Author Archives: vltreude

Time to Abolish Reality?

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cinny-bun-system

I’m a writer of fiction, which means I spend a lot of time inventing scenarios that aren’t real. I also like to think that I’m good at distinguishing an actual news stories from a hoax. Occasionally I’m fooled, because reality itself has become strange – such as the story of a kid being expelled from school for doing PHP, which the administrators didn’t realize was a programming language. Thankfully, that was a hoax. Two days ago, for the first time, I was taken in by a story that appeared to be straight out of The Onion, but was actually real.

It appeared on Alex Jones’ infowars.com, a site well known for conspiracy theories and making innocuous events seem menacing. The headline was “Trannies want you to say ‘birthing individuals’ instead of ‘pregnant women.’” The gist of the article was that LGBT activists had persuaded the Midwives Alliance of North America to adopt politically correct language (such as ‘pregnant people’ instead of ‘mothers’) on their website. A group of midwives complained about this in an open letter, and a transsexual activist in turn accused them of ‘trans hatred.’

I was flabbergasted to discover the story was no exaggeration, but 100% real. The MANA website does indeed contain this bizarre PC language, and I quickly found a post by Trevor MacDonald on the Huff Post Parents blog, called “Transphobia in the Midwifery Community.” Mr. MacDonald, as a parent, don’t you have better things to do?

Being a conspiracy buff, I tend to see everything as connected. Mr MacDonald’s rantings bring to mind one of my favorite topics, magical thinking. Perhaps because we humans are the only animals with language, we ascribe to it more power than it actually has. This is why the ancient Hebrews considered the ‘name of God’ to have immense power; thus they mandated death by stoning for anyone uttering it casually. Likewise, Muslims see the Koran as being more than the message contained on its pages; therefore its ‘desecration’ will provoke violent protests. Millions of people seem to live in a Harry Potter world, where uttering the name ‘Voldemort’ will bring the Dark Lord to their door.

Such beliefs aren’t confined to the religious. Our society is awash with secular ‘social justice’ activists who flip out over mere words. Conservatives see this as the influence of Antonio Gramsci, a Marxist theorist who advocated promoting revolution by attacking the cultural foundations of society. That may be so, however, I blame the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

Sapir and Whorf were two linguists who never actually collaborated. Their ‘hypothesis’ is the idea of linguistic relativity, that a language determines the way its speakers experience the world. Benjamin Whorf is best known for his study of the Hopi language, in which he speculated that its lack of past tense verbs influenced the way its speakers experienced time. This idea was all the rage in the psychedelic 1960’s. It was the basis for Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, in which the lone survivor of a Mars expedition is discovered, having been raised by the spirits of deceased Martians. His knowledge of the Martian language gives him a special view of the universe, as well as psychic powers. As much as I enjoyed the book, it was, alas, fiction. Even Whorf’s theories appear to have fallen out of favor in the linguistic community.

In other words, though language may influence our view of the world, it can’t change reality. Wishing for something won’t make it so. Even surgery can’t change biology. Woman can have babies; men can’t. If the facts of life intrude on someone’s fragile self-concept, that’s unfortunate.

Transsexuals have more serious issues to confront than ‘transphobic’ speech. A 2013 survey found straight Americans to be more accepting of gays and lesbians that they are of transsexuals. Perhaps it’s squeamishness; the thought of a man having his genitalia removed makes many of us cringe. Despite having these feelings myself, I support transsexuals in their personal struggles.The transsexuals I’ve met seem to just want to be accepted for who they are.

On the other hand, if I were an evil doctor bent on destroying the LGBT movement, I would secretly promote the social justice warrior mentality. Nothing scares the straight world more than outsiders who want to ‘corrupt’ their children and forcibly change their lifestyles. This is why Americans perceive ISIS/ISIL as such a threat, and why many people suspect it to a gigantic psy-op – evil, murderous and barbaric, but a psy-op nonetheless.

Yes, I support the LGBT community’s quest for acceptance and equality. But attacking the straight world for being straight is not the way to accomplish that.

Illustration is “Cinny Bun System” by Thunder Falcon on publicdomainpictures.net.

 

Linux Art Tools for the Talented (and untalented)

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PenguinKB

The movie Naked Lunch would not have been nearly so dark if, instead of turning into a cockroach, the protagonist’s typewriter would have turned into an adorable penguin. So in honor of the second installment in my Linux posts, which deals with image manipulation programs, I decided to create one. Unfortunately, due to my lack of artistic talent, it ended up looking more like penguin roadkill than anything – but you get the idea.

For what it’s worth, I did the attached illustration with the GIMP, an open-source image editing program similar to Photoshop, without the hefty price tag. The name is an acronym, GNU Image Manipulation Program. (The word “Gnu,” which you’ll see applied to a lot of things Linux, stands for “Gnu is Not Unix,: a bit of computer geek humor.) Like many of these open-source programs, it has versions for Windows and MacOS as well as Linux. The GIMP has a steep learning curve, but you don’t need a manual, just Google. There are thousands of fellow GIMP users out there who are more than willing to help you. Like any serious imaging program, it lets you work with layers and transparency. I have used GIMP for finalizing the cover art for my last two books. Once the artist has completed the illustrations, I use it to add the title and author name, the back cover blurb, and the lettering on the spine. GIMP saves images to its own format, XCF, but you can export things as PNG, JPG, and all other major formats. When I imported the Fidelio cover art from a Photoshop file; it wouldn’t display correctly, but I was still able to extract the layers and paste them into a new document. All in all, the GIMP is a very powerful program.

Inkscape is another image program I’ve recently started using. Unlike GIMP, it’s not a photo editor but a vector drawing program. It’s more equivalent to Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. Vectors are not fixed-size pixel drawings; rather they’re abstract mathematical objects that can be scaled up or down with ease. I’ve got a lot of experience with the latter because I use it in my day job to create files for our laser engraver. Therefore I was looking for an equivalent program I could use on Linux. The first thing I tried was to import a Corel Draw file. It was only partially successful, as the “hairline” (zero width) vectors did not come across. It does far better if you export from Corel to SVG format. Inkscape does, however, have its own hairline vectors, a necessity for drawing “cut” lines for the laser. As with the GIMP, Inkscape also has versions for Windows and MacOS.

In the Linux world, one of the paradigms seems to be, why use an existing application when you can create your own? Consequently there are many open-source graphics programs to choose from. The ones I mentioned above are the ones I use the majority of the time. However, I can’t neglect mentioning a handy little program called xfce4-screenshooter, which in Ubuntu Linux pops up every time to press the Print Screen Key. It shows a thumbnail of your screen image, and gives you the option of saving it, copying it to the clipboard, opening it in a graphics viewer or editor, or posting it to ZimageZ, a free hosting site for images and photo galleries.

Penguin photo from publicdomainpictures.net.

 

Emperor Penguin of the Arts

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PenguinArts

I think it’s safe to say that the days when few people had heard of Linux (and its Penguin mascot Tux, as shown above) are over. It still has a “for nerds only” reputation, which I would like to dispel. Over the years this free, open-source operating system has been adapted to run on almost every kind of hardware for just about every purpose. It’s now full of excellent tools for writers and artists, and musicians to the point where it can challenge Mac for the crown of the creative persons’ preferred OS.

I’ve been using Linux since the early 1990’s, not long after uber-hacker Linus Torvalds first created it, deriving it from AT&T’s powerful and versatile Unix operating system. At that time, it was a place where only true techies dared venture. Over the years Linux has evolved from an engineer’s toy to a tool friendly enough to be used by the masses. Though you won’t see it advertised on product packaging, Linux integrates easily with a wide range of hardware: everything I need to interface with my PC, from Android phones to MIDI keyboards.

Unlike commercial systems like Microsoft Windows, developers don’t need anyone’s permission to create their own distributions (or “distros”) of Linux. There are many, and I’ve tried most of them, but settled on Ubuntu, currently one of the easiest distros to install, maintain and use. (The name is a Bantu word meaning “human kindness.”) Ubuntu is available for free download from ubuntu.com, though the site requests a modest donation to fund further development. Like all open-source projects, they also depend on the help of volunteer developers and testers to create these amazing projects.

Recently, though, another distro has become my favorite – Ubuntu Studio, available from ubuntostudio.org. Studio is a modified version of Ubuntu that comes pre-loaded with many tools (also free) that are useful for writers, artists and musicians. Though not all of my favorite programs are pre-loaded, most are easy to get, with an amazing tool called “apt.” Apt helps you find these applications on the Internet, and automates their download and installation. Another reason I prefer the Studio version is that it uses the older desktop-icon based user interface. The mainstream Ubuntu distro looks and feels somewhat like Windows 8, which I find rather annoying. As with most Linux distros, Ubuntu works on all Windows-compatible PC’s. The installer includes a tool that allow the user to shrink the Windows partition on their disk drive, so that a Linux partition can be installed alongside. When the computer starts up, it displays a start-up menu from which one can choose either Linux or Windows.

In the following posts I’ll detail some of the programs I use on Ubuntu in my creative endeavors. In compiling the list, I realized it was far too long for one post. For now, for the sake of those who fear they’d miss their Microsoft Office if they switched over, I’ll briefly mention the application that I’m using to created and edit this article.

Open Office and Libre Office are two versions of a free, open-source office suite similar to Microsoft Office, but not as gratuitously complicated. They provide excellent replacements for Word, Excel, and Power Point, which I use on a daily basis. These programs can inter-operate with MS Office by exporting Microsoft formats such as “doc” and “xls.” (The version I’m using can’t output the newer formats, such as docx and xlsx, but it can read and convert them.) Open Office (available from openoffice.org) is the original, which I prefer because I’m familiar with it. Libre Office, which now comes standard on most Linux distros, was split off from Open Office by members of the original development team, but has a similar feature set and interface. By the way, these programs are, like many other open source applications, have available versions for Windows and MacOS.

As I anticipated, this post has gotten plenty long. Next week we’ll discuss free graphic application that are just as powerful as Adobe’s pricey products Photoshop and Illustrator.

 

Fidelio’s Automata is now in print!

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To prove this site is not just about sedition, but sci-fi as well, I’m announcing the release of the print edition of my new book Fidelio’s Automata, To celebrate, I’m having a sale on Amazon. The e-book versions of Fidelio, as well as my previous book Centrifugal Force, will be available for $0.99, starting Sunday for four days only!

Many of the low-priced books on Amazon are not much more than pamphlets, for which 99 cents is an appropriate price. Less than a buck is a real bargain for a 300-page steampunk adventure. Escape to the America of 1901 – an exciting time when technology was transforming the world. It was the era of the innovators: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers, and many others. As one would expect from the genre, in this alternate history things turn out a bit differently.

Fidelio Espinoza, a brilliant and idealistic young Cuban, arrives in the United States with the goal of perfecting his spider automaton, a machine that will free humans from the dangerous, backbreaking work of mines and factories. Here he meets Hank, a cowboy turned Quaker who has vowed to atone for his sinful past, in particular, his participation in the recent war with Spain.

Despite all the progress and social upheaval of the Gilded Age, this is a time when Fidelio, a gay man, must hide his true nature or risk ostracism or worse. For the devout Hank their friendship poses a dilemma: should he respond with judgment or acceptance?

After a prototype of Fidelio’s creation falls into the wrong hands, he and Hank join forces with eccentric genius Nikola Tesla to prevent this creation from being used in the service of oppression.

What’s all this fuss about Net Neutrality?

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Hail, hail, the FCC has just enacted Net Neutrality. What is that? Techno-geek types have been concerned for some time about service providers’ plans to charge different rates for different levels of Internet service. The reason is that some applications – HDTV for example – require a very high bandwidth. Some people opposed such differential rates, out of fear that the big players, for example digital content providers like Hulu and Netflix, will hog all the bandwidth, leaving smaller providers out in the cold.

I feel this fear is misguided, for several reasons. Internet bandwidth is not a fixed-sized pie. It’s been steadily increasing with demand, and it will continue to do so. As long is there is competition, the little guy won’t get squeezed out. My bigger concern is about the customer’s connection, the so-called “last mile.” Competition is an issue here, because of state and local governments’ encouragement of telephone and cable monopolies. Many of us have only have three choices – phone, cable, and satellite, and I’ve seen tons of online complaints about the billing practices of Dish Network. City-run wifi networks might help somewhat, but any subsidized service could undercut private providers and become a monopoly, a problem I’ll address later.

As far as the FCC regulation, it’s unlikely to address the problem, even if there is one. That’s because of a phenomenon call regulatory capture – the industry ends up controlling the regulatory agencies. Corruption is one cause, but the biggest reason is that no one knows an industry better than the companies themselves. People often bounce between the corporations and the agencies that supposedly control them. Secondly, regulation costs money, and will undoubtedly increase the cause of our service. Thirdly, why do we need 300 pages of regulation? As usual, the government doesn’t want the public to see the rules until they’re implemented.

The other issue with net neutrality is the allegation, mostly by conservatives and libertarians (see Alex Jones’ infowars.com) that the FCC is doing this as part of a plan to regulate content, which will eventually lead to censorship and licensing of websites. I agree that classifying the Net as a “public utility” sets a bad precedent, but I don’t see the threat as imminent. Censorship will likely come from other directions, such as the un-PATRIOT-ic ACT or “hate crimes” legislation, Furthermore, if city governments take over the “last mile” via public wifi networks, they will be tempted to impose their propagandistic agendas on their citizen customers.

A much bigger threat, I think comes from Obamacare. Well, not exactly the Affordable Care Act itself, but the medical fascism that gave rise to it. Obama’s adviser Cass Sunstein has advocated outlawing the promotion of unapproved, non-mainstream health theories, such as the idea that moderate sun exposure is beneficial. If the insurance companies or Big Pharma were to sue, for example, an anti-vaccine website for cutting into their profits, I doubt that the Supreme Court will have the cojones to go against them. After all, the Supremes were dumb enough to buy the notion that a mandated purchase is the same as a tax. But that’s an issue for another time.

 

Congress Has Lost Its Mind

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The US House of Representatives, excluding 10 brave members, recently gave us proof of its collective insanity. House Resolution 758, passed on December 5, 2014, condemns Russia as an aggressor nation that must be sanctioned. The bill’s supporting arguments are a tapestry of lies and propaganda, and hypocrisy. Among the howlers:

  • Russia has “invaded” Ukraine. Every month or so the corporate media spouts some nonsense about Russian tanks invading its neighbor’s separatist-ruled eastern provinces, but we’re never offered any proof. Even if they’re talking about Crimea, Russia’s actions there are not an invasion but an occupation. Crimea is a historic part of Russia populated mostly by ethnic Russians which was granted arbitrarily to the Ukrainian SSR by Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev in 1954. Somehow the US doesn’t have any trouble with Israel occupying Palestinian land, and the Palestinians didn’t welcome their occupiers as did the Crimeans.
  • Russia was responsible for the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17, because the commercial airliner was shot down by pro-Russian separatists using Russian weapons. Again, we’re not offered a shred of proof, and it’s equally plausible that Ukrainian forces shot down the plain either accidentally or intentionally (as a false flag promoting war with Russia.)
  • Russia has initiated economic sanctions against Ukraine. More precisely, Russia has eliminated subsidies, the same way the US Federal government threatens to cut off funding for states that refuse to enact its policies. In reality, the US is the aggressor, first supporting the ultra-nationalist coup in Ukraine, and then strong-arming our allies in the EU into supporting sanctions that hurt them (our friends) far more than they hurt the “evil” Putin.
  • Russia has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This one’s true, which is to Putin’s credit: Assad is the good guy in this situation, opposing the barbaric, genocidal so-called “Islamic State.” It’s the United States that illegally initiated aggression against Syria by arming the so-called “moderate rebels.” In reality, it was arming ISIS. Whether this was an act of sheer stupidity or Machiavellian evil, I can’t say.

Unfortunately, a lot of people I know believe the US corporate media’s bullshit about Russia. Please don’t take my word for it, look to the alternative media for a more balanced perspective. There are even British mainstream sources such as the Mail Online which tell the truth about Russia. I’m not saying it’s a perfect country; it has many policies I abhor, such as military conscription and oppression of gays and Chechens. Yet at the rate we’re going, with our rising rates of incarceration and “anti-terrorist” legislation, America will soon be less free than Russia.

Should we really risk igniting a new world war by antagonizing a fellow nuclear power for dubious reasons? Absolutely not!

 

An American’s Belated Thanks

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In this belated Thanksgiving post, I’d like to express my appreciation of the rights we still have in America. That is not to say that they come from the government, because I believe that freedom is part of the birthright of all human beings everywhere. Still, to the degree that I don’t need to fear incarceration for speaking my mind, for defending myself and my family, and for refusing arbitrary searches, I’m grateful to the stubborn pro-freedom heritage of my people.

We libertarians sometimes forget that there are a lot of countries that are more stupid and despotic than ours. Though there are certainly several nations with a freer press and better protections against the police, the vast majority are worse. Even those countries with close ties to America, with traits we admire such as sensible policies regarding drugs and sex, are often plagued with idiotic “hate speech” laws. For all that Americans can be smeared, demonized and boycotted for expressing an unpopular opinion – think Donald Sterling, Paula Deen and the Duck Dynasty family – you can’t be fined or arrested, as you could in many European countries, even the UK.

Nor can we be punished for questioning or mocking religion, as in most Muslim-majority countries, or for openly practicing or discussing gay lifestyles, as in Russia. Though the US government has put enormous pressure on whistle blower sites such as Wikileaks, our Internet is not (yet) censored, as in China. In many places, a person can be arrested for questioning the official accounts of the Nazi Holocaust. Personally, I have no desire to deny such atrocities; people who do so are delusional. Yet such laws provide unintentional motivation for neo-Nazis, and can easily chill honest scholarship, in much the same way that Turkey’s laws against defaming the nation prevent people from discussing the Armenian genocide.

Unlike many nations, the US does not have a military draft, and we should be very thankful for that. Conscription is truly a form of slavery that allows governments to pursue aggressive wars despite public opposition, forcing young people to kill and be killed. Even Switzerland, one of the most relatively free countries on Earth, forces its male citizens to be part of its military reserve – though due to that country’s enlightened political neutrality, the mandate is not nearly as onerous as it could be.

Finally, though the police in America can certainly be oppressive and abusive, they have not yet reached the level of corruption as in Mexico and many other places. We’re not yet to the point where a group of college students protesting peacefully could be abducted and murdered en masse. Though Mexico still has its good points, the government’s draconian gun laws are a great atrocity that has, in part, allowed the drug cartels to run roughshod over the people.

As Americans we must appreciate the rights we have left, and use them on every possible occasion. We should not censor ourselves out of fear; we should aggressively defend our ability to speak out. If a “state of emergency” is ever declared, we may be among the first to be detained, but the risk is worth it.

 

Why I’m Not Voting in This Election

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I cast my first vote at the age of 19. Since then I’ve participated in every significant election, both Presidential and mid-term. I once ran (unsuccessfully) for the Arizona State Legislature. I’ve given money to campaigns and I spent two years as the secretary of the Arizona Libertarian Party. As of now, I’m done with all that, and here’s why.

There’s no significant difference between major-party candidates. Though their rhetoric may differ, once in office they do the same thing as their predecessors. Barack Obama could have ended the wars, vetoed extensions of the so-called Patriot Act, closed Guantanamo and ended NSA spying, but he didn’t. In many ways, his administration was worse than that of George W Bush.

Third parties are locked out. The only candidates who advocate real change are in alternative parties such as Libertarian and Green, but the powers that be put huge hurdles against them getting on the ballot. Including these extra candidates would “confuse the voters,” the politicians say, as if we’re children. Third parties spend all their meager funds collecting signatures to achieve ballot access. If they do get on, the corporate media treat their candidates like a joke, or more commonly ignore them completely.

The system – both the media and the party hierarchy – discriminates against those who work for real change. Congressman Ron Paul tried for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008 and 2012 against incredible odds. He was immensely popular, yet the pundits dismissed his successes in the primaries as flukes, or failed to report them at all. The party apparatchiks rigged convention rules to prevent Paul’s representatives from speaking or even being seated.

Voting machines enable fraud, which I suspect is widespread. Many jurisdictions use machines manufactured by companies such as Diebold. The software on this devices is secret and there is no audit trail. Machines are in the custody of party hacks who have the ability to change the votes. This almost certainly happened when John Kerry lost Ohio to Bush in 2004, yet no charges were ever filed.

If the people don’t vote the way the elite want, they keep bringing the issue back until they do. Initiatives and referenda are a powerful tool for democracy, ye the system prevents them from working. Here in Arizona, the public turned down boondoggles for riverside development and public transit, but both projects were repackaged and approved years later. If, on the other hand, a measure threatens the system, such as an initiative we had years ago to repeal the state income tax, it is subject to close scrutiny and “disqualified.”

Although big money dominance of the elections is a problem, campaign finance reform won’t work. Campaign laws are most often used against the little guy, or anyone who challenges the status quo. Congressman George Hansen of Idaho, an outspoken opponent of the IRS, was convicted in 1984 of irregularities in his filings and spent 15 months in Federal prison, enduring unspeakably brutal treatment. Personally, I believe campaign finance restrictions to be an unconstitutional limitation on free speech. Some kind of disclosure requirement might be helpful, but I don’t expect the wealthy 1% would ever be held accountable.

Voting in 21st Century America is a waste of time and a distraction from the real issues. It’s time that would be much better spent researching government wrongdoing, finding ways to safeguard our privacy and beat the system, or engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience. In the words of Emma Goldman, “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”

 

Vladimir the Terrible?

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As a libertarian, I don’t like political leaders or their phony, arrogant claims to “legitimate” use of power. I despise every last one of them, especially Obama, the Clintons, and the Bushes, both father and son. They are among the worst people the world has ever produced. Being at the helm of the world’s most powerful country has allowed them to exceed the evils of those whom they’ve demonized, two-bit dictators such as Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Khadaffi. Power corrupts, whether you lead an autocracy or an alleged republic. That is why I’m surprised by the restraint that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s President, has shown so far in the Ukrainian crisis.

It’s not that Putin is a nice guy. He was formerly in the KGB, the kind of organization which would not exist in a just world. Many people believe that Putin’s government, not Chechen separatists, were behind the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings. These false-flag events gave “Vlad the Terrible” an excuse to crush that rebellious province, rather than granting them a plebiscite on independence as is their right. Former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was mysteriously poisoned by the radioactive element polonium while in exile in London. Who but the government of a nuclear power could pull this off? Putin has also presided over a ridiculous anti-gay law that serves mainly to focus the peoples’ minds on an imaginary threat.

Yet Putin’s Russia has proved to be a worthy adversary for the arrogant and self-righteous United States. The American corporate media likes to blame Russia and Putin for the chaos in Ukraine, but in reality, America’s spy services and its captive “non-government” organizations initiated the conflict. Obama’s State Department interfered by supporting the protests, even after they became violent. When Ukraine’s President Yanukovych compromised to schedule new elections, the US-supported far right elements drove him from the country. The new junta in Kiev immediately passed discriminatory laws designed to outrage the Russian minority in the country’s east and south. Did the holier-than-though US government tell our allies to stop this, lest the country slide into civil war? Of course not; provoking ethnic Russians and their cousins across the border was probably their real aim.

Again and again we hear that Russia “invaded” Crimea. Balderdash. Crimea was historically part of Russia, not the Ukraine. Its people are mostly ethnic Russians, a majority of whom supported the annexation in an internationally monitored election which the Ukraine opposed. Ironically, the US did the exact same thing in supporting Kosovo’s split from Serbia in opposition to the wishes of the Serbian people. Consistency has never been the US government’s strong suit.

Because of this alleged “invasion,” the US proceeded to impose ridiculous economic sanctions on Russia and strong-arm its lackeys in the European Union to go along with them. Then came the crash of flight MH-17 over rebel-held territory in eastern Ukraine. Without providing any evidence whatsoever, the US government blamed the pro-Russian rebels (and by extension Russia) for this atrocity. The media refused to entertain the possibility that the Ukrainian military did this themselves in order to whip up anti-Russian sentiment.

This kind of “false flag” operation has happened throughout history, such as Nazi Germany’s Gleiwitz Incident (which it used to justify invading Poland) the CIA’s Operation Gladio which terrorized post-war Europe and Israel’s Lavon Affair which attempted to frame Islamists for a series of bombings in Cairo.

I believe the reason America hates Putin is that he’s one of the few world leaders who appears to be sticking up for the interests of his own country and against those of the globalist corporate community. Throughout the world we see leaders kow-towing to the “neoliberal” world order, plunging their countries into IMF-engineered debt servitude.

Libertarians detest this exploitative system, and also oppose the sanctions against Russia. Putin has done a lot of evil things, and is certainly no hero in our philosophy, though some (myself included) admire his determination and apparent cleverness. Best of all, he’s no stooge of the financial industry. The oligarchs who looted Russia during the Boris Yeltsin era were not “too big to jail.”

No matter what Putin’s motivations are, it hardly seems sane for our leaders to risk war with another nuclear power over a small patch of territory, and over what was probably just a tragic accident. Another, more probable outcome of this new cold war is that Russia and its allies such as China will create their own independent systems for trade and banking.This would end the economic supremacy of the US, already under threat, along with most of the value of the dollar. That would be a disaster for all of us “commoners,” whether the event was intentionally planned or just the unintended consequences of the incredible arrogance of American politicians.

Though what happened to MH-17 is still a mystery, one thing is for certain: the story the corporate media tells us is based upon lies.There may not be much we can do about the insane belligerence of so-called leaders such as Barack Obama (and his bloodthirsty Republican opponents), but we must not let ourselves be their fools, either.

The “Real Words” of our National Anthem

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On this July Fourth I’d like to say a few words about the US national anthem. Many of you are no doubt aware that this year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the lyrics, written by Francis Scott Key as “The Defence of Fort McHenry.” Few people know that the song has four verses, because we seldom hear any but the first these days. Far fewer people are aware of the origin of the melody, a popular English drinking song from the 1700’s.

Yet another little-known fact is the controversy that surrounded the adoption of the song in 1931 as the nation’s official anthem. An article that appeared in the Daily Beast on last July 4th tells some of this fascinating story. The song has been the target of criticism for a melody that is difficult to sing (with a range of an octave and a fifth) and for its lyrics that celebrate militarism.

By the way, today’s history-challenged young people may not know the story behind the war that inspired Key’s poem. The War of 1812 was the nation’s first major war after the American colonies secession from the British Empire. In grade school I learned that this second war was Britain’s fault for restricting our trade with France and conscription of American sailors into the Royal Navy.

In junior high school I was fortunate to have a teacher named Frank Lewis, an offbeat-looking man (he wore coke-bottle glasses and a 50’s style pompadour) who helped inspire my own passion for history. In his class, we learned that another over-riding reason for the war was the desire of certain American politicians to violently annex British holdings in Canada (the southeast portion of the current country) and Florida. They were known as War Hawks, birds of prey with the distinctive cry, “Canada! Florida!” They got their war, which ended in a stalemate. At least 5000 American and British soldiers and sailors died and untold numbers of civilians, all for naught. It’s not a glorious episode in our history, which is why I prefer the original lyrics of the song.

Speaking of the original song, its creators were members of a London men’s club called the “Anacreon Society.” Anacreon was a poet from classical Greece whose works extolled the virtues of “wine, women and song.” As such these words are at least as appropriate for us Americans. Back in 1835, French writer Alexis de Toqueville observed that “the drinking population constitutes the majority in your country, and that temperance is somewhat unpopular.” Here without further adieu is the first verse of the famous “Anacreon in Heaven” (which you can listen to here):

 

THE ANACREONTIC SONG

as Sung at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand

Words by Ralph Tomlinson, music by John Stafford Smith

 

To Anacreon in Heav’n, where he sat in full glee,

A few sons of harmony sent a petition,

That he their Inspirer and patron wou’d be;

When this answer arriv’d from the jolly old Grecian

“Voice, fiddle, and flute,

“No longer be mute,

“I’ll lend you my name and inspire you to boot,

“And, besides, I’ll instruct you like me, to intwine

“The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine.

 

Remember these words on this Fourth when you hear the line about the “land of the (formerly) free and the home of the (occasionally) brave.” And if you haven’t seen it, watch this clip of Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat singing the words of the fictional Kazakhstan national anthem to this tune for unsuspecting rodeo patrons. He was lucky he didn’t get himself lynched!