regarding LGBTQC warriors

Dear members of America’s armed forces:

Please consider supporting your fellow lesbian, gay, bisexal, transgender, queer, or curious (LGBTQC) soldiers by performing the following acts: declare that your entire platoon, your full company, and your whole battalion are openly LGBTQC.

Not only will this make the unconstitutional, un-American, and hateful targeting and ostracization of individual service-members more difficult, it will enrage terrorist extremists at home and abroad. The foreign terrorist extremists known as Daesh (formerly IS, or the Islamic State) will lose their minds once they realize they’re fighting against and being killed by transgender people or homosexuals; and the homegrown religious extremists spouting hatred and spreading fear within the United States will be driven to frenzy just imagining that transgender people or homosexuals are putting their lives on the line to defend American values. Please remember that it doesn’t matter if any or all of you are actually LGBTQC - declaring it openly sends a powerful message of acceptance, hope, and pride.

Unit cohesion is fundamental to mission success. By standing united against small-minded bigotry, you’ll help show the world that true Americans are virtuous, inclusive, level-headed, and not to be fucked with.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

corporate rule falters

As a self-appointed bane of America's corporate ruling-class, I speak often of the risks posed by these quasi-humans and their propensity to homogenize and sterilize any and every process and action they undertake. I have been encouraged, however, in recent months, by what appears to me to be a slipping of the corporate hand. Contrary to the image they work so hard to portray in countless and persistent television advertisements, in home-improvement centers such as Lowe's and Home Depot, for example, I wander the aisles for long periods of time without being approached or spoken to by those stores' employees; if I am approached (by anyone other than poorly-disguised undercover police officers who shadow my every move, all but begging me to steal something), I am called such things as, “Guy,” “Bro,” “Man,” or “Dude,” and only rarely, “Sir.” Such is the laxity of these corporations' wage-slaves that they stand around frequently in clusters talking to one another about anything but work, about kids or sports or how much their lives such, in earshot of paying customers who might need help finding something; such is the impotence of their bosses in middle-management that mandatory training-sessions aimed at fostering within their hearts a sense of decorum or self-pride appear to be wasted effort.

Whereas I initially placed the blame for such unprofessional behavior squarely on the shoulders of the under-educated and fiscally-misguided employees who live in this area of South-Central Pennsylvania, in my recent travels I have noticed similar behavior exhibited by employees stemming from other regions, as well. Therefore, I suspect that the once-iron grip of corporate rule – a grip that for many decades has relied on employees' fear of retribution or job-loss, their honest desire to serve the customer, and pride in their small-but-important contribution to goals clearly defined in their corporations' mission statement – that such inherent and priceless values have been steam-rolled into oblivion by incessant demands to increase profits and the need to keep stock-values rising, to the detriment of service to the customer. I have noticed the grip of corporate rule slipping in states such as Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, at stores such as those mentioned above and at Sam's Club, Auto Zone, and at branches of different grocery-store chains.

Could my mind be so filled with vitriol for undemocratic, greedy corporations that I am seeing something that is not there, or could my observations contain a hint of the Truth? Am I so fed up with the way that corporations are destroying the fabric of American society that I nitpick even their slightest professional errors, making mountains out of mole-hills? While I admit to longing for a time when the Commons belonged to all persons equally and when we Yanki were self-reliant and self-respecting individuals who cherished things of intrinsic value and who contributed willingly to communal success instead of just looking out of ourselves all the time, I recognize the futility of my struggle to resurrect such lost values and my resemblance to a fool tilting at windmills; if, however, I do not fight to free the American Dream from the stifling grasp of materialism and conspicuous consumption, who will? If I do not sit here in this cold room every morning banging away at this netbook with a pot full of hot, green tea at my side championing the rights of gays and lesbians and hurling barbs at the creeping menace of homegrown religious extremism, who will? Few Americans are as stupid as I am to stake Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor on the notion that we as a people have a duty to defend Liberty at all cost, to work tirelessly to ensure that all of our fellow humans are treated equally, and to fight governmental over-reach with such foolish brashness as I tend to do; I blame this behavior in part on Silas Nickerson, my 18th Century ancestor, who took up arms in our War for Independence, joining a rag-tag band of homegrown terrorists who were fighting with a distant tyrant for their right to decide for themselves how best to make themselves Safe and Happy. I wonder if old man Silas would applaud my efforts, or if he would succumb to the siren-song of Me-First capitalism, signing away his hard-won freedom for 60 months of interest-free financing. Hrm.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

Commons, constitutional Right

The preamble to the U.S. Constitution states that the role of government is to provide for the general Welfare. We the people, together with local, state, and federal governments, can only accomplish this if we properly protect the Commons, something which neither our system of quasi-free-market capitalism nor today's re-election-focused politicians deem important. The average, hard-working American, however, relies daily on things that make up the Commons, including roads, bridges, radio waves, wi-fi, seams of coal, deposits of natural gas, clean and smog-free air (vital to the health of all persons), clean and potable water (vital to the health of all persons), and national and local parks. Where once, however, a person suffering cold had the right to walk into the woods and collect for herself a few armfuls of wood, now those trees belong to individuals who sell that wood for profit. When something that belongs equally to everyone is sold by one just person, for no other purpose than his or her personal gain, the beauty of the Commons is shattered, Nature's bounty serving not the interests of all persons equally but only the interests of a few, specifically.

Among the gravest dangers facing America today is our loss of appreciation for things that have intrinsic value, that have worth beyond the merely monetary; our system of Me-First capitalism has so infiltrated and poisoned our minds that we think that everything comes with a price-tag, that everything is for sale. If we just admitted to being a nation of whores, a nation focused on the accumulation of personal wealth, if we just fessed up to selling ourselves into wage-slavery in order to maintain our electricity-dependent, non-self-sufficient lifestyles, then our estimation in the opinions of mankind might not be so low; but, as things stand, we come across as childish and hypocritical assholes who complain about the poor state of our lives while sitting around all day watching TV and shoveling food processed by other downtrodden corporate wage-slaves into our ever-expanding stomachs. The notion of the Commons relies on communal sacrifice, on inter-personal sharing, and on the idea that some aspects of our lives – love, mercy, humility, equality, and generosity – cannot be pigeonholed but must remain beyond the realm of definition, classification, and exploitation. To bring about this state of affairs and to rescue our tender humanity from the ever-grasping paws of profit-hungry corporate interests and the greed of unscrupulous men, we must stand together, protecting what belongs to us all with Life, Fortune, and sacred Honor.

The Declaration of Independence defines government as that body which brings about the Safety and Happiness of the people. Furthermore, it grants us the right to alter or to abolish our government should it become destructive of our Safety and Happiness. Friends, Yankis, fellow patriots, we demand that our governments protect the Commons diligently, since clean air, pure soil, clear water, and guaranteed civil rights make us Happy and Safe and poisoned air, barren soil, polluted water, and preferential treatment for avaricious, self-interested individuals makes us Unsafe and Unhappy. The government of the United States of America does not exist to pay $400 billion to defense contractors, to cut taxes for wealthy corporations and rich individuals, to stop funding education, to stop funding programs that assist the poor and the elderly, to attack and kill persons merely suspected of committing grave crimes (such as Al-Awlaki, Osama Bin Laden), to subjugate foreign peoples in order to gain access to their mineral and fuel resources, or to restrict the ability of its own people to consume whichever drugs they decide best; the government of the U.S.A. exists to insure domestic tranquility and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, which it does best by protecting the Commons and making sure they stay free to all who may require their bounty. As long as we remain undisciplined and look the other way, however, and as long as we participate in the travesty of conspicuous consumption, we shall remain the enemies of the Commons, blind to the fragile truths which can save us from ourselves. To free the person, free her mind. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on ambitions in cash

  During a recent conversation about the merits of socialism, my counterpart argued that ambition, ingenuity, and creativity would disappear in the absence of monetary remuneration for labor. In other words, he claimed that people would stop working if they stopped getting paid money to work, that ambition would vanish if the potential for gain were to also vanish. If this theory were true, fathers would stop showing up to coach their kids' little league teams, our interstate hiking trails would become overgrown for a lack of volunteers to keep them cleared of brush, and nothing would transpire within the walls of churches other than those tasks performed by paid clergy.

  Unknowable man-hours of labor are performed every year in the United States for which the laborers are not paid. This labor is performed to satisfy an ideal, to give back to the community, even to calm that deep inner need to do something positive with which the unlucky among are burdened. I believe this zeal to provide for the common good is inherent to all persons (although most of us have it stamped or beaten out of us at one point or other in our lives). I also believe that our current economic system has ensnared this zeal, and subjugated it to the fleeting, hollow satisfaction of conspicuous consumption.

  It is not as if the people are bad, or shiftless, it is that we have unlearned to cherish those things that are precious beyond their monetary value.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp