Highlights from Egypt

From today's New York Times:

A bonfire of office furniture from the ruling party headquarters was burning nearby, and the carcasses of police vehicles were still smoldering. The police appeared to have retreated from large parts of the city.

From an Associated Press story:

On Friday, 17 police stations throughout Cairo were torched, with protesters stealing firearms and ammunition and freeing some jailed suspects. They also burned dozens of police trucks in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez. On Saturday, protesters besieged a police station in the Giza neighborhood of Cairo, looted and pulled down Egyptian flags, then burned the building to the ground.

From another Associated Press story:

Before the army arrived, young Egyptians — some armed with truncheons grabbed off the police — created a human chain at the museum's front gate to prevent looters from making off with any of its priceless artifacts.

People taking back power, however fleetingly, makes for some crazy situations.

Helmet "cover"

A fine display of the internet enabling us to see things that never needed to be seen.

More Helmet

I seriously don't understand how these men kept their composure while performing this song. If I had written this song or played in the band that did, it is a fact that I would have injured myself or someone else every time I played it. So unfortunate that it gets cut off. Also, Page's voice is not in top shape. Still, brutal song and the only televised performance I can find.

Helmet

So sick. The two best songs on the record. The drummer's hair rules and so do the wallet chains. Fucking 90s.

Misrepresenting King and watering down his message to an extent that approaches meaninglessness

So here we are, observing Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday. It seems that much of the mainstream press is discussing it in a context related to the shootings in Arizona last week, as though they are related in any way. The Associated Press published the following headline - "Ariz. rampage looms as King remembered in church." The Week offers this palliative - "Arizona shootings: How Martin Luther King's message can help America heal." Over at the Huffington Post, we hear this - "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2011: Nation Ponders King In Wake Of Arizona Shootings." Finally, the Associated Press also tells us "Martin Luther King's Peace Legacy Praised After Arizona Shootings."

Now, I'm sure that many of these people mean well, but I can't help but feel that anyone who would talk about Dr. King like this doesn't get him. To be sure, there is a lot to get, and he was a complicated man, who like most of us, changed over time in profound ways. Still, I know that he has been one of the country's favorite sanitization targets. No one talks about his antiwar speeches, he is rarely remembered in public for developing beliefs openly critical of U.S. foreign policy and we don't hear about his evolution into someone who was fighting for economic as well as what we commonly understand as civil rights.

The difference between economic and traditional civil rights is huge. When we discuss the civil rights movement, which isn't very often, we tend to remember it as something based around access to lunch counters, buses, department stores and schools, and maybe true access to the voting booth. That makes for a simple moral decision - yes, it is wrong to prohibit anyone from eating, traveling, shopping or learning somewhere based on her or his skin color; or, no, there is no problem with such practices. There's not too much nebulous space here. No one advocated allowing some black people to do these things, or having a quota of how many could do so. These are basic civil rights - equal access to facilities. Once economic rights - principally equality in employment and housing - come into the picture, it becomes a fundamentally different discussion. These issues are no more resolved than they were when King was alive. Affirmative action is frowned upon and white people still ardently fight it to the highest courts they can. Housing in this country is deeply segregated today, especially in the North. These matters make for very ugly debate, especially when we live in these "post-racial" times. After all, black people had their civil rights movement, got some laws and court decisions, and there is even a black president now. And what about Oprah? See?

Anyway, yeah, the fact is that King was pursuing an agenda that advocated for poor people's economic rights - jobs and housing. He did this in the North and the South. This is not popular among anyone but poor people and some progressives. It was easy for people throughout the country to support integrated buses, but they didn't want anyone taking a Greyhound into Cleveland and moving in next door. Largely, they still don't.

As for King's message, it was more sophisticated than shooting people is wrong. Most people already thought that then, and it hasn't changed. No one needs a sermon on that topic. There is no divide in the country splitting those for and against random mass murder.

To bring King into what happened in Arizona last week does the man a disservice. It reduces his life to a general message of peace, which is essentially meaningless, and cheapens his death. The man was cut down for a very specific reason - he advocated too strongly for freedom. Whether you believe James Earl Ray killed him or not, his assassin was not a crazed maniac. He was murdered to silence him. Dr. King had survived numerous assassination attempts. One such event touched off the Birmingham Riot in May 1963, when Klansmen bombed the motel where Dr. King had been staying and his brother's house. The FBI, with John F. Kennedy's knowledge and approval, conducted a long campaign to discredit him, which included a letter encouraging him to commit suicide.

He knew he was a marked man:

I doubt he thought he would live as long as he did. That's the price you pay when you dedicate your life to freedom. Real freedom. Not this American military George Bush patriot Tea Party crap. You put your life up for grabs.

What happened in Arizona, tragic as it may be, had nothing to do with a freedom struggle. Dr. King was not the victim of a crazed killer shooting everyone in sight. No, a coward took him from afar and fled. That man knew just what he was doing and had planned well in advance.

We do Dr. King and ourselves an incredible disservice if we conflate his death with the killings in Arizona. They bear no similarity, whatsoever, aside from the most obvious fact that a gun was involved. He deserves to be remembered for who he was, what he fought for, what he accomplished and what he believed. And for our own good, we need to remember him and what he stood for. We need to reckon with that, in a serious way. To talk about him as a man of peace is fucking pointless. Everyone's a man of peace. That's nothing new and means nothing to anyone. We don't learn anything if that's all we take away.

CRYIN LIKE A BITCH

Who can't relate to this??

Troops Oops

An oldie but a goodie.

No One Wants an Alien

Looking from the inside you feel nothing on the outside is real.
Does it really show?
All the other kids put you down.
No one ever wants you around.
No one wants an alien.
Never never thought you could feel cause everything around you stands still.
But will they ever know?
Dreaming of a place far away.
You know you were born here astray.
Does it really show?
Can't make it playing their game when everyone plays it the same.
No one wants an alien.
Never never thought you could feel cause everything around you stands still.
But will they ever know?
Looking from the inside you feel nothing on the outside is real.
Does it really show?
The vision keeps coming at you still cause something deep inside of you is real.
But will they ever know?
Never never thought you could feel cause everything around you stands still.
No one wants an alien.

American Jesus

Great song, incredible lyrics. How do you come up with this shit?

Check out Greg Hetson's shirt. This is pre-Dookie, mind you. Look how long Jay Bentley's hair is.

Brett, not a great period for him.

Struck a Nerve

Fucking brilliant.

Show review / "Do you listen to punk?"

I went to see Bad Religion two weeks ago, no wait, last week, on October 26th. It was the second night of their "30 Years of Bad Religion" deal at Irving Plaza, where they broke up their career into three shows. The first was supposed to be How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, Suffer and No Control. I didn't go to that one because, while those records are great, and the last two are basically perfect, I was way more into the idea of the second night and I didn't have the money ($27.50 plus $12 in service charges) to spend on two shows. I guess it turns out for the better, as they played a boatload of new songs and some hits from the 90s, although I did miss "Billy Gnosis," which I suppose was not really Billy Gnosis, as they had no keyboard and how could it be Billy Gnosis without that Bruce Springsteen breakdown?

So the second night was Against the Grain, Generator, Recipe for Hate, Stranger than Fiction, The Gray Race and No Substance. People, including Bad Religion, called it 90s night, but thank fucking Jah they left out The New America. That means that they could only play really good to unbelievable songs. There are no bad songs on those records, at all. I was real psyched on the idea.

I got there shortly after eight PM, as I live anywhere from one to two or more hours away, depending on traffic. It only took me a little over an hour, so I was there a bit earlier. I knew the show was sold out and I wanted a good spot to watch from the balcony. I walked in just after Off with Their Heads went on. Boring as hell mid-tempo punk stuff that I've heard a thousand times. I thought maybe it would be something decent as they were recently on No Idea. They had nothing to say for themselves, with the exception of "I have bedbugs" and "So who's excited for Bad Religion?" Oh, and the head-shakingly pointless "How is everybody doing out there?" Boring boring boring. Four dudes in black t-shirts and jeans trying to look cool while they played. They don't seem to be all that into what they play, in their hearts.

After they finished, I very quickly realized that while I had an excellent vantage point from which to watch Bad Religion, I was stuck next to this witless dude pounding (what I found out were $11) beer after beer who felt the need to talk to everyone, yet paradoxically had nothing to say. His story will continue.

The Aggrolites were up next. Musically, they are fucking bad. Funk-ska. However, in spirit and energy, I enjoy them. Those dudes are real into what they are doing and play it cause that's exactly what they want to be doing. There is no funk-ska scene, and accordingly, they will not be able to capitalize on their popularity within it. They are also super tight and the singer can work a crowd. The keyboard player was so happy to be playing, smiling and bopping his head the whole time.

The drunk dude, the witless one from above, absolutely hated them. He made sure everyone around him knew, as he kept pretending to shoot himself. He bonded with the bro next to me over their distaste for the band. They both agreed that the Aggrolites really "suck." Yeah man, they sure suck. Then these men's respective girlfriends got in on the action, so that there were now four people reassuring one another that the Aggrolites suck. It was deep. The drunk man's girlfriend, in an act of extreme daring, yelled, from the balcony, while the band was playing, mind you, "You suck!" Well let me tell you, that went over extremely well within a one-foot radius. Her boyfriend damn near fell over with laughter. The other couple ate it up as well. You would think we were watching Sinatra in 1943 by the reaction they had. It was as though the woman had made an incredible breach of etiquette that had never been seen before. They acted as though it was so outrageous, and at least as creative.

The longer the Aggrolites played, the more joy I felt from watching the empty-eyed gang around me aggravate themselves. It was great. There was another "You suck!" from the girlfriend, and it had about the same effect. Hooray for the Aggrolites.

It was during this time that the drunk man and the bro really bonded. They talked about Pennywise. The drunkard (who also consumed a shot of Jaegermeister, which likely brought his alcohol bill upwards of $100 for the evening) informed the bro that he had recently seen them with their replacement singer, and it was good, "but it wasn't Jim." It sure wasn't. Then he asked the bro if he listened to punk. The bro indicated that he did. The thirsty man inquired as to whether or not he had ever heard of the band "Minor Threat." I haven't. Sounds dangerous. He said that, yes, he had heard of them. The guy with the big wallet took much delight in telling him that one of the guitar players used to be in that band. This, of course, is precious knowledge, limited to a select few from deep within the underground. During Bad Religion, he identified himself as being one of the lucky knowing ones by yelling "Minor Threat!" Wow. That guy was probably at the first show of every band.

After a while of listening to these people talk about nothing, Bad Religion came on. Finally. They opened with "The Gray Race." It was good. I was into their current drummer being able to play proper fast beats on the cymbals, instead of doing that cheat shit that Bobby Schayer became increasingly fond of over time, where he hits the cymbal and snare at the same time instead of double-timing the cymbal. However, I did not like Brooks' (the current drummer) changing of songs, which was pretty major in some cases. He changed a lot of fills, which is alright, I guess, but he just straight up changed beats in other songs. "Generator" was perhaps most demonstrative of this. "A Walk" was also notable. Fact of the matter is that Pete Finestone was the best drummer that band ever had. That dude was sick. If you doubt this, listen to Against the Grain once more.

Also, Brian Baker, who now looks like an older, more bloated version of this dude Matt I used to know, was pretty into inserting his own rock dude solos into songs, replete with wah pedal. Not cool. He put some solos where there weren't any and changed a bunch more. I'm just not into that. These songs were fucking fantastic when recorded. They really cannot be improved. It works in other situations, but not here. However shitty Brian Baker's life may or may not have been, there is absolutely no way he can channel the desperation that Brett expressed in the opening lead part to "Modern Man." Anyone other than Brett trying to play that song just cannot do it justice. Impossible.

Here are the songs they played, from memory, in chronological order, as recorded:

• Modern Man
• Turn On The Light
• Anesthesia
• Flat Earth Society
• Generator
• No Direction
• Atomic Garden
• Recipe for Hate
• Struck a Nerve
• My Poor Friend Me
• Stranger than Fiction
• Infected
• Marked
• What It Is
• The Gray Race
• A Walk
• Come Join Us
• Hear It
• Sowing the Seeds of Utopia
• The Resist Stance
• Wrong Way Kids

Then they played a three-song encore:

• American Jesus
• Fuck Armageddon
• Sorrow

If you want to find out the actual order, my housemate told me there is a setlist website. There may have been another new song in there, not sure. Maybe I forgot another song or two as well.

Yes, it's true, they played neither "Cease" nor "Skyscraper." Granted, they would have had to play a five hour set to sate my needs for this era of their existence, but fucking come on. Those are two brutal, devastating songs and they played neither. They know those are incredible songs. Fucking shit.

The entire set, the big guy with the appetite for consumption next to me did this really weird thing where for every song (except the couple he didn't know cause the words were sung too fast) he would lean forward, bend down, put his elbow on the balcony railing, and emphatically mouth the words into his girlfriend's ear. It was strange and distracting. I noticed at one point that she had her hand over her ear. Later, she just got out of the way and stood behind him for the rest of the set. Why didn't I move, right? Cause it really was the best spot I could get. I would have wound up standing behind people anywhere else. It was the only spot on the balcony that wasn't already obstructed when I got there.

Final random thoughts - not a huge fan of Brooks' style. He is an excellent drummer, but he plays around with the songs too much. I wish he would be more true to the originals. It's not like they had boring, shitty, incapable drummers before. I'm glad that Greg and Brian got off that Mesa kick. The guitars on The Process of Belief sounded not so good. Greg is using Mesa cabinets again, but both he and Brian are using Marshall heads and Jay has one of those reissue vintage SVT heads with matching 8x10. I approve.

Too heavy, too light

Heroism - James Willie Jones

I wish I had a father like this. My parents never really cared all that much. I wish a more people had parents like this. We would have a whole lot less bullying.

James Willie Jones went on the school bus to deal with asshole kids who were fucking with his thirteen-year-old daughter who has cerebral palsy. They were putting open condoms on her head, smacking her and yelling horrible shit at her. I don't care how old they were. It's never ok. Stop it by any means necessary. No one should have to live through that. It never ends when the words and actions do.

Unfortunately, the pig-fuck legal system forced him to supplicate himself before televised audiences and apologize, saying what he did was wrong. The hell it was.

Eight hundred thousand cheers for this man, and then some. This video brings tears to my eyes.

Tyler Clementi/Dharun Ravi/Molly Wei - people are garbage, part 900

Yeah. Get us off the planet, please. All of us. As soon as possible. It's got to happen.

So do you know this story yet? Probably. It seems to be much larger than just around here. Well, here is the short version. Two college freshmen, Dharun Ravi and Tyler Clementi, shared a dorm at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They do not seem to have been friends, and they did not know one another before September. Tyler was gay, but not out about it. Dharun found out about it, apparently through spying on him, when Tyler asked him to have the room to himself for a few hours, with his webcam and watching it in his friend's room. Her name is Molly Wei. She also goes to Rutgers. Or went. If she didn't stop going, I'm sure she'll be expelled with Dharun, or at least physically prohibited from going when they are in jail. So anyway, he was spying on him. He posted a message to Twitter about it on September 19th that read as such:

Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.

So the next time, he thought it would be funny, I guess, if he showed other people. Tyler again asked for the room, September 21st, and this was Dharun's reaction, again via Twitter:

Anyone with iChat, I dare you to video chat me between the hours of 9:30 and 12. Yes it's happening again.

Tyler found out that this had happened (by reading Dharun's Twitter) and jumped off the George Washington Bridge the next day. They found his body yesterday or the day before, I don't know. He left shit on the bridge to identify him - his wallet, with ID inside. He posted this on his Facebook:

jumping off the gw bridge, sorry.

The day he killed himself, Tyler reported Dharun to the person in charge of his floor, as well as two of his superiors. The campus police got involved. Dharun and Molly were arrested and released. They are, for the time being, pre-body being found, facing up to five years for invasion of privacy.

So.

We have a lot of things here. The collision of technology and the ancient intolerance that seems to be endemic to our species, as far as recorded history tells it. The standard "homophobia." It still being largely acceptable to mock gay people, being gay, or having "gay" qualities.

Here are some stupid things people will/have said:

Dharun and Molly didn't mean for him to kill himself. Yeah, well, he jumped, didn't he?

He took it the wrong way. He took having his sexuality, of which he is supposed to be ashamed and for which he is generally reckoned to be going to hell, which is never looked upon by the world as a positive thing, that he had not told his parents (cause you have to tell people that you are gay, but not that you aren't gay) or anyone else, except the guy on the webcam with him, broadcast across the internet to anyone Dharun knew, and in turn anyone they knew and so forth, the wrong way? Yeah, I guess you're right.

It's not their fault he was ashamed of who he was. Well, yeah, it actually is. I doubt he was ashamed though, just made to feel that he should be. I know about that. They made him into a spectacle. What a freak, right?

It was a prank. Not really. I think what people mean by this, if they had the depth of intelligence to consider it, is that being a gay person is funny - it's a novelty. They are characters for us to laugh at, to observe.

He would have done it if Tyler were with a woman, too. Probably not, but I don't think too many people would be questioning if it were wrong if that were the case.

Dharun is open minded/has gay friends. All but the most ardent racists have black friends (especially the kind who say that there are black people and then there are niggers). You'll never meet them though.

They didn't realize what they are doing. If he didn't kill himself, would they ever have realized it? No, it would have kept being funny. Fact. They are fucking 18 years old. Adults. Gotta learn sometime, right? I was raised in the same shitty fucking society as they were, but I got the fucking message early on that it's not fucking ok to hate gay people or make anyone feel like shit for being born. They, apparently, did not get that message. Doesn't matter. You cannot excuse yourself from the grave consequences of actions you deliberately choose by saying "Oh, I didn't realize it." I don't fucking care what you did or didn't realize. Too late, huh? Here are some good examples of this reasoning that fall way short:

• "I only had five beers. I'm usually good like that. I must have fallen asleep."
• "Fuck, I didn't realize it was loaded."
• "I didn't mean to hit you that hard, I was angry."
• "I had no idea the knife was that sharp."
• "I didn't think it would actually hit you, I have bad aim."
• "Shit, I guess it will stain after all. Come on, it was a joke."

I know kids like this. Fucking assholes. I spent much of my life going to school with them. They are probably rich, given where they went to high school, or if not rich themselves, surrounded by a bunch of rich fucks with whom they had to keep up. I went to high school, and elementary, and middle school with a lot of rich kids and middle class kids whose parents pretended they were rich. I hate them. There are kids I knew then, ten, twenty years ago, who I still hope get in car accidents. There are armies of these assholes all over the place, and they often wind up running things. That's a big part of why shit sucks.

Fuck anyone who tells you to take it with a grain of salt, talks of not letting it affect you. I live with the mental and emotional marks those people inflicted on me from the time I was five years old. You try getting ripped down every day for over ten years and coming out on top.

My partner was watching this very nice video that Ellen DeGeneres made about her reaction to Tyler's suicide. It's also a message to kids like him. In it, she says, "I want anyone out there who feels different and alone to know that I know how you feel." My partner stopped it and started crying. She said that she wished she had someone to tell her that when she was younger. Me too.

And you know what else? I guarantee you that a ton of people who will say, "Oh, that's so terrible, such a tragedy..." will turn around and call someone a faggot five minutes later, or a fucking homo, or say "No homo" or tell someone how "gay" something is. FUCK ALL OF YOU.

Fucking assholes don't get it.

Let's start saying that things we don't like are not just gay, but Puerto Rican, fat, female, black, Chinese, cancerous, have Alzheimer's, fetal alcohol syndrome-ish, autistic, African, poor, Native American, schizophrenic, have eating disorders, Arab, paralyzed, amputated or rape victims.

Koran burner Derek Fenton booted from his job at NJ Transit

Good. Fuck this guy and his "First Amendment rights." He's just a hateful piece of shit who would probably pull the fucking switch on anyone who is Muslim. Thoughtless reactionary fuck, running around screaming about 9/11 with no consideration given to what he says, means or does. Please, do not let reality get in your way, sir.

I would like to point out that his protest site, the "Ground Zero" mosque isn't a mosque and it's not at "Ground Zero." I quote from Frank Rich:

THE “ground zero mosque,” as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It’s not a mosque but an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room....Still, the battle that has broken out over this project in Lower Manhattan — on the “hallowed ground” of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory store one block from the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club — will prove eventful all the same.

And here we have some basically brilliant commentary from Gawker (the post is worth reading in its entirety):

While you spent your Sunday trying to teach your cat to go to the bathroom on a human toilet, a group of brave, freedom-loving Americans gathered in New York City to express their extreme disapproval with the Park 51 project, an al-Qaeda plot to build a community center featuring a swimming pool and auditorium on the very site where a Burlington Coat Factory once stood.

I love how his neighbors are all defending him. I'm sure they wouldn't be talking about any rights if he were burning such things as a bible, an American flag or pictures of their children. It's so cool to hate Muslims right now.

How fucking shortsighted are people? "Muslims killed Americans! Muslim bad! Islam no good, bad bad! I wanna fuck Sarah Palin!!!"

Please don't misunderstand me as defending religion. It's all profoundly stupid and silly, no matter what god you worship. It all saps your energy, will, and faith in the self. Fuck it all. But the thing is, you can't just pick one religion and say "Oh, this is the bad one. I hate it so much, because, you know, it's just so bad. And mine is so great. It's very, very different. Just so different." It's all the fucking same.

Fuck this place.

True words

Brilliant insight.

"Racism continues to reflect a disparity of power and it is as egregious today as it was in the eighteenth century because the advent of less dramatic forms of dominance is not progress. More insidious in modern social relations is the fact that white people do not have to expressly target black people in order to exploit them. They only have to locate their interests in private and public policies that have disparate impact. Freed from involvement in color-specific political decisions and specific acts of racial oppression, white Americans can more easily imagine the injustices of their society to be natural or irrational."

- Craig Steven Wilder, A Covenant with Color: Race and Social Power in Brooklyn, p. 241.

Leadership

Here is Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona and the country's leading anti-immigration politician, giving a public address on television as to why people should reelect her:




Yup.

I guess her groomers/coaches tell her to never stop smiling, no matter what.

The only people who have justification to act like this are the senile and the very high.

Smart people

Have smart things to say. Finally, the real Americans emerged from Wal-Mart and their PT Cruisers or whatever.

It's nice to see a group of people who really "get it," whatever "it" may be. But let me tell you, they get it. I hope they are able to stop Saddam.

I must say, I am disappointed to not have seen Hulk Hogan getting in on this, though the man directly above may be related to him.

In case you have forgotten:

How the Mighty Have Fallen, Part 1

Rancid. What a great band. A lot of people I know are real into the first self-titled record, but I am not one of them. After that, however, it's hit after hit - Let's Go, And out Come the Wolves, Life Won't Wait, and the second self-titled, or "Rancid 2000" as it's often known. Everything else after that sucked. Still, four (by my estimation) great, and I mean great, records is really something. There are no bad songs on those records (well, there is one, but I will get to it, and it's only lyrically bad). Fucking gold.

I was listening to Let's Go this morning and reveled in Tim's hatred of the police, listening to him singing in "Harry Bridges" about how "Bloody Thursday was July 5th, the pigs killed 3 workers, Harry Bridges grabbed the mic," and certainly best of all, when "every single cop got a bullet in the head" in "Sidekick." Even Lars gets in on the action, telling us about Mary being "out the door with a loaded .44 in her hand, shooting down the law that shot down her dear departed man." Fuck pigs, yes, fuck them all to hell.

It was bad enough to find out the man is a Christian (that's the one bad song I was referencing above, "Who Would've Thought" from Life Won't Wait - it's about him "finding god" or whatever bullshit. Unfortunately, I am not able to locate the interview in which I read that at this time.) but now he fucking writes songs about the troops. And not in the good way. No no, Tim unequivocally praises them. He's one of those all-too-common people who somehow views soldiers in a morality vacuum, seeing them as simply "doing their job," no questions of wrong or right being asked, never mind answered. Why, here he is, quoted recently in the Navy Times (not kidding):

“Whatever you think of the war — everyone has their own opinions — you’ve got to give respect to the soldiers,” Armstrong says. “I do, big time.”

No, actually, I need give no respect to the soldiers. You see, the reality that no one wants to admit is that THEY ARE THE FUCKING WAR. Yes, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and Obama could have all the plans they want, the Pentagon could draw up all the strategies it could muster and Lockheed Martin could stockpile millions of tons of weapons and munitions, but if no one actually went to fight the war, then there couldn't be one, could there? And seeing that there hasn't been a draft in decades, there is no excuse there. It's a volunteer military. Sure, people get conned into joining. But then they get enthusiastic about shooting whomever crosses their paths and kicking in strangers' doors and screaming at them in a language they do not understand. So, once you've gone and invaded someone's sovereignty for no reason at all, aside from because you elected to do so/were ordered to, you've forfeited all rights to life. As much as I hate to use the war makers' terms, you are then a thief of freedom and liberty and the people whose land you are invading and occupying, the ones whom you are terrorizing, they have a right to resist and expel you by any means available to them. Especially now! There is NO MISUNDERSTANDING about what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are not popular wars. All that shit about 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden and whatever else is a bunch of garbage. None of that has anything to do with what's going on in those countries and no one even bothers to claim it does any longer.

Simply put, you are no hero while you are there unless you turn your weapons back on your own side, absolutely refuse to participate regardless of the consequences to yourself or somehow manage to perform a substantial subversive function, like the tragically foolish traitor to the imperialist cause, Bradley Manning.

Praise Pastor Terry Jones

Of course the man is a beyond reprehensible piece of shit who will hopefully fall into his bonfire, but hooray for him for being stupid enough to do the things necessary to speed us towards the ultimate goal of getting the fuck off the planet.

Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”

But now the global spotlight has shifted. With the debate in New York putting religious tensions front and center, Mr. Jones has suddenly attracted thousands of fans and critics on Facebook, while around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-Islamic sentiment...

Mr. Jones who seems to spend much of his time inside a dank, dark office with a poster from the movie “Braveheart” and a picture of former President George W. Bush, appears to be largely oblivious to the potential consequences of his plans. Speaking in short sentences with a matter-of-fact drawl, he said that he could not understand why other Christians, including the nation’s largest evangelical association, had called for him to cancel “International Burn a Koran Day..."

He acknowledged that it had brought in at least $1,000 in donations. But he said that the interviews he had done with around 150 news outlets all over the world were useful mainly because they had helped him “send a message to Islam and the pushers of Shariah law: that it is not what we want.”

Mr. Jones said that nothing in particular had set him off. Asked about his knowledge of the Koran, he said plainly: “I have no experience with it whatsoever. I only know what the Bible says.”

Fuck all religions. They are all wrong and stupid. Nothing but old stories and morals, threats to keep in line. All gods are myths. There are no prophets. We have no saviors.