here is an odd thought...

as so many of  mine are....  There was no defitcit under Clinton... then Bush ran up a deficit by giving the richest of the rich tax cuts, in a dream of trickle down economics that proved to be Voodoo Economics (what Reagan himself called Trickle Down before adopting the policy when his handlers decided to use their puppet that way).. Now, they are using said deficit to cut social programs.  Is there a connection?

It does not matter if this was the plan or not, it is the reality.  How can the average person change this?  Oddly, the voices on the net are finally getting a bit of heft.  Politicians are being effected by the huge number of signatures on petitions -- and they know, these are voters who will punish or praise them.  Durbin, from Illinois, a champion of the people, brought the Public Option back around after being Petitioned about it, then went on to start his own Facebook petition for a good cause.   This is Democracy in action.

The unfortunate other side of today's news... another Nut has wasted his life shooting at armed security guards working at what they see as THE BEAST.    This time it was the Justice Dept.  His family has already come out with a plea that he was metally ill, and asking the press not to demonize him.  I agree with them.  The pundits make too much of the supposed reasons crazed people do what they do?   IF they are right wing and the killer is left, they blame this... if the person used drugs... they blame this... if they are black...  unemployed...  a member of some right wing or left wing organizations...  They use that corpse for a talking puppet, and their pseudo-experts make up all the words, imrpov up a reality they pretend has something to do with the world outside of their studio.

The Conspiracy theorists who kill people...  they are the tip of an iceberg of frustration.  I have been thinking since I was a teenager and came across a Penthouse with an interview with Othello, and FBI informer who went on the run and was exposing CO_INTEL-PRO   .  This is old news to some, but at the time, discovering the sleazy tricks our government was using on law abiding citizens -- Dr.  Stern, who taught me Military Intelligence, talked about how the cops sent people to his communist/peace activist meetings to try to get them to kill people, blow up shit... anything that could be used to get them all put in Jail.   I mean, the sold the Black Panthers guns, then put together a swat team to bust them for said guns, and went in with guns blazing... hoping to kill as many  of these young activists as possible.

I should be more of a conspiracy theorist, since I have actually had a lot of dealings with the Intelligence community and they end up making less and less sense everytime something happens that reminds me they have an active interest in me (my home address disappeared from my facebook as recently as last week, after I challanged some boof to come to my house so I could kick his ass.  I left the address off the entry.  I cannot tell exactly why someone chose to do this, but I do know there are people who watch out for me -- they are the same ones who informed me of various death threats and more directed my way after I had Bin Laden put out a Fatwa to cover goats assses, because they turned him on as much as the 12 year old boys they also keep covered.  Won me no friends in the middle east.  I want peace there, and in Iran, which has won me fans among the Iranians, who I know to be a very interesting and wondrous people, who value freedom with the hunger of someone who has been slightly starving for years;  look at the difference between what happened in the states when Bush stole the elections.... basically, nothing, and that which happened was BRUTALLY SUPPRESSED.   In Iran, the populace really took to the streets, in numbers the state sponsored media could not ignore, and the world press played up.  They are raised over there being told they are revolutionaries, and when that turned around and bit their present government on the ass, they reminded those citizens just what they are -- the bitches of the red guard and the mullahs.

I have been having conversations, through facebook, with various political views.  A lot of people who like my form of humor, my cynicism, are right wing.  I have confused people for years about what I believe in.  I have been raised a Spartan in America, a war-culture.  Briefly during my childhood, the anti-war movement and the hippie movement and free love and pot all seemed like they were going to change everything .... the came the Right Wing Back Lash, sending out a union busting, actor to start a cult of personality they could manipulate into cutting their taxes, and getting ups some good wars going to keep their munitions stocks rising.

I think conspiracies are often about like asking if there is a God?   We are never going to get the perfect answer, which would be God just not playing coy, coming down for personal appearances, to clean up the planet, stop war, end death, etc...    We just have to start with what we have now, and say we are stop certain things from happening in the future.  I would rather that the CIA straighten out their use of private prisons, out-sourced torture, assassination (character and otherwise), without some kind of witchhunt that destroys their capacity to act.  On this one I agree with Obama, look forward not back.  Still, I think this requires that they open up, release a plethora of documents that are top secret only to cover a few peoples asses, and this alone would destroy a lot of conspiracy theories.  Truth.  This would leave the crazies no room to make stuff up.

This is the problem with secrecy -- humans are pattern makers, and they will decide on some reason for just about everything, even if they have to resort to astrology.

I learned a harsh lesson is the Government when I inadvertently published top secret intelligence in my first novel, a tale told by an ex-Navy Seal who used to come in as co-professor for some of Dr. Stern's classes.   I based Matt Slane on him (though the name, which has been criticized for being too metaphorical, is just the name of my best friend, who happens to be very tough).   They want the story told their wa

Ill. judge won't toss torture suit naming Rumsfeld

Ill. judge won't toss torture suit naming Rumsfeld

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NY Daily News - Discussions - Sean Penn tells CBS' 'Sunday ...

NY Daily News - Discussions - Sean Penn tells CBS' 'Sunday ...

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OBAMA TALKING TO RAHM EMMANUEL

.

RAHM: This was Chicago, I would have the bastard killed. Can't someone just kick his ass?"
OBAM: Rahm... come on. We can get health care passed without killing anyone. Look, you almost got me to off that bastard from Kentucky, then he backed off.
RAHM: Bush got away with fucking 9-11, and you worry about some retarded hillbilly?
Fucking retards, all of them... I should be in Charge of these fucking retard... got to get my hands on that button, then they'll listen to Rahm."
OBAMA: Uh, excuse me Rahm?"
Rahm: "Uh, nothing Mr. President. I guess we'll just send them horses heads then."
Obama: "NO, start with their pets. Then the... maid. Then... break their kids legs... all of them, at the same time, no matter where the hell they are in the world.... They'll vote for health care... because they are going to fucking need it."
Rahm: "You sure you turned that... the mic is on."
OBAMA: "Well, we are just kidding anyways, and Senate pets die everyday. Why should today be any different? Coincidences happen. And that my friend, is the power of plausible denial.
Rahm: "You bastard, you do hate whitey, don't you? As a Jew, I think all these gentiles -- genitals as we call them are..."
OBAMA: "Rahm, I do not hate anyone, really. Hate is... I just know this is important to millions, and I want it passed... so, we are going to all Chicago on the bastards. Filibuster this, you Romulans!
Rahm: I would take him by the goddamn throat and....
OBAMA "Why did I hire you again?"
RAHM: "The pictures of dress up night, with the wife, when you were doing Diana Ross."
OBAMA: 'Yea, i keep thinking it was that other thing..."
RAHM: "I am saving that back for an Ambassadorship in the Caribbean, I'm thinking... I'll let you know.
OBAMA: "Yes, I am sure you will. You're still leaving at the end of the year?"
RAHM: "Not being able to have people killed... or destroyed by the machine... no, I miss Chi-town. There I could just catch these assholes at a grocery store and....
OBAMA: Yes, yes, Rahm, we all know how tough you are. Could I, uhm, get back to signing these papers and doing... other stuff... by myself?
RAHM: "Can we just discuss one more time why Cheney got his own hit squad and yet I can't have one?I could be taking down these fucking retards, start with Palin.."
OBAM: "NO."
Rahm: "You still have the hots for her."
OBAMA: McCain didn't hire her for her brain, Rahm. She has something . . . "
RAHM: "You gotta let this go."
OBAMA: "That note she sent me... the things she wants to do..."
RAHM: "Yes, and we have phone transcripts about how she would then claim a black man was trying to rape her... she wanted to meet you in Texas, for God's Sake!!!"
OBAMA: "I still think she wanted me... too. I'm sure of it."
RAHM: "When I leave here, you're pulling up those nude survaillance photos of her again, aren't ya?"
"NO."
"You got a jiz rag?"
"Yea, right here... you bastard."
Rahm: "Caught you again. That's how many times?"
OBAMA: It relaxes me... this is a tense...
RAHM: "36 times I have caught you whacking to her."
OBAMA: "I don't think we need to keep track of... You know, Rahm, everyone knocks, except you Rahm, why is that?"
RAHM:"I secretly take pictures of everything... you know, in case I need another favor."
OBAMA: Oh, God... I was just trying to be bi-partisian!"
RAHM: "I know,sir, I know... I have her on my screen saver. Got the wife wearing one of those masks of hers. Something about fucking that retard in the ass."
OBAMA: Rahm, must you use the word, 'retard,' every time you put together a sentence?"
RAHM: "Those bastards think they can stop me from calling a retard a retard are retards."










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We Need To Stop This... by ANY MEANS NECESSARY,

this 

Santa Fe Institute economist: one in four Americans is employed to guard the wealth of the rich

By Cory Doctorow at 10:45 PM February 5, 2010

Here's a fascinating profile on radical Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles, an empiricist who says his research doesn't support the Chicago School efficient marketplace hypothesis. Instead, Bowles argues that the wealth inequality created by strict market economics creates inefficiencies because society has to devote so much effort to stopping the poor from expropriating the rich. He calls this "guard labor" and says that one in four Americans is employed to in the sector -- labor that could otherwise be used to increase the nation's wealth and progress.

The greater the inequalities in a society, the more guard labor it requires, Bowles finds. This holds true among US states, with relatively unequal states like New Mexico employing a greater share of guard labor than relatively egalitarian states like Wisconsin.

The problem, Bowles argues, is that too much guard labor sustains "illegitimate inequalities," creating a drag on the economy. All of the people in guard labor jobs could be doing something more productive with their time--perhaps starting their own businesses or helping to reduce the US trade deficit with China.

Guard labor supports what one might call the beat-down economy. Community Action's Porter sees it all the time.

"We have based almost everything we have done on the idea that we always need a part of our workforce that is marginalized--that we can call this group into action at any time, pay them nothing and they will do anything that needs to be done," she says.

More discouraging, perhaps, is the statistical fact that a person born into this workforce has little chance of rising beyond it.

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Getting People Out To Vote... at Gunpoint.

I think all the gangs should get some good press, and a good lesson  in real power, by being paid to go door to door getting people to vote.  Of course, they should be heavily armed.  Like I do around here.  Believe me, you shoot up a couple houses on your block, and when you go by with a megaphone later telling them to line up to vote...   They come right out.  I mean, they know I have explosives hidden somewhere on their property that will go off if they piss me off and all.  Of course, at this point, I usually groin kick the republicans, break their legs, whatever... believe me, that ambulance ain't heading toward the voting booth...   It is surprising how many republicans have become democrats on my block because of this policy.  I then march them -- and yes, on this block, they damn well better be able to march, or at least get a wheelie out of their little traveling chairs...  then I take them one by one into the voting booth and 'show them' how to vote the right way.  There is nothing like being a serial killer for the CIA for getting to live like a rugged individualists.  Like Cheney said during one his late night chat's with Satan, "Plausible denial. Works like a goddamn spell on these sheep."   

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BREAKFAST WITH THE OBAMA'S

After reading an article about town hall protesters, the president holds up the paper to Michelle, asking, "Honey, how does it feel to be a woman from the south side of Chicago who is married to Hitler?  A commie, muslim, Indonesian, anti-christ, Hitler, none-the-less."

"Not in front of the girls, Barrack."

"Daddy, are you Hitler?"

"No, dear, Daddy does not like Hitler.  He was a very, very bad man.  Daddy is your daddy.  These people like to pretend that is what I am like."

"Why?"

"Remember when we talked about bullies?"

"Yes."

"Well, they are bullies."

"Tell the teacher, daddy."

"You know what, I think I will."

Check out all of my blogs by googling my name, John Scott Ridgway

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From The Daily Beast.,..

thi

Accomplished?

by Zachary Iscol

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Maya Alleruzzo / AP PhotoToday’s pullout from Iraqi cities vindicates Bush’s "surge" strategy, says former Marine Zachary Iscol. The change in tactics—which reversed our fortunes in Iraq—could even help Obama in Iran.

As a Marine, I learned that peace is predicated on compromise, not superior firepower or belligerence.

Today, witnessing U.S. troops withdraw from Iraqi cities, I find the right’s accusations of appeasement levied on President Obama about most issues in the Middle East incredibly ironic. Today’s withdrawal, perhaps the greatest success of the Bush administration, would not have occurred if we hadn’t learned to appease.

Today’s withdrawal, perhaps the greatest success of the Bush administration, would not have occurred if we hadn’t learned to appease.

When President Bush announced the "surge," on January 11, 2007, he was announcing much more than the deployment of 35,000 additional troops to Iraq. He also was adopting a set of successful tactics that had already been implemented successfully by a few industrious officers. It amounted to a radically different approach to how troops would be employed on the ground.

In 2004, I took little risk with the lives of my Marines. It was simply too dangerous. If a vehicle failed to stop as it crashed through our checkpoint, we used deadly force. If a military-aged male was in the vicinity after a roadside bomb detonated, he would be detained. I often wonder if some of our tactics created more insurgents than we were able to kill or capture.

In the violent summer months of 2004, we put the risk on the civilian population, but in 2007, as the surge began and General David Petraeus took over, the force began to accept more risk in order to protect the population. Troops moved out of large, fortified bases and lived in smaller outposts among the population. They patrolled more often on foot instead of in armored vehicles. At first, casualties went up, but then something remarkable happened: Coalition casualties plummeted.

FM 3-24, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, published on December 16, 2006, encapsulates a number of the paradoxes of counterinsurgency. It turns out, “The more you protect the force, the less secure you may be.” And “Sometimes the more force is used, the less effective it is.”

Perhaps former Bushies are so quick to criticize Obama because they never really bought into the change in tactics and strategy that reversed our fortunes in Iraq. Over time, it was our military, mainly junior officers and NCOs, who realized that the vast majority of people in Iraq were not our enemy—but that our tactics and emphasis on force were turning many of them into enemies. This, more than anything else, is the Achilles’ heel of the counterinsurgent.

Antagonizing and creating new enemies is much more dangerous than failing to kill one, which is why Obama’s limited response to the political unrest and demonstrations in Iran is commendable. Action or support from the United States would largely alienate the demonstrators from greater support from the population of Iran. As the counterinsurgency manual states, “Sometimes, doing nothing is the best reaction” especially when action would be counterproductive or foster greater resentment. Those critical of Obama’s initially tepid response would do better to explain what they hope to accomplish and how through more active support for the demonstrators in Iran.

In 2004, as a young Marine lieutenant, I gave a poster of George Washington crossing the Delaware River to a local tribal leader named Sheik Jabbar. I was 25 years old and he was a foot taller than me, regal, wise, and twice my age. As I handed him the poster, I explained that he had the opportunity to be his nation’s Thomas Jefferson. He graciously accepted the poster and then asked me if I meant he would write his country’s declaration of independence, be its ambassador to France, or serve as its president. He then listed the names of his family’s patriarchs going back 1,200 years. He wanted to be like his forefathers, not mine.

Last Friday, Obama clearly articulated that what is going on in Iran is not about us. It is about the Iranian people seeking justice for themselves. Obama understands, much better than I did, the folly in thinking otherwise. He also understands the incredible danger of taking action and siding with the protesters. Creating the illusion that the protesters are American pawns would alienate them and fracture their ranks. Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.

Over kabobs, chai tea, and the hookah, I learned a tremendous amount about Iraq’s history and local issues from Sheik Jabbar, and he would often complain to me about the local city council. Unelected bodies, the city councils had been appointed by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority with the intent that they would become legislative bodies after elections were held. For Sheik Jabbar and most of the local people, they were an illegitimate and corrupt governing body that would siphon funds for local municipal projects for personal gain. I soon learned that the tribal councils were much more democratic and just than our appointed councils, but we treated them as an archaic remnant of Iraq’s past and alienated them. So they came to see us as occupiers, supported al Qaeda as liberators, and fought against us.

But in 2005, two years before the surge, along the Euphrates River Valley, Marine company commanders began working closely with tribal leaders, shifting their emphasis from promoting democracy to promoting the peace. Former enemies became close allies. Soon battalion commanders and regimental commanders were following the path laid out to them by junior officers. The generals followed. Soon even Bush was gripping and grinning with the tribal leaders of Iraq as Democrats in Congress cried appeasement and debated the merits of a bill deriding the Maliki government for offering asylum to former nationalist insurgents with American blood on their hands. Almost overnight, the most violent province in Iraq became one of the most peaceful. This willingness to appease fostered the peace that now enables us to withdraw our troops from Iraq’s cities.

I recently returned to Fallujah, this time as a journalist, and I was astonished at how different the city had become. Four years earlier, the city lay in ruin. It reeked of death and was littered with trash and human remains. As I accompanied one of the last Marine patrols through the city, I wondered where we would be and how long we would still be there if we had never learned to appease.s work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

Soldiers Pulling out of Iraq's Cities...

I saw a picture today on the BBC site, with a line of soldiers outlined on an horizon, marching as if toward home.

We are at a very tricky point in Iraq. If the extremists decide to come back in and fight the Police and Iraqi military after our troops pull out. the USA will be forced to possibly make an unpopular decision.

I want the war to end. I sympathisize with the security concerns that make the ending of this conflict so complicated that years are involved. We have to leave behind in the country a seed of Democracy. Saddam Gone. Democracy declared. The battle line drawn between the extremist jihadists and the forces of the free. I do salute the soldiers for fighting this hard, horrible battle. They are the front line. Between us and the masses of folk who would reduce our lives to their particular religous vision.

I am sympathetic to anyone who is oppressed, at war, etc... However, the Taliban and their influence is the fucking enemy to people like me, and the people I love. Oppressing women. Period. Nothing else I have to say about that religous delusion. Add to that stoning adultererr's, killing Christians, etc... Taking the women out of school is a sin against humanity itself. This is pure and simple prejudice, and however institutionalized and sanitized it is in some countries (like saudi arabia, where women cannot have drivers licenses, passports, fly on their own... the system is built to enslave, and indeed, a many servants have found themselves enslaved in such system -- remember, there is more slavery now than ever before in the history of the planet... if you do not see it all over the place, that is simply because you are not looking. People run around making opinions about Paris Hilton, instead of going after slave masters.

I mean, have you ever heard of a charity that free's slaves? You would think the black community in Chicago would be involved in such an endeavor, but they tend to think they have enough on their hands representing their communities, and with everything so ultimatly out of control in certain ways, they have to choose their battles carefully because war can break out anywhere.

The allied forces in the Middle East are the predecessors of the wars to come. Iran and Syria and other countries who are not under Russia, america or China's nuclear net, are going to be scrambling for the bomb. Lot of countries already have it, and they will not stop until they have one. One of the countries they consider their worst enemy, Israel, has nukes... so there is no way that they can go against the most demonized government in the area, unless they can fight nuke-fire with fire...

I like to think the USA could lead the world in reducing nuclear bombs, and offering help to countries who wish to use nuclear power, as long as they then sign a treaty allowing inspections, etc. Why not? They are going to get bombs if they want them bad enough, and pretending otherwise is foolish. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt that very much.... We need to go in now and do everything we can to settle this peacefully. If we continue to fly in,like Israel did with Syria, and blow up their nuclear facilities, we are inevitably going to miss one. All it takes is One Bomb, mind you, to bring nightmares to life.

How does one start a movement that transcends religous and political differences, and peacefully applies a few universal principle? I think of the soldiers like this to some degree. The principles may be written in blood at first, but freedom is something that we breath here in the usa like air, and we notice it almost as much... take it away, like happened to me when I went to jail, and you realize just what is meaningful in this world. Being Free is more important than being alive to.

Soldiers have fought for this creed on american soil for as long as humans have existed. Native Americans fought one another, enslaved one another. Europeans kept serfs and treated them like slaves. African tribes sold each other. The middle east is filled with endentured servents, the eastern block overflowing with enslaved prostitutes, children being exploited almost anywhere the law has short arms or is just plain old corrupt. These are wars that we expect the police force to deal with, and they don't.

Why cannot a people's movement be started that supports worldwide activists who call out theses industries, expose them, and try to get the attention of law enforcement officials? People would donate money to buy children and others out of slavery. I dream of being a millionaire and hiring a small army of mercenaries, killing our way through the organized crime behind the slavery, and setting the women and children free to heal in some mountain retreat.

Soldiers and activists, activists and soldiers. What we really are is the infantry -- as in how the Romans used the term, which meant sending out the youngest soldiers first into battle so they would get killed and not them. We still send our young out first to die.

I am proud of soldiers. Have quite a few in my famalies history, stretching back over a thousand years of blood. I respect the sacrifice, know what they are going through is much worse than I could ever imagine. I see their names on the tv on Sunday Mornings, the weeks' dead, as George Stephanapolous looks all serious. Some are too young to have lived much of a life at all. Others old enough to leave a life half lived behind.

I wonder at such times, if George Bush, in lying about nuclear bombs and al queda connections in Iraq, didn't cause all these deaths for no good reason at all? I remember than how much I despised Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, even before america declared them the enemy. And I wanted to see their movements stopped. I could see how dangerous religous extremists would be with nuclear bombs. God could tell them to do something that no sane man would. They want to be martyred, you see, so it is win/win to them if they kill us and die. Like playing a video game where whoever you kill goes to hell, while your fallen rise to heaven into a horizon filled with 72 virgins spread eagle, their labias looking all pink and juicy... dripping into small pools at their feet as they await their Martyr.

In times of war, no matter what our Mullah's or ministers mumble, God takes the side of widows and orphans, and soldiers on all sides, forced to go into a war where the enemy could be anywhere, anytime. How appalling. Can you imagine living in a place where at any moment, an enemy could be lurking, driving by, watching you from a window as they plan their next attack on you and yours? The very ground at your feet could betray you and just fuckig explode.

I was raised on a library in Garrett, Indiana, and heavily influenced by a series of elementary level biographies about Great Men; Lincoln, Washington, etc.. a lot of them were soldiers. I played soldier like anyone. Loved the John Wayne movies...

Then I saw the Vietnam war as a huge mistake. We were the colonialists. Most would argue that the history comes down to this -- we not only fought on the wrong side, we created it ourselves. I lost a lot of faith in the judgement of the armed forces, as well as the politicians, during those years. This one war stopped the USA from wanting to send troops anywhere -- Bosnia's Ethnic Cleansing -- the mass murder and land grab that stains their culture -- finally got Clinton to act. We saved lives. The situation was horrifying.

This was a noble cause. Not some Big Brother machine that was out to take my mind and body for the usages of theMilitary Industrial Complex; just an army sent out across the planet to stop mass murder. Had we not opened our two front war, I would have liked to see our soldiers in Darfur. Years ago. Why not?

Iraq, however we got there, is where we are... the pile of shit George Bush left behind has to be cleaned up. Obama has to make sure that the citizens of Iraq are not left livingin war zones when we leave. If the peace is that tentative, then our pledges to remove troops from Iraq should be changed. Period. It is that simple. Just say, to the american people, this is the only way we can guarantee the safety of the civilians.

Probably will not come to that. Our soldiers will pull out, mostly, and spend their time training new troops to maintain the lines of order that they have left behind in the hands of the fledging Iraqi Police Force, Army, etc...

Others will go where we should have went, after al queda, in Afganistan.

I want to see our soldiers stop the spread of this mental virus. Someone has to do confront the kind of warped minds that blow up a statue of Buddha on a mountain because it offends their religous sensibilities... bans music, keeps women our of schools, etc...

I am proud of the soldiers who removed Saddam Hussein. The people of that country have been given a gift that they will understand as the years pass and the wounds heal. There will be a day when their history books will tell about the Americans who saved their country from a dictator. Afganistan will one day tell their children about how the americans fought of the Taliban, so their country could remain a democracy. This is their revolution. Their chance change for the better. Seize that fucking day.

Why not? Today they were all out celebrating that the American soldiers leaving their city.

I follow the war. Try to imagine what the soldiers are going through, research what the stat's say about how their minds have been effected -- especially after the Stop Gapping started to unravel otherwise sane soldiers.

What are our soldiers symbolically representing as they slouch into Bethelhem? In a way, they are the secular soldiers stopping religous fanaticism. The Taliban originally got a toe hold in Afganistan and other countries, because they offered Law where there was none. They were willing to give up freedoms to get security. First things first, I understand. No one should have to make such choices, and no one can be blamed for doing whatever they could to stop the lawlesnes that was erroding their countries.

Our soldiers give them an option, now. They may hate us a bit, because we brought Hell's Own Fire when we attacked them; later they will benefit from our efforts, whether they acknowledge our footnote in their story.

TO BE CONTINUED....

.. yet writing about the world of war is difficult for me. What else can I add to the endless chatter about these wars?

Some 131,000 US troops remain in Iraq, including 12 combat brigades, and the total is not expected to drop below 128,000 until after the Iraqi national election next January.

'Now is the time'

Iraqi soldiers paraded through Baghdad's streets on Monday in vehicles decorated with flowers and Iraqi flags, while patriotic songs were played through loudspeakers at checkpoints.

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Once more.... I was not involved in the Green River killings ... that much.

Johnny Pain here... I know that I haven't been in here writing about my murderous ways very much. Had to go a little underground there for awhile, to keep the Obama campaigns murders quiet. Did a little contract work, for the hell of it, like the Rev. Fallwell job... a heart attack they called it in the paper. I got that license to kill so they can't say or do shit because it is a national security issue. I can talk about this because of certain arrangements I made with the government. I did some work for them, they let me kill... they know I stick to scumbags, or people who annoy me... or people who say hi to me when I am in certain moods.

I was raised in a family of serial killers. We go way back. There is a religious streak to our missions that dates make hundreds of years, but mostly all I know is that my family is deadly as hell, and we never make it through the holidays without someone killing this cousin, or that uncle or sister... Hell, I shot my sister dead last year for something... I can't remember. A couple cousins. I did not start it. Ma shot my brother Sol when he said that he was going to call the police about something or another. He had married into the family, but that was not enough to protect him from saying something about calling the cops in front of my mom. She shot him dead right there at the table.

But me... and the green river killings... well... that was just sick. Horrible stuff. Pay whores, do not kill them. Period. People who break this rule should be shot down like someone I catch leaning on my car or something.

Honestly, folks...

There is not one shred of evidence tying me to the serial murders known as The Green River Slayings. Yes, Gary told me it was cheaper to kill prostitutes than pay them, but I thought he was kidding. This led to a serious surprise the first time we partied hard with coke and whores, obviously. I met him through Charlie Sheen, who just didn't seem... Read More to give a dam when Gary killed the prostitutes... he just kept going at them... like they were still alive. OH, good times, good times... I mean, for shame... for shame.

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Fuentes Last Hit.... short story

Afterwards you sit around wondering how you ended up here, and everyone else you grew up with ended out there?

He tells himself to quit dwelling on his years in prison. There was little chance he was going back for this. Hell, the cops called him a hero. Old Man kills two gang bangers who were trying to abduct a young woman. The cops were nice enough not to bring up his record at the press conferance.

In prison, you killed somebody in a gang and you expected to have to fight for that right at any moment. He was sixty when he got out. An old timer to the young gang bangers, who had given him the respect their codes demanded. No one wanted to violate in prison, where they were sure as hell going to get a beatdown.

He gets up from the bed with a low moan that is half/back, half/mood. Ten years of living in the cheap motel, tied down by the poverty of social security, he had barely changed the life style he lived in prison. His body was too old to go out and try to start over. He was living his last years; years that had followed decades of him having to constantly try to make the best of a very bad situation.

He retired from the gangs when he started to sense the young guns were sick of listening to him. Death was not someting he looked forward to, like some of the more depressed, fatalist guys he had met over the years. The guy who took over after him was grateful for the easy transition. They feared him, of course. Killing was something he learned to do young and well.

Out ten years living on Milwaukee, he told nobody who he was. Occasionally he was recognized, said hello. He made no plans with such people. He didn't need the shit easy money would buy. The only connection he kept on the street were for weed. An old friend from way back who considered it part of his retirement plan to keep the old gang banger stoned. Really helped his back. He wasn't quite hypocritical enough to say he smoked for his physcal health, and people didn't want to hear that he smoked for his emotional health.

Old as he was, people didn't suspect he smoked, so he didn't worry about the cops. He knew cops well enough to make them like him. A survival skill in a prisoner who was negoitiating for his soldiers with the warden and the guards with every interaction.

The woman was being dragged into a car by three guys, right in broad daylight. One of them had a knife. The stores along the block were all open, people here and there... her screams stopped them all. He was close. Had a cane in his hand with heavy, steel handle. One of them had a knife but they weren't looking for him to give them any trouble.

He had been in that situation a lot of times. One of his own being jumped. Usually he was gettting jumped too. Without thinking, be swung the head of the can up and caught one in the temple. The next one he came down on the top of his head. Before they even noticed him, they were out cold -- one already dead. The third one looked into his eyes and saw something he recognized from battle and let the girl go, jumped up into the drivers seat and took off.

Then everyone wanted to help. Kept asking if he was alright. They expected a heart-attack. He was calm over a slight nervousness that he wasn't about to show. The cops talked to everyone, the cheif came down with a tv camera, and thanked him, on Channel Two, for saving this young girl. He just kept looking at the blood on his cane. Trying to keep his distance from what had happened, say as little as possible. No one seemd to think he had just put himself in danger by attacking another gang. He told himself this was probably true, out here. Prison was prison, freedom, freedom.

The hotel clerk called up to his room around ten, said some kid was there to see him. "What's he look like?"

"Hispanic kid, red bandana. Want me to send him up."

"Hell, no. I'll come down."

The bandana meant he was in his old gang. Why a young kid? Why just hours after the fight? The answer came to him, but he hoped he was going to hear different.

He walks off the elevator scanning the lobby. Just a kid, smiling, friendly, wearing sunglasses at night... high, drunk?

"Hey, man... we need to talk?"

"Yea, who are you?

"Sorry, capo.. Juan. You okay?"

"What's going on. Somebody tell you to come talk to me?"

"Frankie. He said you don't know what you done."

Shit. That is all he has to hear. Rival gang, figures out who he is from the news, decides a soldiers business is to counter-attack.

"Who were those pricks?"

"Bloods."

"The girl?"

"She was one of ours. We've got some homeys across the street. You gotta stay someplace else, man. We'll get ya there, c'mon."

"No."

"I don't have anywhere to go. I just got out of prison, man. Forty years. Everybody I know is dead of drifted off, except Frankie. Frankie, who takes care of the few of us who are still alive. You know why he does that? Everybody is dead."

"Yea, well, we'll get ya a hotel for a couple nights. They're out hunting tonight, so we're gonna do us some hunting, too. That was my buddies girlfreind they were trying to beat down, man. He's pissed, too."

The kid starts laughing and he almost smiles himself, before the crushing knowledge of his situation obliterates all of hope of him feeling good for... he could dwell on shit like this a long time, had to. Staying alive was the only rule for most of his years.

The get into a black Hummer and make it about three blocks before the cops pull them over. They use the speaker to tell them to stay in the car, and show their hands. "These cops know us, man. Don't worry, we're cool."

The cops shine their flashlights in, get a look at everyone's face. His presence surprises them. "Hey, Ed, this is the old man who clocked those kidnappers on Clybourn. What you doing in there?"

He rolls down his window, looks up into the cops smiling face, tells him, "These boys seem to think I am in danger."

"Mother fucker." The thought pisses the cop off. He goes around behind the car and talks to the other cop. Comes back and waves his flashlight up the road. "You know these kids?"

About then his partner comes walking up holding something in his hand. He guesses they pulled his record.

"Hey, old man, come on out. The rest of you just sit there . This will only take a minute, then you can go."

"You got quite a record."

"I was a kid. Now, nothing like that. One of the guys who I knew, way back, saw the news. I didn't know these guys were in gangs... and of course, it's a fucking gang that is still at war with... well, the people I ran with in prison, and shit. I got no reason to lie."

"Yea, well, it obviously wasn't a gang hit when you did those guys. The other one died, too. Guess you learned to take care of yourself in jail."

"Just lucky."

"Here...." The cop hands him a fifty. "We got this poverty fund, sign this.

"I can use it."

"Yea, living in the Mark Twain, you obviously ain't making no money off these shits anymore."

He lets them drop him off in front of the hotel, goes into the lobby and gets a pop, waits until they leave... He has four hundred bucks on him. He was going tohave to move. Go to the po, the social security, food stamps... everyone of them and change his address. He hated shit like that. Seemed worse than being in danger.

He starts walking back toward his hotel, finally see's a cab and hops in. He can't run. No fucking way. Life was fine. He could put in his time like the best con. No one is front of the hotel, so he pays the cabbie and goes up to his room. He puts in his key, turns the latch and hears something inside... or did he? There was always some damn noise in the hall of the SRO. He pushes the door open and stays in the hallway, looking around the small room. "This is what I have to lose?"

He rolls a joint, pours a shot of tequila and gets the lime juice out of his cooler. "I ain't worth getting some kid killed over. Let em' come. I'll give my fucking ten years for their fifty. What the fuck... I took away enough years from enough people. Be good to give a few back."

The shots brought back his bravado a bit, then made him sleepy. He thought about what an irony it would be if he was to die in his sleep that very night...

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

forgive forgive forgive

I come on strong about shit that annoys me. In this world, one can forgive a human being, and still hate their behavior.

In the end, I really just feel like, hey... there is more we agree on than disagree on, more than likely. Even the politicians here in town who do things I don't like, occasionally do something I really do. Todd Stroger, who runs Cook County, put through a tax hike that was needed -- the poor were going to lose their health care if he did not put through an unpopular tax. He stood up and did what was right. He deserves respect for that. I wish him well.

Mayor Daly -- I always liked him, and probably always will, but I do not agree with the idea of a machine controlling Chicago, making inside deals with pensions funds, etc... I think he has a great legacy and all that. I am never going to try to be politically expediant (which is different than the often misused term politcally correct) about how shit like selling public property makes me feel and write. I do not think he should be selling off bits of government to the most savvy bidder. That he doesn't know better, tells me that his time truly is over. He should take a few years to just live his life and not be the mayor. I do not know how anyone can do the kind of high pressure job a mayor does. I like to think I can rise to whatever occasion, but that does not mean I will do so without said occasion...

Politics is all about taking sides. People choose their sides in good ways, stupid ways, indifferent ways, and dangerous ways. I take the stand that money should not be the center of ones life. We have worshiped at that sacred cow too long. I think living for luxury is empty and frustrating. The Tao says that the happiest man is the one who can hear his neighbors cock crow, yet has no urge to even venture off his property to investigate.

Of course, give me a few million bucks and I would probably sing a slightly different tune. Of course, it would be much harder for me to fly through the eye of that needle.

There was a time when I viewed wealth as property stolen from the people. The anarchistic idea that no one owns anything appeals to me in spirit, though the practicality of that is to trust a great big old beuracracy, like in the soviet union, to give everyone apartments and jobs, etc... I thinik the spirit of independence inside of most people would rebel from giving anyone that kind of power over the united states. Private property. I think there are other areas that real change can be made in, and getting rid of property in the states would mean war.

A horrifying war. The French Revolution, but fought not between some great US and little them, but between the army of the US and Cops and Intelligent operatives and the civilians who did not want to give up their mansions. Do people deserve mansions?

I do not think anyone gets what they deserve, and a lot of us are thankful for that. We do not want what we deserve, we want mercy. Everyone who has lived a human life has a few regrets... if they have any wits about them at all. So, if someone has a lot of money, what the hell? I hope they use their bucks wisely. I wish I had more. But... I see the other side, the socialistic viewpoint of Castro. If that were even possible in this country, I would think about throwing myself behind major structural changes for the US. BUT... only if there was wide support, and that is just not going to happen.

All evidence to the contrary, americans are convinced that they have a chance of being rich, so they do not want to do away with riches. Certainly, the media mostly covers people who have a lot of money. We worship Hilton because she has money. Otherwise, she would have ended up in jail, treatment, etc... far from the big screen. In the eighties, this impulse was sickening, under the dreaded Reagan, when everyone wanted to make as much money as possible, and Trump was worshipped. The media acknowledges that most people are not living quite the same story book life in People magazine, and dismisses them as just not quite as interesting as a celebrity baby story.

So, how is that for obtuse meanderings. I have given my okay for the continued use of public property, going against the anarchists -- though loving thier spirit and wishing them well, I still think that they over-estimate the sanity of the masses. I am one of those big government democrats in that respect. I think that a combination of capatalism and nationalism is basically a reality in this world. Almost every country operates on these two principles.

People have in their heads that the government is terrible at everything. This isn't true. It is if they are underfunded and over worked, or corrupt... okay, but normally the government does a decent job on a lot of things. Removing the middle men and providing services directly to the people seems like it would save everyone a lot of money, except the rich industrialists who presently own stocks or whatever in the industries.

If I could just set up a country from scratch, I would nationalize electricity, wi fi service, health care... the electricity because we have to ignore what the market says on this, and make our move away from fossil fuels. I like nuke energy, personally. WHY NOT? The big fears that they will blow up? Unlikely. Wind, water, whatever... the government needs to use their powers to force the shift away from gasoline. Again, this is never going to happen in the states.

I would fund the government, partially, with income from providing basic services which are right now, basically, monopolies. Like electric companies. One has no choice. I thought this was outlawed in this country, the whole monopoly thing? The Governement provides such services in a lot of countries. In my country, we would too. This would make us unpopular with the US, maybe get a coup attempt started on me by the CIA. So, health care and maybe major utilities could easily be nationalized.

Of course, this is a slippery slope to go down. When does the individual matter to such an entity as a government that can come in and take thier businesses? This again leads to giving governments too much power. The balancing act between wanting Big Brother around when you need him, and not when he is just a third wheel... is the american experience.

Ahh, and what the hell does this have to do with forgiveness? I feel forgiving right now, and the idea of violence, disruptions, chaos.... well, I feel them enough, too.

I think often of the soldiers fighting around the globe. I really grieve for them one and all, and wish them all the best, in my way. I wish that I could get behind the entire idea of ending war once and for all. Unfortunatly, that requires the agreement of people who simply will not stop fighting. The Taliban gets more powerful because they become the force of Islam fighting the great satan of the Christians. A Holy battle that promises virgins. God's own war, you are told.

I can sympathize with the killed and the killers. I have definate ideas on how hard I personally would fight against any government that tried to Taliban the states with a government based on religous extremism. I simply would not go down without a fight, a big fucking fight. But, do I have a right to tell others how to run their countries? Sure. And they have a right to ignore me and do what they think is best, as well they should...

In a pefect world, though... open education systems would offer people the ideas of liberty, and a caring government would nurture this as a sacred right for all people. There would be no need for the Taliban. They simply would have to follow more secular laws. This does not mean they have to go against their God. There are a lot of Muslims in the states who get along just fine living here. Ask them if they want to go back and live under the Taliban, and they will point out that their americanized children would probably get stoned to death for the shit they pulled in junior high. I like societies that allow for personal freedom.

The utmost freedom. Freedom. More precious than anything man can put in the bank. As a writer who explores everything and anything, and sometimes uses inflammatory language when I do, I can understand that I am a threat to the status quo, however small. But, what status quo are we talking about? I certainly do not want to throw bombs at anyone, or force an ideology down their throats, or convince them of some religious commandment...

Writers want to inspire. Writers like me also enjoy pure, old fashioned rabble rousing. Sometimes a poet should try to stir the savage blood, sometimes they should chastise it.

Oh well...

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway