Raccoon

This poor guy occasionally visits the back of one of the stores in Eugene. He has bad vision, no tail, and looks like he was hit by a car at one time. Cute little fella.

"Flat"...ulence

I've been listening to "The World if Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (2005)," by foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman. It is 15 CD's read by Oliver Wyman.

"The World is Flat," is a catch phrase created by Thom to explain simply what is happening with globalization. He means that the world is becoming more homogeneous and thus more folk are becoming interconnected from all over the world with new technology.

I enjoyed this book at first, hearing the interconnectedness of all the various nations in this insane world of new technology. How work is being created in areas where there was none. The facts on the ground are pretty interesting; laying of fiber optic lines, the dot com boom to bust, the infrastructure that set up outsourcing, etc.

But then Thomas gets into this corporatization party-line analysis of the whole situation that given the facts since 2005 seems on the verge of ridiculous.

He also starts handing down this message that sounds rather like, "if you poor folk would just pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, you could jump on the globalization bandwagon and become fabulously wealthy like all the other folk who have jumped on it." Can you say, BULLSHIT! That would work in a world of infinite resources. Infinite growth on a finite planet. But he doesn't talk about these things. He barely talks about any of the negative effects of globalization. He does have a lot of cute little catch phrases in this book like "where were you when the world went flat?," "glocalization (act locally, think globally...about how you can hop on the globalization band wagon)," etc. It would seem that he says these things in a way to catch the readers eyes without really explaining the whole picture. Without much, if any, REAL analysis of the negative things that happen with globalization. To hear Thom talk about globalization, you'd think it was the best thing since the orgasm!

I'm only on disc 13, but Thom did finally get to talking about what happens to those not so lucky, or, if you will, unable or unwilling to jump on the globalization band wagon. He finally did start talking about the negative things around disc 12, but he isn't talking with the people that it effects. He talks with those who have successfully jumped on the bandwagon stating that those that aren't on board are simply jealous of those who are. Thus, since they didn't pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, they are left behind to live in poverty.

THANK GOD for John Perkins! The day before yesterday, one of the loaders of the trucks I drive did a ride along with me to see what he and his colleagues put us through. I didn't want to bring him in on the middle of "...Flat," so I stuck in "Confessions of an Economic Hitman: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World (2004)," by John Perkins. Thank you for the reality check, John! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! At points when I was about screaming at the FLATulent analysis of "...Flat," I'd think of this book.

"...Economic Hitman" is about the work done by John and others to bring the economies of other nations to their knees by encouraging vast loans that they would be incapable of paying back and thus could be held in the imperial grip of the American Corporatcracy. The U.S. could then steal labor, resources, votes in the U.N., etc., through extortion by leveraging these loans.

John mentions such crimes as murder, genocide, assassination, environmental destruction, corruption, rape, etc. The real darker side of globalization covered up as simple jealousy thus far in "...Flat."

John went all over the world and he describes how he made economic forecasts of how the engineers for the company he worked for could design structures for infrastructure that would make a nation fabulously wealthy and self-sufficient. The nations would then take loans from the IMF and World Bank for billions of dollars and be incapable of paying them back after dams and other infrastructure were created. Thus, these nations would be held hostage to do the bidding of other nations. The taking of "a pound of flesh," was how John put it.

John also describes the history of it, mostly starting with the work of Kermit Roosevelt in successfully removing the Mossadeq government from Iran in the '50's and putting in the pro-American Shah who became one of the most heinous criminals in current history according to some of the people that lived under that monster. But the Shah gave America what it wanted, and thus, he was great in the eyes of the American corporatocracy.

These things you don't hear about in Thom's book. You don't hear interviews with women like Vandana Shiva or Arundhati Roy talking about how the new world infrastructure and predatory lending practices have lead to the destruction of the farming community in India. Nor will you hear about Monsanto and other food corporations taking over the farming in India. You won't hear John Perkins talking about how the oil industry destroyed the environment in Ecuador. You won't hear the voices of the indigenous Africans around the Niger Delta and the destruction of their environment and thus their culture at the hands of the oil industry.

You will hear about how great Bill Gates is in offering so generously some of his millions to the African people in search of a cure for various forms of Malaria. But wait, oddly, I didn't hear how any of this is reaching the BLACKS in Africa. I heard how a $230,000,000 grant has gone into research to drug companies to create a vaccine under the pretext of somehow getting it into the hands of the primitive clinics in Africa to help the people there. No mention of using that money to help create a healthier infrastructure in Africa. No mention of helping create a situation where Africans can create their own sovereignty. The only place I heard that money went to is to research and how Bill Gates praised his own philanthropy.

Thomas Friedman does finally mention around disc 12 the numbers in jobs created by the call centers in India. 0.02% jobs have been created by the call centers. Only 2% of jobs in India are created by globalization. There is so much more in the forecasting arena I could discuss here, but how much more is going to bore you?

Here are some current negative aspects of globalization:

The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is a direct effect of globalization.

The increase in immigration from the south caused by NAFTA and GATT and not "Mexicans" wanting to steal our jobs.

The banking crisis caused by predatory lending.

And the list goes on and on.

If you want to read this book, "...Flat," by Thomas Friedman, I'd suggest balancing it with some John Perkins, Derrick Jensen, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, etc. to add a little REALITY flavor to the mix

Don't worry about the bootstraps...Haliburton holds the patent on those and doesn't charge too much for you to pull on them.

Remembering Nagasaki

Today is the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Thought I'd reproduce a post I made on Pudgy Indian 2 on November 29, 2008 about George Weller who was the first American reporter into Nagasaki.

George Weller

I picked up a book on tape at the Library called "First Into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post Atomic Japan and It's Prisoners of War." The book is about the dispatches of George Weller, the first American who snuck into Nagasaki about a month after the U.S. had dropped the second atomic bomb there.

In these dispatches, he talks a lot about the illness that followed the bombing. As well as the radiation did not stay at lethal levels as long as was projected. Radiation effects the blood. The blood is thinned, as in it reduces blood quantities in red and white cells. It also in many cases kills platelets, which are the parts that give blood the ability to clot.

Geoge Weller, when asked about the bombing of Nagasaki, would also mention that it has to be taken in with bombings like that of Tokyo, where the U.S. killed over 100,000 people in a single evening.

War crime? Yes. The Japanese were willing to surrender a year prior with one condition, that the emperor remain emperor. The U.S. wanted unconditional surrender, yet, let the emperor remain emperor. What's up with that? Thousands, millions of lives could have been spared if the U.S. would have accepted the terms originally. Of course, they wouldn't have been able to drop their wonderful new little toys to terrorize the U.S.S.R., either.

As well, George Weller was the first to inform many prisoners of war that the war was over. Many did not know, and there were many slave labor camps ran by the Japanese military and their wealthy (like Prescott Bush benefitting directly from Auschwitz slave labor). These were mostly prisoners of war, but some were civilians.

We all know of the Bataan Death March, though could probably not name a single event that happened during that time or how it came about, let alone any that died or survived (I can't). Nor would most even be able to mention the fact that there were 99 American nurses in that battle of the Phillipines and it was the first time in modern military history that women nurses were in battlefield situations. ("We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese," by Elizabeth M. Norman). Censorship and American short term memory are wonderful tools for the wealthy to trick us into continuing the horrific behaviors of war for them to gain more wealth and glory for themselves. And I bet most of you never heard of "The Death Cruise" either. The one that George Weller got the story of from some of the prisoners is the only known well detailed story of one of the MANY Japanese Military death cruises. It reminds me of how the British military housed their Scots prisoners after Culloden, in prison cells for months where they were barely fed and forced to live in their own excrement and amongst their dead. Serious stomach turning stuff, if I had a weaker stomach, which I don't. But it is also history that doesn't even warrant a footnote in this nation, for some reason. As is pointed out by George Weller, this is the only well documented "Death Cruise." There are no documented cases of the "Death Cruises" for the comfort women, forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military.

And then, there is the "King of the Censors," (like Peter Brzika is "The King of the Cutthroats" from the Catholic ran death camp called Jasenovac in Croatia) the American military.

Seen here without his pipe, hat, and glasses, is good ole Dugout Doug, aka Douglas McCarthur. Doug earned the name "Dugout Doug" because he ABANDONED his men on Corregidor after the long hard battle of Bataan and the retreat to the Island of Corregidor. Doug managed to catch himself a boat to Australia to save his own ass, instead of attempting to get those men who fought to protect each other and his lousy worthless ass off the island as well. Dugout ABANDONED his men and his post.

Thus the Bataan Death March and the Death Cruises that followed. Cruises that took prisoners to Japan to be slave labor for the wealthy in horrifically unsafe conditions of the coal mines near Nagasaki. In the case of the Death Cruise recorded by George Weller of the survivors that made it to Japan and those that made it through the mines, torture, and slave labor, there were 1600+ prisoners who were carried out of the Phillipines, only about 450 made it to Japan, 267 came out alive. Most of those killed were killed by friendly fire. (The last surviving marine from Wake Island, was killed by a food drop of Spam, of all things). Even though Dugout had intelligence that their were many ships with POW's aboard them, they also carried military supplies and thus, many of the POW's were killed by "friendly fire." Little known fact of American History.

More importantly, however, the general that ABANDONED his men and his post to save his own glorious ass and create the lie of a mystique of himself being a great man, Dugout Doug, CENSORED the dispatches of George Weller. There could be many reasons for this. One is that Dugout didn't like anyone disobeying his post abandoning ass. Dugout was a pretty arrogant self-righteous bastard willing to sacrifice many Americans as well as enemy to make himself look good. George Weller did not OBEY his prince in order to get out information and truth that he believed needed to be carried to the people. George was a reporter, a real reporter, not these stupid asses you see that get the stories they are told to get in order to create careers for themselves without ever having to put those careers on the line to, say, get out some of the dirty truths that create this world.

Dugout also had a grasp of human thinking. People want to forget attrocities. When they do, Dugout and his likes can then raise themselves to glorious positions like "prince" on the expense of those that actually put themselves on the line. If all of America knew what happens to prisoners of war, they may not want to sign up for horrific military service because they don't want to torture nor be tortured. People may rethink war, and then folks like Dugout wouldn't be considered the great people they like to believe they are.

Did you know that Dugout Doug, Douglas McCarthur, also allied himself with the infamous Japanese military unit, Unit 731. This unit did medical experiments on POW's and other prisoners, mostly to see how much torture folks would take before they actually died. Dugout pardoned many of these folks so he could get the information of torture. Why? So we could have things like the H-blocks in Northern Ireland, Agu Ghraib in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, etc. I'm not saying Dugout Doug is the sole person responsible for this, I am saying he played a rather pivotal role in a societal norm that folks like to PRETEND doesn't happen. Civilization...wonderful stuff!

Knowing that Dugout and the U.S. military were censors, and pretty much ALL militaries are censors (not wanting to get truth to the people because the people just might do something about this crap), it is safe to say that the censors are heavily at work within the U.S. government, military, and in all war actions like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is safe to assume that tortures are going on far beyond the reports that we the people were not supposed to hear (thank you Seymour Hersch). That war crimes are happening far beyond what we hear about. That the wealthy, like the 200+ U.S. corporations that helped fund the Nazis during the war, are making billions off of the backs of the victims of the U.S. led genocides in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as our own folks. That you will remember those that like to call themselves heroes, like Tommy Franks, before you would remember names like Darrell Anderson who admitted his war crimes in Iraq to the public, even though he signed a document that makes him LEGALLY BOUND not to talk about these things to the public, FORCED upon him by the U.S. military. We the people are not getting the information that we need to make decisions about what our government is doing, and most of us are rather content with that.

The media doesn't even have to be cencorsed. They self-censor. They know what the government and the wealthy want out, they know how to propagandize in order to keep the people supporting the same deadly system.

And we the people? Most Americans, as pointed out by George Weller, see the U.S. as "There is the U.S., and everything outside our borders are seen as the others." Most Americans have a very limited sense of self and entitlement. Most U.S. citizens have a limited sense of history, and pretty much like it that way. We have many privileges here. Many things to distract us from what is really going on in the world. I mean...

Oh...Look at the time. I have to catch the Chess Boxing Match on ESPN...

Institutional Cruelty

There have been a few items in the news that I would like to mention.

A ban on cluster bombs has been declared. It is said because children and other innocents get wounded by the unexploded bomblets. However, that is exactly what they were designed to do. As I have mentioned on my blogs several times, 2 psychologists were hired by the U.S. to decide what colors most attracted children. Turns out to be fluorescent green and fluorescent orange. Little bomblets were then given these colors and dropped over Vietnam. The idea was that children would pick up these bombs and play with them and blow off an arm or a leg. These were not designed to kill, but to maim children. The idea being that it would take personnel out of the field to care for wounded children. These children would then use medical supplies that would otherwise be used for military folk, folk who can actually fight back. Then as the child grew, they wouldn't be able to work nor join the military and become a drain on society. I have no idea why folk seem to think that these bomblets accidentally reach non-combatants, civilians. That is exactly what they were designed to do. And the U.S. refuses to sign the ban on these as they make money off of them and this cruelty is enjoyed by those that benefit the most, the war mongering wealthy who don't have to fight the battles.

The U.S. has admitted its plans to slaughter Iranians. The excuse, however, is the lie. They claim that it is out of fear that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. IAEA says they are at least 10 years from doing so, but what do a bunch of stupid scientists know. In my opinion: The U.S. is running out of cheap oil and wants at that Iranian oil. Especially since the Chinese have their hands on vast amounts of that oil. Of course, the U.S. being almost or beyond financially bankrupt, is willing to start another trillion dollar war under Bush's third term, also known as the Obomber administration. With Killary Clinton as part of that band of thieves, one is almost guaranteed to have a war with Iran shortly. This trillion dollar war in spite of the fact that the U.S. is in a recession and on the border of economic collapse. The Gulf is dead because of BP and Tony Hayward, and we the people are gonna be paying for it, not Tony and his gang of mass murdering criminals. This in spite of one of the highest unemployment levels in decades. This, in spite of bankers and war mongers making record profits in the midst of mass unemployment, recession, and dare I say, damn near depression. GO KILLERS!

Photo Poet

The Help

"The Help," by Kathryn Stockett, is one of the best books I have listened to.

Though set in Jackson, Mississippi from 1962 to 1964, this novel relevant today to the racist ideals (though far more institutionalized) that this nation carries so dearly in the hearts of its people.

Here are the back noes from the sound recording:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy until Skeeter has a ring on her finger.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk.

The project is a book with the stories of black maids in the Jackson, Mississippi. At first this didn't seem too risky to me. But then, as one is refreshed in the memories of the racism at that time (somewhat different than the racism of this time), people could lose livlihoods, be tortured, lynched or just flat out murdered for being a black person talking about the trouble white folk gave them.

Considering the new racism being promoted by the likes of Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the likes of the Tea Baggers and so many other white folk terrified of losing the privileged gained by suppressing and oppressing poor white folk, blacks, indians, and whatever other races they disapproved of at the time, just adds to the intensity and flavor of this novel.

[side note: I think the term "Tea Bagger" is one of the funniest political group names I have ever heard. Having seen the movie, "Pecker," and seeing that Tea Bagging as referred to in that movie, was when a male stripper bounced his testicals off the head of someone giving them a tip to do so. So, every time I hear the term, "Tea Bagger," I think of those strippes bouncing their nuts off the heads of other men.]

The new racism, instead of white folk being openly proud of their oppression of others and their privileges gained from such actions, they attack usually black people for being racist. Examples are what has happened with Shirley Sherrod thanks to the racist actions of Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, and with the Black Panther Part for Self-Defense thanks to the Tea Baggers (bouncy ballsacks), the NAACP thanks to the Tea Baggers (hee hee). Breitbart, Fox News, and the Tea Baggers (omg), claim Shirley Sherrod, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, and the NAACP practice racism against white folk. However, these white folk (Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, and the Tea Baggers [so funny]) never care about racism unless it is "perceived" racism against white folk from blacks or other races. Then they claim reverse racism, but don't really care about racism at all in the terms of how it effects other races. Now if that isn't racist, what is?

Kathryn Stockett did a fantastic job in writing "The Help", one of the best novels I have listened to. You need to read or listen to this book. It is so relevant to the times as well as those times. If you get the sound copy, it is read by Octavia Spencer, Bahni Turpin, and Jenna Lamia. These three women did a FANTASTIC job of portraying this story.

Go get a copy, now.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

I had always had "War and Peace," by Leo Tolstoy, as a to read book in the back of my mind. I have never been too sure about this book as it did not seem all that interesting to me from what I've heard. So, I bought a copy a while ago, but have not had a chance to read it. So, I decided to see if they had it on CD at the library, and unabridged version, as I didn't want the cliff notes. And whaddya know, their is an unabridged reading of the book, in two parts. Part 1 is 25 discs for 30 hours and 20 minutes. Part 2 is 26 CD's for a total of 31 hours and 25 minutes. It is read very well by Neville Jason. As stated in previous posts, my work allows for many opportunities in listening to such works.

The book is amazing in its descriptive qualities considering it is a historical novel and Leo himself was born in 1828, and the "War and Peace" concerns the time of 1805 to 1812, during the Napoleonic wars in Russia.

At first I found the book rather boring, seeming more like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous instead of an important novel about war. However, as it reached the first battles of Austerlitz, the fuller the characters took in ones minds.

Tolstoy has a descriptive quality that makes it feel like he was there. Like he was dreaming the reality and sharing it with the world. He has a way of molding the characters as a whole. They are three-dimensional and not flat. Some of the characters I hated, some I loved, and often, they were the same characters. My favorite was Pierre Basuhoff (sp? as I did not actually read, but listened to the book) . He starts out as a partying youth who participates in drunken festivities such as tying a policeman to a bear. A fella like that can't be all bad.

The war descriptions are amazing. They have qualities in only stories that I've been told by vets and works I've read by boy soldiers. He describes well the effects war has on the people during times of relative peace, i.e. not at war, as well.

All in all, although at times boring, the novel, "War and Peace," is well worth the read. I feel like I got something out of it.

The above photograph of Leo Tolstoy was taken in 1908 and is an actual color photograph. In other words, it is not Turnerized, but an actual color photograph by a pioneer in color photography, Prokudin-Gorskii.

I've also read a little that Tolstoy was quite the peace activist especially later in life. I won't hold that against him, however.

ADDENDUM

I would like to point out something that interested me about the wars in this book compared to the wars of today.

In the wars between Russia and France, the teams were rather close to equal. The fighting was nasty, bloody, up close and personal. The generals and the rest of the rank fought beside the grunts, as it were. The rich fought just as hard as the grunts, the rich were just as cowardly as the grunts. They were all side by side in the nastiness that is known as war.

Observers were common. You could ride out onto the field and watch war. The people fighting it would not support you, like feed you like they would the fighters. But you could watch, stand under fire, maybe get killed, as long as you stayed out of the way.

Not so today. You would never see the likes of that POS Tony Hayward, fighting beside the grunts who Obomber and Killary want to start slaughtering Iranians with and already have and are slaughtering Iraqi's and Afghani's. You won't see the generals and fighting side by side with their men.

Nor are the sides close to even. The U.S. is overwhelming in its Blitzkrieg of military might and technology. Yet, oddly, unlike in "War and Peace," there are no clear winners in these illegal and genocidal wars started by mass murderer George Bush and perpetuated by mass murderer Barack Obama, aka Obomber. With no where near the military might, the Iraqi's and Afghani's are still fighting back.

I'm just sayin'.