Further proof

Colorado to use inmates to fill migrant shortage
Tough laws passed last year against illegal immigration have created a need for farmworkers.
By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2007

..."Prisoners who are a low security risk may choose to work in the fields, earning 60 cents a day. They also are eligible for small bonuses." (More...)

We just gotta think up some more laws for folks to break, then we'll be able to compete with China's growing economy.

Break

I'm still working on that wall. My hands have gone from mincemeat to ground beef as I have a habit of not wearing gloves, I'm working with 100 year old lumber, and I just don't pay close enough attention.

I'll be back to posting soon.

Having a Wonderful Time

Some of Blank Maxine's photography from our most recent week in FLA. The whole landscape down there is a bit unreal and has always reminded me of several different J.G. Ballard works.

In this case it's Having a Wonderful Time...

• Link to the CBC's radio drama Having a Wonderful Time

M.D.C. comes to life

Many years ago, from reading Toffler, Gibson, Dick, Ballard, et al I had a sense that in the future we would no longer ask "Where are you from?" but "Who do you work for?". And who enforces the policies and protects the interests of the MDC's?...

From the website...

Blackwater USA is the most comprehensive professional military, law enforcement, security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world.

Blackwater USA comprises nine separate business units to offer the most comprehensive professional security, peacekeeping, and stability operations company in the world.

VISION
To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.

MISSION
To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.

Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the very best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges. (Website...)

I don't have to say how evident that Blackwater, by their very existence, represents the U.S.'s slow demise at the hands of corporate power. THEY have been trying to figure out a way to undermine that pesky Constitution without overtly overthrowing the government.
Just keep repeating the mantra "Money good! Government by the people, for the people bad!"
Outsourcing war to those that fight for money is ++ ungood.
Blackwater at WikipediaAnd soldiers' hostility towards merc's are just jealousy.

M.D.C.
"Selfish Shit"

One of the neighborhood guys

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - "indoctrination," we might say - exercised through the mass media.

I can't say I've seen him wandering the streets of Cambridge yet, but here's a selection of quotes from neighbor Noam Chomsky.

• Personally, I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions of society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level--there's little bargaining, a little give and take,but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.


• All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.


• If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.


• If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.


• Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.


• Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.


• The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Further evidence...

From Sex Workers to Restaurant Workers, the Global Slave Trade Is Growing
By David Batsone, Sojourners. Posted March 15, 2007

Twenty-seven million slaves exist in our world today. Girls and boys, women and men of all ages are forced to toil in the rug loom sheds of Nepal, sell their bodies in the brothels of Rome, break rocks in the quarries of Pakistan, and fight wars in the jungles of Africa. (More at Alternet: Rights and Liberties...)

If anyone has any leads for a Private Investigator/Research/Intel Analyst position to help stem human rights violations, particularly the slave trade, let me know.

Lorentz Gun

I'm still working on that wall.

Here' something that I find amusing. Not practical, but it looks like a lot of fun.
The Lorentz Gun (formerly the Taser Cannon until Taser forced them to change the name) from a member of Survival Research Laboratories (SRL).

Further evidence...

...of the epic culture shift.

How corporations are like cold war superpowers.
Spy v. Spy
by Ilana Ozernoy
In an effort to ferret out the source of a leak of embarrassing company memos, a Wal-Mart employee apparently intercepted text messages and telephone calls of other employees. (More at The New Republic)

Interesting group...

I haven't read in great detail about these folks, but well before Dan Brown I've always had a curiosity about the Masons, Templars, and the like.

• The Rosicrucian Order AMORC
  
• Wikipedia entry

I'm taking it easy today. Tore down and re-framed two walls in my house. My hands are mincemeat.

Figures...

As busker noted in The Death Of America, Captain America's been assassinated.

Captain America shot dead at 66
NEW YORK: He fought the Nazis. He is revered by other crime-fighters worldwide. But the beloved, shield-carrying superhero, Captain America, has finally met his end...(More)

What happened?

...the government ordered them to reveal their true identities and register with authorities.

This caused a major rift and resulted in two super-powered factions, one led by Captain America, who went underground and formed a resistance movement, the other by Iron Man.

And from CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) -- He fought and triumphed over Hitler, Tojo, international Communism and a host of supervillains, but he could not dodge a sniper's bullet.

Comic book hero Captain America is dead. (Full story)

I spent the day working with some of my newer, younger colleagues. They are completely bereft of anything resembling honor, community, sacrifice, idealism. They just don't get it, the little narcissistic, self-absorbed little shits.

I swear I'm gonna get "REALITY" tattooed on my fist.