The Feel Turd Moment of the Year
Ebony and Ivory.
The holiday season is upon us. This may be a festive time of year but sometimes it’s important to slow down, focus, center, be present, and remember our roots.
For me, today, that means pausing to pay homage to the poop tag.
“Roll the crap. Action!”
Once upon a time a company made a game called Cards Against Humanity. It was mildly cute but a blatant rip of Apples To Apples. They lost points on that.
But now, I’m happy to say they have more than redeemed themselves. The Christmas spirit is very much alive. So much so, you might say that I’ve been moved.
My protest sign
Introduction: A sign made by yours truly is shown above. This was taken at a Tea Party Tax Day Protest 2010 in front of the Sarah Palin Building in Washington, D.C. As you can see, no one suspected I was a protest sign infiltrator and I was just able to duck for cover before this picture was taken, so I didn’t blow my cover and I remain safely anonymous …
This last week our nation celebrated April 15th. That’s always a fun day here in the abyss. I simply refer to it as Festival Day. Even so, I still found some time to take a quick crawl out to civilization. My goal? Infiltration of so-called “Tea Party” tax day protests. Aha! I get it. They went and scheduled their protests on a significant day. Tax day and “Taxed Enough Already.” Very, very clever. Get it? They truly have some masterminds at the helm.
All I wanted to do was sneak in and be a “plant” with my humble little sign. You know what I mean, right? None of the offensive messages on display at Tea Party protests are ever representative of the movement itself. The movement has an amazing lack of responsibility in that area. I’ve basically been told that if a sign is offensive then it must obviously be a “plant.” A “plant” is someone at a rally opposed to the Tea Party’s objectives for the sole purpose of making the movement look bad. (It’s hard to argue with logic like that.)
Isn’t it amazing how the Tea Party somehow knows that without exception all offensive messages must be plants!
Maybe, just maybe, the Tea Party themselves planted the “plants.” Now that is a brilliant idea. It gives them someone to blame and a clear path to obfuscation. Think about it. They know the offensive messages are self-planted, and they know that we’ll react to them, and when we do, then they can claim innocence and blame it on others.
Unless… What if we know that they know that they did it, but they don’t know that we know? Perhaps then we could plant signs that make the Tea Party look good. This will confuse them for sure. They’ll know the signs aren’t theirs, but they won’t know what to do about it, because they won’t know that we know that they know the offensive self-planted signs are theirs!
The only possible flaw I can see in this plan is if they find out that we know that they know about the offensive self-planted signs, then they may also know that we know that we planted the positive signs, which they know couldn’t have been planted by them. If they figure that out, and they know that we did, and we don’t know that they know that, it could be bad.
Fuck it. I say we go for it. I’m a little confused which type of signs to make now, though. I think I’ll stick to ones that are offensively positive. Start making signs! 🙂
What can Browning do for you?
Seen on Capitol Hill, March 20, 2010
Browning Arms Company was founded in Utah in 1927. It offers a wide variety of firearms, including shotguns, rifles, pistols, and rimfire firearms. (Source: Wikipedia.)
When the tea party talks about “revolution” ad infinitum what do they mean by that?
On March 20, 2010, “tea party activists” gathered on Capitol Hill for a rally named “Code Red.” The purpose of the rally was to protest against “health care reform” and was promoted by actor John Voight, who said the rally was a way to fight back against the “corrupt ACORN liars.”
The “Code Red” event was organized by organizations like FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity.
The sign shown in the inset was on display at that rally. It references a “Browning” firearm and even includes a picture of a handgun (just in case the Browning reference wasn’t clear enough) and a picture of the Capitol building. It also depicts “fire line” yellow tape which is typically used in reference to hazardous areas. (Like a shooting range, I wonder?)
One question I have: Why don’t those in the vicinity take a little bit of proactive action and self-police signs with messages like that? Does that mean the sign has the tacit approval of the crowd and/or the event organizers? You’re not likely to tear down signs you agree with, are you?
These are strange times indeed when messages like that are displayed in our nation’s capitol. I can only sit here and wonder: What can Browning do for you?
Finding a powerful piece of history
I think exploring history is like looking at the nighttime starry sky. No matter where you look you can discover something new. This week I came across a powerful and moving story while researching the song “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine.
On June 11, 1963, a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk named Thích Quảng Đức performed the act of “self-immolation” at a busy Saigon road intersection in protest.
The act itself occurred at the intersection of Phan Dinh Phung Boulevard and Le Van Duyet Street. Thích Quảng Đức emerged from the car along with two other monks. One placed a cushion on the road while the second opened the trunk and took out a five-gallon gasoline can. As the marchers formed a circle around him, Thích Quảng Đức calmly seated himself in the traditional Buddhist meditative lotus position on the cushion. His colleague emptied the contents of the gasoline container over Thích Quảng Đức’s head. Thích Quảng Đức rotated a string of wooden prayer beads and recited the words “Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật” (“homage to Amitabha Buddha”) before striking a match and dropping it on himself. Flames consumed his robes and flesh, and black oily smoke emanated from his burning body.
Thích Quảng Đức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam’s Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime.
A spokesperson for the Buddhists had alerted U.S. correspondents the day before that “something important” was going to happen, but most reporters disregarded that message.
Photographer and journalist Malcolm Browne did show up and took the picture above, which won the World Press Photo of the Year award in 1963.
Journalist David Halbertsam of the New York Times also was there and wrote this eyewitness account:
I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shriveling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think… As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.
Information for this posting came from Wikipedia: Thích Quảng Đức. That page contains much more information about the aftermath of Đức’s protest.
This week I was enjoying the song “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine. The song is a commentary on killing in the name of religion or God. For the cover art for the single the band chose the famous photograph of Thích Quảng Đức’s self-immolation.
That photo is what prompted me to learn more, and I’m glad I did. I find this to be a deeply moving, powerful and disturbing story.
I was quite surprised to learn just how common the act of self-immolation can be. You can read about many more examples at Wikipdedia: Self-immolation.
Here’s a video of the song “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine:
I just heard Dixie Chicks on the radio
I’m listening to a country & western station today and I just realized: they are playing a Dixie Chicks song!
In fact, it’s the beautiful song Without You. If you haven’t heard it, and even if you have, take a quick jump over to YouTube, set aside a few minutes and just enjoy. Here’s the link: YouTube.com. (Here’s another YouTube link if the first one doesn’t play due to copyright restrictions.)
Beautiful, eh? 🙂
If this is the sort of change we get under Obama then I have to admit, I’m diggin’ it. Seems like only yesterday the Dixie Chicks were the subject of boycotts, radio stations wouldn’t play their music, and their CDs were being steamrolled and crushed in protest – all because they had the audacity to criticize the president. “We’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas,” they famously said.
Of course, times change. The Bitchers now say things like, “Our president wants to destroy America,” and that’s a-okay and hunky dory with the flag waving phonies.
Times have changed indeed. In an exponentially hypocritical sort of way.
Next challenge: Get country and western radio to play K.D. Lang. Get that done and who knows? Maybe we can be a civilized society again!
Shouts from the Abyss 
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