White Queen Takes Black Knight

This is Clyde's latest essay:



Please note:

I am not Clyde Lewis. This essay is posted here with his permission for wider availability. If you post a comment here, he will not receive it. Comments can be sent to him at clyde@groundzeromedia.org.

Collective singular noun!

14 U.S. Troops Die in Iraq Copter Crash

No, fourteen US troops did NOT die in a helicopter crash. Fourteen INDIVIDUALS died in a helicopter crash. "Troop" is a fucking COLLECTIVE. SINGULAR. NOUN. One person is not a "troop"! No! NO! Fourteen "military members", "soldiers", "Marines", "sailors", or "airmen". NOT TROOPS! STOP IT! STOPPITNOW!

The proper response to "fourteen troops died in a helicopter crash" is: "How many were in each troop?" Well, actually, a more fitting response might be "Why the fuck were they still over there to get into the helicopter to die?" but let's not digress.

I have no idea why this matters so much to me. Perhaps it's because "troops" is such a cutesy word. Boy Scouts are in "troops". Someone is a good sport, and lets you pile work upon them, they're a "real trooper". Too bad "trooper" means a state patrolman already. Well, there was "Starship Troopers", but even with the movie (or because of it), "troopers" never caught on.

Or perhaps it's because "troops" has become a trigger word for certain ersatz emotions TheyTM would like to elicit in us. If you're going to (try to) manipulate my mind, I insist you do so using correct grammar. Whatever it is you're trying to accomplish, you knock me right back into jarring reality when you say that. Knock off your lazy yellow-journalistic shorthand and write properly.

Hey, fringe -- lay off the panic button

This article has spread across the fringe-o-sphere like the "brushfire" of its metaphoric headline:

Stock Market Brushfire; Will there be a run on the banks?

NO, dammit. Not right now. It's too early.

Not unless you keep cranking that siren. Are you TRYING to cause a run on the banks, with your panic scenarios?

Yes. You are.

You'd love it if the stock market crashed and all your dire predictions came true. You and your guns and your gold could crouch in the tall grass around your fortified homes and shiver with grim satisfaction.

But that's just me, I guess.

Look, sometimes I dwell in that world, too. Anyone who reads this blog -- all two of you -- know that. Some of the philosophy makes a lot of sense. Your scenario is one of the ones that may come true. But the world may go in a different direction than the one you predict. Have you taken steps to adapt to more than one? Or does it just have to be yours?

Do you want it so bad you've got to make it true? Is "I told you so" that important? You people try so hard to make Ed and Elaine Brown, two incredibly insignificant people on whom, till now, I've been striving not to waste words, into a libertarian cause celebre, and your new Waco keeps NOT HAPPENING, doesn't it? I'm expecting one of you to start plinking at the police cars after a while just to relieve your tension by starting the festivities.

Yeah, I know, the mainstream media participated in the panic campaign too. Seems to me that's the exact reason why you SHOULDN'T have.

I'm tired of hearing about how Ron Paul is the only one who can save America. He can't save America because he is NOT going to be president. You are wasting your time and money. Whether he should be president, or would make a good president, is beside the point. It's not going to happen. Yeah, yeah, people like me are part of the problem, aren't we? Naysayers. All my fault. Mm-hmm.

I used to be impressed by Ron Paul. That ended the day he announced his candidacy for president. Anyone who craves that job is not someone who should have that job.

Presidents, up till the current one, didn't have as much power as people thought. Now Bush has changed that with his abuse of executive privilege and his anointing of himself as dictator in the event of a national emergency. And that's the position the next president will inherit. Are they going to reverse these decisions, take power away from themselves? Hell, no. People who crave power are incapable of giving it up once they have it.

In 2008, I am voting for None Of The Above.

Last Monday at Ground Zero Lounge (see video below), someone demanded of Clyde Lewis that he declare his support for a candidate. He wouldn't accept hearing what Clyde wanted in a candidate; he wanted a NAME. And when he didn't get it, he accused Clyde of evading the question. How can you answer a question that has no answer, except with a lie?

I don't know about Clyde, but no one is making me vote for someone on the list just because the list is there. I don't want to hear any more crap about how everyone who voted for Nader or for anyone else but Gore or Kerry, actually voted for Bush. It's people like that who perpetuate the two-party system. The system that even Ron Paul is now feeding into. Perhaps -- in an alternate but similar universe in which I still supported presidential candidates -- I might have supported Ron Paul as an independent. But when he declared a Republican candidacy, he killed any faith I might have had in him.

Write someone in, you say. You have to vote for SOMEONE. No, I don't have to vote for anyone. I don't have to vote at all. Clyde and his friend on the video can say cute-ass things like "I'm writing in Satan", but I don't play that game. I don't have to buy into the farce that voting has become. I vote on issues. I vote on representatives, even though I no longer believe they represent me. In fact, I'm thinking of forgoing voting for any PERSON at all, for any office.

Yeah, I'm part of the problem, right? No, I'm part of YOUR problem. I'm someone who thinks for myself, instead of throwing in with a bunch of people who claim to think for themselves and then vote for a man who has sold out like the rest of them, and gloat about it among their clique. Wasn't that what Libertarians were supposed to be against?

This started out being about the stock market, didn't it? How I do digress.

Ground Zero articles of interest:



If this video doesn't work for you, try this link, or go to video.google.com and search 8-13-07 clyde lewis.

Deal with it.

A hint of more positive news for the Bush admininstration

We’re seeing some slight hints of positive news for the Bush administration. For one thing, Bush’s job approval rating has stopped its downward trajectory. Bush hit bottom with his administration low point of 29% in early July (based on our USA Today/Gallup poll readings). Now – in the data just about to be released from our weekend poll – Bush's approval rating has recovered slightly to 34%. That’s not a big jump, but it is the second consecutive poll in which the president’s numbers have been higher rather than lower.

Mmmright. Just like the gas prices halted their climb and "plunged" about ten cents, right?

Why is it that the Bush administration cares at all about what their approval rating is? The Republicans are staying in power until January 2009, and then, unless Bush stays on the throne due to a National Emergency, they're gone.

The next president (should there be a next president) will be a Democrat.

Deal with it.

Edwards versus ThemTM

John Edwards says that They^TM want to shut him up.

Honey, we all want all of you to shut up...

Edwards: "They want to shut me up"

If we don't stand up to these people, if we don't fight em, if we don't beat them, they're going to continue to control this country. They're going to control the media. They're going to control what's being said. They do not want to hear us talking about health care for everybody.

Senator, do you really think that They^TM haven't already charted out in great detail who's likely going to say what, who's going to be allowed to say what, what the official and popular reactions are going to be reported to who says what, and precisely how much squat it's going to matter to the outcome? That this entire circus isn't meticulously scripted?

Of course you don't think that, because you know better. Senator John Scion-of-Bilderberg Edwards, you ARE Them^TM.

So shut up.

Okay, Rupert, we're getting the hint

Guess what the new season of 24 is going to feature?

Female President Next for Fox's '24'

Jones' term will coincide with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid, but Fox Entertainment Chairman Peter Liguori said fiction and real-world politics will not intersect.

Mmright. It's the news that intersects. And news...is politics.

For six seasons -- well, five; the first season, being experimental, was relatively free of it -- people have called 24 on its parallels to current events and its fear-inducing political slant.

Evil Middle Easterners. Evil Mexicans. Drugs. Nukes. Bioweapons. Conflict with Russia. Conflict with China. Capture and torture. Oh, yes, and, last season, a bad guy named Fayed, just in time for the tenth anniversary of Princess Diana's death.

And now a female president.

Which will our Hillary-surrogate be: the villain or the potential disaster?

Ground Zero articles of interest:

Congressman Godwin

I guess once you're in Congress, you can say anything you want, as long as you don't care whether you're being re-elected.

Bush like Hitler, says first Muslim in Congress

Addressing a gathering of atheists in his home state of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, compared the 9/11 atrocities to the destruction of the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1933. This was probably burned down by the Nazis in order to justify Hitler's later seizure of emergency powers.

"It's almost like the Reichstag fire, kind of reminds me of that," Mr Ellison said. "After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader [Hitler] of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

This comparison is valid, and no amount of "b-b-but six million Jews" is going to change the fact that the methods are the same. People who know what they are talking about (as opposed to people who just use Hitler's name for shock value) don't compare Bush's accomplishments to Hitler's accomplishments, nor Bush's crimes to Hitler's crimes; they compare the two leaders' use of propaganda, and their gradual insinuation of dictatorial privilege into the law.

To applause from his audience of 300 members of Atheists for Human Rights, Mr Ellison said he would not accuse the Bush administration of planning 9/11 because "you know, that's how they put you in the nut-ball box - dismiss you".

Oh, come on...you were doing so well.

Whether or not they planned it, they planned FOR it. They did not plan for it in order to stop it; they planned for it in order to use it.

Mark Drake, of the Republican party in Minnesota, said: "To compare the democratically elected leader of the United States of America to Hitler is an absolute moral outrage which trivialises the horrors of Nazi Germany."

Hitler was democratically elected, you dolt.

Ground Zero articles of interest:

Cirque du Terreur

A most intriguing choice of adjectives:

Secret Document: U.S. Fears Terror 'Spectacular' Planned

We've gotten "secret", "fear", "terror" -- all triggers -- along with the jarringly incongruous "spectacular", all in one headline! Cue "Entrance of the Gladiators"!

(Yes, you know "Entrance of the Gladiators." Think "circus". Hear that music? That's it.)

One question: Why has it always got to be about US?

US, the pronoun. Perhaps it's no accident that "United States" is abbreviated that way. When you go to the article (yes, I do suggest you RTFA), look at the some of the Related Articles: "U.S. Told About Glasgow Threat 2 Weeks Ago." "Heavy Weapons Teams at U.S. Airports." "U.S. Reacts to London Bombs."

You know what the U.S. is reacting to London bombs with? Jealousy. The United States thinks it is the most important thing in the universe. How dare the terrorists concentrate on Britain? It can't be because Britain is, like, important or anything. It's got to be a warm-up for attacking US. You guys might have a few exploding cars, but we're going to have a Spectacular Event! One wasn't enough! We need ATTENTION!

Our exploding cars will be full of CLOWNS!