Official Truth

I voted Tuesday, the first day of early voting in Wisconsin. As I said I would, I voted for Alfred E. Neuman for president and U.S. senator. It felt good. It was not an easy decision, risking passive support for totally evil Donald Trump with my one vote. It was worth the risk. Given Kamala Harris's full support for president Joe Biden's sponsorship of genocide in Gaza, I couldn't bring myself to vote for her. No morality about one area of concern means no morality about anything. Expedient and situational ethics are no ethics at all. A president with no morals or ethics will sell-out any and every principle or policy if it is politically inconvenient.
It is hard to comprehend how the lives of an entire population can be politically inconvenient, but this is the stance of the supposedly decent candidate. She is a fellow-genocidist with her mentor and bestower Joe Biden. This is a lesson in politics for the whole world. The U.S. presidents, present and future, are not only comfortable with genocide, but are threats to world peace.

How can this be? Are "Americans" genocidists? Some, maybe, but the broad population of the United States is no more likely to be a mass of genocidists than the German public was during the time of Adolf Hitler. This is the fatal flaw of the mass system. The many are governed by the few, who ostensibly represent them, stand in for them - democratically or despotically. 

Experiences with bureaucracies are good lessons in how representative governments operate. They are authorized to perform certain functions in service to the public, and they generally do serve the public. They also serve themselves. The way organizations function is through internal processes, practices and relationships that cohere to perform their roles in society. Internal dialogue becomes organizational truth, or what John Kenneth Galbraith called "bureaucratic truth." It may or may not be actual truth, but it is working truth, operational truth that the organization presents to itself and to the public. Another name for it is institutional truth, but for me official truth works best.

Official truth can have tragic results, such as the genocide in Gaza. The front man for the genocide is Joe Biden, President of the United States. After the October 7 attacks last year he declared himself a "Zionist," hugged Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and supported the onslaught on Gaza with the slogan "Israel has the right to self-defense" and "Every effort is being made to protect civilians." Lies. But true for the organization, the Biden foreign policy establishment. They started with lies, and no matter what happened in the ensuing months they stuck with the lies. They also stuck with supplying Israel with all the bombs, artillery and bullets it could ever want, the instruments of genocide, er, Israel exercising its right to self-defense.

This madness will not end well for anyone. The war has extended into Lebanon, and Iran is next. Based on the genocide that Israel is already perpetrating, deaths could mount into the millions. It couldn’t happen without U.S. funding and weapons. Or Joe Biden and his underlings Blinken and Austin. Who knows where it will go from there? Israel is on a rampage, and it is apparent that it was planned for a long time. Because of organizational inertia and hubris our "leaders" are unable to stop the carnage. They will continue to lie, and they will continue to arm Israel. This is the fatal weakness of organizations. They live by their own truths, and damn the consequence.

There is an added factor. The weapons industry. The military industrial complex. They stay in business by selling armaments. Wars, any kind of wars, are good for business. The assault on Gaza, and now on Lebanon, are a bonanza for gun-runners. That, plus the billions in weaponry for Ukraine are making the gun merchants very rich. In an election year the jobs provided by the weapons industry can mean the difference between defeat and victory. All the more reason to keep the slaughter going.

These people are that bad. All of them: Biden, Blinken, Austin, Netanyahu, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the arms merchants. All genocidists, and in the case of the Israelis, gleefully so. We will all pay dearly for this crime. Paying for this while we are also paying for what we have done to the planet. Alfred E. Neuman, who never existed and couldn’t possibly have generated such madness, is already a far better president than Biden or Harris could ever be. Without ever being president. Nothing and nobody are better than these two genocidists.
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Here's a song. Here's another. Brewer and Shipley. Bob Dylan. Another song from Steve Miller. Another from Brewer and Shipley. Citizen Kafka.

Some background on how genocide in Gaza is being carried out.

Here's some news about Donald Trump. I predicted over a year ago that neither Biden nor Trump would be their party's candidate by election day. So far I'm half right. Trump is disintegrating before our very eyes. Between now and November 5 his disintegration will likely be complete. Good riddance to both of them.

R.I.P. Phil Lesh. A tribute from Warren Haynes. He didn't sing often, but was revered for this song, written for his dying father.
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Writing beyond the bounds of thinkable thought, I submitted the following to four local newspapers. None of them published it.

To The Editor (oped@badgerherald.com, editor@dailycardinal.com, wsjopinion@madison.com, tctvoice@madison.com)

Ahead of the Pack

It would seem that the University of Wisconsin’s football fortunes are back on track with the blowout victory over Purdue. In actual fact, though, the fortunes remain exactly the same. Gargantuan. College football is all about money, and win or lose, athletic departments nationwide stand to reap a vast fortune year after year. In order to make even more money, the major conferences have consolidated into still larger conferences, with the Big 10 now consisting of 18 teams. It used to be, when the big 10 was a real 10 teams, that they all could play each other every year and have a sense of cohesion and regional identity.

A huge money-making scheme needs marks, suckers who fall for the grift, believing the hype and the pretense that it is about athletics, sportsmanship and an integral part of the educational process. If you believe that, I have some land in Arizona you might be interested in. Students play along, filling stadiums with bodies, noise, bands and even jumping on the supposedly indestructible stadium. Players, pawns in the game, risk lifelong injury and obscurity, giving their most hale and hearty years to an increasingly brutal game. They move easily from one school to another, maximizing their marketability and NFL draft posture. Most drift into anonymity when their playing days are over.

I have a solution. Drop football. A state university, funded by the public, should not be a professional sports vehicle. In ancient Rome crass entertainment was known as bread and circuses. What we have today is bread and circuses on steroids. I don’t have cable, dish or Internet streaming, but on any fall Saturday I could watch football for free on about seven channels, maybe more. It is madness. No one could watch that much football, but madness knows no restraint.

This won’t last. Our unsustainable infinite-growth economic system will fail, likely soon, and the money for ever-expanding football hype will dry up. Universities will have difficulty filling stadiums, TV revenue will shrink, and the enormous salaries paid to coaches will be a thing of the past. Many schools will no longer afford to have football teams. Wisconsin can get ahead of the pack and drop football now.

John Hamilton 

Madison

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A surprising update about University of Wisconsin football. They are hosting the nation's number one team, Oregon - now a member of the Big 10 - on November 16.
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Here's an update about how AIPAC controls Washington. Here's another update on how an Israeli digital intelligence firm, "Cellebrite," is becoming the top U.S. contractor. The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.

This interview on Madison's WORT is pretty comprehensive about the dangers of genocidal theology. It is one of the best interviews I have heard in a good while. A week later this interview about Hamas on the same show is great too. It doesn't seem like it now, but I believe truth will prevail. It might take until Satya Yuga, but we are likely to see an infusion of truth in the current times. Meanwhile, you can tune in to Democracy Now. It is also on YouTube.

The Cause

Over the years I have donated small amounts of money to various causes, mostly environmental, human rights and some indigenous groups. When a candidate for public office seems worthy, I have sent a few dollars, such as to Russ Feingold and Tammy Baldwin for U.S. Senate. Unfortunately, when you give money they sell your address to other causes and candidates in a relentless and unending onslaught of money appeals. The causes may be good, the politician may be worthy, but they all have fundraising departments, and their purpose in life is to panhandle, to beg for money.

A perfect example is that in 2000 I started getting emails from Joe Biden. He was running for president. The emails didn't say from the Biden for President Campaign, but from Joe Biden personally, though he no doubt wasn't personally sending me a money appeal. The content was typical Joe Biden blah, blah blah, forgettable stuff that meant nothing, but I remember the essence was that he among all people on Planet Earth was the savior of mankind. Or some such.

Biden referred to his campaign as "The Cause." There were never any ideas expressed, no policies or proposals, just "The Cause." No mention of just what the cause was, except by implication. The cause was Joe Biden. Rally around Joe Biden because, well, just because.

It was clear then and it is clearer now that Joe Biden is nothing more than a hack politician, a handsome guy with a wide smile. The hair on top of his head is transplanted from elsewhere on his body, a vanity move to improve his electoral prospects, he having gone bald somewhere along the long line of "The Cause." He has perfect teeth.

Joe Biden has never had an idea of his own about anything. His "Build Back Better" program was inspired by Bernie Sanders, concocted by subordinates with Biden as the pitch man, the front man who took credit. It worked, and he was supposedly on his way to reelection. The Cause Part 2.

Unfortunately for Joe Biden, reality intervened. The onslaught on Gaza by the government of Israel showed Biden for who he really is, an empty suit, a hack with no moral or ethical principles, and a threat to world peace. Some cause. He continues to this day to send money and weapons to Israel with no meaningful restrictions, no limits.

Then came the debate. It has to be the humiliation of eons, of epochs, to be defeated by Donald Trump in a debate. Defeated resoundingly by what may be the worst human being in human history. It wasn’t because of any skill or superior policies that Trump "won." It was because Joe Biden wasn't just a terrible debater, but he exhibited a serious decline in mental capacity. He showed himself to be not just unfit to run for reelection, but unfit for office in the present tense. He should be removed from office through the 25th Amendment to the Constitution.

Biden has continued to show himself unfit for office on a daily basis. His latest effort, a "letter" to Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel military command, "strongly" criticizing the ongoing genocide in Gaza, is a big nothing, just window dressing, a fake effort to give some public relations cover for U.S. support for whatever Israel does. And, I suppose, to give some plausible deniability should they be charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

Dumb guys. It is all a bullshit game. It is the downfall of dumb guys in politics from time immemorial. Do what you do to serve power, and when doubt arises, just create a pattern of bullshit. Lies upon lies upon lies. Deflect. Undermine. Quash dissent. Buy people, governments off. Bribe. Blackmail. Threaten. Kill if it suits you.

Kamala Harris, now the leading candidate for president, supports Biden totally, seeing it to her advantage to ruffle no feathers. She supports the genocide in Gaza fully, as well as for whatever pending genocide Israel might have up its metaphorical sleeve for the rest of the Mideast – as long as Joe Biden remains complicit. As such, she is just another hack politician, another empty suit, in this case a pantsuit. Her trademark appeal is her unending smile, but not as good as Joe Biden's.

Meanwhile, the planet is getting hotter, we are getting closer to global thermonuclear war by the day, and our unsustainable infinite-growth economic system is about to unsustain. Anything unsustainable eventually unsustains. The illusion of "The Cause" of Joe Biden, carefully crafted for decades, unsustained. It was nothing, and now it is seen as nothing. In terms of Christianity it is ashes to ashes, dust to dust. From here on out for Joe Biden every day is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a time of penitence. From dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. He might be working on his act of perfect contrition. Whatever the case, good riddance Genocide Joe.
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Here's a song. Here's another. This song is for the U.S. and Israel. Good luck with this one. A lost cause song. A song for Donald Trump. We shouldn't have to feel this way.