Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" ( Monty Python)

Read Below:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/19/5320/

That is too damn interesting

What was that Chinese curse about interesting times?

Certainly you and I should apply for seats on the "Center of Excellence" . . .

Why, I can smell a subversive thought a mile off . . .


--NCM

Examples of the resulting crackdowns on such protests include the conviction and execution of anarchists tied to Chicago’s 1886 Haymarket Riot. Hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee for several decades during the Cold War and the solo hearings by a member of that committee’s Senate counterpart, Joseph McCarthy, demonstrate the dangers inherent in Ms. Harman’s legislation.

The House Un-American Activities Committee was one of my immediate thoughts before I got even halfway through. Even though I did not personally live through the Golden 50's, doesn't the same smog of repression seem the settling over the States? Switch 'Communist' with 'Terrorist', and its basically the same deal. Of course, terrorists are a much better enemy, and as this article shows, a much more vague one.

"One can never underestimate how irrational people become when they are really frightened."
- Susan Sontag

Depressing.
Not surprizing.
Is there anything we can do?

H

bonhonato and Hester:

Thanks for reading this rather frightening article. Yes, it's HUAC all over again, but only in a finally visible form.

The snooping, wire-tapping and other horrors-- all in the digital realm, will simply become blood-sport on tv eventually, if that.

I'm reading Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.'s JOURNALS 1952-2000, and he's ( 1972) extremely upset over Nixon's mining of North Vietnamese harbors and continual bombing of civilians ( and military), killing thousands, in the North.

I had just been hired as a full-time teacher, and saw some steady money finally coming my way in 1972. Meanwhile, Nixon was running the most repressive White House in history.

But it didn't compare to this ( BUSHKO) machine, manufacturing wars where there was no reason for them, haunting around sovereign countries ready to "change their regimes" and making up evidence to start mowing down whole populations with impunity.

Nixon was like a mad Fuherer in his final years-- BUSHKO is more like Mr. Kurtz in HEART OF DARKNESS with his rows of skulls . . .

( a little nostalgia from 2004 as we head for another Presidential election . . .)


http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... le6528.htm

The worst news comes from the perfectly indifferent masses of people snuggled into their IPODS, fantasy gaming and TV sets-- indifferent to the fate of anyone else and completely ignorant of ( and uninterested in) history.

I don't direct that comment at young people exclusively. I live in a neighborhood of Republicans-- my next-door neighbors on both sides.

Orwell was worried that future citizens would be prevented from reading books. He didn't have to worry. Prevention was unnecessary.

Television is God.

I refuse to worship-- an apostate in the era of digital "truth" emanating from an All-Powerful-President who doesn't deserve the name.

Yes, Hester, we are in the DEEP SAUCE.

The only thing that can "un-stay the course" is a movement of millions of U.S. citizens.

And Hillary isn't the answer, I fear. Not at all.

And Mailer isn't even here to write THE ARMIES OF THE NIGHT-- a good book.


--Z

chilling.

defend ourselves...

oh how i'd like to fancy myself a visionary, a sort of cyber churchill, who shall take the best punch of the living dead mass media and remain unmoved in front of a wild flashing screen, brought to you by every last ounce of greed and manufactured twinge of noble, sponsored by numb. oh that gutless iron constitution of mine, immune to the 852 channels, the great and powerful oz, the flashing lights. gimme that damned hook up. i'll fite them on the reaches. i'll go down swingin' at jumpy shadows on the wall, but if it were left up to me, our boy hussein would still be dealin' cards for middle eastern sequels to rambo part seventy-two, so do i have the billion dollar weaponry it takes for peace? probably not, but then peace ain't too good for biznezz anyway.

lessee, where was i goin' with this? oh yah. television is god. and you can't fight god. the cable connection will subdue me, muffle my screams under a great bloodsoaked pillow of redemption.. i'll choke on the vomit of my own billions coerced at terrible pyschological swordpoint, but i'll fight those jumpy shadows on the wall nonetheless. i'll go down kickin', go down screaming at the box. i know i can take it down! and mailer isn't even around to stab anything anymore-- it's all gone corporate now-- hollyfoxwouldrambodesertstormkiefersutherlandnews.com,
and that musliminabriefcase motif, the blessed road to heaven of our time. yes yes, i'll finally be the one to stand up to a goddamned cable connection, in a virtual suburb, scared shitless!... let us pray.

wow... that was a bit long-winded, now wasn't it?

never mind. resistance is futile. the ministry will eventually get me. the wire will eventually suck me in. hey... roddenberry... now there's a true vizionerry...

can't wait to ride on one of them starships...

I can't remember if it was Abbie Hoffman, I think who was summoned to testify before the HUAC. He showed up wearing a Santa Claus suit. Not long after that the HUAC was shut down.

Send in the clowns might be the best offense.

But you know there would be no history if not for ignorance. Alien and Sedition Act, Espionage act, the palmer raids. we have a rich tradition of outrageous laws.

Oh well just call me poly anna sun shine.

I think it might be a good time to bring back the HUAC, a lot of un american activities going on these days, mostly by guys in nice suits and ties not wearing turbans.

or perhaps guys in nice suits in cahoots with the guys in turbans, when it suits the machine. the machine is a junkie... must stay drunk on flashing lights and en-r-gy at all times, remember... hmmm... how the hell did i get on this rollllll this mornin'?... err... sorry.

mnaz you give me the shakes with that long winded post
nausea and the shakes

maybe I used too many emoticons

keep on rolling
I just was trying to cheer myself up
my poly anna sunshine.

I am trying to figure out how millions of people are going to get mobilized
Too bad about norman mailer.


please don't say sorry
just keep on rolling
cause it keeps me from feeling numb
thank you
kafka could not have done it better.

A book must be an ice axe to break the sea frozen inside us.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka

thanks jack. not a half-bad rant for me. musta got hold of some bad cornflakes or something...

a sort of cyber churchill

no more iron curtains
just silicon

no hyperbole
powerful piece of writing
thanks for scaring the hell out of me.
reminded me of the first mactintosh super bowl commercial

I have no idea what the bill is about
but the idea of it gettting 400 votes out of the house makes me curious as hell.

bad corn flake

Bush is a homegrown terrist. smokin' that homegrown marijana.

YeeHaw!!!!

Senatorr Makarthay isbackintown!!

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
- Ray Douglas Bradbury

They say that if the draft is reinstated then people will begin to protest the war more. Perhaps if they bring back the HUAC, people will begin to ______ more.



May 13, 1960 HUAC protests in San Francisco. Of all the movements in the 1960s, I've always admired the Free Speech Movement the most.

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.''
- Mario Savio, Dec. 2 1964

Unplug and start living.