not so simple.

there are ideas in there. in the egg that is my head.

i feel them sometimes… ideas pecking away, crackling my skull in measures. small fractures, small shatterings etching lines like routes on road maps.

they stay there too, incubating in that folded womb of electrical impulses and chemical spills.

until: viola… ideas formed from thousands of specks of sight, sound, sensations, rushed out between gulps of air and pigs in a blanket at some cocktail party, or picnic, being blogged, painted, or played on some instrument.

THINK. THINK. THINK. so. here’s what’s been birthed in my head of late . . .

Yeah. The deal? It’s all about the deal. … and lots and lots of money.

^{cross posted at dKos}

So, I thought it might be helpful if I coalesced a few ideas together and shared them with our President.

See, Mr. President, I thought it’d be useful to point out that one thing Americans and, btw/fyi the rest of the world’s creatures, need protection from: greed. Glorious, god forsaken, glamourous greed and the greedy pricks licking their chops at the thought of lots and lots of money.

It’s just that simple, sir. And there are lots of defense contractors cum political contributors connected to very unsavory practices. Thought it was a good idea to alert you. Not just you, sir. But all of you there in Washington. Well, okay. Maybe not ALL but most of you need to get this shit straight.

I understand, sir, that you’re worried about weapons from abroad. Smuggled in underwear, shoe bottoms, spray cans, cosmetic jars. I understand how terrifying this is. I hear very little, however, about the heavy duty weapons one can buy INSIDE American borders. You can google this yourself, btw. And you can order this online, onsale, and delivered right to your door. Really.

Get your New Ruger LCP .380 delivered right to your door. Yeah. Jingle bells, Santa smells… order now now now: get yours before…omg… they’re all gone. And don’t forget our body armor-piercing bullets, just for fun.

I’m not so sure I’m anti-gun. I am anti-insanity in the public space. And this strikes me as letting insanity loose in that space.

But I do understand you’re worried about terrorism. Really. But maybe it’s easier and more cost-effective, sir, to control the arms makers and dealers than billions of presumed innocent civilians?

Rein in arms dealers, Mr. President

From 1998 to 2001, the USA, the UK, and France earned more income from arms sales to developing countries than they gave in aid.

The arms industry is unlike any other. It operates without regulation. It suffers from widespread corruption and bribes. And it makes its profits on the back of machines designed to kill and maim human beings.

So who profits most from this murderous trade? The five permanent members of the UN Security Council-the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China. Together, they are responsible for eighty eight per cent of reported conventional arms exports.

“We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.” Former US President Jimmy Carter, presidential campaign, 1976

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^{from Control Arms 2003 “Shattered Lives Report” on the site in pdf}

Tax payer money is for arms, not for health care

“The fact that someone (or company) can be accused and/or indicted for U.S. or foreign arms trafficking and still receive American tax dollars to transfer weapons boggles the mind,” said Larry Cox, Amnesty International USA executive director. “This happens simply because DoD does not have a specific regulation that prohibits U.S. companies or individuals from subcontracting to questionable actors. DoD procedures in this vital area seem to be missing in action.”

In many cases, however, DoD private contractors engaged in international arms transfers do not have to comply with DDTC’s controls if the transfer is government to government. Conversely, U.S. citizens and residents must be approved by DDTC to export or broker weapons to foreign entities. DoD’s new authorities for transferring arms such as, the Iraq Security Forces Fund and Section 1206 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006, have fewer controls than traditional U.S. government-to-government arms transfer programs, such as Foreign Military Sales, which are managed by DoD.

“While the U.S. government has made some efforts to prevent contracts with known arms traffickers in the last few years, there is a great risk that taxpayer dollars will continue to fund known violators of U.N. arms embargos and other profiteers of violent conflict,” said Colby Goodman, the author of this report. “DoD needs to do more to avoid funding arms traffickers that often fuel grave human rights violations abroad by immediately closing these gaping loopholes.”

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Just to drive home the point: The top five countries profiting from the arms trade are the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the USA, UK, France, Russia, and China.

Why there are no rules with which to comply

However, it is the role of the clandestine middleman that distinguishes the careers of the people profiled on this Web site. They are specialists. They know the laws and the rules of the game — from the necessity of obtaining an end-user certificate to making sure that the weapons work and that the money is there. Often, they are the key players who provide the deniability that the government supplying the weapons seeks. They allow government spokespersons, such as the Ukrainian official interviewed by FRONTLINE/World, to say, when asked about a delivery of weapons, “We got certificates. … What should we do else?”

The fucking game is rigged. I suppose we should be grateful that there’s a small amount of trepidation that forces our gov’t to lie about it… might we might revolt … if we let the truth surface. if we could, for one moment, silence the the cultural chum churners screaming about gay marriage or abortion. all designed to deafen our naming of the real terrorists.

The Bush administration’ memory lapse is remembering where our enemies in Iraq got their weapons

My fellow Americans, it is my duty to reveal to you that Iran is not the only powerful state that’s arming the Iraqi insurgents. On the contrary. There’s equally solid evidence that another major world power has been providing the Iraqi insurgents with thousands of new RPGs, machine guns, sniper rifles and other weapons.

Just who is behind this act of hostility? The United States – or anyway, the U.S. Department of Defense.

You heard me. According to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, about 14,000 of the weapons bought (with your tax dollars!) for distribution to Iraqi security forces got, um, misplaced somewhere between getting to Iraq and being transferred to the Iraqi army and police. Instead, analysts say, many of those weapons ended up in the hands of You Know Who.

Just a quick footnote, here, sir. Before we go gung-ho into Yemen, maybe your guys in Homeland Security oughta take a look at our southwest borders. More to the point, you’d make the world a whole lot safer for me if you control the fucking billionaire drug cartel dealers.

Drug wars cross our border Mr. President

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, a 54-year-old drug cartel leader … is a key player in the bloody turf battles being fought along the border (of the United States). He (has ordered) his associates to use lethal force to protect their loads in contested drug trafficking corridors, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Guzman’s shoot-to-kill instructions aren’t limited to Mexican authorities and cartel rivals; they also include U.S. law enforcement officials, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing sources and intelligence memos. The move is seen as dangerously brazen, the newspaper reported. In the past, the cartels have tried to avoid direct confrontation with U.S. law enforcement.

… it is only a matter of time before innocent people on the U.S. side get caught in the cartel crossfire. “It’s coming. I guarantee, it’s coming,” said Michael Sanders, a DEA spokesman in Washington.

See, now this threat is one I happen to believe. And yet, we’re going yammering on about a terrorist threat from Yemen. And funny me: I thought Iraq was the epicenter of this terror thing. Or was it Afghanistan? No. Pakistan. God, they’re all the same. Right?

Btw, why don’t we call drug cartel dealers terrorists? Why aren’t we looking at their impact on the world and the amount of death, destruction, and untaxed money generated? Why are they allowed to be labeled in such a friendly way… drug dealer. Hell that could even mean Merck of J&J. Drugs are good for us, no?

Anyway. Just remember what happened when we targeted Iraq as that epicenter of terrorism and our ex VP Cheney still defends it:

In speech, Cheney again links 9/11, WMDs, and Iraq

…Dick Cheney’s… extensive linking of 9/11 to weapons of mass destruction (including nuclear weapons), Saddam Hussein, and Iraq…

…his full-throated defense of torture …described the national security context as one in which the foremost fear was “a 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction.”

Cheney said al Qaeda was seaking nuclear weapons and that because Iraq had “known ties” to terrorists, the Bush administration focused on Iraq because it was a regime that “might transfer such weapons to terrorists.”

But Dick Cheney was wrong. Epically wrong. And on purpose wrong. Too much money to let the destruction of some country get in the way.

Now what do we do with this kind of information? Leave it as part of the list or try to use it to de program people who have been effectively profiled and managed and mislead… I’m not so sure it’s fighting the bad guys anymore.

I think we have to be willing to see the truth to free ourselves. It is the only way we will begin to chart some other course. And it’s charting our course and beginning to live that life that will take the energy away from these parasites. That’s what i’m thinking, anyway.