Tulsa: Tea Party rank & file betrayed (again)

    Tulsa is an amazing place.  Nice people, fabulous museums -- and it also has a great country-music station.  Who knew that I would fall in love with Tulsa.  Totally enjoyed the Gilcrease Museum, built by the wealth of Oklahoma oil.  It has all kinds of American Indian stuff and Remington stuff.  Plus it's set in those impossibly green Oklahoma hills.

     Then there's the Philbrook Museum.  Think "Phillips 66" oil.  Back in the day, wealthy oilmen wanted to leave their legacy in Art and Beauty -- not in the broken and bloody bodies of beautiful babies in the Middle East.  Apparently, Mrs. Phillips' main goal in life was to surround herself with Beauty everywhere she looked.  And boy did she succeed.  I want that to be my main goal too!  Only within a much more limited budget.

     Touring the museums of Tulsa has developed within me a hunger, an absolute craving, for beauty and art and culture.  Go Tulsa!

     And then there's the country music.  I put 400 miles on my car while driving around Tulsa and then driving from Tulsa to Stillwater (just had to go there for obvious reasons) and to Tahlequah, Catoosa and Muskogee.  I hate to drive.  All that driving would have been torture if it hadn't been for KVOO, the local country music station.  http://www.kvoo.com/listen-live  All I can say is live-stream it, tape it, put it in your car stereo and then drive.  Trust me on this one.  Country music is perfect for hitting the road.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z30z8ZnM73U

     And another thing I learned from Tulsa and listening to country music:  People here work hard, play hard and are the salt of the earth -- and are also as independent as hell.  Lauren Alaina's song, Road Less Traveled, could be the national anthem for resistance to authority and conformity.  The American Left's "Resist" movement could do well to adopt it as their theme song.  "If you trust your rebel heart, ride it into battle.  Don't be afraid, take the road less traveled..."  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-NAEvc-b6E

     Country singers tell stories about living on bar stools and hanging out with loose women, sure, but they also tell stories about the blue-collar men and women who work hard for a living and pour their hearts into their lives.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCxbgqyC2Wg

     And they also vote for the Tea Party and Donald Trump -- who then sells them out to Wall Street and War Street without batting an eye.  That's just inhuman and cruel.  And, what is even worse, America's military-industrial complex has gone out of its way to make sure that working-class white people and people of color and immigrants and women never bond together over their vast ocean of similarities but instead fight each other to the death over their insignificant differences.  http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/04/24/911-destroyed-america/

     The only problem with Tulsa, as far as I can see, is that it is a city where you can't survive without a car.  And it is a consumer city too.  Consumerism rules here in Tulsa.  If we have another Great Depression, all these malls and big-box stores here will become ghost towns -- just like when silver dried up in the Old West. 

     But I digress.  Let's get back to talking about how the Tea Party failed its rank & file.  According to sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, rank-and-file Tea Party members basically want a less corrupt government and less regulation.  But it is their "Great Paradox" that they vote for the most corrupt politicians and also for even more regulation -- but only for Blacks, women and immigrants.  http://thenewpress.com/books/strangers-their-own-land

     The Tea Party rank-and-file also value a strong sense of community.  Country music gives them that.  Wall Street and War Street doesn't.  Major FAIL by Wall/War Street.

     The average Tea Party member also wants respect.  They want liberals to stop thinking that they are just stupid hillbillies.  They are not.  And yet it is the neo-con politicians they vote for who treat them like rubes, suckers and pawns when the rubber actually hits the road.  Go figure.

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The brotherhood that oil built: Terror in the Middle East

     In the past year, the Saudis have dropped 90,000 bombs on Yemen, a country the size of a postage stamp.  Let's just think about that for a minute.  Yuck.  Don't the Saudis have anything better to do with their money?  I could think of a million things better than that.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/19/us-moves-toward-major-intervention-in-yemen/

     "Hey, Saudis!  For the price of just one of those bombs, you coulda sent me to Paris for a week, put me up at the Ritz."  Poor Yemenis.  They didn't even get a freaking T-shirt out of the trip.

     And have you heard about ISIS' latest unspeakable crime?  They recently tricked out a car-bomb to look like a food truck, used it to offer snacks to children in Syria, set the bomb off, slaughtered 116 children, packed the kids' mutilated bodies into the back of a truck and drove it off to their hideout in Turkey.  https://ingaza.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/zeinab-she-was-forced-to-watch-the-massacre-of-116-children-vanessa-beeley-on-terrorists-massacre-of-foua-kafraya-civilians/

     Who the freak dreams up doing stuff like this?

     And the Israeli neo-colonialists have just bombed Syria too.  Seriously?  And a church just got blown up in Egypt.  And this is only a partial list.  Gaza, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran -- so many places to bomb, so little time.  https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/20/why-not-a-probe-of-israel-gate/

     Living in the Middle East these days really sucks eggs.

     You know how little kids love to trail around after their big brothers and want to be like them?  And who do the Saudis and ISIS and the Israelis wanna be like when they grow up?  America!  In the past several decades, America has bombed the shite out of practically everything in the Greater Middle East.  "I wanna be like that too!" scream the Saudis, ISIS, the Turks and the Israelis.  http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/04/how-did-al-qaeda-know-in-advance-about-the-syrian-air-strike/

     And then America has the nerve to complain about how their little brothers in terror are always following them around.

     But why is America happily giving all these "free home demonstrations" in terror to their little brothers -- who have in turn copy-catted America by creating even more terror in the Middle East, Europe and New York City?  It's always about oil.  By now, we all know (or should know) that the mother of all these psycho-weirdo siblings is an insatiable lust for oil.

     Ah, if only America had spent all those trillions of dollars on solar power (and you and me) instead of on terror.

PS:  Back in the 1960s when President Johnson was happily slaughtering more children-per-hour than even Hitler had managed to murder in Poland, me and my friends would take to the streets and chant, "How many kids have you killed today?"  But now it appears that the very same American military complex that messed with Johnson's head has now  convinced President Trump that it would be an even better idea to get a head-start on LBJ's world record by slaughtering as many "beautiful babies" in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Indonesia as Trump possibly can in his first 100 days -- and probably in North Korea too.  http://www.globalresearch.ca/now-only-rational-thinking-can-save-the-world/5584987

     Guinness, we may have the makings of a whole new baby-slaughtering world record forming up here.

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"War" and the next American generations

     At a conference in Washington DC recently, military analyst John Mearsheimer spoke about the future of Israel and Palestine.  He told us that Israel's future funding by America is secure because AIPAC, Israel's all-powerful lobby, focuses "on the elites in America, not the rank and file.  The elites here are still afraid of the Israel lobby and so the lobby is still as powerful as ever...because it focuses its attention on keeping our country's elites in line."

     But Mearsheimer also said that there are dark times ahead for both Israel and its lobby, due to Israel's neo-colonialist leaders who are strongly pushing a rightist policy of apartheid.  "Israel is not likely to ever become a liberal democracy," said Mearsheimer, "and it could take 20 or 30 years to resolve this conflict [between Israelis and Palestinians].  The decades ahead will be miserable and will also harm America's politics."

     So much for Israel's future.  But what about the future of America?  What lies ahead for us in the next decades?  What happens next here -- aside of course from Trump's constant rude slouching toward World War 3?  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40222-new-revelations-belie-trump-claims-on-syria-chemical-attack#14924552943921&action=collapse_widget&id=0&data=

      Generation Z, the post-2001 generation, will come of age -- that's what happens next.  Generation Z is apparently different from the Millennials in several ways.  They are even more tech-savvy than Millennials for one thing (none of them are techo-dunces like me).  Apparently they are also better focused, more avid consumers and more worried about finding a job.  But what worries me most about this next generation is their name.  "Generation Z," end of the alphabet.  Are they really gonna be our last generation -- as their name implies?  That could actually be the case.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-beall/8-key-differences-between_b_12814200.html

     "But why would you be thinking that?" you might ask.  Why?  Because America just dropped the "Mother of All Bombs" on Afghanistan and just turned Syria into Ground Zero as well -- which means a whole bunch more air pollution has just been created, that's why.  Climate-change deniers aren't just huge corporations hoping to pollute our air and water for fun and profit.  The biggest polluter in the world is the American military.  So climate-change denial really benefits weapons manufacturers and "war" profiteers the most.  And it benefits Generation Z the least.

     Through its mega-scale worldwide pollution operations, proponents of endless "war" stand a very good chance of ending Generation Z as well.  Yikes!

     But there is still hope yet in this tired old world -- and it comes from a rather unexpected source:  Babies!  Have you noticed how many parents have been winning the Baby Lottery bigtime lately?  Giving birth to little Jesus-type babies, little Buddhas?  Here is our hope.  Not in a stronger military, not in dropping bombs all over the world, not in Israel's sleazy apartheid system or the invasion of Syria or Iraq or Libya or Ukraine by the power-crazed madmen inside Washington's Beltway -- but in our babies.

      Let's not let Generation Z be our last generation.  Forget about all this endless cheering for "war".  Let's cheer for our babies instead.  http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/18/mother-of-all-hypocrisies-trump-cares-for-some-syrian-babies-not-others/

PS:  Why does Trump keep bombing the shite out of the world?  One reason might be that he's bored.  When one has as much money as The Donald is rolling around in daily, there just aren't many challenges left.  So making things go "Boom!" might liven up his day.  Mr. President, isn't golf enough?  Apparently not.  http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a54564/the-violent-clashes-in-berkeley-werent-pro-trump-versus-anti-trump/

PPS:  As for all this talk about eliminating birth control, does America's Alt-Right really want to go there?  I always thought they were just racist fascist-wannabes but maybe they aren't racist after all if they are all excited and pleased about producing more minority babies.  Maybe I judged them wrong.  But hell, the more minority babies the better.  Jesus was once a minority baby.  So was Buddha.  http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/04/15/a-government-of-morons/

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Washington DC's museums: Totally awesome!

     Have you ever been to our nation's capital?  Unlike the sorry mess we call Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court, the actual city of Washington DC itself is actually really awesomely impressive.  Who knew.

     Unlike our sell-out federal legislative, executive and judicial branches, the District of Columbia itself has not sold out to Wall Street and War Street for the usual 30 pieces of silver.  Yet. 

     Much to my surprise and delight, I discovered that the whole entire city is just one big wonderful open-air museum.  The Federal Triangle, the National Mall, Embassy Row?  Far more impressive than the Louvre or even King Tut's tomb.

     First I went on the White House tour.  "Will I get to see Ivanka?" I asked.  Probably not.  "Will I be able to give the Prez a very stern talking-to after that shameful disaster he just created in Syria?"  Nah, he's in Florida playing golf.  But the White House itself was fabulous -- looked even better than it did on the set of Scandal.  But I didn't get to see Kerry Washington either.  Rats.  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/04/trump-murders-babies-in-syria-wow.html

     Next I went over to the new African-American museum.  I laughed with Moms Mabley, I cried with Malcolm X.  Put this one on your bucket list for sure.  And because most of the museum's visitors were Black themselves, it gave us white guys a true feeling of what it is like to be in a minority -- only without having slave owners and cops always trying to beat us up or segregationists constantly trying to steal our vote.

     Next came the United States Holocaust museum.  There was a holocaust in the United States?  Indeed there was -- somewhere between 13 million and 44 million Native Americans have been victims of genocide.  So far.  And someday I plan to open a Muslim Holocaust museum too.  Already America has been directly or indirectly responsible for the brutal murder of seven million Muslims -- from Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Yugoslavia, etc. all the way across the world to Indonesia and East Timur.  Wherever there is oil, Muslims have been slaughtered.  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/40147-the-us-provided-cover-for-the-saudi-starvation-strategy-in-yemen

     Finally, I took the Metro up to the Phillips Collection and saw original French painters like Monet, Pissarro and Toulouse-Lautrec.  Priceless.

     I wish that I had more time to see all the other DC museums such as the Smithsonian, the natural history museum and the Library of Congress, but I didn't.  But there is always a next time, right?  Or is there?

     If you are an American, I highly recommend that you immediately get your booty on over to Washington DC -- before the K Street boys buy up the whole place and sell it to weapons contractors for target practice, to Monsanto so it can pour Roundup on the cherry blossoms, to developers who will tear down the monuments and replace them with condos, or to Big Pharma so it can drug all us tourists with Oxycontin and Abilify so that we won't even notice all the changes.

PS:  Speaking of American presidents, how come Obama and Trump haven't noticed something very in-you-face obvious about President Assad of Syria?

      In fact, what almost nobody in America seems to grasp is that President Assad has lasted SIX WHOLE YEARS as president of Syria -- while fighting the biggest bullies, baby-killers, despots and torturers on the planet (America, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc.).  HOW has he lasted this long (and, no, it's not just because of Russia who only just recently entered the fight)?  Because he has the people of Syria behind him, watching his back.   Duh.  http://ahtribune.com/us/trump-at-war/1599-end-of-the-empire.html

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"Trump murders babies in Syria!"

     Wow.  That sleazy headline sounds like something that the National Enquirer would make up -- except that it's actually true.

     According to a reliable Syrian news source, President Trump's recent deadly attack on Homs, Syria, resulted in the murder of nine civilians, four of them children.  http://sana.sy/en/?p=103759

     Way to go, Prez!  Or not.

     Now President Trump is right up there with Reagan, Obama, both Bushes and both Clintons -- war criminals all.  And Trump achieved all this butchery in just his first 100 days -- by the 75th day to be exact.  That's gotta be a record.  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/04/i-am-in-shock-right-now-and-apparently.html

     But wait.  It gets worse.  "Murdering babies isn't bad enough already?" you might ask.  Yes and no.

      No, there's nothing worse than murdering babies -- but, yes, Trump has now broken international law.  Shattered it, to be exact.  Nuremberg-style.  According to law professor Amal Saad, in just one Shock-and-Awe moment, President Trump has upgraded the Syrian conflict from a "civil war" to an illegal invasion:

     (1)  The body of law regulating article 2 conflicts is much wider than article 3 conflicts, affording the Syrian government legal protections it didn't previously enjoy.

      (2)  The forces of the Syrian Arab Army will now be treated not only as "lawful combatants" but are also given the "combatant's privilege", "prisoner of war" and "protected persons" status and rights, meaning they can't be tried if they are captured for taking part in hostilities, unlike rebels who are "unlawful combatants" -- even the US-backed ones -- as per Article 3 internal conflicts. 

      (3)  As a "High Contracting Party" to the Conventions, the US is now liable for war crimes too.

      (4)  Any Syrian response to the US attack, or one carried out by Syria and its allies, (Article 51 of the UN Charter permits "collective self-defense") is now legal.

      (5)  Most importantly, the Syrian state is politically legitimized as the legal representative of the Syrian people and its sovereignty recognized.  https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php…

      And, even, worse than all that, Trump has also "fixed the facts around the policy".  President Assad never even used chemical weapons.  The whole WMD thing in Syria, like in Vietnam, East Timur, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya, Yemen, Palestine and Iraq, was just another shameless propaganda stunt, apparently designed to keep America's weapons contractors happy.  http://ahtribune.com/us/trump-at-war/1597-war-on-syria.html

     If President Trump ever decides to look for a new employment opportunity after leaving the White House, I'm sure the National Enquirer would instantly hire him.

PS:  In the year 2000, GWB got the Supreme Court to steal the presidential  election for him.  But our Donald has done Dubya even one better than that --Trump and Friends have just stolen the Supreme Court itself.  What would the National Enquirer say about that!  http://bradblog.com/?p=12096

Me, as a White House insider? Not exactly.

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War on Syria?  Really?

    I am in shock right now (and apparently my computer is too -- it just crashed).  Americans believed the WMD lies about Vietnam, Korea, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, East Timor and God only knows where all else.  And now they are falling for this "war on Syria" crap too?  I am totally disgusted.   And heart-broken for the brave Syrian people who have suffered so much -- and now this load of crap?  Really?

PS:  ISIS attacked Palmyra right after the US airstrike (working together as usual?)

      And they lied about Yemen and Palestine, Afghanistan and Vietnam, Iran and Russia and Ukraine too.  But you won't believe it until your country's next. 

AIPAC & America's "Christian" Right: Legitimizing bigotry

     There are laws in Israel, Europe and America right now that make "antisemitism" a crime.  Here's how it works.  Israelis, Europeans and Americans can now pretty much say any sleazy lowlife thing that they want against Palestinians -- even call them two-legged animals and baby-killers.  But if anyone, even a journalist or a congressperson, objects to this unchecked and bigoted bad-mouthing of said Palestinians, then too bad for them.

     That person is immediately labeled "antisemitic" and is in Big Trouble.

     This one-sided and jankety semantic ploy is a cheap shot and worse than Catch 22.  It's tainted.  It's manipulative propaganda.  It's a hammer that smashes free speech.  It's brilliantly effective.  And the "Christian" Right in America loves it.

     I just attended a conference in Washington DC entitled "The Israel Lobby and American Policy," which focused on the role of AIPAC in American decision-making.  It was an interesting conference with dynamic speakers -- plus I got a blue tote bag and a free lunch.

     "But what is AIPAC?" you might ask.  It is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and, surprisingly, it has more influence in Washington DC than even the weapons lobby or Big Pharma.  AIPAC pretty much owns us. 

     "We get at least one AIPAC lobbyist in our office every single day," one congressman told me.  "Their campaign contributions can make or break us.  And if we vote against AIPAC's interests, then we don't get re-elected.  Period.  Plus we are then labeled antisemitic."

     Israeli professor Ilan Pappe was the keynote speaker at the conference that I attended and he pointed out that blatant bigotry here in America is now being justified by the Israeli neo-colonialists' rabidly bigoted approach to Muslim (and Christian) Palestinians.  And as a result, many members of the so-called Christian Right in America now feel free to be as hateful and bigoted as they want to be.  "If Israel's Chosen People can do it," they rationalize to themselves, "then let's go for it too."

     If anyone makes a sign that says "Muslims are baby killers" then that's okay because AIPAC says so.  But if anyone makes a sign that says "Israelis are baby killers," then that's "antisemitism" and off you go to jail.  But, come on.  Who kills the most babies in the Middle East?  Besides the Americans and Saudis that is?  We all know the answer to that one.  We're just not allowed to say it.  Thank you, AIPAC.  http://21stcenturywire.com/2017/03/28/syria-approaching-the-finishing-line-geopolitical-jockeying-for-position-intensifies/

PS:  And if you really want to shut someone up, just call them pro-Russian.  And there's a reason for that too.  According to Pravda, "For many in the west, Russia has always been a pariah, the danger from the East, enshrined today in political diatribes and sheer, barefaced lies in the media as a powerful 'them' is created to justify the 'us':  NATO."

      America and Europe have to justify spending 1.2 trillion dollars a year on NATO somehow -- so various and sundry enemies are created.  First it was Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria -- and now it's Russia.  https://consortiumnews.com/2016/12/12/us-intel-vets-dispute-russia-hacking-claims/

      "It's kind of like a house full of tablets, laptops and the latest wizzy gadgets with the fastest broadband internet connection -- and inhabited by a 96-year-old spinster who hates the Net and whose electricity is supplied by a mule walking round in a circle out in the yard."  With NATO being that spinster.  http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/politics/03-04-2017/137317-russia_defender_truth-0/
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Donald Trump, America's laxative

      Did you know that the Pentagon (aka "Murder Incorporated") has never been audited?  And that over ten trillion dollars are missing from its budget?  We would never let the Mafia get away with that.

     Did you know that Russia has just invented a new super-missile that can do almost everything but sing the blues?  How could Russia do that?  Because Putin is investing Russia's money in education so it will have scientists who can work smarter not harder.  America, on the other hand, is investing its money on murdering babies in the Middle East -- while our education system here at home only produces more and more dumb Americans.  Shades of Sputnik and 1954.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b_c5SPZfbw

     And then these very same Americans turned around and elected people who would only make their miserable lives even more miserable.  People like Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell -- and Donald Trump.

    At first I too was actually dumb enough to think that Trump actually would "drain the swamp".  But then I realized that yours-truly had just been naive and that Trump was draining the American swamp in the same way that Hurricane Katrina drained New Orleans.   

     Now, however, I actually think that electing President Trump might actually be a good thing after all.  Why?  Because, for far too long, America's guts have been tied up in knots by a blockage caused by mass murder world-wide and massive economic disaster and moral denial here at home.  For the past 60-plus years, America has been economically, politically and morally constipated.  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_nation_of_the_walking_dead_20170402

     And now President Trump has come along and given us all that drastic enema we so badly need.  And now Americans are finally starting to wake up -- and actually starting to feel some actual movement in their intestinal fortitude.  At last!

      Suddenly Americans are starting to realize that their education system sucks eggs, their infrastructure is wobbly at best, their jobs have fled overseas, their democracy is gone, their treasures have all been squandered in order to murder huge numbers of babies in the Middle East -- and that they have been constantly lied to since Franklin Roosevelt died.

      Finally Americans are starting to do something more than just pass gas. 

     Americans are now waking up, becoming unobstructed and starting to demand life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness instead of just more and more butchery and dumbness.  Thank you, Donald Trump!

PS:  Lots of people tell me that Clinton would have been a much better president than Trump.  I beg to disagree.  While Trump has shamelessly thrown us Americans into the deep end of a caustic and toxic swamp where we at least have a chance to swim for our lives before it's too late, Clinton would have let us happily die of a thousand cuts like the proverbial frog who got boiled to death by having its temperature raised degree by degree -- and too late we would have screamed "Ouch!" 

       You don't believe me?  Just go down to Haiti and ask almost anyone what they think of the Clinton Foundation.  http://www.ezilidanto.com/2016/10/quiet-genocide-haiti-behind-humanitarian-front/ 

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books!  http://straitwellbooks.blogspot.com/2016/04/our-top-best-seller-right-now-is-bring.html