class is very little once you do the book keeping: many middle class people come out poorer than the lower class once you call in all their debts (student loans, mortgage etc). The middle class owes a lot more money than the lower class (INHO) so realistically they are dirt poor if the house of economic cards should start to topple.
This might be a little 20 year economic blip we are experiencing right now and in a couple years we could again be on the mindless lala economic expansion we all love. But I am not sure.
If the facts are right, as of four years ago when we were still in the highs of economic happiness the middle and lower class were not any better off than 20 years ago. So a downturn now means we are getting worse off than 20 years ago even with the many years of supposed increase in wealth.
So I would have to conclude from this that the elite have been pillaging the US for years and only now are they actually leaving with their spoils. They no longer have to lie to us. We have been raped and they are moving on. Quick, somebody tell the Chinese middle class before it is too late…
Here is the article from Rense.com:
Wouldn’t you like to know where Dick Cheney puts his money? Then you’d know
whether his “deficits don’t matter” claim is just baloney or not.
Well, as it turns out, Kiplinger Magazine ran an article based on Cheney’s
financial disclosure statement and, sure enough, found out that the VP is
lying to the American people for the umpteenth time. Deficits do matter and
Cheney has invested his money accordingly.
The article is called “Cheney’s betting on bad news” and provides an account
of where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may
be estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the
Palm Beach Post, Cheney has invested heavily in “a fund that specializes in
short-term municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation
protected securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with
inflation. The third is protected against inflation.”
Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond
fund which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So,
while working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising
energy costs, Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in “Old Europe”. As
Blackburn sagely notes, “Not all ‘bad news’ is bad for everybody.”
This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the “Bush
Economic Plan” is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public
till. The whole deal is intended to shift the nation’s wealth from one class
to another. It’s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn’t have carried this off
without the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who
engineered the low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to
sleep while they picked their pockets.
Reasonable people can dispute that Bush is “intentionally” skewering the
dollar with his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney’s
portfolio?
It doesn’t. And, one thing we can say with metaphysical certainty is that
the miserly Cheney would never plunk his money into an investment that
wasn’t a sure thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and
interest rates going up, then, by Gawd, that’s what’ll happen.
The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6
years. The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the
trade deficit has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.
This is lunacy. No country, however powerful, can maintain these staggering
numbers. The country is in hock up to its neck and has to borrow $2.5
billion per day just to stay above water. Presently, the Fed is expanding
the money supply and buying back its own treasuries to hide the hemorrhaging
from the public. Its utter madness.
Last month the trade deficit climbed to $70 billion. More importantly,
foreign central banks only purchased a meager $47 billion in treasuries to
shore up our ravenous appetite for cheap junk from China.
Do the math! They’re not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing
their stockpiles of dollars. We’re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are
manning the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage
amendments and “American Celebrity”.
The American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat
corporations who’ve abandoned their country to make a fast-buck in China or
Mexico. The $3 trillion housing (equity) bubble is quickly loosing air while
the anemic dollar continues to sag. All the signs indicate that the economy
is slowing at the same time that energy prices continue to rise.
This is the onset of stagflation; the dreaded combo of a slowing economy and
inflation.
Did Americans really think they’d be spared the same type of economic
colonization that has been applied throughout the developing world under the
rubric of “neoliberalism”?
Well, think again. The American economy is barrel-rolling towards earth and
there are only enough parachutes for Cheney and the gang.
The country has lost 3 million jobs from outsourcing since Bush took office;
more than 200,000 of those are the high-paying, high-tech jobs that are the
life’s-blood of every economy.
Consider this from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) June edition of
Foreign Affairs, the Bible of globalists and plutocrats:
“Between 2000 and 2003 alone, foreign firms built 60,000manufacturing plants
in China. European chemical companies, Japanese carmakers, and US industrial
conglomerates are all building factories in China to supply export markets
around the world. Similarly, banks, insurance companies,
professional-service firms, and IT companies are building R&D and service
centers in India to support employees, customers, and production worldwide.”
(”The Globally integrated Enterprise” Samuel Palmisano, Foreign Affairs page
130)
“60,000manufacturing plants” in 3 years?!?
“Banks, insurance companies, professional-service firms, and IT companies”?
No job is safe. American elites and corporate tycoons are loading the boats
and heading for foreign shores. The only thing they’re leaving behind is the
insurmountable debt that will be shackled to our children into perpetuity
and the carefully arranged levers of a modern police-surveillance state.
Welcome to Bush’s 21st Century gulag; third world luxury in a
Guantanamo-type setting.
Take another look at Cheney’s investment strategy; it tells the whole ugly
story. Interest rates are going up, the middle class is going down, and the
poor dollar is headed for the dumpster. The country is not simply teetering
on the brink of financial collapse; it is being thrust headfirst by the
blackguards in office and their satrapies at Federal Reserve.
We are what we are
March 24th, 2008 gennaroI was sitting in the car listening to the radio of a guy who practices “Dandyism” which is basically an obsession with the way he dresses and behaves, a throwback to an idealized mythic time when “men had style” and when when men wore frock coats, petty coats, short coats, long coats and all sorts of other fancy clothing. They also had all sorts of customs and mannerisms that made them unique from others.
Basically he had recreated himself into this hyper stylized person. But then I started to think. As I listened to him I realized this was who he was. True he had recreated himself but the recreation was part of who he was. His recreation and his true self were one and the same. And then a little mantra came into my mind:
“We are what we are”
Who cares if you are pretending, if you are doing what your parents want, if you are doing what you think your parents want, if you are rebelling, if you are “just being yourself” whatever that means, if you are not being yourself or if you are dressing up in frock coats.
Whatever you are is what you are….and then you die.
Where people fail is that they think there is some pure true self somewhere inside and if they just search long enough they will find it. But it is much simpler. You are who you are. If you get rid of all the “non-you”, all outside influences (as if this was ever possible), then what would you have? You would have you. But you were you before that as well. “You” are you regardless of all the trivial things like what you dress, think, etc.
You are you are you are you are you are you and are you.
So what do people really talk about when they say I am me? I think it is a sense of being in control. This man “chose” to be a dandy - he felt in control of his choice. Versus somebody who was “forced” to become a dandy.
But this is a joke. Anyone who has ever had a near death experience knows that we are in control of nothing.
So on the surface, sure, you are what you eat, think, do, say etc. and you control that. Certainly you are a different person if you run around killing people vs. somebody who becomes a Buddhist monk. Practically this is true….if only life were always practical.
But parallel to this, is an alternate universe, there is an identical you who is not in control of anything. In that universe you are what you are. Period.
And guess what. These two universes might very well be happening at the same time in your body… a paradox? I think not. It is the yin and yang.
One one side you control your destiny. On the other side your destiny controls you…. go figure that one out…
And meanwhile we have this interesting but overly cynical take on who you are:
Tags: Dandyism, mannerism, self-awareness