We are now a police state. – Former NSA official Bill Binney
Today I’ll be Bob Zadek’s guest on his radio show on KKSF in San Francisco; even if you’re not in that area you can listen in on the internet. The show starts at noon PST (20:00 UTC).
A larger-than-usual fraction of this week’s links are funny, even though some of them are black humor; enjoy it while it lasts. Today’s first video, via Aspasia, is unique in that it was made entirely inside a computer; none of it exists in reality. Yet despite my generally low regard for CGI cartoons, I wholly admit to being extremely impressed by it and I predict a successful career for its creator. The second video (provided by Jesse Walker) takes us from the sublime to the ridiculous: it’s a 1963 Rice Krispies commercial performed by a now-legendary band before they were famous (Jesse also supplied “irony”). Everything down to the first video is from Radley Balko, and the links between the videos from Popehat (“class” & “petard”), Amy Alkon (“11”), Gideon (“natural”), Cop Block (“groped”), Tushy Galore (“Prince”), and Rick Horowitz (“NSA” & “robotic”).
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
- He just wanted to go out and meat people.
- Reinventing the door.
- Life in a police state.
- Class dismissed.
- Dan Savage is annoyed.
- Libertarianism happens to 11-year-olds.
- A natural development of the police state.
- The phrase “hoist by his own petard” comes to mind.
- Cops want woman they groped & beat imprisoned for 7 years.
- A chronological record of Prince’s hairstyles from 1978 to 2013.
- More on the old man murdered by cops because his yard stank.
- Primary use of NSA spying data: arresting people for petty offenses.
- Wind drops heavy “Feeling under the weather?” hospital sign on man.
- UK “authorities” compete to be as stupid and robotic as American ones.
From the Archives
- Valentines, water, cops, maps, overcriminalization, politics, librarians, spiders, TSA, Mr. Rogers, the Incredible Hulk and Hello Kitty.
- In New Zealand, even prohibiting streetwalkers from working in certain areas requires a new law.
- Melissa Gira Grant on how the “gypsy whores” myth harms sex workers.
- Most people have the sense not to act out abduction fantasies in public.
- Attractive female cops destroy the lives of high-school boys via trickery.
- A Chinese province has stopped sending prisoners to labor camps.
- Queensland cops want fetal rights to trump those of the mother.
- The tale of an escort who falls in love with a most unusual client.
- A must-read profile of neofeminist anti-porn crusader Gail Dines.
- How the Irish government enables the awful Magdalene orders.
- The prostitute who didn’t want Charles Dickens to “rescue” her.
- Meet Bethany St. James, Jill Brenneman and a sex worker mom.
- A brief history of Monto, once Europe’s largest red-light district.
- The “Juju sex slaves” myth just keeps on going like a zombie.
- Eric Berkowitz , author of Sex and Punishment, on Reason TV.
- Filipino sex worker rights advocates call for decriminalization.
- A word from noted “sex trafficking” expert Tommy Flanagan.
- The looking-glass world inhabited by Irish prohibitionists.
- Wendy McElroy asks, “Is America a Police State Yet?”
- A California woman claims porn can’t be copyrighted.
- Totalitarian laws always spread from place to place.
- An erotic video game with a very special controller.
- How well-chosen pictures increase blog traffic.
- The Push to Decriminalise Sex Work in Kenya.
- A report on the progress of the Swedish rot.
- My previous columns for Valentine’s Day.
- Tracy Clark-Flory on “sex addiction”.
- Wisconsin expands its police state.
- Sex, love and money in Cambodia.
- New findings on Fredric Wertham.
- A short tale about perspective.
- Potential HIV vaccines.
- CISPA is back again.
- Soiled Doves.
“enjoy it while it lasts”
Because it just doesn’t happen very often, or because there soon won’t be enough humor left in this world worth mentioning, given the rest of the information in those links?
Three questions (two related), posed honestly and without sarcasm:
First, has (or will) anything lasting come from the “Day We Fight Back”? I didn’t see anything in the news (granted I don’t pay much attention to ‘mainstream’ media anymore). Did the wintery weather affecting most of the US put a damper on its effectiveness?
Second, I stumbled across this yesterday: http://preppers101blog.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/dhs-insider-gives-final-warning/
How much stock would those here put in the information presented in that link?
Framed a bit too “NWO” for my liking, but more or less correct. I’ve been pointing out since ’08 that we’re in a depression, not a recession. And it isn’t just “the bankers” behind it; it’s the whole fascist establishment, political & corporate. The government’s spending is out of control; it has no money to pay its bills and no moral means of getting it. There is only one way government, as a parasitic entity, can raise funds: take them. Some tyrannies take them from their own people after trumping up criminal charges against them (this one was favored by Roman dictators & emperors and the present US government); others prefer to take them from others (empire-building). Some do both (the Mongols, some Roman emperors). I have predicted since the late 20th century that the US government would eventually be forced to do one or both, because it can no more dismantle itself than you can.
I apologize if this sounds like petty nitpicking however I didn’t quite get that last line: “[the US government] can no more dismantle itself than you can”
Than I can dismantle myself or dismantle the government? In either case you’re right.
Then, if you feel that article is incorrect from a “NWO” standpoint, do you think the collapse is going to come from without, or from within but not by design?
Which to me raises still more questions (and observations):
“Some tyrannies take them from their own people after trumping up criminal charges against them (this one was favored by Roman dictators & emperors and the present US government)”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m presuming you’re referring to such things as “asset-forfeiture” laws and the like. Which makes me wonder why more of the Wall Street types haven’t been thrown under the bus, as we have seen in the former USSR. Nets more money at one time and it serves as a sop too.
And speaking of the former USSR, I haven’t studied much about its end, but I wonder if its collapse couldn’t serve as something of a model. Situations such as Yugoslavia and Chechnya notwithstanding, most of Russia itself seemed to get through the collapse of Communism without descending into years of warfare and destruction. Granted, the Russian people were somewhat prepared with such things as Glasnost and Perestroika so it’s apples to oranges, I’m guessing, but I’d rather see that than see us replay the French Revolution and Reign of Terror.
In the USSR, bankers weren’t part of the ruling class; in ours they are. Fascism & communism are both tyrannies, but fascism has much more staying power because the ruling class is much larger, therefore more stable. In communism rule sits on a photographer’s tripod; in fascism it sits on a coffee table.
I think I need to clarify a bit. When I said “former USSR” as I made that comparison, I had in mind present-day Russia where tycoons can have all their wealth confiscated and be thrown in jail on trumped-up charges, Mikhail Khodorkovsky for example.
And your point about fascism vs. communism being taken, at some point wouldn’t the insular (if large) nature of the ruling class lead to it beginning to feed on itself? The bankers may be part of the ruling class, but to me that doesn’t mean they aren’t invulnerable from the machinations of the other members of the class. In other words, what’s one multibillionaire if by sacrificing him we keep the people from coming after all of us?
Because shit rolls downhill. The ruling class does sacrifice members occasionally, but it’s always those who have pissed off a large enough number of their fellows one way or another. And usually the smaller fish.
I’m incorrect then, that the political and financial class are likely to begin cannibalizing themselves in the pursuit of more power and money and less competition for the same?
I guess I’m just trying to square what you’re saying with the conspiracy theories (for lack of a better term) such as the one I originally linked to, because I’m skeptical that everyone implicated in them is thinking that far ahead. If there is indeed a years or decades-long plan to intentionally crash the economy in order to usher in a second Gilded Age or NWO or whatever, then wouldn’t it be in their interest to get rid of one of the more reviled members (even if that member hadn’t actually crossed his fellows) in order to make a show of ‘taking action’ and lessening the chance that someone somewhere might do something now that isn’t in the script? Not to mention, the surviving members now get the sacrificial lamb’s stuff in the bargain.
Break
I’ll be listening to your radio show. Just out of curiosity, is it live or were you prerecorded?
Live, in 15 minutes.
I tuned in, and enjoyed listening to what you had to say.
Just finished listening. I thought it was great! The time just flew by. I wish I could say I understood what “Audrey” was talking about but she seemed so flustered and emotional I could barely follow her.
The host also seemed like a smart, respectful fellow, such a pleasant change from a Limbaugh-type commentator (I heard the tail end of the program preceding yours, mistook him for Mr. Zadek and I thought “geez, I hope Maggie isn’t doing the show with this fellow, he sounds way too angry to have a meaningful conversation with.”)
Do you think you’ll be on that program again, perhaps discussing the economic future, as we’ve been doing today?
I would agree that we are already in a Police state. It’s obvious, when the people cannot even gather in public spaces to voice their opposition to policy without being groped and beaten by the Filth.
No good at all can come of citizens in a democracy being spied on by their government. in a democracy, the government is supposed to be us- “We the People”. It’s stopped being that in the USA, and the UK.
Will a recording of your guest spot will be available on your website, for those of us that won’t be able to catch it all?
Yes, on Saturday.
Am I the only guy who thinks that newfangled “door” is an accident waiting to happen? Admittedly – I’m a little “gun shy” right now of things that can “eat” your fingers – but I look at the “scissor” / “pincer” movement on that door and just say …
Yikes!
You didn’t look at the third video?
I hope you’re not bent out of shape by the ‘meat people’ guy getting arrested. Throwing things at moving cars is calling in a delivery of trouble down the street.
No, I’m not; some items are just here because they’re weird. And I couldn’t resist the pun. 😉