Paradise, California: Just another casualty of corporate greed

     Do Latino immigrants really steal all of our jobs?  Are Black people really the source of most crime in America?  No, no and no.  Of course not.  Most of our missing jobs have been stolen by global corporations that are still bedazzled by outsourcing and Reaganomics.  And America's true super-criminals are 99% White.

     After I finished volunteering at a Red Cross shelter in Chico that had efficiently geared up to house hundreds of the survivors of the recent Paradise fire, I went off to wander around Chico itself, a sweet university town famous for its small Craftsman-style homes.

     Near Chico's public library, however, I got distracted from my tour by a toothless skinny seriously scroungy middle-aged dirty-blonde female meth-head who was standing on a street corner and screaming her head off.  I approached her slowly and cautiously -- like one would approach some feral wild animal, actually thinking that I might be of some help. 

     "Were you caught in the Paradise wildfire?" I asked her.  Yes, she was.  Everything gone.  "Then why don't you just stay at the shelter?"  Her eyes rolled around in her head.  I took a step back.  This was obviously none of my business.  She grabbed my arm. 

     "Those bastards threw me out!" she screamed.  And I could definitely understand why.  I handed her a couple of dollars, hoping to buy her off long enough to get out of there -- but she wasn't done yet.  "I used to work in a factory," she rambled, almost starting to calm down.  "Had a really good job too.  Then they moved my [freaking] job overseas."  Ah.  Reaganomics at its finest -- what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine too.

     "I had no place to go.  I moved to Paradise."  Where she apparently started making her living by cooking meth back up in the hills.  Hmmm.  Could a meth-lab explosion have started the Paradise fire, I thought -- kinda taking my eyes off the woman for an instant.  Bad idea.  She immediately started revving up into meth-head mode again.  "And just look at you, bitch!" she cried.  "All warm and comfy in your big puffy jacket and boots.  You don't have a clue what it's like to be me!"  Hey, I gots economic troubles too!  But then she spit at me and I moved on.

     Actually, I ran back into the library and hid in the women's restroom until some mothers with children started giving me strange looks.

     So I borrowed one of the library's computers and googled "Paradise" and "Meth".  Turns out that Paradise wasn't just a sweet little retirement community after all.  It was also the "Meth Capital of California".  That explains a lot.  This woman wasn't the first meth-head I'd seen wandering aimlessly around Chico.  I'd seen lots of them, apparently disgorged by the fire.

https://www.bestplaces.net/comments/viewcomment.aspx?id=A7A5E24D-1B13-4D25-8469-87A8187AFFEB&city=Paradise_CA&p=50655520

     So.  What have I learned?  Other than that I tend to be sort of a wimp around out-of-control meth-heads?  I learned that it wasn't the immigrants who stole our jobs here -- and that it isn't Black people who are the top American criminals.  It is the greedy American corporations who have created the economic mess that we are currently trapped in.  Duh.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc1i-p7G19A

      I also learned that it was the American "privatization" (aka theft) and the American "downsizing" (aka greed) that went on here during the Reagan years that screwed all the rest of us up -- and that these heinous crimes are still going on right here right now.  https://www.sevenstories.com/books/4097-giants

     Apparently the Paradise wildfire has burned down the homes of thousands of its residents, but it has also flushed hundreds of meth-heads out of the hills as well -- the non-urban homeless, the invisible rural economic casualties of American greed.  And I was there too.  It was not a pretty picture.  Americans deserve better than to be cast off like old shoes by the global elites.  But, hell, if they can do that to Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Vietnam and Honduras, they can easily do that to us too -- so stop acting so surprised.   
https://www.mintpressnews.com/decade-long-u-s-campaign-foment-syria-revolution-unseat-assad/227648/

https://www.workers.org/2018/12/24/whats-behind-u-s-troop-withdrawals-announced-for-syria-and-afghanistan/

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

Christmas in Paradise: Visiting the Camp Fire six weeks later

     "But why are they calling this the Camp fire?" I asked an old-timer selling souvenir T-shirts in Chico yesterday.

     "Because it started on Camp Creek..."  Oh.  Of course.  "Plus that will be $20 for the T-shirt."  I plan to take it home and tack it to the door of my disorganized and overstuffed closet -- to remind me that material possessions don't really mean all that much if your whole freaking life is about to be snuffed out.

     Here in Paradise, it's kind of bizarre.  All along the main street, for over two miles, the same pattern is repeated block after block.  Two or three buildings will be standing untouched and yet two or three buildings next to them will be totally destroyed.  The Walgreens, the Big O Tires and the CVS came through with hardly a scratch -- while the McDonalds and the Jack in the Box are totally wiped out.

      I talked to one woman who had lived in Paradise all of her life and had just returned to the sad ruins of her home.  She told me about her own personal experience with the fire.  "We were driving through a wall of flames and the car directly behind us simply exploded.  We watched in horror."  But then it got even worse -- she and her husband had to get out of their car and try to outrun the flames.  "We stopped to help a group of older men and women standing in front of their burning convalescent home.  We flagged down a school bus to help get them to safety -- but it was already too late and once again we watched in horror as even the bus caught fire.  We ran for our lives."  Geez Louise.

     "As you can see, we finally made it out alive -- but just barely.  A truck came by and picked us up."  She showed me a video on her phone but all I could see was fire, a solid wall of fire.  "We were the lucky ones.  We lost everything.  But we are still alive."  I cried.  She cried.  I will never again worry about having too much stuff ever again.  At least I too am alive.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7107ELQvY

     What was I doing up in Paradise?  I went up there to volunteer to help out with the extensive and excellent refugee-relocation program.  But that's a whole other story, one which I am now still absorbing and am still in shock about too.  Maybe I'll write about it after Christmas.  But, hey, at least I still had a Christmas tree, a roast turkey and some eggnog to come home to.

PS:  I am a witness to the recent horror that has befallen the little town of Paradise.  I myself was horrified.  And all of America was horrified too.  And it's even worse when you actually see it up close with your own eyes.

     However.  I have also witnessed this very same type of horror -- of a city mercilessly destroyed -- in other places as well.  Places in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan and Lebanon -- and even in Guatemala, Vietnam, Juarez, North Korea, Honduras, South Dakota and Ukraine.  And yet most Americans don't seem to mind about that.  https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/endless-war-has-been-normalized-and-everyone-is-crazy-9a664c793122

     When these horrors are caused by wildfires or other natural stuff here at home, Americans react in horror, right?  But when similar horrors are caused by American cluster bombs, American armies and/or America's proxy death squads, mercenaries and al Qaeda "rebels"?  Nobody in America seems to mind.  https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/12/09/the-largest-conspiracy-theory-peddlers-are-msm-and-the-us-state-department/

      And yet, just like the American victims of the Paradise fire never asked for these horrors, the tragic victims of America's "wars" never asked the United States and its allies to come clean out their closets either.
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

Donald Trump: We've got an 8-year-old brat in the White House

     When you were a kid, did you ever dream about being able to fly?  Or that you were The Hulk or The Avenger -- or even PacMan?

     Power Ranger?  Flash Gordon?  Wonder Woman?  Crusader Rabbit?

     When you were a kid, did you ever dream that you were all-powerful, possessed a death-ray, was unstoppable and could do any freaking thing that you want?  Well, guess what?  Once he became president, Donald Trump started acting like even his wildest childhood dreams had come true.  Now every single day is Christmas Day at the White House for him -- all year long.  Now he gets to be the center of attention, just like some little kid.  Fantasy time!

     What would I myself do if I had super-powers like that?  I'd do what Supergirl or Red Sonja did and bring Truth and Justice to the world -- not just act like The Joker or Poison Ivy.  But "Holy Nightmare!"  Trump is acting more like a super-villain than like Super Mario these days.  Plus didn't we just sort of hope to elect an adult to the White House?

     Somebody needs to give Trump a time-out for acting like such a cruel and hateful brat.  His mother shoulda raised him better.

     But on the other hand, what about the real adults who truly do run our world?  The ones who actually do pull the strings and make Trump's weird Howdy Doody/Muppet show actually happen?  The 30-odd guys who always seem to show up on the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Economic Forum at Davos, J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, BlackRock, the World Bank, various federal reserves, the Atlantic Council and the IMF?

     These guys are the world's truly evil mean villains who we should be on guard against -- not just some stupid mean cosplay kid named Trump who avidly copies their disguises.  These guys don't just pull wings off butterflies or murder helpless children from Honduras.  The real adults who truly run our world?  They will do anything for money.  Anything.  And that's even more scary than having a mean 8-year-old playing dress-up in the White House.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

You better watch out: Santa's list of injustices is really long this year

     Up at the North Pole, not much is going on right now.  Even the elves are on strike.  "Looks like nobody's going to get any toys this year," Santa says with a frown.  And he's not even baking chocolate-chip cookies either.  It's that bad.  What's up, Santa?  "Everyone has been super-naughty during 2018 -- and not just only the kids.  I'm disgusted."

     Here's Santa's "naughty" list for this year:

1.  First off, there's always Palestine -- still a gigantic festering wound of injustice that's landed Israel on the Naughty List continuously for the past 70 miserable years.  It's a good thing that Netanyahu doesn't believe in Santa because all he's gonna get in his stocking this year is coal, phish and spam.  Santa doesn't care what religion Bibi pretends to represent.  After the horrors of Jenin and the horrors of Gaza?  Netanyahu has proved time and again that he honors no religion at all -- except possibly for the worship of Mammon.  "Don't mess with The Claus!"  https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/12/09/the-largest-conspiracy-theory-peddlers-are-msm-and-the-us-state-department/

2.  Next there are all those stolen American elections.  You evil vote-stealers are not getting on the "Nice" list this year!  O'Rourke shoulda won in Texas.  Abrams shoulda won in Georgia.  Gillum shoulda won in Florida.  Hell, even Gore, Kerry and Bernie Sanders shoulda won the freaking White House.  And Israel and the Saudis had their hands in the electoral cookie jar too.  But who, exactly, can Santa appeal to?  The Supreme Court?  Don't make him laugh.  Move along, folks, no bowl full of jelly here.  There is nothing "Nice" going on at the Supreme Court.  In America, the Rule of Law is pretty much screwed.  https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2018/11/ted-cruz-election-fraud-leopards-dont.html

3.  Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya and Bethlehem?  No wise men on camels will be involved there.  And no one will be dropping down any chimneys in the Middle East either -- because there are hardly any chimneys left over there to drop down in, thanks to Lockheed-Martin, Exxon and BlackRock.  So the Pentagon, the CIA, Congress and the White House will get no visit from Rudolph this year.  https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

4.  Latin America, Africa and Asia?  The injustices committed here are way beyond "Naughty".  Santa is extremely unhappy about this -- and so is his Boss.  "Jesus Christ!"  https://theintercept.com/2018/12/01/u-s-military-says-it-has-a-light-footprint-in-africa-these-documents-show-a-vast-network-of-bases/

5.  Up at Standing Rock and Pine Ridge and down in Tijuana, Tomillo and the Amazon -- everyone gets toys.  Leonard Peltier will be getting a bright shiny fire truck to warm up his cold prison cell.  Big Oil, Big Polluters, Big Pharma and Big Banksters get nothing.  It is better to give than to steal.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2168963039841348/

6.  And then there are all the American homeless, all the American children living in cars, all the American slaves of the prison-industrial complex, all the American victims of hurricanes, wildfires and other climate catastrophes -- and all of America's many other society castoffs.  Black lives really do matter.  "Harrumph," says Santa.  "There's no excuse for those corporate bastards to be all this naughty when there is clearly more than enough food, clothing, jobs, shelter and toys to go around in order to protect, nurture and love every single person in America -- and even in this whole world."  Not only just that child in the manger.

     Santa is truly pissed off this year.

     You should be too.

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

The G20's end-game: Destroy humanity then buy a bunker? Seriously?

     Holy cow, it clearly sucks eggs to be a Honduran refugee in Tijuana these days.  What the freak do they possibly have to look forward to?  And, good grief, how I would hate to spend my short miserable life scrounging for blood diamonds in Africa right now.  Or being a starving two-year-old living under the Saudi cross-hairs in Yemen?  Who the freak would want to do that?  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2007/09/africa-worlds-largest-refugee-camp-with.html 

     Or I'd even hate to be one of those poor unfortunate souls currently going to Harvard on a student loan.  What kind of shite-show future do they have in store?

     But worst of all, I would truly hate to be a card-carrying member of the G20.  Those people gots no future at all.

     "But, Jane," you might say, "those guys all stay in twelve-star hotels, live on steak and truffles and have French maids to wipe them after they poop.  They are wealthy beyond belief."

     Too true.

     But what exactly is their fabulous wealth actually based on?  War-profiteering?  Price-gouging?  Stock-market ponzi-schemes?  Stealing lunch money form school children?  Nah.  The bottom line for these guys is that their eye-popping wealthiness ultimately comes from only one thing.  "Interest rates."

     These blind fools have all become slaves to interest rates. 

     If something pays a high rate of interest, then they will always cling to it like Saran Wrap -- never ever ever ever considering if there are moral costs too.  They will never let go of collecting student-loan debts.  They will never let go of permanent "war".  They will never let go of receiving government bailouts, creating pollution, drug and human trafficking, "eminent domain," fond memories of that wonderful 2008 housing crash, hopes for the next huge economic crash about to hit us, big-box stores paying slave wages, privatization, 9-11, whatever.  If it creates interest, go for it.

     Even if the G20's latest interest-creating gambit destroys the world?  Nuclear explosions?  Genocide?  Rampant wildfires?  Chainsaws?  Sure.  Why not.  These guys can always earn interest by selling new and better bunkers to each other.

     But here's a word of advice.  "You need to get over yourselves, G20."  Yours is just not a viable plan.  Your insatiable vampire-like lust for interest-rate payback is gonna murder the rest of us for sure.  And sadly it will also strangle you in the process too -- down there in your well-guarded, well-stocked and elegantly glorified tombs.
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

Hey, Mueller! Look over THERE!

     Election theft is on the rise in America, that's for sure.  But Robert Mueller is definitely looking in all the wrong places.  "Psst, Bob...."

     How come Mueller never seems to notice all those huge vote thefts in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas?  Most Americans know who stole them (or at least we should know).  And the villains, idiots, creeps and greedy bastards elected as a result of all this vote theft clearly in favor of Republicans (GWB for instance and Trump...)?  They have cost Americans approximately twenty-one trillion dollars -- so far.  Betcha Putin never had his hand shoved that far into the American cookie jar.  https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2018/11/ted-cruz-election-fraud-leopards-dont.html

      Then there's the Saudis.  "Hey, Mueller, lookie here."  The Saudis are absolutely rolling in moola.  And they spend their money wisely -- buying America out.  Trump knows this, Robert.  And so did Reagan both Bushes, Obama and both Clintons too.  So why don't you? 
https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/13535/analysis-glasgow-berlin-how-strikes-mutinies-and-revolutions-ended-ww1

     And of course we all love to hate Putin.  But seriously?  Who is the real election thief here (besides of course Anton Scalia)?  Why it's Trump's new BFF, Bibi Netanyahu.  "Mueller, why aren't you going after him?"  Why indeed.  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2017/04/aipac-americas-christian-right.html

     Putin is easy pickings -- but clearly nobody here has the cajones to mess with the real election thieves.  "Republicans, Israel and Saudi Arabia."  You heard it here first, Bob.  And, sadly, you heard it here last as well.  Bibi, MbS and the GOP ain't never gonna go to jail.  Why?  Because they have simply stolen too many votes.  They own America now.  To the victors go the spoils.
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

Human extinction: Not with a bang but a sore throat...

     I just got a small taste of what it's gonna be like here on Planet Earth in the year 2028 -- and, frankly, it scared the holy crap out of me.  "So.  What happened," you might ask.  Long story.

     First of all, a massive curtain of toxic smoke from that huge NorCal wildfires slowly descended on my own hometown recently.  We all struggled around in gas masks and it became rather hard to breathe.

     Next I foolishly started thinking, "What's a little haze in the air?  I'm young.  I'm strong.  I don't need no stinking gas masks."  Ha.

     And then I got a horrible sore throat.  My eyes watered.  My nose ran.  I constantly coughed.  I took to my bed.  I truly thought that I was going to die.

     But I didn't.

     But I could have.

     And that, dear readers, was my own personal sneak-preview experience of what death by climate catastrophe will be like in the year 2028.

     Your experience could be different, of course.  You could freeze to death -- or drown in a flood or get hit by a tornado.  But for most of us?  It will be one long, painful and ignominious Death by Sore Throat.

PS:  And what will be the main cause of this massive human-extinction event?  No, it won't be because you or I didn't drive a Prius or because we forgot to recycle or even because we took too many jet plane rides on vacation.

     No, Extinction '28 will be mostly caused by all those petty little "wars" that our idiot leaders in Washington DC, London, Tel Aviv and Saudi Arabia are so very fond of.  https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/12/01/if-you-murdered-a-bunch-of-people-mass-murder-is-your-single-defining-legacy/

     Their constant and heartless mega-bombing of Yemen not only murders school children in Sanaa but it also is murdering us too -- only slower.  https://theintercept.com/2018/12/01/u-s-military-says-it-has-a-light-footprint-in-africa-these-documents-show-a-vast-network-of-bases/

     Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Palestine, Gaza, Ferguson....  Every single bomb dropped, every single tank on the ground and every single F16 in the air brings all of us just that much closer to Extinction 2028. 
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM 

Eyewitness Juarez: There's no "You break it, you buy it" policy here

     "Oops, here comes the Americans!  Hide all the breakables!  Quick!"  Sorry.  Too late.  https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-million-people-in-37-victim-nations-since-world-war-ii/5492051

     Like a bull in a china shop, rampaging American industrialists have systematically shattered the infrastructure, culture and well-being of almost every single country on the planet in the past 100 years -- including even America itself.  From Afghanistan to Zaire, whenever American industrialists come knocking at the door, a cry of warning immediately goes out.  "Hide the good silver!  Bury the Wedgwood!  Sell the Spode!  The Americans are here!"

    Unlike what happens at Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, however, when American industrialists get done smashing everything in sight, there is no "You break it, you buy it" policy for Wall Street and War Street.  They just walk out the door scot-free -- leaving incredible chaos in their wake.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSqm2FmCdA0

     But I digress here.  A little bit.

     And yet even after our bulls-on-steroids American industrialists have systematically, deliberately and viciously broken all the Royal Doulton china in Honduras for decades on end, US citizens actually seem surprised, outraged and amazed that Hondurans are coming up here in search of what is left of their broken treasures. 

     Even in the face of this hard truth, Americans have actually started whining when they are being asked to pick up all the shards that they themselves broke.  "We didn't do it!" Americans cry.  "Somebody else did it!  Not me."  Yeah right.  https://news.vice.com/en_ca/article/kzpabe/the-us-is-propping-up-a-dictatorship-in-honduras

      And here in Juarez, I can clearly see the tragic results of all these many decades of bully-ish American behavior in Honduras.  Over a hundred asylum seekers have lined up here at the US-Mexico border, patiently waiting to get access to what had been originally their good china before America broke it. 

      It brought tears to my eyes as I walked by the asylum seekers each day, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, day after day, on my way back to El Paso.  "How long have you been waiting," I asked one man at the head of the line.

     "Over a week." 

     "But where do you go to the bathroom," I wondered.

      "There is a restroom back there...."  And then a Mexican priest walked by pushing a small cart, offering the asylum seekers water and bologna sandwiches.  Women and children waited patiently for their turn.  I tried not to cry.

     "Is anyone at all being let through?" I asked next. 

     "13 people were allowed into the United States last night."  And yet, once they get inside our allegorical "mighty woman with a torch," asylum seekers are then jailed, their children are kidnapped and they are treated like dirt -- like they, not the Americans, had rampaged the Honduran china shop.  And yet, perhaps even this brutal concentration-camp life in the US might be better than the infernal Hell that American industrialists have gleefully created in Honduras.  Wall Street and War Street -- hope they never come to my home town too.

    One American Border Patrol guy actually told me, "These people have no skills and we don't even know what kind of people they are.  They could be gangsters and crooks for all we know."

     I of course couldn't manage to keep my mouth shut and replied, "These are highly skilled people.  They know how to build homes, fix cars and take care of our children.  Plus Trump is always bragging about all the new jobs he has created and how we need lots of new employees to do these jobs -- so jobs are not a problem according to the prez himself.  But even more important, how can these people possibly be bigger crooks than we now have in Washington DC!"  And then I scooted past him just as fast as I could because I didn't want to end up in a concentration camp too.  Whew. 

     The fourth time I crossed over into Juarez, however, I planned to visit the big mercado at the cathedral plaza and buy dozens of oranges to give to the refugees.  But the asylum seekers were all gone!  Oh no!  "Where did they go!"

      "The Federales came and got them," said my new shopkeeper friend after I had bought a couple of his T-shirts.  Oh dear.  "They came for them with buses and took them to a nearby auditorium."  That's bad.  "No, that's good.  The Federales fed them and cared for them and helped them and worried about them -- because tonight it is supposed to be very very cold."  Now why can't good "Christian" Americans do that too?

     Isn't it ironic that Mexico, feral Mexico, is currently gaining a Good Samaritan reputation for helping people out (as strongly recommended by Jesus) -- whereas "Christian" America's reputation as the world's "Great Satan" just keeps growing and growing and growing.

PS:  I attended a recent book talk by journalist Peter Phillips.  His new book, Giants, lists the names and info of the 389 people who run this world.  Nothing happens on this planet without their consent.  And they are all greedy and heartless capitalists -- running a Ponzi scheme on the rest of us.  https://www.projectcensored.org/product/giants-the-global-power-elite/

     "Almost the only way they can earn interest on their money these days is to continuously instigate small wars," said Phillips.  Not big ones.  Big "wars" would murder too many consumers.  So only small "wars" will do (hopefully).  Does this mean that all those women and children slaughtered in Syria and Iraq and Yemen and Afghanistan and Libya -- and Honduras -- are just smoke-and-mirror tricks to keep stock markets afloat?  And their lives have no value to American industrialists because they do not consume enough?  That's discouraging thought.  Will they blow me up too if I don't promise to consume enough?  https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-permanent-war-complex/

     These 387 men (and two women) who now own us -- lock, stock, crate and barrel?  They are morally rotten.  And the rest of us appear to be morally rotten too -- or else morally screwed.  Is this truly how we want the human race to be remembered?   
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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

 

El Paso & Juarez: My tale of two cities

     When you were a kid, did you ever color Easter eggs?  And put the yellow egg into the red die in order to watch it turn orange?  That's pretty much like what has happened here in El Paso in the past 200 years.  Two different cultures have been mixed together here -- and magically turned into an interesting, viable and delightful third one.

     Back in the day, El Paso used to be a Mexican town.  Then it became an American town -- and now it is a happy blend of the best of both.  El Paso is a success because of (not despite of) its cultural diversity.  Please bear this in mind.

     But what about Juarez?  I was about to find out.

     "Don't go there.  It's dangerous!" I was told by a bunch of people who had never been there.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFnxvWgX73Y

     "Piddle-tish," as my father used to say.  Juarez is only a ten-minute walk from where I was staying in downtown El Paso.  I just walked over a bridge, paid a 25-cent bridge toll and Voila!  I was suddenly in Juarez.

     And perfectly safe.

     First I went to Juarez's cathedral, an excellent example of centuries-old colonial architecture.  Then I went to the new, modern and excellent "Frontera" museum.  Then I bought a Juarez T-shirt, visited a curandero, ate an ice cream cone and bought another T-shirt with a picture of Pancho Villa on the front -- and several tiny bottles of tequila to bring home to my friends.  https://lesblank.com/films/chulas-fronteras-1976/

     "What happened here that caused all this change," I asked one of the shopkeepers.  "How come it's not dangerous here any more?" 

     Apparently the Federales finally woke up, got their arses in gear, wiped out a whole serpent's nest full of drug cartels and stopped all that gun-running from America (aka the "War on Drugs").  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbZ3VdYb90o

     And BTW why aren't our own Federal troops waking up too -- and helping Americans to recover from those gut-wrenching, heartbreaking and terrible wildfires in California?  Instead of just wasting their time sitting around waiting to torment poor harmless asylum-seekers?  https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/donald-trump-the-migrant-caravan-and-a-manufactured-crisis-at-the-us-border

     "But how do the people of Juarez support themselves?" I asked next.

     "We have about 400 macheadoras -- factories -- here along the border, employing over 5,000 people.  Plus we grow fine-quality cotton here that is picked by hand.  It is in great demand in Saudi Arabia.  We fly it straight there."  Who knew.

     I loved Juarez.  I walked back over there four different times.  And I have the T-shirts to prove it.

     And I loved El Paso as well.  Cultural diversity has really spiced El Paso up.  Too bad that so much of the rest of America is missing out on this treat.

PS:  Bob Dylan wrote a song about Juarez that I can't seem to stop humming.  Marty Robbins wrote a song about El Paso too.  Here they both are, thanks to YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcRNSHqiH7A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UVVS5-9HvA

PPS:  Juarez has all the delightful energy and flavor that we all love to go to Mexico for -- except it only costs 25 cents to get here.  You don't have to drop a bundle of $$$ on air fare to get your hit of Mexican wonderfulness.  Just pay 25 cents and walk across a bridge. 

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM

Ted Cruz & election fraud: Leopards don't change their spots

     People may think that I don't like the Republican Party -- but actually I really am quite a big fan.  Why?  Because the GOP changed my whole life!  Have you ever experienced that special "Come to Jesus" moment when suddenly that new path that your life needs to take suddenly becomes crystal clear?  I have.  And I owe my entire "Road to Damascus" experience to Republicans.

     Remember when George W. Bush stole the 2000 presidential election (we coulda had Al Gore, avoided 9-11 and not lost the "war" on Iraq if only more Americans had protested this fraud)?  That is how I became one of the world's first bloggers -- because those dirty election-stealing Repugs actually got me that pissed off.  And I currently have over two thousand blog-post articles to prove it.  Thank you, Repugs!  http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2004/12/

     And now, 18 years later, the Republicans are still pissing me off -- and they are still out there stealing our elections as well. 

     So?  What's my point here?  Let's just take a look at the logic involved in the recent Senate race in Texas to see where I'm going with this.  Beto O'Rourke is an honest likable candidate, a third-generation Texan with a proven track record and a fabulous grassroots campaigner.  Ted Cruz looks and acts like Count Chocula, represents the worse interests of Texans, takes millions in Wall Street PAC money, runs a dirty campaign and has a dismal record of being in the pockets of every single lobbyist in DC that you would ever want to hate.  Yet Ted Cruz "won" the election.  What's wrong with this picture?

     I simply don't know how Cruz managed to pull off a win.  But knowing the history of Republican election "wins" like I do, there has to be some sort of hanky-panky going on.  Leopards just don't change their spots.

     Listed below are some of my more popular theories about what happened in Texas on November 6, 2018:

1.  Cruz flat-out flipped the vote.  Easy to do.  We already know that Dallas County was using illegal wi-fi equipment on election premises -- the easier to hack voting machines with.  Plus Dallas County's voting chaos on election day looked like something designed by SNL.  https://truthout.org/articles/new-evidence-shows-texas-senate-race-is-vulnerable-to-manipulation/

2.  ES&S voting machines were involved in this election -- always a bad sign.  They are totally hackable.  So easy that even Sheldon Adelson, some unnamed Saudi prince or a 12-year-old kid with a modem can figure it out.  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html

3.  Lies.  Cruz's attack ads were horrendous.  I would be embarrassed to see children watching these ads.  Ugly lies.  And Cruz also lied about himself.  "Tough for Texans"?  Ha.  More like "Tough on Texans -- but easy on Ted's bank account".  The guy used to be a DC lobbyist before he suddenly became a "populist".  You do the math.  https://theintercept.com/2018/10/01/ted-cruz-lobbyist-google/

4.  This one is my favorite -- and you heard it here first.  I think.  Beto had thousands of volunteers working on his campaign.  School teachers, librarians, millennials, retiree, me.  There were thousands of us.  Cruz only had 18 (eighteen) paid staff members working for him.

     "So how did he run his campaign?" you might ask.  He didn't.  Governor Greg Abbott ran it for him.  Wha?

     Did Cruz and Abbott criminally break the law by using Texas state funds, employees, time and money to try to elect Cruz?  Most likely.  We already know that Republicans, like petulant two-year-olds, simply cannot resist temptation when it comes to getting their own way.  But isn't something like that criminally illegal?  And isn't anybody but me gonna ask any questions about that?

5.  Texas presumes to be a Christian state, right?  So no Texan who has ever read (and understood) the Bible and who wants to be a good Christian would ever even think about voting for Cruz -- whose Golden Rule seems to be, "What's mine is mine.  And what's yours is mine too."  So if no true Christians voted for Ted, then who did?  What would Jesus do?  Chase the money-changers out of the voting booth!

6.  How come so many people voted down-ballot for Democrats but still chose to vote up-ballot for Cruz?  It just doesn't make sense unless the voting machines were hacked.  Something Baskerville-ish is going on here, Watson.  The game is afoot.  And apparently the dice are loaded too.  https://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2018/11/how-come-beto-suddenly-lost-there-we.html

7.  Cruz used to be a professional lobbyist.  His whole freaking job used to be to manipulate the will of the American people to do his own bidding.  Why would he stop now -- now, when he so desperately wants to get his hands into the Senate cookie jar (again)?

      So.  Let's review.  Did Cruz actually steal the 2018 Texas senate election or not?  I think yes. 

     Republicans have proven time and again that they just can't resist the temptation to tamper with our American election process.  Putin is being wrongly accused of hacking our vote.  The Republicans did it!  Again and again and again.  So why would Cruz and his Repug pals change their spots now?  There was just too much to lose.  "Some will rob you with a six-gun, some with a fountain pen...."  http://www.sovereigncanadian.com/music/woody-guthrie-pretty-boy-floyd/

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Stop Wall Street and War Street from destroying our world.   And while you're at it, please buy my books.  https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Stillwater/e/B00IW6O1RM