attack of the air-headed skanks

I read an excellent article on The Huffington Post by Marty Kaplan about America and its news: how the majority of passive, entertainment-seeking Americans surely know everything about Paris Hilton but nothing about developments in Iraq that spell continued disaster for both Iraq and the U.S. and more importantly anyone there who might get in the way of a bullet or a bomb. Choosing mostly not to watch network TV and never to watch network TV news, I was somewhat isolated when golddigging air-headed skank Anna Nicole Smith met Glory. Sure, it was amusing internet blog fodder, but it's starting to no longer be funny.

So WTF? What's up with Britney Spears? When I worked for the music biz I used to see all her publicity photos. The earliest ones were the choicest: her handlers decide that this marginally-talented young teen could cultivate a fuck-me daddy persona completely inappropriate for her age and a hair short of child pornography. She becomes a mega-star for mobs of teenage girls desperately training at the Academy of Narcissism. Despite the money and the handlers she ends up acting like a white trash crack whore and melting down in a very public way. What did anyone expect? And America is entertained.

So WTF? What's up with Lindsay Lohan? An actually talented child actress apparently given too much independence much too soon imploding in an orgy of self-destructive addiction and attention-seeking. What did anyone expect? And America is enthralled.

So WTF? What's up with Jessica Simpson? She wonders if chicken of the sea is actually chicken, and people actually pay money for her records and movies?

So WTF? What's up with entitled heiresses like Nicole Ritchie with no apparent talents or social value and we need to be obsessed with her vomiting? And America eats it up.

So WTF with Angelina Jolie and Madonna and the baby-buying sprees in Africa? I actually love Madonna's music but really, is this a sick joke?

So WTF? What is up with Paris Hilton? An unattractive and spoiled debutante and dilettante, a true graduate of the Academy of Narcissism, breaks the law and begs not be sent to jail, where she is sentenced for 45 days. AND SHE SERVES THREE. Unimaginably wealthy, a convicted criminal, and she is then commuted to serving the rest of her sentence under mansion-arrest?

Really, so WTF! Prisoners serving 20 years only to have DNA evidence reveal their innocence? Political prisoners like the Cuban Five and Leonard Peltier and Mumia? People doing years for simple marijuana busts? Random middle-easterners caught up in Guantanamo and held incognito for 5 years? And Paris Hilton serves three days? And that's what America tunes into?

Something is not right. Assata Shakur for president. Cindy Sheehan for secretary of defense. Ariana Huffington for secretary of state. Angela Davis for elder states(wo)man. Lynne Stewart for attorney general. Sonia Sanchez for press secretary. Nikki Giovanni for secretary of education. These are beautiful important women we should pay attention to.

Forget the skanks. And Paris Hilton? Maybe there's a free cell in Abu Ghraib.

danger, will robinson

So president Bush announces he's very concerned about global warming and greenhouse gases and carbon emissions. Then he gets to the G8 summit in Europe and nixes any actionable plans proposed by the European governments. Then he announces plans to place (unproven) anti-missile missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic and Russia's Putin freaks out and threatens to re-aim Russian missiles at Europe. Bush at th G8 says "oh dont be silly these aren't directed at Russia, the cold war is over."

Well here's the thing. Bush is a liar. 6-1/2 years of lies are plainly evident to the world. An entire war and thousands of wasted lives are the fruits of these lies. Given his record of lies and manipulations, the world needs to realize it has a lot to be afraid of.

The bottom lines: Bush is not interested in any global warming initiatives that are not profitable for his pals in industry. His priority is only the most money to his cronies. He's not concerned about anything more or less. That interest includes political and military fronts as well. Which means he's looking for more enemies and Russia can join the list with Iran.

Danger, danger, a liar is on the loose. Lookout, world.

more on darfur

I recommend clicking on over to the left-wing blog Lenin's Tomb for the discussion of Darfur I haven't seen elsewhere. At last some light on the subject that makes sense. The discussion is sparked by new divisions in the mainstream "save darfur" movement over humanitarian concerns v. political/military ones.

Clear-thinking at last:

"It might make liberals feel good to demand the use of force when there are plainly atrocities going on. It certainly overcomes the feeling of helplessness to imagine that the President of the most militarily powerful nation of the world might be on your side. But such a policy is not only impracticable, in that it expects no-fly zones to be imposed over a region almost the same size as France, and not only destructive since it threatens to stop or dramatically curtail aid flights....And it inaugurates de facto, and sustained, military confrontation with the government of Sudan, which would have potentially catastrophic consequences. It is an imperialist policy, that is, not a solution that has been conceived with a view to enhancing the condition of Darfurians on any front..."

i can has revolushun?

Okay, so I'm a fan of lolspeak. I can has cheezeburgers. lolgays. I've seen lol stark trek. even lol porn. It's not just the unbearably cute kittens, it's the near-retarded syntax. I can't help it, it all cracks me up. So the Scarlet Menace introduces its "LOL Mao" line. Three basic designs on shirts and mugs: Two with Mao "I Can Has Revolushun? KThx Bai", "Oh Hai, We'z Fightin' Imperializm," and, featuring Kim Jong Il instead of Mao, "We'z On Ur Shirt (or in Ur Cup) Washin' Yer Brain."

Theez has flavor! Go shop at The Scarlet Menace now!

rotten fish

I've been thinking about one of the things bothering me about the Iraq war and the "discussion" of what should happen in Iraq in the american press and realized the same thing bothers me about discussion of Darfur and all sorts of other world flashpoints.

Darfur is a rotten fish. I wonder what those who call for no flight zones or sanctions or troops or whatever think would really happen if anglo-american-etc. intervention actually occurred?
as near as I can tell, the discussing of goings-on in the Sudan in the drawing rooms of London has been one of the world's problems for near 150 years, and is one of the things that needs to stop. Maybe the American do-gooders are more well intentioned than General Chinese Gordon and the classic British Imperialists of yore who met their match in the Mahdist rebellion in the Sudan in the late 19th century, but maybe they're not. This is not some kind of backyard, some annex to the parlor, some terrain diorama under glass or perhaps a really involved version of The Sims or Second Life.

Americans and English need to stop worrying about saving "good" Africans from "bad" Africans and start worrying how to save the rest of the world from the Americans and the English.

Americans and English need to stop worrying about what the "bad" Iraqis might do to the "good" Iraqis when the invasion forces leave, and start trying to prevent the next paroxysm of imperialist violence, and start materially atoning for the too much that has already been done.

US democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards seems decent enough, with some good positions and currently an anti-war stance. But he calls himsef an expert on fighting poverty while charging tens of thousands of dollars to give a speech (on poverty no less), lives in a millions of dollars estate, and can afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a haircut. Beware of rich people talking about poverty, and beware of imperialists talking about helping out in Africa or the middle east.

Toshikatsu Matsuoka, positive role model for scandal-ridden Bush administration

CNN reports that Japanese agricultural minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka has committed suicide rather than face the music in the face of a corruption scandal. May I modestly suggest that corrupt, scandal plagued members of the Bush adminstration follow in his footsteps. Karl Rove? Consider leaving the oven on and un-lit. Alberto Gonzales? Consider potato stuck in your car's exhaust pipe. Dick Cheney? Oh definitely razor blades and a tub of warm water.

It's memorial day, do the right thing. Perhaps in memory of the almost 4 thousand Americans whose lives you have wasted and the thousands upon thousands of Iraqis whose lives you have stolen.

Cold War Veteran's Association

I've developed a full line of CWVA items for The Scarlet Menace. They have a sense of humor, but I realize they're also expressing something--all of the Scarlet Menace is actually--about what I feel. It's not that I'm an ideological communist. Read anything about Stalin, Mao or the rest of their ilk and the deeper you go the more the more you realize what a facade they maintained. But at the same time I miss that facade. For me the propaganda, the socialist realism, the imagery of people united and struggling, is a kind of religious vision: an idealized expression of a world that didn't really exist and certainly doesn't now. The soviet secret police was the self-destructive reality behind many of the iconic expressions of freedom and justice. The red and black are strong spiritually compelling colors. That world is gone, but that spiritual hunger for equality, for righteousness, for freedom, for collectivity, for a reality that matches our aspirations, that remains. The ideology is discredited, and probably for good reason. But the symbols holds their power.

I am a veteran of the cold war. I served its front lines by being a more-or-less card-carrying communist for almost ten years. Its struggles informed my childhood; its memories color our new world of narcissistic money-based nihilism. The desperation of the so-called terrorists, the desperation of the so-called warriors on terror, it's all a reflection of the destruction, along with everything that was bad about the cold war era, of everything that was good about it and its time of politically and ideologically-based liberation struggle.

Yes, there were firing squads and brutality behind Mao's cultural revolution. There were firing squads and Siberian camps behind Stalin's nationalization of the Leninist ideal. But there was something else as well. Something the world misses.

Hope.

WTF with this liar

So WTF, Bush has some nerve talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden being a threat. How can anybody listen to this liar? Wasn't Bush saying a couple years ago that Osama was no longer relevant and finding him was no longer so important? Didn't he start a war with Saddam instead of follow through with Al Qaeda? Get these war-mongerers out. The so called war on terror is a farce.

1 point Obama, 1 point Hillary

Well the democrats showed their spinelessness and voted for the war money. I am happy, and honestly surprised, to report that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted against them. Let's hope that is the beginning of some real leadership. I sent emails to both of them. It's very easy to do, and presumably these politicians have people tallying up the emails that come in.

But the war still needs to be ended. And soon.

spineless democrats

According to the Huffington Post, Democrats in congress are preparing to pull any language demanding withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq from the war funding bill to end the impasse with Bush. What a pathetic cave in. The war needs to be ended, why can't these fools just stand up to principle? U.S. TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ--NOW AND FOREVER!

I'm sure hoping the alleged anti-war presidential candidates currently in government vote against any stripped down funding proposals. Anything less is supporting no the troops, but the president and his malicious war-mongering folly.

Jesus Is My Comrade

I'm proud to announce a new line at The Scarlet Menace. "XXXX Is My Comrade" will combine imagery from two of the world's great religions. Now available, "Jesus Is My Comrade" mugs, tees, bags, and tiles; and "Thor Is My Comrade" mugs and mead steins. Our deities stand in for Mao courtesy of the "Miracle" of modern technology. Happy shopping and God(s) bless. More to come.

the good die young

Jerry Falwell has died at age 73. (Thanks to Joe.My.God. for being first on the news!) Except for the fact that I don't believe in hell, I would wish that he rot there. Sadly, he spent his entire life trying to make the world a living hell for those who didn't fit his bigoted, narrow vision of religious morality. A vengeful militarist, a man who campaigned tirelessly to show his hatred for gay people, the world is now rid of him. Unfortunately, he leaves behind him several hundred thousand rabid believers. Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps, Ted Haggard, the rest of your ilk--Jerry Falwell requests the pleasure of your company six feet under.

Long live Tinky-Winky!

wasted lives

An article I found through the Huffington Post says that U.S. officials are saying we should "brace for a jump in casualties" in Iraq. Nowhere is there sadder, more tragic evidence that the war in Iraq must end now, and immediately. Somehow Bush believes that doing more of the same, wasting more young American--and countless Iraqi--life will have different result than the chaos it has produced in the last four years.

The Democrats must tell it like it is. Every single loss of life in Iraq from this day forward is a tragic waste. Every life lost to Bush's folly is another life squandered. While the American politicians debate and equivocate, and Iraqi politicians do lord knows what, people are dying, and none of those deaths mean a thing. These lives are not an obscene investment, that somehow things will get better if they are spent now. These lives are flesh and blood people, loved by many, that will be gone for nothing.

Many people now realize that the U.S. should not have upset the Iraqi apple cart in the first place. But this is the truth that must be embraced now: The US can do NOTHING now to prevent further deterioration in Iraq except leave. The longer the US stays, the more wasteful death, the more tragedy, the more hatred that young middle-easterners will feel toward this country.

Stop the debates. Stop the so-caled bipartisan negotiations. End this war now. Withdraw today, or tomorrow, but NOW.

Support the troops? Then bring them home!

massive upgrade to The Scarlet Menace

New products, new look, new images. Comrades, stay tuned for even more!

lolgays

in the brilliant spirit of "I can has cheezburgers," comes "lolgays" courtesy of a gawker fan. only this time it's not bizarrely syntaxed captions on cute animal pics, it's bizarrely syntaxed captions on photos of gays! well, plus LOTS of photos of gerbils. all in good fun. Bravo, LOLGAYS! Snarkiness rocks!

God save us from giuliani time

So republican presidential hopeful and would-be dictator of New York City Rudy Giuliani has threatened, in the words of a NYT letter writer, the American public with "voting for him or dying". Apparently despite the fact that 9/11 happened while republicans were in office locally and nationally, he thinks somehow the bumbling tragedy of Bush's Iraq war is actually preventing the so-called terrorists from attacking us again. Such a fool.

He has also now repudiated his own support of civil unions for gay couples. Saying some religious claptrap about marriage being a sacred bond between a man and a woman, this drag-wearing gasbag who has been married three times and cheated on all his wives somehow thinks he's more entitled to privilege than monogamous gay life partners. Such pandering to the backwards red-staters. Such bigotry and hipocrisy. Should American fools actually vote him into office they will deserve what they get.

It's somehow actually shocking to me that Republicans--and half the country, apparently--live in his dreamworld of lies, corruption and hipocrisy.
Me, I choose differently.

harry reid tells it like it is

I don't know a lot about Democratic Senator Harry Reid...I'm tld he's socially conservative and not such a progressive guy. But I've been pretty impressed with some of what he's said about ending the Iraq war. Here's my new all-time favorite quote from him, in response to some evil, baiting, dishonest sniping from Vice President Strangelove, er, Cheney:

"Mr. Reid said he was not going to engage in a tit-for-tat with the vice president. “I'm not going to get into a name-calling match with somebody who has a 9 percent approval rating,” Mr. Reid said."

Bravo, Harry Reid!

more on the menace

okay, now I have a logo, or a first try at one anyway. ta-da!

shop at The Scarlet Menace often!

the scarlet menace

well actually I'm not sure anybody reads this blog except me and the occasional hectored friend, but here's news on the propaganda front.

I've started a modest cafe press store, called The Scarlet Menace. I will be transforming some of my favorite propaganda images to housewares for the new urban revolutionary. or for the nostalgic boomer. Anyway check it out. I make a small profit, you get cool stuff.

If anybody buys any of it I will transform the shop into something bigger. Only one image up now, plenty more to come.

crazy AND bloodthirsty

So when asked about Iran on a recent campaign stop, aging senator John McCain began to sing "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann". this is an international disgrace. apparently this veteran of the imperialist debacle in Vietnam is having fond flash backs to the days he was shot down bombing the heroic people of Vietnam. Sadly, he will no doubt die before being brought up on war crimes charges. If the united states attacks Iran, it deserves anything it gets. I just hope I have time to step out of the way.

meanwhile, John McCain needs to check himself into a rest home and refrain from bloodthirsty inhumane calls to slaughter.

pray for peace.