DUKE REPORT SUNDAY JANUARY 13^th, 2008

ELECTION 2008

Who’s Gonna Captain the Titanic into the Iceberg?

-Obama V. Clinton Race War

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-memo-on-clin_n_81205.html

South Carolina’s Democratic Party is 50 Percent Black. A lot of pressure is on Obama to win.

But that votes ain’t gon mean SHIT if they can be hacked easily. New Hampshire brought with it familiar irregularities, or as I call them downright election theft and bullshit. That is why….

- Kucinich Granted
New Hampshire Recount

http://www.nbc11.com/politics/15028550/detail.html

If this recount can prove wrongdoing, it could be a catalyst for candidates of real change in either party. True it will give people even less faith in their government, but I ask you, when is that ever a bad thing? We need faith in ourselves and eachother, not Diebold Electronic Voting Machines.

OTHER SHIT

-Guantanamo detainees are not human beings – US judges

http://presscue.com/node/39281

Fucking Despicable.

-Diebold to Change Its Name

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/diebold-to-chan.html

You can call a turd franklin but it’s still a FUCKING Turd.

- USA IS ABOUT TO

LOSE CREDIT RATING

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/40f3a2be-bfa9-11dc-8052-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F40f3a2be-bfa9-11dc-8052-0000779fd2ac.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.digg.com%2Fnews%2Fworld_business&nclick_check=1

Glad to know I’m not the only one

UPBEAT MOMENT

-JESUS’ ERECTION

STIFF WITH CHRISTIANS

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article677221.ece

HAHAHA JESUS PIECE

That’s ALL FOLKS!

Chuck Norris went to Iraq this week and reported that the surge is working.

Conservative Web site World Net Daily reported on Norris’ assessment during his tour of 15 military bases. Norris is not the only actor to take this stance. Yes, I’m talking about the guy who played the air traffic controller in Die Hard 2: Die Harder – Fred Thompson. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the desert of the real.

On his official Web site, Thompson said, “the security situation is improving and momentum is on our side.” Freddie is making his assessment on Iraq not based on Chuck Norris, but from the report on Iraq that Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker gave to Congress last week. The report stated the surge has reduced sectarian violence, and made provinces like al-Anbar much safer. Thompson also cheered on the plan to reduce troops in Iraq by 30,000 saying, “(the withdrawal) is the right course. This recommendation is a result of the success being seen on the ground in Iraq.”

Never trust an actor-turned-politician, period. They are trained to make you believe that they are someone they are not. Fred “social and neo conservative’s last chance” Thompson is not just a bad actor; he is bad for America. His statements on Iraq equate to Thompson being either intellectually deficient or an outright liar.

The General Accountability Office has disagreed with the rosy picture of progress and stated that Iraq has met very few of their congressional benchmarks. Patraeus’ report states that sectarian violence is down by citing statistics of decreased violence. Yet these statistics did not include inter-sectarian violence: Sunni-on-Sunni or Shi’ite-on-Shi’ite. It also did not include people who died from a gunshot to the front of the head. That was considered violent crime and was excluded from the general’s report. In reality, this report was rife with questionable accounting and statistics and served as the Bush Administration’s thinly veiled and constructed justification for continuing their debacle in Iraq.

Finally, Thompson applauds the planned “withdrawal” of forces recommended in the report. This is roughly the same amount of troops that went over to Iraq in the surge, and most of these 30,000 were already scheduled to return. The truth, as Fred “McCoy’s Boy” Thompson knows, is that we are in Iraq for the long haul. All an insubstantial troop withdrawal does is distract from the permanent nature of our conflict.

Thompson, just like most Republican opponents, is ultimately either too dumb to see the true situation in Iraq or intentionally uses manufactured reports with Cayman Island-style accounting statistics to lie and swindle the American public.

Neither of these characteristics, stupidity or dishonesty, are traits of a good president. The truth is that the situation in Iraq is terrible, and according to a BBC poll, “About 70 percent of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the U.S military ’surge’ of the past six months, and 60 percent believe attacks on US-led forces are justified.”

Never trust an actor-turned-politician, period.

There is a group called Club Varsity, which is a collection of speakers, athletes and entertainers, whose stated goal is to influence young people positively. They go around to schools and church groups and preach the message, “Life is not a game, yet many of the same principles can be applied to achieve success. When goals and standards are neither set nor encouraged, it is to be expected that youth will experiment in all types of ‘risky behaviors – pre-marital sex, drugs, alcohol and violence.”

To facilitate this encouragement, you can purchase Abstinence ‘Til Marriage pledge cards on their Web site for just 65 cents each (50 cents if you buy 3000 or more). These cards look just like real ATM cards, except they aren’t used to dispense cash; they are used to dispense promises.

I can’t fathom what goes through the mind of someone who supports abstinence-only education. Either it is ignorance, denial, self-righteousness or a combination of the three. Sex is wonderful, fun, healthy and completely natural. But it also comes with responsibility and can have nasty side effects such as creepy crawly diseases and babies. So let’s clear up any misconceptions and start with ignorance on the subject.

A federal study showed that the majority of people have their first sexual experience in their teens. The National Center for Health Statistics found that about 57 percent of Americans have sex before the age of 18. The kids, they got urges, and they are doing something about ‘em. And studies are showing that kids are experimenting with sex at younger and younger ages. The kids are doing it even when you tell them not to. No one disagrees that abstinence is the only 100 percent sure way not to get a venereal disease or babies, but the reality is that people still have urges that they act on. Sex is the earliest of all traditions, and abstinence-only education is a 100-percent sure way to keep kids from knowing how to use a condom right.

This brings us to denial. No one likes abortions or STDs. People who are pro-choice do not want more abortions. Abstinence-only education is very popular among anti-abortion folks. These “keep it in your pantsers” rally for no sexual education and condoms in schools.

If you really don’t want abortions, then why would you not use proven effective measures to lower them? Having free condoms available to teens coupled with comprehensive sexual education has been shown to lower teen pregnancy and STD rates. If you really want to stop abortions, give eighth graders condoms and show them how to use them.

The reality is, as the Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., said when they released an evaluation of four abstinence programs that these programs don’t have an effect on teen’s sexual behavior. These programs don’t have an impact, and the lack of a positive result translates to a negative one.

So after denial and ignorance, there is nothing left to support these programs other than self-righteousness. The argument for abstinence comes from religion, as does the argument to abstain until marriage.

First, it is wrong to assume that marriage is at all better for every individual. The message of “abstain ’til marriage” is offensive to many hardworking single mothers, implying somehow they are worse parents than those who have a ring on the finger.

We have a separation of church and state in this country for a reason. Abstinence-only education, much like intelligent design, is a thinly veiled religious argument.

If you choose to ignore your prime evolutionary objective, fine. But keep your God out of my bedroom and out of my pants. Federal abstinence-only education needs to end immediately before the next Britney has a baby because Kevin didn’t have a condom.

You are sitting watching TV and a commercial comes on. It is a montage of beautiful scenery, flowing rivers and smiling kids. No it’s not the next pharmaceutical wonder drug, or some politician’s campaign commercial; it is a message from the wonderful and kind oil industry. Following BP, almost all the major oil companies have been on a PR blitz recently to convince the American public that they are environmental stewards.

They tout increased ethanol production and funding for “alternative” energy as proof of their “reformed greenery.” To explain why it is that oil companies are by no means environmental stewards in its practices today would take a whole different column, if not a book.

Rather than address this one case, I feel the need to discuss the larger issue of the power of images and sound in the 21st century.

The commercial has its roots in revolutionary Soviet Russian art and politics. Early Soviet films such as Battleship Potemkin were devolved and used as Soviet propaganda.

These films abandoned the traditional linear storytelling in favor of a collection of images meant to invoke emotion and shape thought. This is what our current 30-second advertising spot is based upon.

The commercial is a collection of images and sounds meant to invoke specific emotions and often particular primal instincts in order to shape thought. Truth in advertising is always thrown under a bus; these ads are made to sell you on a particular product or ideology.

For the past half-century, in ever increasing ways, these ads, and the thousands of other product placements, Internet banners, logos and print ads have impacted and formed our common consciousness without any real critical thinking about them.

This is why we have a sort of false consciousness in which Americans know how much a chicken bowl at KFC costs but not the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. We know that we are in Iraq because of WMD’s, Bin Laden and 9/11.

We live in a sound byte culture where the fantastic amount of information we receive and process is neatly packaged for us. This sound byte, stereotype packaging comes with a price: the loss of reality. There are journalists who go in depth into the actual story, opting for objective investigation and journalism instead of corporate and pentagon produced PR videos, but this information comprises only a small minority of the information individuals disseminate.

Among Americans, even those who actually try to seek out the pertinent, valuable news, it is undoubtedly much easier to flick on FOX or check the ticker on CNN. While some organizations are obviously worse than others, our social construction is what is developing this false consciousness.

This falsity is so pervasive in our society that everything – every network, company and person – is tainted by it.

In the end, it’s all about the money, baby. Ultimately, corporate bottom lines are the reason why important yet complex stories are abandoned for the next missing white woman.

Power elite supports this consciousness because we like to be entertained much more than we like to be informed. Even though fundamentally and ideologically opposite, the Beatles and modern day car companies have become married in a sick form of capitalist exploitation. Beautiful art, both in the music and images, are changed into the means in which something can be effectively marketed. Art is not a machine; you cannot destroy art, but you can certainly pervert it.

Images, sounds, ads and montages affect us psychologically, but it doesn’t always have to be bad. Art is the potential in humans that binds with our creativity, which has the power to help in the struggle for progress.

A great example of this is the new film, “Across the Universe” in theatres now. It is the music of the Beatles, set to a narrative of the turbulent 1960s, weaving music, politics, love, art and sexuality all into a moving two-hours.

I never really grew up with the Beatles, but to hear that music and see where it came from was powerful beyond words.

We the people have the ability to create the anti-ad, to see something like the Beatles not as a revolution in car-making but in the revolutionary context of their time.

So the next time you see something on TV, critically analyze it, and, if it doesn’t add up then tune out, turn off and drop it like it’s hot – garbage, that is.

I was lucky enough to tune to Fox News Radio in between the switch from Rush “Drug Dealers Should Get the Death Penalty” Limbaugh and Sean “My Chin and Ego Have Their Own Zip Code” Hannity.

Normally this uniformed, knee jerk, “oppressed white-man” drivel would be followed by a gut reaction to vomit in my own mouth, but I was left flabbergasted. I realized at this moment, for very different reasons, Sean, Rush and even Bill O. and I have one common goal: defeat Hillary Clinton.

She is the definition of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, except this sheep is supported by the largest political machine in history, and instead of sheep clothing, she has Botox to hide behind. Ronald McDonald frowns more than her.

Hillary Clinton is wrong for the Democratic Party nomination for three principle reasons. First and foremost, in politics, she will be extremely hard to elect. Next, her plans for healthcare and Iraq are politically crafted and insubstantially progressive enough to make a difference. Finally, she is a politician, not a person; she has no stance on issues but what focus groups and polls tell her.

According to a recent poll, 50 percent of Americans say they will not vote for Hillary Clinton. Many Americans don’t know whom they will vote for, but half know whom they won’t vote for. And that’s even before the nomination have happened. This is not just the Hannitys of the world; it is much of her own party and its base.

Some say her gender is the main obstacle to her electability, but most of them seem to miss the forest for the trees. Sure, some ignorant fools think that women can’t “have their fingers on the button” due to menstrual cycles, but the vast majority of this country is not that stupid.

She takes this idiotic belief to heart and perpetuates the idea that a successful woman cannot be a strong woman, she can only be strong. She overcompensates under the patriarchal belief that compassion, femininity and empathy look weak.

Anyone who feels that we should elect a woman just because she is a woman should take a good look at who this woman is and ask themselves: Is this woman the kind of woman you want?

With issues, it is on both healthcare and the war in Iraq where you see the true nature of Hillary’s politics. She touts her healthcare plan as being a way to go after the big bad insurance companies.

Really? Then why do the major insurance companies want the new Hillary-care? It’s because now, every single uninsured person in America will be covered by the private, for-profit insurance companies at the cost of the taxpayer. The problem with our healthcare is a moral one: Should insurance companies be for-profit? Well, Jesus would say no, and yet Hillary says yes.

Iraq demonstrates Hillary on the issues. She claims she voted to authorize pre-emptive war, i.e. give the president a blank check to play Risk with the world because of bad intelligence? The only bad intelligence was hers.

And now, she is doing the same thing again with Iran by voting to designate the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s army, a terrorist organization. This effectively gives G.W. license to bomb whoever or whatever he wants in that country. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, there is no possible way you actually got fooled again unless you’re an idiot.

The main problem with Clinton is that she crafts policy not based on what she believes is right but by what focus groups and polls tell her is popular. This is why in debates, rather than give direct answers, she responds with diatribes against Bush.

Joe Biden had a great line about Giuliani saying that he only says three things: A noun, a verb and Sept. 11. Hillary also only says three things: A noun, a verb and Bush – because Democratic focus groups say that people like hearing that Bush is bad.

Obama and Edwards (neither of whom I endorse) did a good job of going after Hillary at Tuesday’s debate. She got caught giving two answers to the same question, and was nailed about Iran and not releasing records of her husband’s presidency.

One can only hope those two will continue to swing the battle axe at the small hole in her Botox-laced armor, breaking open the facade she represents to show the slimy politician she is.

Radiohead’s new album has been the talk of the music industry, but is it because of the greatness of the music?

No, it’s because it has created an enormous buzz over the way it has been distributed. Radiohead put out their new album online and allowed fans to pay whatever they wanted – even nothing. The results are in and, much to the chagrin of the spin rooms of the major music labels, three out of five people downloaded the album for free.

Even more disconcerting to music capitalists was that the average price paid was $6 globally ($8 U.S.), and only 12 percent paid between $8 and $12 (the standard online album price).

The same people who brought you O-town now say this proves that labels still have their relevance. They say that unlike mega-bands like Radiohead, most bands lack the distribution and marketing power to make models like these effective. Most people would rather steal digital music than buy it, so the only way for bands to make serious money is through major labels.

The band NOFX wrote a song in the mid-1990s about the music industry called “Dinosaurs Will Die.” One line particularly stands out: “Parasitic music industry, as it destroys itself. Well show then how it’s supposed to be.” It is laughable to suggest that major labels have any interest whatsoever in their artists except for their personal financial gain.

The short version is this: A major label signs you, generally with a particular product image in mind (often by the formula of this artist mixed meets this artist).

Then they give you a large sum of money called an advance. This advance is money with hooks attached; this is the first amount that is “recouped” by the labels from album sales. This puts an enormous amount of pressure on the artist to be commercial.

Even if an artist recoups the advance, they literally see pennies of the actual $15 album sold in stores. Labels make up all types of ridiculous packaging and overhead costs that amount to artists getting crumbs while labels get loaves.

Radiohead could distribute their album on an 8-track and people would still buy the album and scour the earth for 8-track players. They are a mega-band, and of course they can demand things that other bands can’t.

Their model is, however, a clear indicator of how the major label music industry is an empire on the verge of collapse. Even Paul McCartney bucked the Major Labels in favor of the new Starbucks Label.

Artists today know that major labels are no friend to them or their art. The label itself is not inherently corrupt. Many independent labels are fair and trustworthy, and they can do what many bands can’t – promote and distribute. But with digital music, the physical music disc is becoming obsolete.

While purists will continue to crave vinyl or CDs, the future is digital music. And artists know that what ultimately makes them money is not the studio albums; it is tours and merchandise.

Artists today make the majority of their money being on the road and selling stuff with their name on it. This is why Radiohead is also selling an $80 box set, which they will make a killing off of. The recorded music in today’s free-for-all digital arena is becoming less the show and more the ad for the show. It is also forcing artists to push themselves or get out of the way because unknowns can become known overnight.

The public is demanding more. We want more from artists’ live shows, we want more than one good song per album and we want more from the labels and distribution.

Still major labels spin the truth, stew over profit losses and sue their customers. Empires generally don’t know how to react when they start to crumble. Ultimately, they will lose. Art is not something that can be confined to capitalist profit margins, and technology progresses with the human spirit of freedom.

In the end, dinosaurs will die.

When asked who makes up his supporters, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul said they were a mixture of Republicans, Independents, Democrats and “even a few anarchists.”

It was like he was directly talking to me. This January, I plan to vote in the (gasp) Republican primary for Ron Paul. I encourage anyone else who is concerned about this nation’s departure from its core principle of liberty to do the same thing and join Team Freedom.

The struggle of America is an ongoing one: From Robber-Barons to Enron, McCarthy to O’Reilly and Vietnam to Iraq. Today we face a new set of challenges. But as always, we can look to the past for inspiration. Ron Paul is the only candidate with a chance who espouses the core American principles. The Patriot Act, the suspension of habeas corpus, “free-trade” agreements and generally poor economic and foreign policy are just a few ways this nation has gone astray from its original principles.

Especially after Sept. 11, we have been told we have to sacrifice liberty for security. In truth, these departures from our principles have undermined our personal, political and national sovereignty, and as Benjamin Franklin said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

It is often difficult to define yourself in an increasingly complex world. We hear a lot about the traditional American idea of freedom. This is a nation where freedom originally only applied to white male property holders.

The Constitution, however bigoted its authors, still serves as a beacon for the idea of limited government and personal liberty. That same racist and sexist group of men penned a document that has served as an inspiration for a race-less and sex-less struggle that humanity has continued on ever since.

Are we a perfect country? No. Have we made mistakes? Oh yeah – yes sir, we have. But at the end of the day, America has still stood. Progress is slow, but the American process has stood strong in the face of threats on the strength of the liberty it defines.

I do not agree with Ron Paul on many issues. I am not a complete libertarian, and I do believe when it comes to education, healthcare and the environment, as the line goes,

“some jobs are just too big that the only thing that can do them is government.”

I also find his stance on abortion to be completely flawed. An Amnesty International report concluded making abortion illegal does not decrease the number of abortions; it only increases the health dangers.

While I believe that a woman’s reproductive rights are an essential part of her personal liberty, I am very practical when it comes to this issue – and I cannot be a one-issue voter.

Pragmatism is the ultimate reason I have endorsed Ron Paul. As the band Against Me once wrote, “Baby, I’m an anarchist, you’re a spineless liberal.”

In truth, I do like Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich, but they don’t have a chance. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all said they could not pull all the troops out of Iraq within their first term, and none of them has been willing to take the threat of military strikes on Iran off the table.

Ron Paul has declared that as Commander and Chief he would immediately bring the troops home. Perhaps that is why he is receiving the most donations from members of the military.

His campaign has and will continue to show its strength and prove it has the ability to actually win. His record-breaking fundraising days, coupled with his incredible success in straw polls demonstrate that he has a very strong support base. In America, a very small percentage of the electorate actually votes in the primaries. Rest assured, Ron Paul’s people will be there in force.

If you are for ending the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the next one in Iran, vote for Ron Paul 2008. If you are for a sound economic policy, and the abolition of the IRS, vote for Ron Paul 2008. If you think this government needs transparency and an end to the years of constitutional abuses, vote Ron Paul 2008.

Join Team Freedom, Ron Paul 2008.

Illinois is now making the move to ban salvia, a naturally growing plant that is sold as a legal, light hallucinogen. This is business as usual for American politicians.

Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in America and because of that, it has been the scourge of opportunist politicians, moral finger-wavers and all types of other grand-standers.

The war on marijuana (yes, war on a plant, even though it can’t really fight or talk), has cost taxpayers in the country billions of wasted dollars, prevented the development of a much needed and promising industry, and has ruined the lives of non-violent offenders and their families.

It is difficult to gauge the actual number of Americans who use marijuana. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws does a good job of collecting data and comparing it with private and government data. According to NORML, user numbers generally fall at about 20 million, with about 11 million people using regularly.

This is an enormous segment of the U.S. population and makes marijuana the third most used substance (behind tobacco and alcohol) and the most used illegal substance. The demographics of this group are not just your cast of characters from “Half Baked,” old Deadheads and the Method Man, this group is made up of mostly tax-paying, law-abiding citizens.

Marijuana is dangerous in the sense that any mood altering chemical is dangerous. It slows reaction time, thus making things such as driving more dangerous.

The active ingredient in marijuana that produces these effects is a chemical called THC. This chemical can come in amounts from 3 percent to about 30 percent, although certain oils and hash have even higher percentages. That can make dosage difficult especially for the novice user.

Marijuana smoke is cancerous, but not toxic; no one has ever overdosed from marijuana. The government currently has a campaign claiming one joint is as bad as five cigarettes. This propaganda doesn’t include the fact that cigarettes have filters, and only a small percentage of people smoke doobies anymore, many opt for tobacco leaves, glass pipes, bongs or vaporizers, and, with the exception of the vaporizer (recommended for medicinal use), very little study has been done in this area.

So the bad side of marijuana is that it is hard to dose consistently, it slows reaction time and it is still smoke. Yet these facts still do not qualify it by any standard of measurement to be worse than alcohol or tobacco. Those two legal drugs each year kill more people than marijuana could ever hope to.

Then why, in 2006, did we arrest 829,000 individuals for marijuana offenses? Of those arrests, 89 percent were for possession – not sale or manufacture. There are more marijuana arrests than the combined arrests for all violent offenses in the United States. We arrest more marijuana smokers than robbers, killers and rapists.

Where is Nancy Grace when you need her?

This is all at a whopping cost to the U.S. taxpayers of $10 billion a year. With the crisis in funding wars of conquest, social security and Medicare, one might want to rethink spending $10 billion harassing people who use a plant that grows naturally.

In fact, recently some people did. Five hundred top economists, including three Nobel Prize winners, sent a letter to President George W. Bush saying if legalized and regulated like tobacco and alcohol, it could produce revenues of $6.2 billion a year.

So instead of losing $10 billion, the economy could make $6.2 billion and that money could be taxed.

This does not include the amount of revenue that a legalized, industrial hemp industry could produce. Hemp can be used to make paper, food, clothes and a whole slew of other things, including fuel, and it can be grown year-round without nearly as much environmental run-off as crops such as corn. The color of money in America is green.

As the Method-Man once said, “Marijuana is just nature’s way of saying high.” Whether it is moral, economic or practical, there is no good argument for continued prohibition.

It is time to hold these politicians and grand-standers who waste billions on this fruitless venture accountable, and finally do the one thing that makes sense: Legalize it.