See other Dead Constitution Articles
Title: Has America become Fascist?
Source:
Global Research
URL Source: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9723
Published: Aug 2, 2008
Author: Sherwood Ross
Post Date: 2008-08-02 20:36:00 by bush_is_a_moonie
Keywords: None
Views: 1039
Comments: 83
If it hasn’t gone the way of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well. Webster’s defines fascism as “a totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism, and often racism.” A comparison of 20th century fascist and communist regimes with President Bush’s USA indicates the machinery for a full-blown totalitarian takeover is now in place, even if no coup has occurred. As Naomi Wolf writes in “The End of America” (Chelsea Green) the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill’s Section 333 allows the president “to declare martial law and take charge of the National Guard troops without the permission of a governor when ‘public order’ has been lost…” and to “send the guard into our streets during a public health emergency, terrorist attack or ‘other condition.’” The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. “The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an ‘enemy combatant,’” Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia. Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany’s Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler’s boast, “Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy.” Hitler’s Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon “The Decider” in the White House. Mussolini’s used the less grandiose “Il Duce” or “The Leader.” According to Michael Ratner, director of the Center For Constitutional Rights, New York, “the president can…designate people enemy combatants and detain them for whatever reason he wants…there are no charges and prisoners have no lawyers, no family visits, no court reviews, no rights to anything, and no right to release until the mythical end to the ‘war on terror.’” Wolf writes that dictators justify their usurpation of domestic liberties by raising the alarm of “terrorist” threats. Stalin, for example, used this very term in 1934 when he warned his public of a world-wide conspiracy by capitalists to overthrow the Soviet state. If there have been no mass arrests of native-born Americans it is only because the president has not chosen to exercise this authority. If you think it can’t happen to you, recall that in September of 2003 the Army arrested 36-year-old American-born Muslim chaplain James Yee, a West Point graduate, allegedly for “espionage and possibly treason”---but more likely for calling for better conditions for Gitmo inmates. Wolf wrote: “He was blindfolded; his ears were blocked; he was manacled and then put into solitary confinement for 76 days; forbidden mail, television, or anything to read except the Koran. His family was not allowed to visit him. …His lawyers were told he would face execution. (But)Within six months, the U.S. government had dropped all criminal charges against Yee.” Yes, just as it has dropped charges against hundreds of Guantanamo prisoners earlier, men labeled by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld as “the worst of the worst” but against the overwhelming majority of whom the Bush regime apparently had no case whatever! The treatment Yee got is typical of those who run afoul of the Bush regime: torture first, trial after…if there is a trial. And since his release, Yee has been denied his free speech right to discuss his ordeal---gagged by the Pentagon. Perhaps most incredible, even if a Guantanamo prisoner should be found innocent, the Pentagon says he might not be released anyway. This echoes Stalin’s practice of re-arresting Gulag prisoners after they had done their time. At one point, Stalin had eight million souls behind bars, even exceeding President Bush, currently the world’s Incarcerator-In-Chief. Author Wolf says another danger flag is the creation of paramilitary groups, “aggressive men who have no clear, accountable relationship to the government or the party seeking power…” Mussolini had the blackshirts; Hitler the brownshirts; but whatever their dress, they were thugs. Wolf says that Moycock, N.C.-based Blackwater Worldwide stands ready “to deploy its unaccountable private army (35,000 men) in the U.S.---in the aftermath of natural disasters, and also in cases of ‘national emergency.’” With at least a half billion dollars in government contracts, “Blackwater is the world’s largest private security force, works closely with Halliburton, and is available for action outside the scrutiny of Congress,” Wolf writes. The outfit raked in $73 million for patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. And Blackwater subcontractor Red Tactica, recruits former Chilean commandos,” men described by one Chilean sociologist that are “valued for their expertise in kidnapping, torturing and killing defenseless civilians,” Wolf wrote. Besides creating such “security” forces, dictators create secret prisons, as Bush has done, ranging from prison ships in the Indian Ocean to dungeons in Poland, where they can hide them from Red Cross scrutiny, as the CIA has done. “We should worry about the men held at Guantanamo because history shows that stripping prisoners of their rights is intoxicating not only to leaders but to functionaries at every level of society,” Wolf writes. “Gitmo” is also an interrogation camp, an operation “that is completely and flatly illegal” and outlawed by the Geneva Conventions in 1949, she points out. Stalin also employed torture and in 1937 actually legalized its use in Soviet prisons. When he received his infamous “albums” with the names of those to be executed and imprisoned, next to some names he often wrote: “Beat! Beat! Beat!” And only months after taking power, Hitler “established a network of illegitimate prisons where torture took place” and where guards could murder inmates with “no chance of being punished,” Wolf said. And like Stalin, The Decider has signaled his henchmen beatings are now the American Way. Dictators hold power by instilling fear in their citizens. Since 2000, Wolf writes there has been “a sharp increase in U.S. citizen groups that are being harassed and infiltrated by police and federal agents, often in illegal ways.” She pointed to a 2006 ACLU report that California police had infiltrated antiwar protests, political rallies, and other constitutionally protected gatherings and were secretly investigating them, even though the California state constitution forbids this. And prior to the 2004 Republican convention in New York, police department detectives infiltrated groups planning peaceful demonstrations. At the Federal level, Bush’s apparatchiks are compiling dossiers on law-abiding citizens. The Defense Department’s Talon program has created a database about peaceful antiwar and other groups and activists. As Jen Nessel of the Center for Constitutional Rights says, “We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model---you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we’re going to hold you.” Bush regime actions’ today recall how the Gestapo, NKVD, Stasi (East German secret police) and Red China’s Politburo “all requisitioned private data such as medical, banking, and library records,” Wolf writes, because access to such private data “breaks down citizens’ sense of being able to act freely against those in power.” And although the Department of Homeland Security’s TIPS scheme to get letter carriers and meter readers, etc., to report suspicious activities was met with derision and never funded, the ACLU noted it was merely absorbed in the Pentagon’s “black budget.” Privacy in America today as guaranteed by the Constitution is fast becoming a memory. The New York Times reported the government in 2005 was monitoring your e-mail and telephone talk without legal warrants and the following year the newspaper disclosed U.S. treasury officials, with CIA help, “were reviewing millions of private bank transactions without individual court-ordered warrants or subpoenas,” Wolf pointed out. One method of intimidation is to limit a citizen’s right to travel freely. The Bush regime has created “watch”(75,000 names) and “no fly”(45,000 names) lists that restrict individuals’ air travel--and those searched and/or stopped from flying can complain all they like because it won’t do them any good. Robert Johnson, an American citizen, Wolf reports, described the humiliation factor of being strip searched when he attempted to board an airplane: “I had to take off my pants. I had to take off my sneakers, then I had to take off my socks. I was treated like a criminal.” This has now become a commonplace ordeal for thousands of Americans. Even at the height of World War Two, such invasions of personal rights would have been unthinkable. Going back to Webster’s definition of fascism, USA today is the world’s runaway leader in “militarism.” Forty-three percent of all U.S. tax dollars in 2007 went to feed the war machine, as the Pentagon believes security depends on operating more than 700 military bases in 130 countries overseas in addition to 1,000 at home. Bush has escalated its budget so that USA now spends nearly as much on arms as all the rest of the world combined. Uncle Sam is also the No. 1 private arms peddler to the world. By contrast, Iran, portrayed by the White House as a menace to the Middle East, has an annual military budget that is 1/100th of the Pentagon’s outlay. Perhaps it would be a good exercise for Americans to read how Hitler emphasized nationalism and militarism. As he wrote in “Mein Kampf”: “Instead of everlasting struggle the world preaches cowardly pacifism, and everlasting peace…There is only one right in this world and this right is one’s own strength.” As for “reconciliation, understanding, world peace, the League of Nations, and international solidarity---we destroy these ideas.” Hitler called for delivering Germans “from the hopeless confusion of international convictions” and educating them “consciously and systematically to fanatical nationalism.” Armed with such views the fascist state thinks nothing of starting an aggressive war based on lies. In 1939, Hitler claimed he was attacked by Poland, igniting World War Two. Bush claimed that Iraq had nuclear and biological weapons to destroy America when, in fact, it was the United States that possessed those very weapons and it was Iraq that had none. Bush nonetheless started a seemingly endless war that has by some estimates to date killed more than 1 million Iraqis, wounded perhaps 2 million more, forced a like number from their homes, ravished their country and its economy, touched off a civil war, forced 1 million Iraqis into foreign exile, and killed and wounded 35,000 American troops. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the Iraq war “illegal” but Bush, like Hitler, cares nothing for international treaties, even if those the U.S. has signed under our Constitution are the supreme law of the land. He has made a mockery to the anti-nuclear treaty, causing former President Carter to charge his own country has become the leader in nuclear proliferation. What’s more, Bush has spent about $50 billion on germ warfare “defense” with no known significant foreign threat to USA. Americans may think that Webster’s view that fascism is often accompanied by racism doesn’t fit them. Indeed, USA’s strides to eliminate racism based on color in the last century are a societal marvel. But racism against African Americans has largely been replaced with the foolhardy notion that Americans are better than everybody else in the world and have the authority to set right any ruler they believe is in error. This view of their own superiority echoes Hitler’s “master race” view of the German people or the Tokyo militarists’ view in 1940 that a superior Japan was destined to rule “the eight corners of the world.” In this sense, America is very “racist” indeed and the “aggressive nationalism” highlighted by Webster’s is apparent in the rhetoric of its public officials and the conduct of its foreign affairs. Yet another characteristic of the fascist state is its leader’s use of arbitrary power. Note how Bush evades the will of Congress by tacking on “signing statements” to laws he doesn’t like, thus refusing to enforce them, putting himself above the will of Congress and the American people. Note how his aides refuse to respond to Congressional subpoenas to testify. Yet another example is how the Justice Department’s own internal investigators found Bush’s appointees filled nonpolitical posts with party hacks and then lied about what they had done. “Civil Service Laws Were Breached in Filling Nonpolitical Jobs” said a New York Times reported July 29th. It should be remembered Hitler followed a like policy when he purged Jews from their government posts. When tyrants rule, merit is ever subservient to loyalty. Of course, Bush has not flung thousands of Americans into prison to torture and murder them as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin did, but he has the power to do so, making the latter half of 2008 a time of danger for Americans. Wolf writes, “At a point in both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s takeovers, citizens witnessed a stunning series of quickly escalating pronunciamentos or faits accomplis. After each leader made his bids for power beyond what the Italian parliament and the German Reichstag allowed him, each abruptly started to claim all kinds of new rights that were extra-parliamentary; the right unilaterally to go to war, to annex territory, to veto existing laws, or to overrule the judiciary,” etc. To repeat the question, “Is America fascist?” the answer is that the machinery is in place for a totalitarian takeover at the direction of a tyrant. While it is true that the U.S. is not a one-party state (some will dispute this owing to the many similarities of the two major parties) like fascist Italy and Germany, and it does have free elections, for the first time in its history in 2000 and 2004 an ominous cloud of doubt has hung over the authenticity of the popular vote and a vast segment of the voting public today does not trust the election machinery to record their vote as they intend. There are no mass arrests and executions in the thousands and millions that typified the regimes of Hitler and Stalin (Stalin had 681,000 people executed in 1937-8 “Great Terror” alone); free speech still exists (under Stalin, a person could be imprisoned for making a Stalin joke); and the government has not put its leaden hand on business as Putin has done although crony capitalism in the selection of defense contractors is rampant. These vital distinctions set America apart from the totalitarian society. Yet, with each passing day in its “War on Terror” the Bush regime tightens its hold on the machinery to establish totalitarian rule here. Americans need to keep in mind that worse than anything President Bush has inflicted upon its own citizenry is what its wars of aggression have inflicted on innocent humanity abroad. A million dead Iraqis can’t give a damn by what terminology you describe the United States. If the American people allow their government to make criminal wars to deprive innocent foreigners of their lives and liberties they do not deserve to enjoy either at home. Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based writer who has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, a columnist for wire services, a news director for a large civil rights organization, and as a publicist for colleges, labor unions and entrepreneurial start-ups. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com Phone: 305-205-8281. The writer is indebted to Naomi Wolf for her book, “The End of America.” Ms. Wolf is cofounder of The Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership, New York, an organization that teaches young women how to assume leadership roles.)
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#43. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#38)
HA! Join the club, she got me during one of her Ron Paul purges.
I heard that.
Welcome to 4um where freedom of speech is truly honored and respected by christine, the site's owner. You and your AmericaFirst Jewish friend might enjoy reading a political news blog by philip weiss, a journalist whose career at the New York Observer was cut short for the high crime of criticizing AIPAC in a column. In his news blog Mr. Weiss addresses one or two news items each day that relate to questions he has as an American Jew about some in his group who put America Last. I think you will enjoy the questions he raises daily. Here's the link - I feel okay about recommending it here because it's not a discussion forum rival to 4um - rather think of it as a "specialized" news link.
For some reason the message didn't post. Darn, and I thought the 60s had worn off LOL. I've noticed that too. To be honest, I think he probably works for the JDL or AIPAC. He had me bozo'd for a long time. I have had trouble keeping my cool at times with him, pukerat and the other Israeli firsters. I'm tired of Israel getting itself in messes and then expecting the U.S. to come to their defense. Personally I would argue that Israel has done as much damage to America as has the Islamic radicals. That GarySpf or whatever has it all wrong. The Covenant doesn't mean that Jews can do not wrong and others are wrong or condemned for calling Israel on the carpet. If anything I wish I could keep those like Magician and those like him from getting under my skin with their BS, propaganda and lies. But knowing that it has cost the lives of Americans and because of my TBI and lack of emotional suppressors it tends to set me into a bit of a rage at times.
I started looking at that site last time you posted the link. He is pretty blunt but the truth is the truth.
You might miss all the abuse. Welcome.
most unlikely good lord, hate attack was the reason for your deleted post?
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
what's TBI?
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
You were one of the best posters on LP. That's why you got banned. I know you've been here awhile, but it'll be good to see more of you. I don't think you've anything to worry about getting banned from here. Old Friend didn't. LMAO
LMAO gawd, really.
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
TBI is an acronym for Traumatic brain injury. I hope B. doesn't have to deaden his wit with drugs. My understanding is that this injury of his was acquired in combat in Vietnam. This makes the accusations of anti-Americanism he got on TOS2 all the more poignant. He's apolitical in terms of left/right, but clearly what strikes him as racist fascism disturbs him. The lens he uses is the Hegelian dialectic, which he sees being applied all around him. He views much of our political reality to be defined by a form of merciless materialism. Once, if my recollection is correct, he accused me of being a materialist, and therefore a communist, because I tried to put the needs of the American state ahead of innocent civilians caught up in battle. Today is as good as any for me to let Mr. B. know that I no longer defend allied targeting of civilian populations during WWII, and I am ready to admit that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the other incendiary bombings of WWII (which were worse) were reprehensible. I admit to retaining a degree of materialism, but I can no longer view WWII as a "good war." I don't think I've ever quite clarified this to B., so this is it. As the "freedom" we said we were defending in WWII diminishes daily, let us remember the innocent men, women, and children we killed that fateful day in 1945, 63 years ago today in Hiroshima. May they rest in peace. And I'll add this: if we use a nuclear weapon on civilians in Iran to protect Israel, all hope will be gone for our national soul.
I don't think I've ever quite clarified this to B., so this is it. As the "freedom" we said we were defending in WWII diminishes daily, let us remember the innocent men, women, and children we killed that fateful day in 1945, 63 years ago today in Hiroshima. May they rest in peace. "I no longer defend allied targeting of civilian populations during WWII, and I am ready to admit that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the other incendiary bombings of WWII (which were worse) were reprehensible. I respect your view. However, there are people in responsible positions that must consider the total context of war and act accordingly. There are evil people in this world,always have been and always will be. Someone has to deal with them in your interest and mine. The lamb lying down with the lion will be the lions one course dinner. Having had some experience in the distant past with possible A-bomb delivery in Russia and China, I never found any desire on anyones part to do so. If someone found it necessary to bomb, we would have done it. If you live in or near any medium to large city, rest assured your name is on a weapon in Russia and or China.
For me it's a matter of distancing myself from the calloused assumptions that we had no choice, or that failure to surrender unconditionally provided just cause, and so forth. I don't want to rewrite history, I want to push us toward minding our own business so that we don't have to make these kinds of decisions so often.
Calloused??? That anger and or indignation should be channeled way back to the 1930s when Roosevelt was hell bent on getting this country into war. After we were in it, the common man had no choice, you served at the point of a gun. After losing one brother, I would have had no compunction about dropping them on anyone any place in Japan. Buck, as a matter of honesty in history, if the bombs had been directed on Berlin and Hamburg and you felt the same way, you would be hounded out of town as Unamerican. You know the rest of that story. The minute Germany surrendered, Oppenheimer and the rest had a total change of heart.
It is.
Just don't 'dis Dale! :)
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
He was just a pawn of the elite, like Bush. What the hell am I saying, there is no elite, that's just a conspiracy theory. The rulers run nothing and the rich haven't any more money than you or I, any other belief is to give into moonbat CT anti-semitism, although how that all fits together prolly constitutes an improbable collection of speculations itself.
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
In 1939 there were nearly 20,000,000 unemployed men in the US. Now we look as if we are having a rerun. Wars end depressions, a few people make tons of money and some of the surplus of humans are "eliminated".
Bingo, Cyni.
Greetings:This is the Secretary of War at the State Department world economic situation We've got thousands of 'em here too. They're crawling all over Hell, Afghanistan's no fun Or a "moderately repressive regime" in South America? We can get rid of practically everybody on your dole queue if we plan this right. they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again. That's excellent. We knew you'd agree And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot
TIB. Let's put it this way... Numerous doctors from many different medical agencies, hospitals and such from multiple states have said that it is not possible that I am still alive yet still functioning. My case has been documented in various medical literature and journals. I went down on my Harley in 2002 and destroyed the entire front half of my brain. I have no functionality, zero, zilch, none in my parietal, temporal and frontal lobes. I had to go in for a CT scan a few weeks ago because I bumped my head again and the family insisted I go in for the exam. About an hour after the scan the doctor came in and apologized for taking so long. He said the scan technician was confused and thought there was something wrong with the scanner because the results show I have no brain in the front 1/3 of my skull. The doctor told me they had never seen anything like this before and that he would like to take another scan just to make sure. He said he has never seen so severe "brain malasia" and doesn't understand how I am able to function. My wife and I just laughed and said another scan would show the exact same thing. He asked if he could get copies of all my records since the accident (wanted me to sign a release) and I said sure but he just needs to accept what he sees even though he believes it is medically impossible. After the accident I was in a coma for 3 months and when I came out of the coma I was just a vegetable. Cigna insurance wanted to discontinue the payments for my treatment and hospital stay and it was suggested that since there was no hope that I would ever been "a human being" again that I should be placed in the state hospital for as long as I survived. Doctors here, from Bakersfield CA, St. Louis, Denver and Dallas told my family that there was no hope and I would require constant care and feeding thru a tube for as long as I lived and that I would never talk or be able to recognize anything around me. On July 6th, 2002 I did that thing we are only supposed to do one time. And that was the first thing I can say I remember in 4 months. I was declared deceased and my family had been told. I was told that my heart started beating and I started breathing on my own 21 minutes after they had stopped. I was told it was about 3 hours later that I opened my eyes (I can remember this and all the tubes and being forced to breath) and tried to ask my wife where I was. Needless to say she was shocked, jumped up and ran over to me in the bed and asked if I knew who she was, what her name was and who I was. I did and answered her as best I could. Doctors and nurses came in to see me and finally I fell asleep. For the next week and half I underwent multiple CT scans, MRI scans, EEGs and all kinds of exams and they could not figure it out. On July 17th they had a big party for me at the neuro center in the hospital and let me go home. I and my wife walked out to our car and she drove us home. I had doctors "bugging" me for almost 2 years wanting to examine me and many of them said "it cannot be... it's just not possible". Even though the doctors did everything they could to keep me from returning to work including having my drivers license revoked 2 times I finally found a neurologist who would release me to return to work. I went back to work full time August 19th, 2002. There is much much more and I have been asked by several pastors and others to spend time documenting all that I have gone thru including somethings that have happened since I was released from the hospital and that they would help me write a book about it all. To put it simply, my brain damage is as bad as that of Terry Schiavo, the young lady in Florida. And if you ask me if I "believe", I will tell you no... I don't believe... I know. I have no doubt about the Lord, his mercy and and I no longer wonder about as they say "the hereafter". TBI - is traumatic brain injury and I can say I have it and wouldn't trade my accident for all the money in Bill Gates account.
I was fragged in Nam but my brain injury happened in 2002 from a motorcyle accident. I can honestly say I am a half-brain LOL. And it doesn't bother me in the least. This is why my faith is so strong.
And I'll add this: if we use a nuclear weapon on civilians in Iran to protect Israel, all hope will be gone for our national soul. Amen brother!
You're a powerful witness.
wow, moonie..what a story. i'm so glad i asked. thank you so much for taking the time to write it. my husband is a neuropsychologist. i'm going to forward your story to him. he'll be amazed too.
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
Well, I as long as HE is willing to allow me to give my testimony, I will never refuse. By the way, is that a BandMaster or part of a Showman?
Thanks Christine. And if he or anybody else has any questions I am more than willing to talk about it. The negatives of the accident are I did gain weight because they put me on depakote for awhile and my thyroid quit working after the accident and I can become emotional in a second (sad or angry). Also, I no longer have any sense of smell and virtually no taste and I can't drink any alcohol (darn it). LOL.
you can't enjoy food then, so you just eat when you feel hunger pangs?
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
husband wants to know if your face or head is disfigured? you stated that you have lost 1/3 of your brain. do you mean anatomically?
Do You Know What Freedom Really Means? Freedom4um.com
No disfiguration. I have a scar that runs from just above the hairline in front to just lower than my ears in the back. I actually had a CT tech as me one time who did my brain surgery. I told him I didn't have surgery, that it was an accident. He said he thought it had to be surgery because of the way it healed. The only injury I had was cracking my skull wide open, the brain damage, and I bruised my right elbow so bad it took about 6 months for it to heal. I was in Barrows Neurological Center at St. Joes Hospital here.
the only food I have been able to taste on a fairly regular basis is bacon. Needless to say I heard "IT'S BACON!!!!!!!!" from everybody for the longest time LOL.
It's a Showman. a 1966 Dual Showman to be exact. Good observation!
Many years ago back in the dark ages LOL I had a tele, a Ricki, a BandMaster and a Twin Reverb. Ah those were the days when even kids like us could afford the gear.
Praise God for YOU! (even if you are a half brain OPILE) LOL ~{8^#
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Well, my wife tells me that it's obvious I wasn't using most of my brain anyway LOL.
LOL No comment ;-)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
I had two Rickenbackers, two Jazzmasters, two Les Pauls, and my Fender amps were the following: First, a brown CONCERT which was free! Then a Silverface Super Reverb, A Silverface Twin Reverb, and a Silverface Princeton Reverb. I used two Dual Showman cabinets with two amps, a SUNN 1000S top and a KUSTOM 200, and a home made AB box to switch between them. That rig burned up in an arson fire. Later I had another Dual Showman cabinet that I used with the Twin. I'm into smaller cabinets and combos now, of which I own 6. (two are battery powered practice/recording amps)
R&B/Bluegrass?
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
Not really. I was a commercial rock player most of my career. That involved everything from Broadway tunes to current country hits. The past few years I've concentrated on Nashville country and blues styles of guitar work.
Very nice. Any 12-string?
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams
No. Haven't had any desire to play 12 string since the Byrds stuff was happening.
the JAP revoked my account
“The best and first guarantor of our neutrality and our independent existence is the defensive will of the people…and the proverbial marksmanship of the Swiss shooter. Each soldier a good marksman! Each shot a hit!” Schweizerische Schutzenseitunt (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#44. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#38)
#45. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#38)
I emailed a friend who is Jewish who has looked at the site but never joined it and told her I had been banned. I can't use the language she did about "the zionist douche bags" on here but needless to say she said I was "better off not allowing the pagans to upset me with their propaganda".
#46. To: buckeye (#42)
(Edited)
#47. To: scrapper2 (#45)
#48. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#38)
I noticed today when I went to see if he responded that the JAP revoked my account.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man (or woman) in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation." ~ Herbert Spencer
#49. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#38)
So I guess I'm here until I say something that gets me booted off here.
#50. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#46)
#51. To: bush_is_a_moonie, Old Friend, christine, all (#38)
At least I know I was booted from LP for posting facts and truth. So I guess I'm here until I say something that gets me booted off here.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man (or woman) in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation." ~ Herbert Spencer
#52. To: wudidiz (#51)
Old Friend didn't.
#53. To: christine, bush_is_a_moonie, scrapper2, Cynicom, Jethro Tull (#50)
#54. To: buckeye (#53)
Today is as good as any for me to let Mr. B. know that I no longer defend allied targeting of civilian populations during WWII, and I am ready to admit that Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the other incendiary bombings of WWII (which were worse) were reprehensible. I admit to retaining a degree of materialism, but I can no longer view WWII as a "good war."
#55. To: Cynicom (#54)
(Edited)
#56. To: buckeye (#55)
For me it's a matter of distancing myself from the calloused assumptions that we had no choice,
#57. To: Cynicom (#56)
That anger and or indignation should be channeled way back to the 1930s when Roosevelt was hell bent on getting this country into war.
#58. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#38)
(Edited)
So I guess I'm here until I say something that gets me booted off here.
#59. To: Cynicom (#56)
way back to the 1930s when Roosevelt was hell bent on getting this country into war
#60. To: Dakmar (#59)
#61. To: Cynicom (#60)
Wars end depressions, a few people make tons of money and some of the surplus of humans are "eliminated".
#62. To: Cynicom (#60)
Dead Kennedys
of the United States
We have a problem.
The companies want something done about this sluggish
Profits have been running a little thin lately
and we need to stimulate some growth
Now we know
there's an alarmingly high number of young people roaming
around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble
for the police and damage private property.
It doesn't look like they'll ever get a job
It's about time we did something constructive with these people
The companies think it's time we all sit down, have a serious get-together-
And start another war
The President?
He loves the idea! All those missiles streaming overhead to and fro
Napalm
People running down the road, skin on fire
The Soviets seem up for it:
The Kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years.
So whadya say?
We don't even have to win this war.
We just want to cut down on some of this excess population
Now look. Just start up a draft; draft as many of those people as you can.
We'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on,
hand 'em some speed, give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use
an automatic rifle and send 'em on their way
Libya? El Salvador? How 'bout Northern Ireland?
We'll just cook up a good Soviet threat story
in the Middle East-we need that oil
We had Libya all ready to go and Colonel Khadafy's hit squad
didn't even show up. I tell ya
That man is unreliable.
The Kremlin had their fingers on the button just like we did for that one
Now just think for a minute-We can make this war so big-so BIG
The more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper
Take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls
Now don't worry about demonstrations-just pump up your drug supply.
So many people have hooked themselves on heroin
and amphetamines since we took over, it's just like Vietnam.
We had everybody so busy with LSD they never got too strong.
Kept the war functioning just fine
It's easy.
We've got our college kids so interested in beer
Put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard,
they wouldn't even know what it looked like
So how 'bout it? Look-War is money.
The arms manufacturers tell me unless
we get our bomb factories up to full production
the whole economy is going to collapse
The Soviets are in the same boat.
We all agree the time has come for the big one, so whadya say?!?
The companies will be very pleased.
#63. To: christine (#50)
#64. To: buckeye (#53)
#65. To: buckeye (#53)
I don't think I've ever quite clarified this to B., so this is it. As the "freedom" we said we were defending in WWII diminishes daily, let us remember the innocent men, women, and children we killed that fateful day in 1945, 63 years ago today in Hiroshima. May they rest in peace.
#66. To: bush_is_a_moonie, christine, rowdee (#63)
#67. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#63)
#68. To: HOUNDDAWG (#66)
#69. To: christine (#67)
#70. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#69)
Also, I no longer have any sense of smell and virtually no taste
#71. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#69)
#72. To: christine (#71)
#73. To: christine (#70)
#74. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#68)
(Edited)
#75. To: HOUNDDAWG (#74)
#76. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#63)
#77. To: Rotara (#76)
#78. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#77)
Well, my wife tells me that it's obvious I wasn't using most of my brain anyway LOL.
#79. To: bush_is_a_moonie (#75)
Many years ago back in the dark ages LOL I had a tele, a Ricki, a BandMaster and a Twin Reverb. Ah those were the days when even kids like us could afford the gear.
#80. To: HOUNDDAWG (#79)
#81. To: Rotara (#80)
#82. To: HOUNDDAWG (#81)
The past few years I've concentrated on Nashville country and blues styles of guitar work.
#83. To: Rotara (#82)
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