Occupy the Sofa

Easy To Look At

The people of Chile got a bonus from their grievances with the status quo, they got Camila Vallejo, Latin America's 23-year-old new revolutionary folk hero.

Chile has been engulfed by student protests – and their young leader has huge public support in her fight against the elite...

PreDisposed to DisObey

But a social revolution does not need a face. A revolt of the masses is rarely vertical, there is no 'top to bottom' structure, there is no center, only sentiment, righteousness vs just plain wrong.

The American public is poised to prevail in this class struggle because anonymity has found its power.

God Bless Anarchy

Obama is scrambling in his encampment as we watch the death pangs of capitalism.

Anarchism, for the most part, is not so much a theory of the absence of government, but a theory of self-organization, or direct democracy, as government. NYT

What is the Tea Party and OccupyWallSt? Both seem to detest plutocracy but teabaggers adore hierarchy and order, anarchists reject authority.

Why rely on mainstream media for information when they have proven time and again to be instruments of propaganda, disinformation and omission of what is really happening in your very own town.

Much of what we know about the protest has come from independent reporters and citizen journalists covering the story from the ground.

In Chicago the arrogant One Percenters seem to think this is all some kind of joke. Like Marie Antoinette before them, what a rude and overdue awakening the Oligarch will have when the champaign goes flat.

My Cardboard will Beat Your Billboard

A few of the endless great signs ...

White Shirt = Brown Shirt

The truth is not hard to find, but you gotta open your eyes. From the agent provocateur in DC's Air and Space mayhem to the assault and unlawful arrest of hundreds of non-violent protesters by double dipping law enforcement officers, the truth today is in your i-phone.

Wall Street is not the only sector renting cops in Manhattan.

The Anti-Rush

Some say everything is changing... except Ed Shultz is nothing new. He has been fighting the good fight for sometime. The time is right for the left to lead. Good riddance to Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Palin and their misguided cohorts.

Arab Spring, European Summer, American Fall...

Rise up better than ever, but not before more hurt.

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Always Remember to Never Forget

Setting aside all intellectual progress and plunging us back into darkness is a pretty good definition of horror. Ned Sublette

Customers Petrified

It took less than ten years to solidify the myth that is 9/11. It took only seven days.

Not that two airplanes did not strike the World Trade Center towers on that bright sunny late-summer day. The myth that was to be re-enforced in perpetuity at all cost is a falsehood depriving the public of what had to transpire to make horror possible. What follows in this commemorative post is an exert from the personal chronicles by incomparable scholar Ned Sublette. The photos are a mix of my own taken on 10/11/01 and others borrowed from the internet.

Bad Housekeeping

From NedsList:

There was a bizarre disconnect between the horror stories we were hearing on the radio about what had happened less than a mile from where we lived and the fact that we never felt personally threatened. When you think of the science-fiction scenarios of civil disaster in a major metropolitan area, you don’t imagine that within eyesight of ground zero, life can go on with comfort basically uninterrupted. We had lights, water, air conditioning, phone, internet, food. A few blocks down, it was another story.

Most days we didn’t breathe the smoke. It depended on the wind whether we detected what I remember calling a “sour” smell. Christie Whitman, a Republican apparatchik who had formerly been governor of New Jersey and was now the Bush-appointed director of the Environmental Protection Association, took her place in history by lying outright and telling us the air was safe to breathe. It wasn’t, but they were determined to have Wall Street reopen. It was a murderous lie. She didn’t tell us that the asbestos fibers in the smoke were so tiny that the measuring equipment couldn’t detect it. There were microfibers of glass going into our lungs. Gypsum. Corpses. People were working fourteen-hour days down at the cleanup, without masks, breathing deep lungfuls of that poison.

As the autumn wore on, we made that pilgrimage downtown to the twisted metal skeleton as often as we could. The fires burned until December. We were not only breathing in a dense cocktail of chemicals, we were breathing in the dead.

One day, Constance opened the drawer where we keep the pillowcases. That smell wafted up out of it. That smell of incinerated building materials and bodies.

[break]

ODD JOB indeed.

It took Bush four days to get around to coming to New York City. When he did, he was crowned as a hero by the national media, with the far-right media setting the pace. The farther away you were from the scene of the attacks, and the more what you knew of it came from TV, the more pre-digested and pre-spun it was for you, the more belligerent a response you wanted. Dick Cheney was busy at his undisclosed location, trying to figure out how to work September 11 into his previously planned invasion of Iraq. The consolidation of the neocon agenda was under way: imperial war, corporate looting, aggressive restructuring of governmental institutions, domestic repression.

We were terrified the whole time. Not of Islamic terrorism. That had already happened. We were terrified because it had happened and Chimpy W. Fustercluck was in charge, with Mr. Undisclosed Location himself, Dick Cheney, whispering in his ear. We were right to be terrified.

See No Evil, Speak No Evil

The loathsome Paul Wolfowitz, whose existence I had previously been unaware of, spoke of “ending states that support terrorism.” He later explained, oh, what he meant was, “ending state support for terrorism.” Great, we’ve got amateurs threatening the world and they can’t even say it right. But the low point was when George W. Bush, who was talking crazy shit about how he was going to “rid the world of evil-doers,” on Sunday September 16, 2001, referred to his “war on terrorism” as a “crusade.”

Oh my God, I realized: he doesn’t even know what the Crusades were. To him, crusade is a Billy Graham word. Campus Crusade for Christ, that kind of thing. But he actually is unleashing a Crusade. Which is exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted him to do. What does the word crusade translate to in Arabic? Jihad.

Quick, to Freshkills !

Not a shred of evidence from the crime scene of the century has been saved intact. What does exist has been sanitized, homogenized, pasteurized and classified. Not one person responsible to the failure has gone to jail.

From my dispatch of October 2, 2001:

>Down at Ground Zero, the smoke continues to pour upward. I think even uptown a lot of people don't realize the fires are still burning. When the wind is blowing strong out of the north like it has been for the last two days you might think the fire's out because the smoke disperses so rapidly. But even with the three strong rains we've had since the 11th the fires continue. A week or so ago I heard they had abated to the point that it could be discerned that there were three main fires. New little ones flare up occasionally, throwing a fresh plumelet of smoke into the air.

>At night is when it's most spectacular, because the work that goes on 24-7 down at "the crime scene" is floodlit, so the smoke is brightly, theatrically illuminated from underneath. When you look to the south -- still expecting to see the towers -- you see instead a

gleaming cloud of bluish-white billowing smoke roiling up from below, as if belching out of hell.

>The trope most often invoked is the disaster movie. But it reminds me more of H.P. Lovecraft, in whose "The Dunwich Horror" a vortex in New England is a portal to unfathomable evil that threatens the entire planet.

>Lovecraft wrote to his hometown paper, the Providence, R.I., Evening News, on 5 September 1914:

>[begin block quote] It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would set aside all the intellectual progress of years, and plunge us back into the darkness of mediaeval disbelief. [end block quote]

Setting aside all intellectual progress and plunging us back into darkness is a pretty good definition of horror.

Golden Key

The 411 on 911 is to always remember to never forget. The myth that has become the official story of what happened on that fateful day will be perpetuated for decades to come in coloring books for children, a contagious lust for militarized corporatism and a cowered media. The key that will bust the myth is your thinking self.

I had the serendipitous privilege to hunker down with Ned during Hurricane Irene recently. With his nervous guitar and my tranquilizing rum we were able to ride out yet another disaster where most of the damage from Irene was to our livers. Sadly the psychological damage from 9/11 is far worse, world-wide and long-lasting.

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Our Brackish Estuary

Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as you please.

- Mark Twain




Needed Subtext

When hearing about New Orleans and Katrina, two words come to mind, Before and After.
Ned Sublette has written the definitive history of this magical place in America. With poignant personal reflection and meticulous historical detail, Sublette defines what it is to be of the Louisianan Bayou. Read it and weep with joy and pain.



Bridge to Elsewhere

Exert from The Year Before the Flood:

The next morning, the last leg of our drive was through 150 miles of thunderstorms. I drove most of it at eighty miles an hour. I had told myself I wouldn't drive that fast, but everyone else was going at autobahn speed, even in the rain. Like religion, politics, and music, driving in the United States has become more belligerent in recent years. Despite the increased probability of carnage if you crash at a higher speed, it's easier to flow with the traffic than to have Hummers and semis whipping around you constantly, hurling blinding sheets of water onto your windshield, while a suicide-jockey motorcyclist darts around between you. A small truck passes with FEAR THIS painted on its back, and a verse citation from Revelation. A giant chemical tank roars past with the cautionary MOLTEN SULFUR painted on its side. Isn't that the stuff that spews out of volcanoes?




Heck of Job Brownose

We have all but forgotten the days in the aftermath of Katrina. The man-made disaster that followed an otherwise typical hurricane became a sideshow of distractions from years of irresponsible policy and engineered missteps. With an eye on the depopulation of a people deemed a lecherous burden on the Homeland, Bush Brown and Skeletor worked overtime to spin the public relations blow-back. Today they are all out to pasture in the private sector collecting fat gov'ment pensions.



Deep Shit Horizon

Fast and furious is how BP rolls.
Who wants to forget the worst oil spill in history, the crude and lewd disregard for regulatory protections for the Mississippi Delta and its people. The lasting environmental disaster that continues to unfold untold and buried in an avalanche worthless news.



Harnessing Mother Nature
High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program

We are harassing the physical world, not so as to diminish her wrath but more so as an instrument of our endless war arsenal. We are now in the year after the beam weapons have gone online... and we are not the only nation with HAARP technology.



Jakarta Jack-in-the-Box

Can you name just a few of the glaring anomalies of recent times that are easy to explain once you accept the notion that Reagan's Space-Wars dream may have come true?
Possibilities abound when you tune your tin-foil head-gear to the sci-fi frequencies.



Preparedmess

In spite of the lessons and concerted efforts of FEMA after Katrina there are some things we can never truly prepare for. In managing emergencies there is one thing to ask yourself.
When the beam hits the ionosphere, will you lead/follow, get out of the way or sell something?



Play It Again, Harry

From watching teevee coverage of the fifth anniversary of Katrina, it appears that Harry Connick Jr. is now the face of the new New Orleans music scene. Yes he is a genuine Cajun original, white on the outside and brimming with old soul and strong heart from the inside.
But he now lives in Connecticut.
The skin and bones of New Orleans have been plowed over and from its nutrients a powerful re-birth in at hand.

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The Bordello Bodega

The Bordello Bodega

Celebrating 25 years in the Design District, Miami artist Oliver Sanchez will open his studio featuring the Bordello Bodega during the Design Miami and ArtBaselMiamiBeach events.

The BORDELLO BODEGA is a neighborhood convenience store with a hospitality club theme laced with a unique Latin Manhattan flavor. A ridiculous manifestation that attempts to convey the notion that what propels human endeavor is an unchanging burning desire for fundamental earthly pleasures.

Since the dawn of human history, the urge to venture beyond the familiar has lead to new frontiers and expanded our common understanding of the world we inhabit. Whether nomadic wanderers or sea-faring conquerors; the sights of those dauntless few that heeded the call were set on discovering new places and people to interact with. As illusive and isolated points of destination were uncovered, tall tales and trade routes soon connected them intensifying the allure of untold exotic riches. In time, port-towns and out-posts became magnets for the intrepid. The spoils for the inquisitive voyagers were invariably the same then as they are today; more particularly GIRLS, GROG and GAIETY.

We humans are not made for work, but we will work very hard for that immeasurable reward at the end of the rainbow. The power process is a first-hand experience; the art of the hunt is more fulfilling than a job so if you want a rainbow, you have to put up with the rain. The Bordello Bodega is a glimpse into modern tropical Bohemia. It is another spark of the age-old beacon of passions.

The proceeds from the Bordello Bodega will be donated to the neighborhood Design and Architecture Senior High School.

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cafe con arsenic

painting by adolfo sanchez

Required. Reading new book "Cuba and it's Music" by Ned Sublette. In chapter 19 titled "Marti's Monster" he quotes Winston Churchill 1896:

"Though the Spanish Administration is bad, the Cuban Government would be worse- equally corrupt, more capricious, and far less stable. Under such a Government (US backed) revolutions would be periodic, property insecure, equity unknown. A graver danger represents itself. Two-fifths of the insurgents, and by far the bravest and best disciplined part of the rebel forces, are pure negroes. These men... demand a prominent share of the government of the country. Such a claim would be indignantly resisted by the white section, and a racial war, probably conducted with bitter animosity and ferocious cruelty, would ensue, the result being, after years of fighting, another black republic, or at best a partition of the island, as in San Domingo" (Dominican Republic / Haiti)

Back then it wasn't just confederates in the u.s. who felt that even the whitest of cubans failed their "just one drop" (of black blood) racial yardstick, therby conveniently inferior and conquerable. Today I say "welcome to the mulatto millennium"


Ned writes:
"Almost no one in cuba today can tell you the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but everyone can tell you what the Platt Amendment was. On three occasions in the first two decades of the century the United States invoked the Platt Amendment and sent in troops. Much of the capital and land was in the hands of foreign entities..."

The power structure in Miami may run out of benefits of cuban doubt. Diaz-Ballart and Iliana Lehtinen, Mel Martinez, with microphobes like BabaluBlog n Radio Marti, have been duped by the BFEE for personal benefit. Their drums stop beating as a new chapter is written. CHANGE is always in the wind and it is storm season once again in the swamp. Cuban-Americans today feel a pain that is without tears. We find solace in our music and the spirit of a people that is invincible.

That's just the tip of the cigar, the red-hot end. For the chomped and salacious end, listen to cuban music and read more.

Gracias to Jumel Terrace Books for the signed copy.

UPDATE... to be fair:

#067 Padilla Sues US Officials

Researched by Christina Long and Bill Gibbons

Jose Padilla, a US citizen, arrested on US soil and convicted (under extraordinary circumstances) of being an Al Qadeda operative, is seeking to hold former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and 59 other US officials responsible for physical and psychological abuse and unconstitutional tactics while being held as an ‘enemy combatant’ in military custody for 43 months. Early in 2007 a civil lawsuit was filed on behalf of Padilla in federal court in South Carolina over abuse he suffered from 2002 to 2006 in the US Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston Station South Carolina. Serious violations included sleep deprivation, stress positions, prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation and other extreme interrogation techniques calculated to profoundly disrupt his senses and personality and destroy his ordinary emotional and cognitive functioning. The government held Padilla for two years without any outside contact, including that of his lawyers. When that policy changed, government officials warned Padilla not to reveal any conditions of his confinement to his lawyers, the suit says. Padilla is left severely psychologically damaged.

“Padilla Sues US Officials Over Confinement” Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor 8/24/2007
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0824/p03s03-usju.html?page=2