the gnostic – Progress Pond

Scoop: Diebold Pulls Voting Machines Rather Than Reveal Code (poll)

I heard this on NPR the other day, now at Raw Story, so sorry if old news, will delete if so.

NPR said that Diebold uses a variety of code, and they blame it on Microsoft’s code as their excuse, and they won’t reveal the code in order to operate in NC and are therefore pulling the machines instead.

From The Register:

Diebold would rather lose all of its voting machine business in North Carolina than open its source code to state election officials as required by law, the Associated Press reports.

Due to irregularities in the 2004 election traced to touch screen terminals, North Carolina has taken the very reasonable precaution of requiring vendors of electronic voting gizmos to place all of the source code in escrow. Diebold has objected to the possibility of criminal sanctions if they fail to comply, and argued for an exemption before Wake County Superior Court Judge Narley Cashwell. The judge declined to issue an exemption, and Diebold has concluded that it has no choice but withdraw from the state.

And:

The company’s explanation is that their machines contain Microsoft software, which they have no right to make available to state election officials. This seems disingenuous, as it is hard to imagine Microsoft suing Diebold for complying with the law. It would hardly be Diebold’s fault if it released MS code to a lawful authority on demand; that issue would be something for MS and North Carolina to work out.

One far-fetched explanation would be that MS has licensed its software to Diebold with a provision that the company withdraw from jurisdictions where the law requires the release of its source code. It’s possible, but there’s no reason to believe it.

A considerably more plausible explanation is that Diebold is using this non-problem as an excuse to keep its bugware from the prying eyes of government regulators. And the most likely reason for that is that they’ve got a lot of blunders to hide. If North Carolina were to reject the machines on the basis of their software, other states would undoubtedly become suspicious, and begin doing their own investigations. So in that case, withdrawing from the market is the smartest move the company can make.

But if the software is as good as the company claims, then North Carolina’s future endorsement will make for excellent free advertising. Withdrawing from the market would be a very foolish move in that case, but, again, only if Diebold has nothing to hide.

Republicans Fall From Grace, Public Schools Brace

I am an expecting father, come May, so I think about this topic more and more: school violence and politics.
It being politics is the only firebreak from literal civil war between the peoples of our country, of any country, we must resolidify politics in that function and not let war and possible civil war overtake it. If Republicans declared martial law and started another red-scare, anti-liberal crusade, I would fight them with my heart, mind, and soul as I do today with writing and being a political activist.

Many around here have heard the threats from the other side, and not just from repub bloggers. We’ve heard the certain freaks in the military leadership who talk about “better Gods” than other religions, and we certainly hear it from the civilian leadership, the right-wing Republican-taliban political hacks running Washington, D.C. right now.

So, why don’t even we political activists, we partisans, we loony fringers from both sides, step back from that type of rhetoric… for the kids sake. Newt brought us here, and the return blows have landed, so let’s stand down for awhile while the legal process unfolds. No?

Let’s use politics wisely and not more reciprocal angry, violent rhetoric: That is why you show kids to take their grievances through a fair system rather than by choosing violence or other violent criminal behavior.

Why don’t we parents practice what we preach, even expecting ones? It’s hard, I know, but we must..

As much as I hated being bitch slapped by Obama, I now see the wisdom of what he was saying (and he isn’t likely a DLCer either IMO): you were right Obama, we were wrong

Rhetorical battle aside, we have all considered the possibility at this point that they are thinking of civil war, and threatening it, and considering how radical Bushco has been shown to be!

Right now, the Republicans are looking about as unpopular, or more, as the Democrats were in 1994: Newt’s tactics thrown back in his face by angry neo-Dems have payed off, and, well, Bush makes the activists’ job easy, he does the job for us by just being Dumb George, the most incompetent human being to have made president EVER. That’s not politics, that’s just a fucking fact. If he was a Democrat, I would say that. Anyhow, they are very vulnerable, being shown as incompetent boobs compared to the Democratic ’90s.

Repubs are the gun freaks and they like to imagine using them a lot. Democrats are different than such simplicity, to be elitist for a middle class hack, but I believe Demcrats have more complexity than the average God-guilty Republican, and don’t obsess on violence like Republicans do (yet many have guns, knowing what Republicans create in society: mean, total brainwashed freakazoids for the most part, except for the evil multinational super-rich who manipulates said freaks, and who get to live above it all while they stir up civil war in the middle class).

Anyhow, I digress… so, my point here tonight: politics between people’s parents, between the Republican parents vs. Democrat parents, affect the kids, which they take to school with them, so why don’t we try to tone it down somewhat (Obama, you were right)… for the kids’ sake. I won’t call your leader the boob he is so much if you stop threatening violence against Democrats. And keep your violent rhetoric from making your kids homicidal maniacs while your at it. How’s about it? Round 2 of Republican School children violence is not going to go down as you plan if you do it again as what occurred under President Clinton.

So, I suggest that now that the Republicans are down, we let the legal process work its course without our constant provocation.

Republican party kids may, as they did en masse under Clinton, end up taking the fight to we liberals’ kids again within the public school system. We, as the intellectuals of the American political system, must rise above their petty politics and fight them with just the truth, let’s try, as I must, to take some of the anger out of the rhetoric… for the kids’ sake.

Behold Newt and the Republican Party’s gutter:

The positive words were hardly surprising; they included “caring,” “freedom,” “liberty,” “moral,” prosperity,” and “strength. But the “contrasting words” — which GOPAC said should be applied to Democrats and their proposals — were rather hard-edged: “betray,” “bizarre,” “cheat,” “corrupt,” “destroy,” “disgrace,” “greedy,” “incompetent,” “intolerant,” “radical,” “shallow,” “sick,” and “traitors.”

In Tennessee When 10, My Principal Assaulted Me

Many fellow news junkies have read about the school shooting in Tennessee where a kid killed an assistant principal and gravely wounded another assistant principal and the principal.

My response to it is sadness of course, and I condemn the killing/ wounding utterly. However, throw in some school beatings by principals such as what I suffered in Franklin, Tennessee and you get an explosive mix: every action has an equal and opposite reaction, sometimes a violent reaction.

These pigs beat me with a 2 foot wooden paddle that had holes in it for less wind resistance while I grabbed my ankles so that no ass-meat could impede the blows.

These pigs still do this shit in America.

Children considering doing a copycat, I say: don’t be a coward, fight them in a way that will make a difference, get involved in politics and fight your whole life. Don’t lower yourself to their pathetic, violent level. You have your whole lives, don’t waste it on their ilk.

(I recognize that these principals could be liberal, great people, however, my principals were not great at all.)
Why are my fellow Southerners so fascist, so brutal, so backward? Tradition?

Nah.

It has to do with power and ignorance.

It has to do with religious fanaticism.

They want the power to beat, torture, maim, per Old Testament biblical acquiescence.

Religious zealot politicians and their paramilitary agents (prison guards) employ it everyday in American prisons, and of course international prisons, using torture and violence as a despicable tool, using inmates to exact vengeance that they can’t exact in society. The prisoner gets some fringe benefit for doing the deed later on… he’s in prison for life anyway, so why not?

Hitleresque.

This mentality has gone national under George W. Bush and Republicans. The Democrats were somewhat of a firewall but they tried to stay in power by continuing the politics/ money game, and are only now clawing there way out of that hole.

Politics are waged locally, so once that firewall got removed, voila! you get Abu Graib, covert CIA torture prisons, Iraq, chemical weapons use by America, outing CIA covert agents, etc. etc. etc. Brownshirt fascism straight and simple.

To the guy who wrote the DKos diary criticising those who criticize organized religion: wake up to reality dude and wake up to the inherent oligarchic fascism inherent in organized religion.

Study: Marijuana Stops Cancer Caused By Nicotine

Harm reduction should not only be applied to world affairs, like avoiding electing presidents that take America to war using fear, hysteria, and blatant lies, but also to American drug policy. Harm reduction has worked throughout the world and on the west coast of the US. It works.

Now, that said, marijuana, being the least harmful “drug,” less harmful than coffee, should be studied for its cancer-reduction capabilites per a new study out today. Before I give some quotes from that, let me remind that marijuana made news last week also. Both of these links deserve a thorough read. Last week’s is in this Science Daily publication and today’s new study explains how marijuana’s THC reverses the effects of a cancer-causing enzyme that is produced by smoking cigarettes. It actually reverses cancer, please let that sink in:

Both of these studies flies in the face of our disgraceful, lying, bipartisan, federal and state government Holy Drug Inquisition.

See below for some facts on that and some excerpts from these 2 studies…

Both of these studies flies in the face of our disgraceful, lying, bipartisan, federal and state government Holy Drug Inquisition.

See below for some facts on that and some excerpts from these 2 studies…
Last week’s study:

Scientists said Thursday that marijuana appears to promote the development of new brain cells in rats and have anti-anxiety and anti-depressant effects, a finding that could have an impact on the national debate over medical uses of the drug.

New study:

Although both marijuana and tobacco smoke are packed with cancer-causing chemicals, other qualities of marijuana seem to keep it from promoting lung cancer, according to a new report.

The difference rests in the often opposing actions of the nicotine in tobacco and the active ingredient, THC, in marijuana, says Dr. Robert Melamede of the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs.

He reviewed the scientific evidence supporting this contention in a recent issue of Harm Reduction Journal.

Whereas nicotine has several effects that promote lung and other types of cancer, THC acts in ways that counter the cancer-causing chemicals in marijuana smoke, Melamede explained in an interview with Reuters Health.

“THC turns down the carcinogenic potential,” he said.

The sad history of the Holy Drug Inquisition:

Colonial Era

“Records of St. Louis for the years 1848 and 1849 reveal hemp commerce at $1,820,970,

exceeding tobacco at $1,061,347.”

– Chris Conrad citing Commissioner of Patents Report. 1849. 31C1S no 20. P. 566

“Hemp is so useful that (the tariff) may well be dispensed with…from any parts.”

– The Calendar of State Papers for Colonial Virginia, 1665

“The culture [of tobacco] is percicious. This plant greatly exhausts the soil. Of course, it requires much manure, yielding no nourishment for cattle, there is no return for the manure expended…

It is impolitic…the best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine, in other words to the wealth and protection of this country. The latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation from caprice, and its value from the taxes to which it was formerly exposed. The preference to be given will result from a comparison of them: Hemp employs in its rudest state more labor than tobacco, but being a material for manufactures of various sorts, becomes afterwards the means of support to numbers of people, hence it is to be preferred in a populous country. America imports hemp and will continue to do so, and also sundry articles made of hemp, such as cordage, sail cloth, drilling linen, and stockings.”

– Thomas Jefferson, Farm Journal, March 16, 1791

A Legitimate Industry Meets the Politicians: the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937

“There is no hesitancy in saying that the reputation of marijuana as a troublemaker in the Panama department was due to its association with alcohol, which, upon investigation, was always found the prime agent.

…The legislation in relation to marijuana was ill-advised, that it branded as a menace and a crime a matter of trivial importance. It is understood that this legislation is furthermore a serious detriment to the development of a hemp fiber industry in this country. Finally, it is hoped that no witch hunt will be instituted in the military services over a problem that does not exist.”

– Colonel J.M. Pholen, Military Surgeon, 1943

“Cannabis indica does not produce dependance as in opium. …There is no dependance or increased tolerance…. As with alcohol, it may be taken a relatively long time without social or emotional breakdown.

Marijuana is habit forming, although not addicting in the same sense as alcohol might be with some people, or sugar or coffee.”

– Dr. Walter L, Treadway, head of U.S. Public Health Service Division of Mental Hygiene, 1937

“The only information they had was what we would give them in our hearings.”

– Harry J. Anslinger, head of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, as quoted when discussing how to get Hemp Prohibition past Congress and the Courts in The Marijuana Conviction, Bonnie and Whitebread, 1974.

“…gross unfairness….”

– Congressional investigation cited by Carl Solberg in Oil Power: The rise and imminent fall of an American empire, commenting on the tax rebate scandal by Andrew Mellon and Gulf Oil

“Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate real estate….People will work harder, live a more moral life.

Values will be adjusted and enterprising people will pick up the wrecks from less competent people.”

– President Herbert Hoover, summarizing Treasury Secretary Mellon’s formula for American recovery from the Great Depression, as denoted in Oxford History, London England. vol. 3. 1961. P.292

“The State Deparment has tentatively agreed to this proposition, but before action is taken we shall have to dispose of certain phases of legitimate traffic; for instance, the drug trade still has a small medical need for marihuana, but has agreed to eliminate it entirely. The only place it is used extensively is by veterinarians, and we can satisfy them by importing their medical needs. We must also satisfy the canary bird seed trade, and the Sherwin Williams Paint Company, which uses hemp seed oil for drying purposes. We are now working with the Department of Commerce in finding substitutes for the legitimate trade, and after that is accomplished, the path will be cleared for the treaties and for federal law.”

– Harry S. Anslinger, memo to Stephen B. Gibbons. Feb 1, 1936

“Have you lots of cases on this? Horror stories; that’s what we want.”

– Harry S. Anslinger, memo to Stephen B. Gibbons, Jan. 14, 1937

“Not long ago the body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk after a plunge from a Chicago apartment window. Everyone called it suidice, but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic [sic.] known to America as marijuana, and to history as hashish. …

How many murders, suicides, robberies and maniacal deeds it causes each year, especially among the young, can only be conjectured.”

– Harry J. Anslinger (head of Federal Bureau of Narcotics) and C.R. Cooper in `Marijuana, assassin of youth,’ American Magazine, vol. 124. 1937. Pp. 18-19, 150-153

“The leading newspapers of the United States have recognized the seriousness of this problem and many of them have advocated federal legislation to control the traffic in marihuana. … In a recent editorial, the Washington Times stated, `The marihuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope [sic.], largely because of the failure to the public to understand its fatal [sic.] qualities.’ … The purpose of HR 6385 is to employ the federal taxing power not only to raise revenue from the marihuana traffic, but also to discourage the current and widespread undesirable use of marihuana by smokers and drug addicts [sic.] and thus drive the traffic into channels where the plant will be put to valuable industrial, medical, and scientific uses.”

– Transcript, `Committeee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives. 75c 1s. HR6385.’ April 27-30, May 4 , 1937

“It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people everyday are using hemp seed in the Orient as food. They have been doing that for many generations, especially in periods of famine. … The point I make is this – that this bill is too all inclusive. The bill is a world encircling measure. This bill brings the activites – the crushing of this great industry under the supervision of a bureau – which may mean its suppression.”

– Ralph Loziers of the National Oil Seed Institute in the1937 hearings on the fate of the hemp industry

“Last year [1936], there was imported into the United States 62, 813, 000 pounds of hempseed. In 1935, there was imported 116 million pounds.”

– Ralph Loziers, 1937 hearings

“[What are] the legitimate uses of the hemp plant?”

– Chairman Brown, 1937 hearings

“…They are not only amply protected under this Act, but they can go ahead and raise hemp just as they have always done.”

– Harry J. Anslinger’s answer, under oath, in 1937 hearings, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“[There is] a new cash crop with an annual value of several hundred million dollars…It is hemp.”

– Popular Mechanics, 1937

Useful Crop Purged for Monopoly

“Make the most of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.”

– George Washington, 1794 note to Mt. Vernon’s gardener, vol. 33, p. 270

“Synthetic plastics find application in fabricating a wide variety of articles, many of which in the past were made from natural products.”

– Lamont Dupont in Popular Mechanics, 1939

“Farmers must be allowed to grow an energy crop capable of producing 10 tons per acre in 90-120 days.”

– Energy Farming in America, 1989

“Drought can even have a good effect on hemp when fields have been prepared and planted early, for a `remarkable yield of fiber of exceptionally good quality.'”

– Chris Conrad, hemp expert and author of “Hemp: Lifeline to the Future” (available from NORML, Washington D.C., citing The Official Record, US Department of Agriculture. Dec.25, 1930. P.3)

“It just seems silly for the government to be paying farmers $26 billion a year not to produce something that would replace what we are importing at a cost of about $100 billion a year. … This is a national disgrace.”

– George Tyson, President of Xylan, Inc., biomass research firm

“The process can be adjusted to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas, or methanol production with a 95.5 percent fuel-to-feed efficiency.”

– Lynn Osborn, biomass expert

“Hemp … has more to offer the paper industry than we are taking advantage of (or more correctly, we are allowed to take advantage of).”

– Jim Young, technical editor of Pulp and Paper magazine, in `Time to reconsider hemp.” June, 1991. p. 7

The Roots of the Modern Inquisition

“Had Alexandria triumphed and not Rome, the extravagant and muddled stories that I have summarized here would be coherent, majestic, and perfectly ordinary.”

– Jorge Luis Borges, Gnostic scholar

“God said, “See, I give you every seed-bearing plant that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food. And to all the animals on land, to all the birds of the sky, and to everything that creeps on earth, in which there is the breath of life, [I give] all the green plants for food.”

-Genesis (1: 29)

“Essential fatty acids are responsible for our immune response. In the [European] old country, the peasants ate hemp butter. They were more resistant to disease than the nobility.”

-R. Lee Hamilton, Ed. D., Ph. D., medical researcher-bioemeritus, UCLA

A little tie-in there at the end to my Gnostic thing. As Einstein pointed out, everything is relative.

Blair And WHIGS Wag/ Condi, UN And Iran/Syria (Poll)

King George the Usurper, already a criminal conspirator per the Coup de 2000, isn’t the only one worried these days; his favorite pet and fellow theocrat, Tony Blair, has some worries himself with Plamegate about to make both mens’ lives hell, the kind of nagging worries that don’t go away, the kind that criminal evidence in the public domain brings.

[Update: 10:11 EDT Condi starts wagging on this side of the pond..] So, yes, the wagging begins.

Today tensions escalated sharply with Iran.

“Five people were killed in twin bombings in southwest Iran on Saturday.

“We are very suspicious about the role of British forces in perpetrating such terrorist acts,” the ISNA student news agency quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying.

“Our people are used to these kind of incidents, and our intelligence agents found the footprints of Britain in the same incidents before,” Ahmadinejad said during a cabinet meeting.

[Update: 10:11 EDT Condi starts wagging on this side of the pond..] So, yes, the wagging begins.

Today tensions escalated sharply with Iran.

“Five people were killed in twin bombings in southwest Iran on Saturday.

“We are very suspicious about the role of British forces in perpetrating such terrorist acts,” the ISNA student news agency quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying.

“Our people are used to these kind of incidents, and our intelligence agents found the footprints of Britain in the same incidents before,” Ahmadinejad said during a cabinet meeting.

This is either wagging, if the Brits are actually conducting black ops “terrorist” attacks, or it’s absolute incompetent, arrogant stupidity.

Iran is already like an angry stirred-up beeshive with 130,000 (or whatever amount) of US troops next door. Why start whacking at the beeshive when they likely have some nasty weapons that could be lobbed at Israel and/or US barracks in a pre-emptive (God forbid) attack on Israel because they sense an atmosphere of impending pre-emptive hostilities, aimed initially at their nuclear facilities?

Welcome to the world of neo-con pre-emption amongst internationally recognized states, a dangerous, dangerous world.

Of course, Bush likely has the goods on Blair and has blackmailed him into wagging or else. After Downing Street Memos, it isn’t hard to extrapolate that they are co-conspirators in the Iraq lies and they are both in it to the bitter end.

After all, their is some heady-duty evidence of wrong-doing in the public domain: “The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [Iraq] policy”… ouch!

How much of this kind of dog crap has to be in the public domain before scared prosecutors do their jobs? Fitz appears to be doing his job, but we don’t have the indictments yet, and we don’t know if he will go easy or not if they do come?

And don’t forget that the hawks, of which Bush is one, wanted to start attacking Syria very recently, but only Condi stopped this from happening…

Disgraced, Incompetent Republican Traitors

Hi everyone! Isn’t that neat! I’m just trying out some of Newt’s dirty tricks to apply to one’s political enemies as revealed in the above The Nation article.

For only a half a million dollars in campaign contributions, you too can be put in charge of partisan dirty tricks working for a political action committee!

Just ask the new vice-chairperson of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Cheryl Halpern! She can tell you all about using dirty tricks: during her tenure at GOPAC, ole Newty’s political action committee, she was in charge of getting the magical bag of tricks into candidates hands! Money = access in the GOP!

This is to say that Gay Hart Gaines, the number two on the CPB’s board as of this week, was a leading official of an outfit that advised Republican candidates to brand Democrats “traitors.” She now is in a position to search for bias in public radio and public television programming.

“She now is in a position to search for bias in public radio and public television programming.”

Awww… how cute! Don’t you love the smell of cronyism in America. It’s that sweet mixture of shit, decaying bodies, and George W’s breath after a night of doing cocaine, that “shallow,” “sick” man.

You try it! It’s fun!

Did Jimmy Carter Say America Suffered A Coup? (W/ Poll)

While discussing current affairs with my girlfiend, I realized just how successfully the MSM has downplayed the remarks of Jimmy Carter. (Google news-search of Carter Election Gore — MSM anywhere? Helllooooo.)

Why does MSM do this? Because it is proof that corporate ownership of MSM has created American faux news that promotes corporate policies.

There are those certain instances when the nefarious corporate influence of the MSM shows itself more blatantly than normal and I really think that was one of those instances.

Jimmy Carter and his prestigious Carter Center basically said America suffered a coup (see relevant snips below fold) just days after he and Republican extraordinaire Jimmy Baker very very quietly smacked down the American electoral process (only Fox comes up in this particular search(gotta inform the dittoheads I guess)).
Compare Wikipedia to the article below:

A coup d’état (pronounced ku de ‘ta), or simply a coup, is the sudden overthrow of a government, usually done by a small group that just replaces the top power figures.

Article:

Jimmy Carter: Gore

beat Bush in 2000

Says ‘no doubt’ Al won, ‘country failed abysmally’ in election process

Posted: September 23, 2005

1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs

Jimmy Carter at American University in Washington, D.C.

Five years after the controversial 2000 presidential election, ex-President Jimmy Carter now says he’s certain Al Gore defeated George W. Bush.

“Well I would say that in the year 2000, the country failed abysmally in the presidential election process,” Carter told a panel Monday at American University in Washington, D.C. “There’s no doubt in my mind that Al Gore was elected president.”

Those in attendance broke out in applause for that statement.

“[Gore] received the most votes nationwide, and in my opinion, he also received the most votes in Florida,” Carter continued. “And the decision was made as you know by a 5-4 vote on a highly partisan basis by the U.S. Supreme Court, so I would say in 2000, there was a failure.”

The year 2000 saw the closest presidential election in American history, as Bush won the electoral vote 271-266, despite losing the popular vote to Gore by a half-million votes.

Carter’s analysis went on to include last year’s matchup between Bush and Democrat Sen. John Kerry, as the election came down to a battle over the electoral votes in Ohio.

“The year 2004 is hard to grade,” said Carter. “I don’t have any detailed information about what actually went on in Ohio. If Ohio had gone one way or the other, it would have changed the outcome of the election. And the only thing that I know about Ohio, was that there’s general consensus that the secretary of state of Ohio, who is responsible for the administration of the election, was highly partisan in his public approach and perhaps even in his private adminstration. But I don’t know about that.” [snip]

Rethuglican Paramilitary Bind Torture Rape in America

We know now how Republican central command uses torture and rape tactics both in command of the military as well as in command of domestic forces, especially prison guards and wardens.

I hope some liberals in lower-level law enforcement careers would consider “doing some time” as prison guards to help save prisoners from rape and torture; this might include pretending to be Republicans to get the job.

Double jeapardy treason in a dagger in the heart of democracy every day in a America; I would try to take one of those jobs for awhile to fight this grave injustice but coming from a career as a network engineer who makes 3 to 4 times what a guard makes would certainly raise some red flags. Besides, I fight the fascist machine that is the Republican Party as best I can every day of my life and I know that it’s still not enough.

The NY Times article in the second link above describes how some disgusting Texas guards, whom I allege are Republican paramilitary, take part as accomplices every day as torturers and rapists.

These motherfuckers need to be taken down by any means necessary. ANY MEANS NECESSARY. They are THE enemy of the fascist Republican enemies; they are the executive branch of the Republican torture machine.

WICHITA FALLS, Tex., Sept. 22 – Roderick Johnson, a former inmate at the Allred Unit, a violent prison a few miles from here, belonged to a gang called the Gangster Disciples, but not in the usual sense, the gang’s former No. 2 man explained Wednesday in federal court here.

Skip to next paragraph

Associated Press
Roderick Johnson says he was kept for 18 months as a sex slave.
“Was Mr. Johnson considered a member of the Gangster Disciples?” one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers asked the witness, whose name was withheld by the court because his testimony could subject him to retaliation.

“No,” said the witness, a soft-spoken, perfectly bald and quite imposing black man in a prison uniform and shackles.

“What was he considered?” asked the lawyer, Jeffrey Monks.

“Property,” came the reply.

That meant, the witness continued, that gang members could rape Mr. Johnson at will. They could, he said, also rent him out for sex, and they did, daily. A purchased rape, the witness said, cost $3 to $7. Mr. Johnson says the abuse went on for 18 months.

Mr. Johnson, who was in Allred for probation violations after a burglary conviction, has sued seven prison officials there for violating the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The officials, the suit says, failed to protect him and took sadistic pleasure in his victimization. Mr. Johnson was released in 2003.

URGENT PLEA From Humane Society

The following letter from the humane society sums up what they are asking for from Kossacks and their friends and from Americans at large who have compassion (so much for compassionate conservatives).

FEMA had announced a couple of weeks ago that they would allow the national guard to help save animals but that was a political ploy apparently because the animal rescuers are still appealing for help from Bush’s government:

The Humane Society of the US has issued the urgent plea below: Go to web site to request needed animal rescue help from the federal government:

On Wednesday, one of our Disaster Animal Response Teams in New Orleans
rescued a St. Bernard from a rooftop a dog they described as the most emaciated animal they had ever seen in all their years of handling
animals. The veterinarian who treated the dog was shocked that the animal, who weighed just 40 pounds, was still alive.

More…

Who helped us rescue this animal? It was several National Guardsmen who heeded our rescuers pleas to take them through the water on a tank so they could get up on the roof to save the dog.

But the troops actions were not ordered by the National Guard nor by the White House, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, or the state of Louisiana. In fact, despite our repeated requests, none of these entities has formally agreed to marshal their
ground forces to help rescue the pets and other animals slowly starving to death in the affected areas.

At apress conference just a few hours ago, I implored the federal government to come up with the nation’s first animal rescue plan.

Now, I am writing to ask you to give them the same message:

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/katrina_governmentresponse

Time is running out for these animals. Every hour that passes means more pets, locked behind closed doors in the disaster zone, will die of starvation. Our teams are working as hard as they can to reach as many pets as they can – and as we reported to you on Wednesday, we’ve
rescued thousands. But there are thousands more.

At this 11th hour, when so many lives are at stake, we are asking you to help. Contact these officials today before it is too late. Please
click here to call or send an email to President Bush and other federal and state officials who have the power to order National Guardsmen and other responders to assist with food drops, help supply our own operations, and do whatever else it takes to save animals.

One of our rescuers said it best: We should not have to rely on the compassionate instincts of individual Guardsmen to rescue these animals. We need the full commitment of the government.

Members of Congress have also been calling on President Bush and the federal agencies to actively assist with direct animal rescue. With most of the human victims of the catastrophe removed from the city, it’s not too late to save animals’ lives. It’s time for the government to recognize the incredible bond between people and their pets, and step in to help.

Thank you so much for your support of our disaster teams, and for all you do for animals.

Sincerely,

Wayne Pacelle

President & CEO

The Humane Society of the United State

The Gnostic Manifesto

So, the rabid “Al Qaeda in Iraq” instigators have a cute little manifesto on the internet, so here is my response to them as well as to our own home-grown fascists, the radical “Christians.”

We have those rabid Westboro church members going to Sweden to git that King there and we have the foul 700 Club loon Pat Robertson coming unhinged, calling for jihad against everyone and their mother.

And of course we have George Bush Jr., King George II. (The sequel is always worse huh?) And Jr. is no exception to that truism of modern religion with all its idol-worshipping and genocidal-maniac mentality: ignorance is the key to power. Bush, in his idiocy, just about sums up the ideology of organized religion.

So, what is a semi-educated, non-brainwashed individual to do to combat this duelling juggernaut of radical “Christians” and radical Islamists, this duelling spiral to hell on earth?

Learn about Gnosticism. Which translates to “knowledge.” More below…
As we all instinctively know, education is the key to stopping creeping chaos in the world and it is key to defeating the radical Christians and Islamists. Knowledge, or gnosis, is the only force able to defeat the juggernaut that is organized religion.

(And getting the basics to people doesn’t hurt: food, shelter, and protection from fascists, especially if you can provide the means for them to help themselves per greenhouses, solar technology, other sustainable technologies that don’t require fossil fuels but rather equipment and know-how.)

Both of those forces, the radical Christians and the radical Muslims, identical in their virulence, attempt to dumb down the world population so that they can get at the public’s money. If they can’t get it in church, they go to their political cronies, i.e. Jr. and Bin Laden, to get them their dirty money so that they can further their filthy crusade of Hell on earth.

Indeed Bush and Bin Laden are the biblical false prophets manifested in a collective form which is described in the Revelation as “The Beast.” They span the world, in multiple religions, but with a multi-headed, centralized control mechanism: organized religion. The Beast must be stopped before the critical mass arrives at which time the human race will indeed be doomed. Only gnosis or knowledge can defeat these forces of evil that are insulated from criticism within “churches” and “mosques” and “temples,” using the tried and true techniques of fear, superstition, guilt, and violence.

The original Christians, the Gnostics, of which Jesus was likely a member, were against physical churches and were fighting against people like Zarqawi, Bin Laden, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell, and George Bush.

Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter (Grateful Dead) decided one day to notice St. Stephen’s brave stand against the tyranny of the church authorites of his time, much as Jesus did in his time.

Stephen is known as the first Christian martyr after Jesus’ rebellion was unceremoniously put down by the Roman and Jewish religious authorities several decades earlier.

Here is a summary of Stephen’s story. He was stoned by rabid church-for-money freaks.

Stephen’s story sums up my message here today, my manifesto against organized religion.

And Stephen’s story is right in the Bible! Let the words spread the knowledge, the gnosis, and remember that Moses REALLY didn’t like idols (1st Commandment), and churches qualify as idols to me.

Context: Stephen was accused by a planted witness who said that Stephen was claiming that…

“Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place [the temple], and shall change the traditions which Moses delivered unto us” (Acts, vi, 12 14).

To which Stephen replied:

44 “Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob. 47 But it was Solomon who built the house for him.

48 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men. As the prophet (Isaiah)says:

49″ ‘Heaven is my throne,

and the earth is my footstool.

What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord.

Or where will my resting place be?

50 Has not my hand made all these things?’

51 “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52 Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him– 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it.”

54 When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. (Acts, vi, 44-58).

I don’t know about the modern Gnostics with the “magic” component and all, and so I can’t comment on its validity, but I know from my studies on the ancient Gnostics that they put a lot of emphasis on women, per the Gospel of Philip, and the “Bridal Chamber,” and being anti-temple and anti-idol, all the while discrediting those who would make money on God with idols and temples and priests (per the Gospel of John).

Here’s a sample of the Gospel of Thomas, which likely has objectionable portions added later, but which has many elements of gnostic teachings (discussion of women (the holy “bridal chamber” contrasts sharply to the post-Nicene eunich Catholic priesthood), criticism of physical temples (Stephen (above), Jesus’ “Destroy this temple,”), and, most of all, discussion of “Christhood” (sort of like the Buddhist concept of nirvana):

108. Jesus said, “Whoever drinks from my mouth will become like me; I myself shall become that person, and the hidden things will be revealed to him.”

Jesus’ promise of eternal life through knowledge or gnosis:

1 “And he said, “Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”

Always remember that these teachings were outlawed by the “church” in 325 AD at the Council of Nicea and the Gnostics were put to death along with any other religious sect within their vicious reach. The real history of Christianity has yet to be told.

In other words, the “christian church,” born in 325 AD, was born out of mass violence, all the while forsaking Jesus’ real teachings with its edited, adulterated version of his teachings.

One day, academics will not be able to ignore the true story of Jesus and when that true story gets out, the political landscape will be forever changed… for the better:

Humankind just needs to get over the hump…