Surrealist Group : No War on the Moon!

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Dark Side of the Moon’ by Al Magnus / photo.net.

In Defense of the Dark Side of the Moon

By The Surrealist Group / The Rag Blog / August 20, 2009

“But, for myself, the Earth’s records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilization.”— Edgar Allan Poe, The Colloquy Of Monos And Una (1850)

Twenty years before a powerful syndicate of military-industrial criminals conspired to plant a U.S. flag on the Moon, a similar clique of fiends plotted to fire a nuclear warhead-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile at the lunar face. Code-named “Project A119,” this plan devised by Cold War-era Air Force and weapons manufacturers called for a massive nuclear explosion that would be clearly visible from anywhere on Earth.

Researchers struggled in vain to find any pretext, any shred of legitimate scientific value, to glean from this sickening display of militarist impunity. But the sole objective of Project A119 was to terrorize into submission every human on the planet (especially those who had never heard of Hiroshima or Nagasaki) with a demonstration of how the U.S. ruling class was technologically adept and morally bankrupt enough to commit such an unimaginable poetic atrocity.

And now, once again, there are plans to bomb the Moon. This time the unilateral strike is aimed at the Moon’s South Pole and the payload will be delivered by the LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) spacecraft; the excuse given is that this is an effort to find water deep under lunar surface. The craft was launched in late June and is currently orbiting the Earth until it finds its target; if all goes according to plan, the M-Day bombing will be 8 October 2009.

The plan is this: the LCROSS first shoots off its 2,300-pound spent booster-rocket at the lunar target zone. Four minutes later, in a scheme apparently inspired by fanatical terrorist airline hijackers, the rest of the robotic LCROSS craft slams into the same area. Like crazed kamikaze paparazzi, the craft will snap photos and transmit data on the first strike back to NASA’s mad bombers before immolating itself in a second explosion.

This violent hi-tech sci-fi spectacle will cost anywhere up to $600 million, a price tag that is an outrageous insult to the millions of working people unable to feed, house, or medically treat their families. (As Gil Scott-Heron lamented in 1974: “How come there ain’t no money here? Hmm! Whitey’s on the Moon…”)

Of course, there is much more behind this attack than casual scientific curiosity on whether or not there is water on the Moon. First of all, since the long-range accuracy of intercontinental ballistic missiles has never been proven to work, the LCROSS suicide mission serves as a live-fire test exercise for U.S. war strategists with an interest in the precision of orbiting satellite weapons — in other words, the southern hemisphere of the Moon will be turned into a firing range, making this mission one giant leap for the global reach of space warfare.

Secondly, LCROSS has been promoted as “the vanguard” for the U.S. military-industrial-entertainment complex’s return to the Moon—according to NASA, finding water is a necessary first step for “building a long-term and sustainable human presence” there. Historically, the purpose of exploration has always been the exploitation of resources and the colonization of territory without regard for ecosystems or indigenous peoples, and clearly the Moon is the next territory coveted by imperialists.

Only people with colonized minds believe these things are positive, or that this type of “progress” can be beneficial to anyone beyond a small circle of exploiter-elites. And, as to be expected, there is no end to the number of those who seek to compensate for their own personal impotence by over-identifying with these grotesque displays of obscene state-corporate power. You can hear them chattering on the Internet: “Flying a rocket booster into the Moon at 5,600 mph to trigger a massive explosion is just flat-out cool,” says one, while another sneers “Public discussion? Why should there be a ‘public discussion’ about a NASA experiment?”

Such remarks challenge our contempt. There should be a discussion, not only by the public, but also by oceans, weather patterns, plants, and all sorts of other living things — even the most uninformed know enough about the “butterfly effect” to realize that changing one part of any system is going to have a cascading effect on all those things dependent upon that system.

This so-called “NASA experiment” is a hostile act of aggression and a violent intrusion upon our closest and dearest celestial neighbor. Does any love song or poem or fairy tale worth its salt not mention the Moon? Who can take a walk in the Moonlight with a lover and not feel the romance to your very soul? At night, when the Moon rules, we sleep, and we can visit the Moon in our sleep with ease. The Moon is our night light, our blanket, our grandmother, our mother — it is woman, child, domestic life, tides, bodies of water, liquids, circulation, comfort, nurturing, paintings by Remedios Varo, stories by Jules Verne, and so much more.

Let us assume that ignorance will rule the day and plans go forward. What can we as surrealists or lunatics or astrologers or naturalists or anarcho-primitivists or Greens or werewolves or pagans or psychics or UFO groupies or other concerned members of the general public do? We must soothe the Moon, we bandage her. We implore other celestial bodies and entities to aid her. We will not let her endure this crime or its grim aftermath alone.

We need to communicate to the Moon. Talk to her in our dreams, trances, or meditations, and prepare her for this shock and wound as best we can. Hold her, send out imaginative protection to her, and put our dream bodies out there in front of the bomb. Collectively, we can sabotage the bombing or by imagining all manner of things going wrong, or encouraging the Moon to increase her own magnetic shields. Sing to her. Give her back just a tiny portion of all that she has done for us. We are all created from Moon dust.

We pledge solidarity with the Moon and promise we will do everything that we can to help heal her and to prevent any further such stupid, short-sighted, self-serving, man-made acts of obscene violence against her.

Surrealist Group in the US: Gale Ahrens, Beth Garon, Paul Garon, Joseph Jablonski, Renay Kerkman, Don Lacoss, David Roediger, Penelope Rosemont, Joel Williams, Kate Khatib, John Duda

Surrealistmovement-usa.org

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Insurance Lobby Presses Ancient Medical Equipment Into Service

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Tobacco Smoke Enema (1750’s – 1810). Graphic courtesy of Dr. Charles Rookenpumpher

This old bogus device has been reintroduced
in Washington D.C. by the Health Insurance Lobby
Are You Starting To Feel It Yet ?

By Larry Ray / The Rag Blog / August 20, 2009

The tobacco smoke enema was reportedly used to infuse tobacco smoke into a patient’s rectum for various medical purposes, primarily for resuscitation of drowning victims. A rectal tube was inserted into the anus and attached to a fumigator and bellows used to force the smoke up into the rectum. The warmth of the smoke was thought to promote respiration, but doubts about the effectiveness of tobacco enemas led to the popular expression, “to blow smoke up one’s ass.”

It has been suggested that that faint pumping sound heard in the background of the health insurance industry’s frantic misinformation TV commercials is one of these old machines being pressed back into service.

[Retired journalist Larry Ray is a Texas native and former Austin television news anchor. He also posts at The iHandbill.]

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Bipartisan Deadlock : How Best NOT to Reform Health Care

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Bypartisanship at its best: hammering out a plan that will deny health care to U.S. citizens.

Congress deadlocked over how to not provide health care to American citizens

Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) point to Congress’ failure to pass legislation before a July 31 deadline as proof of just how serious lawmakers are about stringing along the American people and never actually reforming the health care industry in any meaningful way.

By The Onion / August 20, 2009

WASHINGTON — After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.

“Both parties understand that the current system is broken,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. “But what we can’t seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue.”

“Ultimately, though, it’s our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve,” Pelosi added.

The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

“We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. “If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there’s no reason we can’t work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population.”

“That’s what America is all about,” he added.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said on Meet The Press that Republicans would never agree to a plan that doesn’t allow citizens the choice to be denied medical care in the private sector.

“Americans don’t need some government official telling them they don’t have the proper coverage to receive treatment,” Boehner said. “What they need is massive insurance companies to become even more rich and powerful by withholding from average citizens the care they so desperately require. We’re talking about people’s health and the obscene profits associated with that, after all.”

Though there remain irreconcilable points, both parties have reached some common ground in recent weeks. Senate leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) point to Congress’ failure to pass legislation before a July 31 deadline as proof of just how serious lawmakers are about stringing along the American people and never actually reforming the health care industry in any meaningful way.

“People should know that every day we are working without their best interests in mind,” Reid said. “But the goal here is not to push through some watered-down bill that only denies health care to a few Americans here and a few Americans there. The goal is to recognize that all Americans have a God-given right to proper medical attention and then make sure there’s no chance in hell that ever happens.”

“No matter what we come up with,” Reid continued, “rest assured that millions of citizens will remain dangerously uninsured, and the inflated health care industry will continue to bankrupt the country for decades.”

Other lawmakers stressed that, while there has been some progress, the window of cooperation was closing.

“When you get into the nuts and bolts of how best not to provide people with care essential to their survival, there are many things to take into consideration,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said. “I believe we can create a plan for Americans that allows them to not be able to go to the hospital, not get the treatment they need, and ultimately whither away and die. But we’ve got to act fast.”

For his part, President Barack Obama claimed to be optimistic, even saying he believes that a health care denial bill will pass in both houses of Congress by the end of the year.

“We have an opportunity to do something truly historic in 2009,” Obama said to a mostly silent crowd during a town hall meeting in Virginia yesterday. “I promise I will only sign a clear and comprehensive health care bill that fully denies coverage to you, your sick mother, her husband, middle-class Americans, single-parent households, the unemployed, and most importantly, anyone in need of emergency medical attention.”

“This administration is committed to not providing health care,” Obama added. “Not just for this generation of Americans, but for many generations to come.”

Source / The Onion

Thanks to Tom Welsh / The Rag Blog

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Lockerbie : A ‘Conspiracy Theory’ Worth Pursuing

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Top, Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, holding release papers, at Glasgow International Airport, after his release Thursday, August 20, 2009. Photo by Danny Lawson / Pool / AP. Below, wreckage of Pan Am 103, Lockerbie, Scotland, Dec. 21, 1988.

Unlocking Lockerbie:
An alternative explanation worth looking at

By Sherman DeBrosse / The Rag Blog / August 20, 2009

Convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel beset Ali Mohamed al Megrahi is being released from prison because he has only a few months to live. He is terminally ill with prostate cancer.

The cable news channels are milking the story for all it is worth, while summarily dismissing as “conspiracy theories” alternative accounts of what happened at Lockerbie.

One of those explanations is worth looking at.

Pan Am 103 crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people from 21 countries. Included in this total were eleven residents of the Scottish town. A bomb had been planted on the plane, probably by Hezbollah. Perhaps the organization was taking revenge for Iran-Air Flight 655 that was shot down six months before by a U.S. fighter jet from the carrier Vincennes.

While the Iranians were considering revenge, Major Charles McKee of the Defense Intelligence Agency and five others were in Lebanon looking into the drug trade and trying to find a way of rescuing nine American hostages there. The team appeared to have little or no information about what two other U.S. intelligence units were doing in Beirut.

Unfortunately, they soon learned that one of those units was dealing in drugs and weapons, presumably as a way of gaining leverage to free American hostages. Somehow they also learned that CIA operatives in a team Wiesbaden named COREA were running what seemed to be a rogue drug operation out of Frankfurt. They boarded 103 with evidence but were never able to present it. Later the military claimed they were flying back to the US in violation of their orders.

At the heart of these drug operations was Monzer al-Kassar. This Syrian drug smuggler had moved Polish arms for Oliver North to the Nicaraguan Contras. He was also closely tied to the brother of the Syrian dictator, Hafez al Assad. According to former Reagan aid Barbara Honegger, Al Kassar earlier worked for Reagan and NATO in laundering weapons for Iran through corrupt Italian intelligence people tied to P-2, the secret fascist lodge.

Some of al-Kassar’s drug profits helped to finance the PLO. Al Kassar was the middle man in paying for the release of two French captives in Beruit and he facilitated communications with respect to the remaining nine American hostages in Lebanon. In return for his services, the U.S. protected his drug pipeline into the U.S.

The DEA was then permitting controlled shipments by Al Kassar out of Frankfurt with a view to using the drugs to entrap dealers in the U.S. The code name for the operation was AKhourah.@ Reporter Will Weinberg learned that the DEA and CIA had asked the BKA, the German internal intelligence agency, to let certain suitcases in Frankfurt through without inspection. Apparently, a suitcase full of Semtex explosives was quietly substituted for one that held drugs.

The problem was that the amount getting through was far larger than necessary. When DEA/DIA agent Lester Coleman, using his diaries, later wrote about this, he encountered all sorts of legal problems. Danny Casorolo, a journalist, interviewed Coleman and was knifed in a West Virginia motel. Unfortunately, his body was immediately embalmed, so a full autopsy would not have been possible.

Coleman had been in Beruit for six years as part of a secret unit called MC10, Middle East Collection 10, and his payment came as travelers checks issued by BCCI. Two of his colleagues had been murdered in the year before the loss of Pan Am 103. In subsequent court testimony, he said that his unit was using PROMIS software, even though the government repeatedly said it never used this software.

Two Sampsonite suitcases of drugs were shipped from Frankfort that day in addition to the “controlled delivery.” They were the same kind of bags as those used by Kassar. One was aboard Pan Am 103 and the other was diverted to another flight which arrived in San Francisco. Some theorize that the CIA team in Frankfurt was running a rogue drug operation and that the plane was permitted to explode to cover their misdeeds.

U.S. and German agencies received at least two warnings that a bomb would be aboard PanAm 103. It has been claimed that Oliver “Buch” Ravell, assistant director of the FBI, was privy to one of those warnings and took it seriously enough to remove his son from that flight. Two books and some litigation address this issue.

Eventually, the State Department claimed that it had not forwarded the warnings to the FBI. Robert Mueller headed the investigation. He had also handled the investigation of the collapse of BCCI. However, Ravell was well connected and it was frequently claimed that he worked with Oliver North in hiding much of the information related to the Iran Contra scandal.

In 1996, Gene Wheaton, formerly with the Army Investigative Command, wrote that Revell was one of several security consultants who proposed forming a “Death Squad” to assassinate people identified as terrorists.

Strong evidence developed that U.S. intelligence knew that a bomb was on the plane but did nothing to remove it. The CIA knew Hezbullah had planted a bomb on the plane and had an opportunity to remove it but chose not to. The accident scene was teeming with Americans, including Oliver North’s assistant.

Scottish police said that American authorities restricted their access to the site for two days while Americans feverishly sifted through the wreckage. They carried away a number of pieces of baggage. Both heroin and cocaine were found there. Bob Woodward later reported in the Post that there were documents aboard that tied Lt. Colonel Oliver North to terrorist Abu Nidal.

COREA was being investigated by the Germans and enough of the story was known that there was open speculation in Time, US News and World Report, Barrons, and The New York Times. Susan Lindauer, a Fox and US News and World Report journalist also worked as a CIA asset and claims she knew that the 1988 bombing was a Hezbollah operation in retaliation for the downing of an Iranian airliner.

She added that the CIA had advanced warning of the plot. She served eleven months of incarceration in 2005-2006 without being charged, perhaps because she had operated as a back channel to Bagdad and tried to warn second cousin Andrew Card, Bush’s chief of staff, that the Iraqis did not have weapons of mass destruction.

The U.S. first blamed Syria and the CIA probably correctly hired some group to plant the bomb. Later the U.S. shifted the blame to Libya when it needed Syria’s backing in the 1991 war with Iraq. The only evidence pointing to the Libyan government was a fragment of a circuit board logged in as evidence four days after the explosion. There is some question of when it was logged in and some say it was found months later in a wooded area far from Lockerby. It was said to be made by a Swiss firm which only sold the part to Libya and the East German Stasi.

Dr Richard Fuisz, a CIA agent, medical researcher, and millionaire, claimed that he had solid proof that Lybya was not involved in the bombing and he added that he knew who planned it. Soon thereafter, in October, 1994, a federal court issued a gag order, on the basis of the “military and state secrets privilege.”

Internal U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency documents surfaced in 1994 suggesting that the British and Americans believed that the real bomber was the Syrian operated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. However, the diplomacy of the first Gulf War made it useful to blame Libya.

In 2003, a retired CIA officer told Megrahi’s lawyers that the CIA gihad planted the evidence. In 2005, Scotland Sunday reported that a retired police officer “of assistant chief constable rank or higher” has said that the circuit board fragment had been planted by the CIA. George Esson, former Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway, said he knew about the other policeman coming forward. The informant contacted the lawyers for Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who was imprisoned at Greenock Prison for the crime.

The Edinborough Herald reported that there were documents proving that the CIA offered to pay two key witnesses to testify against the accused Lybians and that it offered witness protection and relocation.

[Sherm, your author, believes that that some of these alternative explanations need to be explored but finds that, while they are often at least as convincing as the official explanations, they lack all the information necessary for conclusive proof. In his book on the Republican Party he followed far more conventional rules because he believed the case he was making was so important. His The New Republican Coalition: Its Rise and Impact, The Seventies to Present (Publish America) can be acquired by calling 301-695-1707. On line, go here.]

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Did Obama Make a Deal with Big Pharma?

Posted on August 20, 2009 by RagBlog


Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma
By Ryan Grim / August 16, 2009

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.

It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.

In exchange, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) agreed to cut $80 billion in projected costs to taxpayers and senior citizens over ten years. Or, as the memo says: “Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion.”

Representatives from both the White House and PhRMA, shown the outline, adamantly denied that it reflected reality. PhRMA senior vice president Ken Johnson said that the outline “is simply not accurate.” “This memo isn’t accurate and does not reflect the agreement with the drug companies,” said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin.

Stories in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times last week indicated that the administration was confirming that such a deal had been made.

Critics on Capitol Hill and online responded with outrage at the reports that Obama had gone behind their backs and sold the reform movement short. Furthermore, the deal seemed to be a betrayal of several promises made by then-Sen. Obama during the presidential campaign, among them that he would use the power of government to drive down the costs of drugs to Medicare and that negotiations would be conducted in the open.

And over the past several days, both the White House and PhRMA have offered a series of sometimes conflicting accounts of what happened in an attempt to walk back the story.

The White House meeting took place on July 7th, as first reported that evening in the Wall Street Journal. Also on the same day, a health care lobbyist following the talks was provided the outline of the deal by a person inside the negotiations. That outline had been floating around K Street before being obtained by the Huffington Post. In order to learn more about its origin, HuffPost agreed not to reveal the name of the lobbyist who originally received it.

“That is the PhRMA deal,” said the lobbyist of the outline. He then clarified, “It was the PhRMA deal.”

The deal, as outlined in the memo:

Commitment of up to $80 billion, but not more than $80 billion.

1. Agree to increase of Medicaid rebate from 15.1 – 23.1% ($34 billion)

2. Agree to get FOBs done (but no agreement on details — express disagreement on data exclusivity which both sides say does not affect the score of the legislation.) ($9 billion)

3. Sell drugs to patients in the donut hole at 50% discount ($25 billion)
This totals $68 billion

4. Companies will be assessed a tax or fee that will score at $12 billion. There was no agreement as to how or on what this tax/fee will be based.

Total: $80 billion

In exchange for these items, the White House agreed to:

1. Oppose importation

2. Oppose rebates in Medicare Part D

3. Oppose repeal of non-interference

4. Oppose opening Medicare Part B

“Non-interference” is the industry term for the status quo, in which government-driven price negotiations are barred. In other words, the government is “interfering” in the market if it negotiates lower prices. The ban on negotiating was led through Congress in 2003 by then-Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), who is now the head of PhRMA.

The rebates reference is to Medicare overpayments Big Pharma managed to wrangle from the Republican Congress that Democrats are trying to recoup. The House bill would require Big Pharma to return some of that money. The rebate proposal would save $63 billion over ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The White House, given the chance, declined to tell the Wall Street Journal for a July 17th article that it supported the effort to pursue the rebates.

The Medicare Part B item refers to “infusion drugs,” which can be administered at home. If they fall under Part B, Big Pharma gets paid more than under Part D. The agreement would leave infusion drugs in Part B.

In the section on Big Pharma’s concessions, “FOBs” refers to follow-on biological drugs. Democrats have pushed to make it easier to allow generic drug makers to produce cheaper versions of such drugs, an effort Big Pharma has resisted. The Senate health committee bill gives drug makers 12 years of market exclusivity, five more than the White House proposed.

PhRMA’s Johnson cast doubts on the provenance of the outline. “The memo, as described, is simply not accurate,” he said in a statement. “Anyone could have written it. Unless it comes from our board of directors, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. Clearly, someone is trying to short circuit our efforts to try and make health care reform a reality this year. That’s not going to happen. Too much is at stake for both patients and the U.S. economy. Our new ads supporting health care reform are starting this week, and we are redoubling our efforts to drive awareness of why this issue is so important to America’s future.”

Johnson added that “no outside lobbyists — not a single one — were ever involved in our discussions with the Senate Finance Committee or the White House so someone is blowing smoke.”

But the lobbyist who was given the outline defended its authenticity. And although the White House now says that drug price negotiations and reimportation were not actually discussed in the talks with PhRMA, the lobbyist said: “Well, that’s bull — that’s baloney. That was part of the deal, for them not to push that.”

The new uncertainty surrounding the deal comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has repeatedly said that her chamber is not bound by any agreement it is not a party to. On July 8th, the day after the Journal reported some elements of the deal, Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said in a public speech that his committee would not be tied down by the agreement.

Before recess, he followed through. His committee passed a bill that allowed for re-importation and drug-price negotiations.

In the Senate, Democrats Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.) pressed White House officials at a closed-door meeting last week, asking whether the White House had tied the Senate’s hands.

The health care lobbyist said that what deal still exists is uncertain, as a result of House pressure. “Now the White House is backing away from it, as you know, because of pressure from the House, because the House was not a party to the deal,” he said. “The Speaker put enormous pressure on the White House, [saying], ‘We weren’t a party to it and we reserve the right to do whatever we want.’ And which they did in the House Energy and Commerce Committee bill, which led the White House to say, ‘Well, maybe it’s not cast in concrete.'”

Obama is walking a tightrope here. He wants to keep PhRMA from opposing the bill, and benefits by having its support, which now includes a $150 million advertising campaign. That’s a fortune in politics — more than Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent on advertising during his entire campaign — but it’s loose change in the pharmaceutical business.

Opponents of the deal with PhRMA hope that Obama is playing a multilayered game, making a deal in order to keep the drug makers in his camp for now, but planning to double-cross them in the end if he needs to in order to pass his signature initiative.

Big Pharma, however, is still comfortable. “As far as the pharmaceutical industry, PhRMA and its member companies, yes, they say a deal is a deal. We’ll see what happens,” said the health care lobbyist.

Source / Global Research

Thanks to Phil Sigmund / The Rag Blog

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow : Healing Health Care NOW

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

The Healing Tree / Terry the Weaver.

Healing Health Care:
NOW or Never

We who have with illness bled,
Welcome to our gory bed,
Or to victory!

Now’s the time and now’s the hour;
See approach proud Money’s power.
Will we turn and flee?

Big Pharma’s fees are still our foe!
Lay arrogant Insurers low —
With a public option, we’ll be free!


(With no apologies to Robert Burns, who fought for the little guy all his life and would have loved this transformation of his hymn to Scottish freedom.)

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow / The Rag Blog / August 19, 2009

President Obama originally said that a robust public option for health insurance was the only way to keep the insurance corporations honest. He was right then. Even if he has weakened under the pressure of lies about death panels and threats by hoodlums, he was right. The public option is NOT dead. It is up to us. NOW is the time, NOW is the hour.

If the mangled health care bill is passed with no public option, the windfall for Big Insurance and Big Pharma will outdo even their treasure hunt in the Bush Medicare windfall.

Why? How? Because the bill requires practically everybody to buy insurance, and the public will have no way of keeping down what the insurance companies charge all those new and old customers. Another gravy train — on our money. Paid to support lousy care, with private companies refusing payment whenever they decide to boost corporate profits.

If progressive members of the House of Representatives who understand this stand firm, no matter what the Senate does, no matter what the White House does — then no bill can pass without a public option

Better to fight this out, since at least two-thirds of the public supports a real public option. Please write your Member of the House right away with a simple, serious, straight-out message:

No public option, no bill!

You can tell your Congressperson exactly that:

You can write — it’s totally free! Please click here to send a fax, as follows. Here is our suggestion. You can modify the text.

I support health care reform with a robust public option — and most people I know do, too.

The public option is crucial, to keep the private companies honest by competing with them as strongly as possible. Without the public option, the private insurance companies will bankrupt the people who pay their premiums and bankrupt the nation with multiplying costs of health care.

This is our one chance in our lifetimes to get this right. I urge you to stand up for the public option no matter what the Senate or the White House does. Please do what a majority of your constituents want: Vote for health care that works.

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

Please write NOW. Now’s the time and now’s the hour! See approach proud Money’s power — But we can still be free!

Shalom, salaam, peace,

Arthur

[Rabbi Arthur Waskow is director of The Shalom Center. He can be reached at awaskow@shalomctr.org.]

Source /

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Ask Yourself, ‘How Valuable Is My Health?’

Posted on August 19, 2009 by RagBlog


Death Panels: Let Me Explain
By Bill Freeland / The Rag Blog / August 19, 2009

As regular readers of these pages are aware, we seek to be a resource for information about the health care debate from an industry perspective. So let me begin with a current hot topic: “Death Panels.”

Let me explain.

It should come as no surprise that here we recognize, to borrow Al Gore’s convenient term, “an inconvenient truth”: which is to say that, despite our best efforts, we have yet to achieve the goal of universal immortality for any of our citizens.

The rumored reappearances of Elvis notwithstanding, we must accept that at some point each of us will one day finally “leave the building.”

This is a difficult moment, not merely for the deceased, but for family and friends, among whom we, of course — as providers of primary or secondary health care coverage — count ourselves.

Of course, as in any family, differences arise about priorities in such a close relationship. Which helps to explain why we find it necessary on occasion to take a “tough love” approach when the loved one seeks an experimental treatment, an expensive joint replacement, or more than one night’s hospital stay after surgery.

All of which leads us to this so-called “death panel” option. Predictably, there has been a great deal of misunderstanding about what the industry is actually advocating here. It’s often said that no one can place a premium on human life. Indeed, our critics would have you believe that premiums are our entire life. Absurd! Premiums are in fact merely a society’s mechanism for keeping score in the game of who lives and who dies.

Ask yourself, how valuable is my health? Answer: simply check your monthly insurance statement. Nowhere in the Western world are insurance premiums as high as in this country. Which is as good a gauge as any of the value we place on your well being.

Of course, we would like to say that your life (and our premiums) could go on forever. But they can’t. Which is why we think it prudent from time to time to let us help you review your options.

Let me explain.

Remember that beloved goldfish your parents bought you for your sixth birthday which somehow survived until after you went away to college? Now, remember when it suddenly hit you: a teenage goldfish is a biological impossibility!? And remember how at that moment the crushing realization of mortality descended upon you? How many stand-ins were there for the original “Goldilocks,” you wondered? How could you ever trust your parents — or anyone else for that matter — ever again?

The idea of a “death panel” is in no way meant to balance the scales for that injury as you come to consider the circumstances of your parents’ passing. At least not on a conscious level. No, rather it is merely an attempt to lift that awesome responsibility from you and place it in the hands of a bureaucrat — and I might point out — not an insurance company bureaucrat but a government bureaucrat! That should satisfy the reformers — and help you deal with an empty “family fish bowl.”

Of course, the whole idea is bound to create yet another firestorm of criticism from the other opposite side of the… grave site, so to speak. And we’ll have to accept strict regulation of everything, naturally.

For example, we’ll need special treatment for the few still able to pay for coverage, as distinct from the unfortunately underinsured many. No need to hurry anyone along if they can afford to be made comfortable in a first-class nursing home. And there should also be a sensitivity for facilities that maintain an around-the-clock medical team. Reducing the number of patients in such settings can only increase costs for those not yet at death’s door. Controlling costs must be a priority!

Clearly, we stand on the threshold of change for the living — or as our actuarial specialists prefer, the dying.

Let me explain.

The “inconvenient” question: “when will I die?” would now be determined by an efficient cost-benefit formula: which is to say — whenever the “death panel” says so.

The Rag Blog

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Algae: A New Source of Alternative Energy

Posted on August 19, 2009 by RagBlog

The Solix Biofuels plant on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado. The area averages 300 sunny days a year. Photo: Eric Draper/New York Times.

A New Test for Business and Biofuel
By Kirk Johnson / August 16, 2009

IGNACIO, Colo. — An unusual experiment featuring equal parts science, environmental optimism and Native American capitalist ambition is unfolding here on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwest Colorado.

With the twin goals of making fuel from algae and reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases, a start-up company co-founded by a Colorado State University professor recently introduced a strain of algae that loves carbon dioxide into a water tank next to a natural gas processing plant. The water is already green-tinged with life.

The Southern Utes, one of the nation’s wealthiest American Indian communities thanks to its energy and real-estate investments, is a major investor in the professor’s company. It hopes to gain a toehold in what tribal leaders believe could be the next billion-dollar energy boom.

But from the tribe’s perspective, the business model here is about more than business. “It’s a marriage of an older way of thinking into a modern time,” said the tribe’s chairman, Matthew J. Box, referring to the interplay of environmental consciousness and investment opportunity around algae.

The tribe, whose reservation sits atop one of the world’s richest fields of natural gas from coal-bed methane, had to surmount many hurdles to find an alternative energy idea it considered suitable.

For example, any project that would displace land used for growing food was tossed out for philosophical reasons: the Southern Utes’ belief that energy and food should not compete in a world where people still starve. That eliminated discussion of corn-based ethanol.

Algae produced at the Solix Biofuels plant, a start-up with unusual business partners. Photo: Eric Draper/New York Times.

And whatever was chosen had to be at least technically feasible, if not immediately profitable.

The 1,400-member tribe also has a long history of herbal medicine use that made growing algae for fuel appealing, Mr. Box said. “It reminded people of herbs that are helpful here, like bear root, which is harvested in the mountains,” he said.

The Colorado State professor, Bryan Willson, who teaches mechanical engineering and is a co-founder of the three-year-old company Solix Biofuels, said working with the Southern Utes on their land afforded his company advantages that would have been impossible in mainstream corporate America. The tribe contributed almost one-third of the $20 million in capital raised by Solix, free use of land and more than $1 million in equipment.

“If you’re going with strict venture capital, they’re looking for a blistering return on capital in three to five years,” Dr. Willson said. “The Utes have a very long economic view. They’re making decisions now for future generations as opposed to the next quarter, and that is just fundamentally different.”

But the tale of any start-up is written between the margins of inspiration and hard-edged reality.

More than 200 other companies are also trying to find a cost-effective, scalable way to achieve the same end — turning algae into vegetable oil fuel, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a federal research center in Golden, Colo. Just last month, Exxon said it planned to throw $600 million into its own algae project, dwarfing Solix’s financial base about fiftyfold. Like most oil-to-fuel efforts, the Solix project focuses on making biodiesel, which can be used in a regular diesel engine.

“This is still a very young industry, with a lot of claims out there that are sometimes difficult to believe,” said Al Darzins, a group manager at the lab’s National Bioenergy Center.

Mr. Darzins said Solix’s model was different from most: the algae is grown in closed bags, lined up vertically in the water tanks, with the intent of increasing yield. But for every hopeful, he said, the crux will be controlling costs.

“Solix has an interesting idea; whether it will work, I don’t know,” Mr. Darzins said. “It’s all going to come down to the economics.”

Solix’s facility project is next to the natural gas processing plant for access to the carbon dioxide waste stream, which will be used to nourish the algae — a kind of biological recycling of carbon dioxide before its discharge into the atmosphere as the vegetable fuel is burned.

The plant also produces waste heat, which could be used to warm the algae beds in winter. In addition, the high desert plateau of southwest Colorado is one of the sunniest spots in the nation, providing solar radiation that accelerates algae growth.

Central to Solix’s business model, Dr. Willson said, is the hope that power plants and other factories now venting carbon dioxide will allow the company to build an algae farm next to their carbon dioxide vent pipes. A plant could sell the oil or biodiesel, and Solix would earn its return by being a part owner-operator, or by licensing the technology.

If Solix can expand its operations to a commercial scale, the Southern Utes will have certain first ownership and operating rights in Solix plants throughout much of the Western United States.

Karl Jacob, the director of public finance in state and local government ratings at the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s, tracks Native American economics and has assigned the Southern Utes’ debt a AAA rating, the agency’s highest. Mr. Jacob said the tribe had proved a canny investor by doing its homework and not moving too fast.

It operates businesses in 14 states, owns office towers and land from Denver to Oceanside, Calif., and controls a company that processes about 1 percent of the nation’s natural gas. But it has only about $69 million in debt according to S.&P. Compared with most companies, that is a tiny debt-to-asset ratio.

“They have always been very prudent,” Mr. Jacob said, “looking out into the next generation.”

Source / New York Times

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American Ignorance or American Arrogance?

Posted on August 19, 2009 by RagBlog


Anatomy of American Ignorance
By Bill Noxid / August 18, 2009

It’s a full time occupation trying to unravel the reasons Americans remain in the dark. What seems (to any intelligent outside observer) like sheer stupidity and arrogance is in reality an almost inescapable indoctrination process that begins before you are born, and ends some time after you’re dead. It is a system so complex and all encompassing that few can recognize any reality outside of it at all, and that of course is its intended purpose.

The astonishing amount of rage demonstrated during the course of this fallacious healthcare debate has exposed a great many unfortunate realities about the United States. This country’s inherent ability to avoid the truth about its own origins and behaviors has become increasingly apparent during the first six months of this presidency, and (as a result of the continued collective denial) there’s no chance of it ending any time soon.

It’s generally not hard to find examples of the totality of mind control in this country, but last week produced a couple of rare examples. Arlen Specter’s Town Hall meeting was evidently an important “test case” for the organizers of disingenuous dissent, and we got to see a variety of the false arguments. Just look at the two most obvious incidents.

First there was Craig Miller. Aside from the hypocrisy of the fact that in eight years of Bush, I don’t recall one “protester” causing that kind of disruption, wagging their finger in the face of a senator, calling down the wrath of God on him, while the police stand around and wait for him to run out of breath – but the really astonishing event was the interview the next morning. Truly, it must be seen to be believed. In eight minutes of interview, the man could not produce a single, solitary, intelligible reason for his rage. It was so embarrassing, that he eventually had to refer to his crib notes just to eek out some nonsensical fear of Czars, before Dylan had to mercifully end the non-conversation.

However the textbook example of why people in this country have no concept of reality was delivered by Specter’s other heckler, Katy Abram. Certainly you all remember her… She was the one who announced that the “sleeping giant had awakened.”

“I don’t believe this is just about healthcare, it’s not about TARP, it’s not about left and right, this is about the systematic dismantling of this country. I’m only thirty-five years old, I’ve never been interested in politics. You have awakened the sleeping giant. We are tired of this. This is why everybody in this room is so ticked off. I don’t want this country turning into Russia – turning into a socialized country. My question for you is what are you going to do to restore this country back to what our founders created according to the constitution.”

First of all, what a meaningless statement and question that has no possible rational answer – and only serves to give the people like Craig Miller something generic to cheer for. The all-encompassing, non-specific, return to the “glory days” of the founding fathers. This is the kind of reaction these “phrases” are supposed to elicit, and that is what they are designed for. Not that Katy herself came up with any of it of course… She is merely parroting whatever and whoever she is listening to.

Evidence of that reality became painfully obvious when she was interviewed the next day by Laurence O’Donnell. From the onset, she flashed her doe in the headlights look (that would be charming if this was a game show), and proceeded to demonstrate her lack of knowledge about virtually everything that has occurred (in this country and on this planet) in the last ten years.

O’Donnell: “What made you want to go”

Abram: “Umm, just sheer frustration, umm, I see all these things being pushed through very quickly, umm, TARP, this healthcare bill, umm, cash for clunkers, and the frustrating thing to me is these programs are being funded by me, my friends, my family, umm, we have a small business and the amount of taxes we pay out of that is ridiculous. And yet they want us to pay more – I, or, it sounds like they want us to pay more, so that, that is the root of my frustration. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

O’Donnell: “In the plans discussed so far, the increase in taxation would occur only on families with incomes of over $250,000. Would that include you and your family?”

Abram: “Honestly it (nervous laugh), I’d rather, I’d rather not say… I don’t even know (another nervous laugh). Umm, my husband takes care of the bills and everything, I, you know, he takes care of us, and that’s all that matters, umm.”

Are you serious? After that ridiculous rant about her, her husband, her friends, and her family having to fund these programs (like it’s the first time she’s seen a government), we find she has no idea how much her husband makes, how much they pay in taxes, or even what tax bracket they are in?!? The only thing ridiculous about the amount of taxes “she” pays is that she doesn’t know the amount of taxes “she” pays, and has the nerve to portend outrage about it. Not to mention it is quite a testament to the woman’s equality movement in this country – and particularly in her household.

O’Donnell: “Do you and your family have health insurance?”

Abram: “Yeah we do have health insurance, umm, we have a heath savings account that we pay for ourselves. We, we have a $5,000+ deductible, umm, that basically in the course of a normal year we will pay for all of our medical out, our medical needs out-of-pocket – doctors visits – and this year’s been a little more difficult cuz my son’s had surgery and it looks like we’re looking for his, at a second one, umm, we’re almost at our deductible so that’s a good thing ( chuckle ), but that was a choice that we made, and that’s what we wanted to do. Umm, and I want to be able to keep that choice, I don’t want to be forced or slowly coaxed into a single payer program… I want to have my choice.”

Truly, it’s hard to believe how stupefied the people in this country are. Certainly that’s nothing new (in fact it’s the crux of keeping these feeble minds enslaved), but look at the depth of her confusion. Here we have a woman that after explaining that (for all intents and purposes) her family has no insurance, she claims to be afraid that someone will take that “choice” away from her. Her (and her husband who obviously made this ridiculous arrangement) pay the entire cost of their healthcare every year, plus whatever they pay to the insurance company that is laughing at them, and they are afraid someone is going to forcibly take that choice away from them? Force them to what? Not pay for Non-healthcare?

I’m fairly sure they have nothing to worry about. I can’t imagine that in the good-ol’ USA, someone is going to deprive you of your right to be an idiot and get screwed out of money you never see any return from – unless you “get lucky” and your child has to undergo two major surgeries in a year. These nitwits think they are defending their “free choice as Americans,” when in reality they are defending the corporation’s right to keep them poor, sick, and stupid – and forcing the rest of the populous to have no choice either.

But even more distressing and telling about the lack of awareness in this country is this next exchange, after explaining that her and her parents “don’t talk politics” ( Who would have ever guessed ).

O’Donnell: “You said in your statement that you are thirty-five years old, and that nothing has gotten you interested in politics before, and what’s interesting to me about that is that means you – as an adult – lived through 9-11, lived through the invasion of Afghanistan, the war in Afghanistan, the first chapter of what became two wars in the middle east – including the Iraq war. You lived through all of that, and were not – as you put it – “awakened” into an interest in politics. How could those things pass through your life like this and not spark any interest in politics prior to Washington saying “we think we want to help out some people who can’t afford health insurance the way you can.” Why would this be the thing that wakes you up after you were willing to just ignore politics as we went past 9-11, into Afghanistan, into Iraq?”

Abram: “Sure, I, I always seemed to have faith in the government and honestly, I didn’t really care (laugh). Umm, I had other things going on – ya know, getting married, having children – it just, it wasn’t a priority in my life, and, ya know I really didn’t start even watching the news at all I think until maybe 1991 I guess it was, when, umm, we first went to the Gulf War – I remember watching CNN with my dad and watching the infra-red missiles going across that you could see, umm, and, I think it, to me, I mean maybe I’m just not that smart, but you know, it seems like we’ve kind of been at war for, since then, I mean – or maybe even before, I don’t know – it just always seem like we’re having some kind of conflict so, that, you know, whether, about wars – umm, I don’t know, that just seems common place now… Umm, I think everybody’s just so used to it.

What an atrociously callous and ignorant statement that surely could only come from an American. Ten years of genocidal crusader conquest for corporate profit, leaving untold millions dead, dying, and diseased, and this woman has the temerity to say “everyone is just used to it.” If white phosphorous and depleted uranium weapons were raining down on her family and her healthcare needs included raising a child without any eyes, or scull, or arms, or legs as a result of the poisoned environment, I suspect she might be a little less flippant and a little less “used to it.” What this country did in the last ten years, the whole world is going to have to deal with for the next hundred, and people like this are unaware anything has happened at all. This pathetic culture and its inability and unwillingness to recognize the continuous crimes committed against the lands and peoples of the world, is why people like this woman can tra-la-la through life without a clue of the horrendous damage her ignorance allows.

In part two, I’ll examine how Americans in general (but these people in particular) develop these false realities, and where they get their “information” from.

Bill Noxid

Litany of Threats and Racist incidents – over healthcare

The Obama Problem: Black, and Unaware of it

Specter’s Heckler: Interview with the mindless

Anatomy of American Ignorance (Youtube Interview)

Source / Information Clearing House

The Rag Blog

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Closing Time : Gilley’s Sherwood Cryer, a Honky Tonk Legend

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

Gilley’s owner Sherwood Cryer, right, with singer Mickey Gilley, at the Pasadena club in 1980. Photo by Joel Draut / Houston Chronicle.

Former owner of iconic honky-tonk Gilley’s dies

Sherwood Cryer, whose honky-tonk Gilley’s created a lasting image of the Houston area as a blue-collar, redneck boomtown after it was immortalized in the movie Urban Cowboy, has died. He was 81.
[….]
Cryer’s genius was most evident in the mechanical bull he invented, the bucking, spinning mechanical ride that brought lines of people into the Pasadena bar and made for Urban Cowboy’s most memorable scenes — John Travolta, Debra Winger and Scott Glenn taking turns atop it.
[….]
The bar was founded in 1971 after Cryer discovered Gilley singing at a Pasadena club where he was making so little money he could barely pay his three-member band. Cryer told Gilley, “How would you like to have a club of your own?” the singer was quoted as saying five years ago.

— Todd Ackerman / Houston Chronicle

As Sherwood made more money, he eventually put up walls on this structure and installed air-conditioning. He later met Mickey Gilley, and the rest was history.

By Carlos Calbillo / The Rag Blog / August 18, 2009

I grew up in Pasadena, Texas. in fact, I graduated (barely) from Sam Rayburn High School. High school for me was an ordeal. The school was brand new when I arrived there in 1965, and I did not know who this school was named for and never learned anything about Sam Rayburn until much later. I read Robert Caro’s incredible books on Lyndon Johnson and finally learned the real deal about Sam Rayburn, one of the greatest sons of Texas, a populist and fighter in his time, for the farmers and the common man.

Sherwood Cryer, as the story goes, opened a club out on Spencer Highway named “Sherwood’s” (or possibly, “Shelly’s”) in the late 1950’s or early 60’s. It was an acre of concrete slab with no walls, just a roof.

There was a great picture in Sherwood’s office at Gilley’s of a young unknown singer who played there in those days, with short, short hair, clean-shaven, wearing a coat and tie, by the name of Willie Nelson. This Nelson kid was living in Nashville, having moved there to try to make it in C/W Showbiz after being a DJ in Texas for so many years. When he played Sherwood’s place, he was not known very well as a performer but was beginning to show promise as a songwriter.

As Sherwood made more money, he eventually put up walls on this structure and installed air-conditioning. He later met Mickey Gilley, and the rest was history.

Gilley’s patron rides the mechanical bull on Dec. 17, 1980. AP photo / ABC13.com

The word “legend” in Texas is thrown around a lot (we Texans have a lot of pride, are known throughout the planet for it, and unfortunately much of it as it turns out, is false pride and/or misplaced; some of it IS right on). Sherwood had genuinely achieved this status of “legend” way before the Urban Cowboy scene hit and took off around the world. There are many many stories about Sherwood, and many of them are fantastic.

Even before the Urban Cowboy era began, I would visit Gilley’s, sometimes in the company of Roberto of Liberty Hall fame. My friend Bob Claypool, music writer at the Houston Post, would also be there a lot and we would talk about the scene, checking out the gorgeous cowgirl honeys in their tight Wranglers, swigging longnecks as we posed in our boots and ten-gallon hats, quintessential “drugstore cowboys.”

Todd Ackerman’s reference in the Houston Chronicle to Sherwood’s appearance is true; you would walk into the club and see this shabby guy emptying the garbage cans, clanking around with all of those empty longneck bottles of Gilley’s Beer, and if you weren’t acquainted with him, you would think, curiously, that he was the only non-Mexican janitor that worked in the place. This guy who appeared homeless, was to become one the richest men in Texas, owning clubs, mansions, boats, cars and a fleet of airplanes to fly people in to perform in his place.

One of the memorable shows (there were many) that I remember was the night I sat in the front to watch the great Ernest Tubb, who by then was an old man, touring because he had to make money somehow and only occasionally showing some of the magic that he would dredge up from within that had made HIM a Texas legend. There was of course the magic in the place that floated about whenever Willie took to the stage.

I was also there one night when the International Harvester Tour, fronted by a hillbilly-looking dude with a railroad gimme cap, showed up and he and his band tried their best to show the Gilley’s crowd that they were the real item and not just novices playing at being C/W. The band’s leader of course was a guy named Neil Young; now — that was weird.

John Travolta and Debra Winger on the Gilley’s dance floor. Photo is a still from Urban Cowboy.

Usually when Mickey Gilley was in town and fronting for or opening a show, he would close the night’s entertainment by going up on stage and performing “Goodnight Irene,” sometimes just on his piano, without his band, with EVERYONE singing along. Mickey Gilley of course was the cousin of both rock legend Jerry Lee Lewis and evangelist Jimmy Lee Swaggert; I always wondered if Mickey knew the provenance of this incredible song written so many years ago by the great Huddie Ledbetter, yet ANOTHER Texas music legend.

I remember when Sherwood opened a club, also on Spencer Highway, for his good friend Jose Maria DeLeon Hernandez of Temple, Texas, and named the club “Little Joe’s.” It only lasted a year or two but some great Tejano and Norteño music was presented there. Sherwood seemed always to have an instinct/gift for making money.

Sherwood was a first-class raconteur. If you were lucky, and I was on several occasions, you could sit in Sherwood’s small office at the club during one of his breaks, or perhaps after the night’s show, and he could be persuaded to tell you some stories, sometimes also offering you a beverage. I remember asking him one time about the famous Gilley’s bouncers. Sherwood employed about 20 of the roughest, biggest, mean-looking Pasadena good ol’ boys you would never want to run into in a dark alley. These bouncers, many off of the local oil rigs, were proficient with their fists, boots and blackjacks, and they kept order, especially in the early days before the tourists descended, and beer-fueled fights among the patrons were frequent.

I asked Sherwood to tell me about the BIGGEST fight or free-for-all he had ever witnessed in his place and he told me about the time that a teacher’s (!) convention had come to Houston and on a Saturday night a busload of teachers, men and women from all parts of the country, had shown up to take in the Gilley’s experience, as the club’s fame was beginning to soar. They all went to sit in one of the corners of the cavernous club and they soon began to have too much fun; these teachers got liquored up and began to fight, first with each other, and then they took on the regulars.

Sherwood sent over two, then four, then eventually every bouncer and large patron he could find in an attempt to restore order, but these drunken teachers ended up beating the crap out of every bouncer and wannabee bouncer in that melee and finally Sherwood had to call in the Pasadena Police and the EMTs and shut down and evacuate the club for the night. When the Pasadena Police arrived in force with their riot helmets on and brandishing serious-looking batons and when the schoolteachers found themselves being surrounded by these officers, they reacted by attacking the cops (!) and eventually many of these rowdy educators were hauled off to jail.

He had a great story-telling style and as you visualized this scene he was describing you also took in his glee as he recalled it.

Next time you are in Austin, go by the Texas State History Museum to see the actual, real entryway and door to Gilley’s club, preserved there for future generations.

We are losing more and more of the great characters of Texas that I, for one, was lucky enough to grow up with and be around, and we are all becoming the poorer for it.

[Carlos Calbillo is an independent filmmaker, writer, producer and director. He works with the Southwest Alternate Media Project in Houston, conducting filmmaking classes and seminars with youth from the inner city. He is currently in pre-production on a documentary film about emerging Latino political power in Houston.]

The Rag Blog

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God Thinks You’re a Loser

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

“God Thinks You’re a Loser”

The Rag Blog and South Austin Pictures present a screening of
“God Thinks You’re a Loser,”
a perverse comedy from Austin director Gary Chason
at The Independent at 501 Studios
in the 501 Studio Complex,
501 E. 5th at I-35 in Austin, Texas (entrance on Brushy Street, one block east of I-35).

8 p.m., Thursday, August 27, 2009

A donation of $10 is suggested, with proceeds benefiting The Rag Blog, a progressive internet news magazine based in Austin.
There will be a cash bar.

According to Chason, “God Thinks You’re a Loser” is “a zany comedy about strippers and oil men” with “plenty of kinky sex, drugs, and the reckless pursuit of sensual pleasure.” But in the end, those who hurt others must answer for their actions.

Much of the film takes place in Hell.

A live discussion with director Gary Chason and star Sue Rock
will follow the screening.

The Rag Blog

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Killing Yourself with Kindness : Obama’s Bipartisan Kick

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Thorne Dreyer


Killing Yourself with Kindness

Despite the lies, the real insecurity that people feel, and the shameless Republican opportunism, health reform will be a loser for Obama and the Democrats unless this president can shake off his delusion that bipartisanship works.

By Robert Kuttner / August 18, 2009

Will somebody please explain to me why Barack Obama is still on his bipartisan kick?

Ever since Obama’s first efforts to reach out to Republicans, with his cabinet appointment of two Republicans, Gates at Defense and LaHood at Transportation, and his appeasement of Republican tax-cutting demands in the stimulus package, the Republican opposition has made it clear that no goodwill gesture, no effort to meet them halfway signals anything other than weakness. They are out to destroy his presidency, pure and simple. Nothing makes this clearer than the battle over health insurance reform.

Even Chuck Grassley, the rank (I mean ranking) Republican on the Senate Finance Committee and the great white hope of bipartisanship for his Democratic buddy Max Baucus, was giving aid and comfort to the Palin “death panel” nonsense. “In House bill there is counseling for end of life,” said Grassley, “And from that standpoint you have every right to fear … we should not have a government program that determines you’re going to pull the plug on grandma.” Maybe it’s time to pull the plug on Grassley.

The White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, is said to be a tough guy. And Obama’s top political adviser, David Axelrod, is supposed to be some kind of tactical genius. What do these guys think they are getting by continuing to kiss up to the Republicans?

I don’t buy the claim that making nice got them any more Republican votes for Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation. The handful of Republicans who supported her were motivated either by demographics of their state or by the fact that a few GOP senators are still willing to approve a highly qualified centrist nominee and didn’t want to alienate women voters. Had Obama been playing hardball on other issues, it would not have fatally damaged Sotomayor.
Today’s op-ed piece “by” Barack Obama in the New York Times was the same old high-minded pabulum. It read as if it had been pureed several times by the speechwriting staff:

The long and vigorous debate about health care that’s been taking place over the past few months is a good thing. It’s what America’s all about.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

That’s great above-politics stuff if you are modeling high school civics, not so great if the other side is going for the jugular — and winning.

Clearly, the administration playbook is to stick to the high road and not take the argument to the other side. But the strategy isn’t working. The approval ratings for both the president and for his health plan are falling. He isn’t even inspiring his own strongest grass roots backers to turn out in numbers at support rallies.

Obama’s own gut instincts seem to be a little better than those of his astonishingly risk-averse advisers. At his own town hall meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire August 11, Obama was quite eloquent and detailed on the foolishness of the “death panel” lies, and he also said this:

Every time we come close to passing health insurance reform, the special interests fight back with everything they’ve got. They use their influence. They use their political allies to scare and mislead the American people. They start running ads. This is what they always do.

We can’t let them do it again. Not this time. Not now. (Applause.) Because for all the scare tactics out there, what is truly scary — what is truly risky — is if we do nothing. If we let this moment pass — if we keep the system the way it is right now — we will continue to see 14,000 Americans lose their health insurance every day. Your premiums will continue to skyrocket. They have gone up three times faster than your wages and they will keep on going up.

But, oddly, he didn’t name the “special interests” (like the insurance and drug industry) because they are nominally part of his reform coalition. If anyone is killing somebody with kindness, it’s the insurance industry backing Obama and slyly killing real reform.

Despite the lies, the real insecurity that people feel, and the shameless Republican opportunism, health reform will be a loser for Obama and the Democrats unless this president can shake off his delusion that bipartisanship works. So far, it works mainly to strengthen the far-right and weaken this president and what should be a reform moment.

[Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect, a senior fellow at Demos, and author of Obama’s Challenge.]

Source / The Huffington Post / Originally posted August 16, 2009

Thanks to Roger Baker / The Rag Blog

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