Some Holiday Thoughts

It's 16C (that's 61F for the metrically impaired) as we sit huddled by the warmth of the laptop on a crystal blue morning in what passes for winter here on the flank of the largest volcano in Java at the Far Side World Headquarters - Java Branch.  We gathered up all our wives and made a bee-line for the hills south of Jakarta for the Big Holiday.

No, not Fourth of July, Eid al-Fitri, silly.  The 4th means even less here than it does in the States, and by that I mean almost nothing, except that it is the eve of the biggest commercial holiday in all of Islam.

Oh, sure.  The Fourth is a holiday in the US.  It used to be Independence Day, but the country is no longer free and has little, if anything, to do with democracy.  More meaningful to folks there is the convenient three-day weekend with the three Bs - beer, barbeque and bullets.

On this side of the planet, though, today is one of the last shopping days before Eid al-Fitri, the big party at the and of Ramadhan.  As with all major religions that originate in the Middle East, it is an orgy of commericalism, with folks buying elaborate food baskets and handing out envelopes full of crispy new bills and kids getting shiny new bicycles from Santakesh, who flies around the world in one night, delivering gifts in his caravan pulled by eight magic camels.

Yes, it's more of the same, prompting us to bug out of the big city and hide out in the mountains until the madness passes over.

Eid al-Fitri, Idul Fitri as it's known here, starts the Lebaran holiday (lit. wideness).  It is a roughly one to two week holiday that starts with everyone in the entire country going mudik.  Mudik can translate as "scattering," "exodus," or "diaspora," depending on how much you are willing to pay for vocabulary.

In effect, one of the most densely packed cities on Earth empties out and becomes almost livable for a time, as folks slowly filter back from hometowns around the country.  Places that normally take an hour to an hour and a half to reach can suddenly fall within a 20-minute ride.  Only problem is, everything is closed, so there's really no point to going anywhere.  All the more reason to hold up in the hills until the madness blows over.

Eid al-Fitri is a combination of the feasting and travel of the US Thanksgiving holiday, along with the commercial aspects of Christmas and the religious fervor of Easter, all rolled into one.  It follows the month of fasting, during which restaurants cover the windows to hide non-Muslim diners, while placing photo adverts in the windows.  This is known as "cagnitive dissonance" in the communications biz.

Amidst all this felicity, we too have something to celebrate: all the damn drumming at 3a will now cease until next year.  Don't ask, you just have to experience it.

We are also joyful that food and eating will no longer be the center of every...single....damn....conversation.  And you may not be aware of this, but not eating or drinking (or even swallowing if you are hardcore) gives folks a wicked case of halitosis.  As a matter of social graces, it is quite pleasant when the fasting month ends.

So, after all that, there's really no point in talking about the Fourth of July.  No one here gives a good spit, and most Americans don't even remember what it's about.  Besides, at this point, the former foe (Britain) that the US cast off is now a bit freer after BREXIT.

So, as we sit here shivering in the tropical cold, we note once again that ritual has shot the air out of meaning, and that commercialism trumps (pun alert) the sacred with the profane.

Yes, folks, it's all about spending money, no matter how holy or sacred or important dates are.  In the end, they are nothing more than an excuse to dig in your pocket and extract the loose change that government and necessities left behind.

Just goes to show you that nothing is so special that commerce can't take a big steaming dump all over it.

Have a great holiday, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, or sexual orientation.  Because we're all special till the money runs out.

The Fifth Of July

Now that all that silly American chatter about 4th of July, freedom and independence is over and done with, I thought I pop up with my take on things.

First of all, anyone who still celebrates the 4th of July is either, 1) a hypocrite, 2) an Orwellian mind-control slave, or 3) lost in a maze of wishful thinking.

See, that thing that everyone calls, or rather called America is dead.  It died back around Kent State or so, though really it started dying about the time the Constitution's ink was drying.  Thomas Jefferson himself hauled off and bought the Louisiana territories, though for the life of me I can't find the power to do so anywhere in that document.

Abraham Lincoln put a stake in the heart of that thing called America when he issued General Order 100, suspended Habeas Corpus and muzzled the press.

The last tattered shreds of the Constitution blew away in the wind with the combined efforts of Woodrow Wilson and his Federal Reserve and IRS, and Harry S Truman entered the Korean War without a Congressional declaration of war.

The was a brief flicker of life under John F. Kennedy, but they shot him and the American people bought the Warren Report hook, line and sinker.  There was nothing left to do but start the 4th Reich.

In fact, that is the real 4th being celebrated yesterday.  It wasn't the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but rather the birth of the neo-Nazi 4th Reich.  Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't have their eyes open, whether willfully or out of ignorance.  The America of Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau and Norman Rockwell never existed, but even the dream (hallucination?) died a long time ago.  What we see today is the resurrection of something much darker and horrific.  It is the continuation of a line in history that keeps popping up like Frankenstein's monster.  It refused to die, though it often doesn't quite look like it did the last time it was destroyed.

The 4th Reich looks quite a bit different than the 3rd.  The brown shirts are now cops in blue.  All the technologies the Nazis were trying desperately to develop are now realities: jet planes, nuclear weapons, mass chemical/biological/radiation weapons.  The Gestapo is largely replaced by rooms full of faceless technicians punching buttons and pulling levers on a vast surveillance machine that would have sent Goebbels into ecstatic fits.  He could even wipe out entire ethnic groups with tailor-made viruses that would have given him plausible deniability.  Think about that question coming up at Nuernberg.

Hell, even Hitler's little toy project, the Volkswagen Beetle, has staged a come-back, and how many Mitsubishis do you see driving down the road next to your BMW or Mercedes?

Yep, the 4th Reich is alive and well, and that is what folks celebrated yesterday.  It certainly wasn't American independence.  That country hasn't been free or independent for decades now.  It was taken over by corporations and secret agencies and hidden systems of finance.  The only vestige of that old country is the English language, and that is fading fast, as well.

If the First Reich was the Holy Roman Empire, and the Second was Bismark's United Germany, then Hitler's Third would segue nicely into the American Fourth, since so many Nazis were brought to America after the war, bringing their technology and philosophy, the latter of which was really already strongly rooted in much of America even before WW2.  The CIA and NASA were more or less started by Nazis, and those two agencies alone account for much of the rise of the Fourth Reich.  In fact, future historians may well see the Third and Fourth Reichs as little more than continuations of the Second.

If you find that a bit startling, then you have to look no further than America's public school system.  It is deeply rooted in Prussia, which was, of course, part of the German unification of 1871.  The Prussian educational system and philosophy is virtually mirrored by the American public school system and Prussian influence in the US has a long and vital history.  The emphasis on sports and 'citizenship' alone is one obvious connection, but there are many that merit deep and protracted study on the part of us arm-chair researchers.

At any rate, I think it's safe to say that the Fourth Reich has arisen in North America and that the sheer number of ties to not only Nazi Germany and Prussia are self-evident, but that the NSA's apparent fixation with spying on Germany would seem to imply quite a bit of ongoing interest in all things German.

Heck, old Ben Franklin himself, besides recommending that the US adopt the turkey as the national bird, also suggested adopting German as the official language in order to sever all ties with English.  Perhaps if he had won the argument, things would look quite a bit different today.  The Anglo-American Empire would likely not exist and Germany probably would have won WW2...at least more obviously won it, I should say.

If you are American and you are enjoying a bit of "free" time this weekend, you might want to spend a little time investigating the ties and commonalities between the Third and Fourth Reichs, and throw the Prussian educational system in there, while you're at it.

Perhaps you too, will agree that yesterday was the Fourth Reich of July.

Fortunately, I've never been an American.  I was born a Texan and never had much truck with those folks north of the border, and we celebrate independence on the 2nd of March.  Of course, that was from the tyrannical Mexican government.  We are still fighting the US takeover in 1863.

Happy Hot Dogs!

The unanimous Declaration of the fifty disunited States of Amerika,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a governmental paradigm, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all humans are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain innate Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Executive of the Federal Government is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Congress and Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together secret assemblies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has ignored Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of TSA Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Crimes which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas (Guantanamo, et al.) to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these States:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty; and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on trumped up Charges to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Mexican drug-lord Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Servant of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Federal servants. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their controllers to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of Amerika, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Federal Government, and that all political connection between them and the District of Columbia, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
------------------
If you see somewhere in these words, a justification to throw off the yoke of bankster tyranny and to assume your sovereign and individual right to be free and to answer to the Creator for your actions, then perhaps the time has come for action.


The men who wrote this document (with some minor changes to update it) were protesting a 3% tax, among other grievences.  How much is stolen from you at gun point, I mean in taxes?


Happy Fourth.