Quick Hitts

Our world is full pseudo-intellectuals, like Chomsky and Krugman and Gingrich and that loud-talker two tables over at lunch yesterday who just would not shut the fuck up. Real intellectuals, the people who force us to challenge not just our assumptions but our most deeply held beliefs, who make us think in ways we’ve never thought before, and who do it with a natural eloquence and casual wit that makes them impossible to dismiss, are rare among humans.

Christopher Hitchens tackled taboos and dared all of us to challenge our own knowledge and perceptions. This caused great consternation among people who were happy in their unquestioning belief. Some of them are celebrating his death, which tells you all you need to know about their character.

We’ll never again see him hitchslap another detractor in a calm voice, making him look like a dog stranded on the center lane of the freeway, desperately trying to figure out which direction to take. There will be no more Hitchens books to cover a subject in a way it’s never been covered before. We’ll miss the articles that enlighten and amused and sometimes enraged us.

But he wrote more than just about anyone of our generation, and so leaves a rich legacy behind. There are enough books and articles and videos from him to keep anyone busy for years.

His detractors are quick to point out his lifestyle caused his early demise, and it’s the one thing they’re right about. He chose pleasure over longevity, and we should be thankful that he did. The way he lived created the man he became. A sober, serious Hitch wouldn’t have been Hitch at all.

So let us raise a glass of Johnny Walker Black, not to the heavens, but simply in his honor, and say, “Goodbye, Hitch. And thanks.”

A Muslum man murdered his 17 year old daughter for talking to a boy.  He’s proud of it, and wishes he had killed her when she was born.  His brothers helped, and because his society approves of such actions, he is a free man who hasn’t been charged with any crime.  The police congratulated him for his actions.  As a father to daughters, I find it nearly impossible to fathom such hatred of women in general, and your own flesh and blood in particular.

Converting to Islam is no protection against violence either.  It can get your whole family murdered.

Nor do you have to be in an Islamist hell-hole country to be stoned to death for being gay.  It happened in Pennsylvania.

Religion would be a lot more tolerable of there were more pastors with a sense of humor like this. Thank God for: Mighty Machines, GM performance technology, Sunoco racing fuel, Goodyear tires, a smokin’ hot wife, and a great track.

Twenty-six men committed suicide after being raped by the same Catholic priest.  The bishop said that in the past it had not always been clear to everyone what was appropriate and inappropriate behavior.  So the church, this bastion of morality, this touchstone of what is right and wrong, this institution that has had two thousand years to figure things out, didn’t quite understand that fucking children was immoral.

Too bad God didn’t have a twenty.

Louis Farrakhan liked Moammar Gaddafi, and predicted we’d experience a huge earthquake unless we started being nice to him.  Surprisingly, his prediction didn’t come true.

The church needs a new parking lot, so if you fail to give your entire tax refund this pastor will refuse to give you communion.  Those crackers taste like crap anyway.

When a 15-year-old girl was raped by a 51-year-old, her Trinity Baptist Church forced her to confess in front of the congregation, then shipped her out of state so the police couldn’t find her.

Is there anything Muslims won’t riot over? They rioted over underwear they thought pictured a mosque.  It was actually a cathedral, but hey, at least they got to hurt some people.

God has finally figured out what goes on at Jesus Camps, and has taken appropriate action.

This American Muslim, who methodically murdered his entire family, was sorry.  Not for the murders, oh no, his god loves that shit.  He was sorry that he ran out of bullets.

In Tennesee, the pastor of  Grace Fellowship Church physically attacked a gay couple who tried to enter his church.  The congregation did nothing to stop the attack, and the police initially refused to let the couple press charges.  The instigatior of the attack was one of the gay men’s father.

I used to like cops. I thought there were just a few bad ones, and that most of them performed a vital service.

Some of that opinion was the result of conversations with them on GEnie, a pre-internet dial up service similar to CompuServe and Prodigy. People paid six bucks an hour for a 1200 baud connection (and eighteen bucks an hour for a 2400 baud connection) to use the chat rooms and forums and play online games. The forums were called Round Tables. I was the Sysop for the Enable Software Round Table, so I got to wander around for free.

One of the places I wandered was ALERT, which stood for A Law Enforcement Round Table, populated by police officers and people who wanted to chat with them. I was surprised to learn that most cops went their entire careers without ever drawing their weapon. Drawing their gun was considered the last resort because it meant they had lost control of the situation. Getting through a twenty year career without doing it was a source of pride.

That was 20+ years ago, before tazers and the militarization of the police force. Oh how times have changed, along with my opinion of law enforcement officers.

One of the first things that changed my mind was the murder of Amadou Diallo, an immigrant who was standing in his doorway, minding his own business, when he was gunned down by four trigger-happy NYC cops. The trial was moved to Albany NY, my back yard, and I got to witness to circus that surrounded it. I wrote about it extensively in The Hittman Chronicle.

The fact that the cops were let off, completely let off, was undeniable evidence that something was seriously wrong with the system.

My opinion continued to change as the internet became accessible, and then ubiquitous. I read more and more and more and more stories of police hurting and often killing citizens with no fear of being punished, and also saw how the mass media completely ignored such stories. I can’t be certain if the police have become more thuggish over the years, or it’s just being documented more thoroughly by citizens, but I strongly suspect it’s a combination of both.

When police in Georgia broke into the home of Kathryn Johnson and murdered her, I once again visited a couple of police forums to see the general reaction of the cops. They were laughing about it. They thought it was funny. This poor 92-year-old woman was minding her own business in her own home, in a crime infested neighborhood, and tried to defend herself against three strangers who broke down her door. The thugs gunned her down, and the prevailing response from the brothers in blue was “Damn, that’s some funny joke.”

(It should be noted that the police were convicted of manslaughter, which is very, very rare. Most cops get away with murder. Literally.)

Does that make us a police state? Are we there yet?

Earlier this year cops broke down the door to the home of Jose Guerena, a veteran of two tours in Iraq, and gunned him down. They were all exonerated. The mainstream media completely ignored the story.

Are we there yet?

Those of us who point out we’re becoming a police state get slammed with dictionary arguments (as well as being sidetracked by statists who still love their boys in blue.) Typically we’re told to visit this rat-hole country or that rat-hole country to see what a real police state is. These black and white thinkers are incapable of realizing that the slide into a police state is not something that happens over night. It is a gradual thing. A police murder here. Another one over there. One we kinda sorta heard about but shrugged off.

Just for the record, here’s my non-dictionary definition of a police state: A state where the police can do whatever they damn well please with no fear of repercussion. A state where police routently torture and murder citizens for non-violent “crimes.” A state where few things are as frightening as seeing a police car in your rear view mirror.

There are three hundred million of us, and most of us haven’t directly been attacked by the cops. Nor we do know anyone who has been. Murderous early morning raids, Tazer attacks on senior citizens and the disabled and pepper spraying of protesters is all something that happens to other people, in other towns. Many people are so desperate to cling to the fiction we’re living in a free country they write off these incidents as anomalies and/or craft excuses for the brutality.

The mass media helps keep the fiction going by simply ignoring these incidents. Fortunately, now that video cameras are cheap and readily available anyone who is paying attention, even slightly, is starting to realize the media is lying to them (if only by a sin of omission) and that something is seriously wrong.

By now you’ve seen the video of a cop spraying peaceful protesters with pepper spray as casually as if he were spraying azeleas for bugs.

Are we there yet?

The officer committing this violence against the protesters is:

Lieutenant John Pike
Records Unit Manager
Phone: 530-752-3989
Cell: 530-979-0184
japikeiii@ucdavis.edu
Address: 4005 Cowell Blvd, Apt 616.
Davis, CA 95618-6017
Skype: japike3

When asked to comment on the incident, former cop Charles J. Kelly watched the video. According to CBS news:

After reviewing the video, Kelly said he observed at least two cases of “active resistance” from protesters. In one instance, a woman pulls her arm back from an officer. In the second instance, a protester curls into a ball. Each of those actions could have warranted more force, including baton strikes and pressure-point techniques.

That right folks, not only is pulling your arm away from a cop who is attacking you a trigger for their thuggery, so is curling up into a ball. It justifies “baton strikes,” a more pleasant way of saying “beating the shit out of someone with a night stick.”

Are we there yet? Yes, absolutely.

Christian apologist Josh McDowell is angry about the Internet. He claims it destroys faith: “The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have… whether you like it or not.”

He’s absolutely right.

Access to information helps people understand reality. Reality is a bullshit solvent. Accepting too much reality destroys faith.

That’s why religious organizations, and cults in particular, train their believers to insulate themselves from outside influences (reality). They limit or outright forbid followers from associating with people outside the cult, and train them to avoid movies, books, music, and anything else that might help dislodge the impaction of bullshit lodged between their ears.

Information is the enemy of anyone who wants to enslave people. Information doesn’t want to be free, *people* want to be free, and when information that can break the shackles is available people will get to it somehow. The easier it is to find, the more people will find it.

When I escaped from my cult I spent an enormous amount of time at the library. I took home stacks of books on every subject that interested me. I spent a year, unemployed and living in a ratty apartment, reading and reading and reading some more. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was deprogramming myself.

It took effort, and easy access to the library. But now all it takes is a click. Just one click, and there’s an idea a kid has seen for the first time. They see a different point of view about something they’ve been taught, and then another, and another. It’s simple, fast, and can be done in secret, over and over and over again. Slowly, gradually, doubts (reality) creeps in and a functioning bullshit meter begins to grow.

Angry is the wrong word to describe Mr. McDowell. His apparent anger is just an outward display of his real emotion: fear. He is afraid of the Internet.

And he damn well should be.

It’s time for that rarest of things, a new Quick Hitts Podcast.  False Dichotomy explores why changing the party in power doesn’t really change a damn thing.

Occupy Wall Street is spreading all over the country. Young people who played by the rules, getting into huge debt for their education, are rightly pissed that there are no jobs for them. Older folks, like myself, with decades of experience in their chosen profession, are just as angry for the same reason. (I just took a job that will pay me about half of what I used to make, and after long periods of unemployment I’m happy to have it.) We are all in deep trouble. We’re angry, we’re scared, and those emotions are perfectly justifiable.

But most of the protesters have no idea why their situation is so bad. Capitalism, the system that put clothes on their backs and iPods in their knapsacks and coffee in their veins, isn’t the problem. Corporatism, a.k.a. Crony capitalism, pseudo-capitalism, created all these problems.

They’re so close. They almost get it. They’re protesting the bailouts, handouts of taxpayer money to the people who created all these problems. Failure, one of the most important parts of real capitalism, has been removed from the equation. They’re right when they complain we have socialism for big business and capitalism for the rest of us. But their inability to distinguish between real capitalism and corporatism, their mistake of thinking they are the same thing, makes them turn to socialism for everyone, which would make things much worse. It would replace the Big Huge Government that created this mess with Bigger Huger Government.

Now unions are joining the movement and the protesters are delighted, unaware that unions, who also buy and sell congress weasels, are a big part of the problem.

The solution, which I haven’t heard any of the protesters suggest, is to change the definition of corporate person-hood, stripping corporations of the free speech rights real people have. That would allow congress to absolutely forbid any contributions of any kind to any congress weasel or party. They need to do the same with special interest groups and unions as well.

Of course, the only people who can do that are those who benefit directly from the bribes contributions, so the odds of it happening are pathetically small. But at the very least, protesters should direct their anger, not at Wall Street, which will buy congress weasels as long as congress allows it, but to Washington DC.

Congress willfully and gleefully created this mess. They are the only ones who can put a stop to it.

Don’t hold your breath.

The night after 9/11 I was too pissed and upset to sleep, so I got out of bed and made this, my response to the vile assholes who created this tragedy.

Click to Enlarge

We responded to the attack by eliminating a substantial portion of our bill of rights. It took us nearly a decade to hunt down the scumbag who designed the attack. And we still haven’t replaced the towers. The replacement we’re building features an 18 story concrete base, a bunker that screams “oh please, please don’t hurt us again.”

When it’s completed it will be the same height as the original two. It should be at least one floor higher.

This was my original post that day. I stand by everything in it, but would add one more thing: The middle tower should face Mecca.