Brutally Honest Rant - 10/26/05

Brutally Honest Special: What do you FEAR?
Audio Transcripts
10/26/05

[Start Program]

(Computer: – This week’s program has been made possible thanks to...…)
(Music intro: – "Real American Remix 2" – by David Matthews 2)

Good evening, and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I'’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Let me ask you something on this Halloween week...

What are you afraid of?

What is it that you FEAR the most? What is that one thing that will keep you up at night, clutching your favorite pet or loved ones like a security blanket and never wanting to let them go?

Some people are afraid of dying. They have a lot that they want to get accomplished, a lot to experience, and they are afraid that they will never get to do those things before they die.

Some people believe that they are destined for great things, and that dying would somehow disturb the great cosmic balance. In truth, though, all that it really does is that it shakes up THEIR belief in the great cosmic balance.

You see, that'’s the kind of fear that some people really don’t want to talk about. It’'s not the fear of DEATH that scares people as much as it is the fear of FAILURE. If you believe that you’re destined for great things, and then suddenly something happens that takes that all away, then you'’ve FAILED to meet those expectations. And there’'s nothing that you can do about it at that point because you'’re dead.

That’s why some people really fear DEATH. It’s that ultimate finality, the knowledge that you FAILED to do all of the things that you set out to do in life. Whether or not the death is your fault, it doesn'’t really matter. It'’s the knowledge that YOU FAILED to do these things that really gets to you.

Sometimes it'’s fearing a great tragedy that really gets to us. The loss of your home, your possessions, your loved ones... look at the people who went through the tragedies of our hurricane season. Whole communities literally destroyed by Mother Nature! We'’re not just talking about a few uprooted trees or broken windows or opened roofs. We’'re talking stores, workplaces, hotels, roads, literally WIPED OUT.

We are afraid of nuclear war, not because we may die, but because we may actually LIVE to experience the horrors of it's aftermath. We may survive to see our loved ones die, to see our belongings destroyed, to see everything that we have come to know and count on be destroyed, and to see even civilization as we know it vaporize.

You know, when I was a teenager, I was scared to death of nuclear war... because up until I saw the movie "The Day After", I really didn'’t understand the full implications of a nuclear attack. Now I do. Now I know what that kind of destruction would do to people.

We'’re afraid of biological warfare; of bugs and viruses that have no cure. Not because we may die instantly, but because we might have to survive and watch our loved ones die from it. Slowly, painfully, without any hope for a cure. We’'re afraid because we may have to do things that we SWORE we would never, EVER do, just to survive. That'’s the kind of destruction and devastation that keeps some people up at nights.

But there are other things that terrify people. Things that are far WORSE than death itself.

Right now a group of men in Washington DC are living in FEAR. And that fear can be summed up with one sentence: "We, the jury, find the defendants GUILTY of all charges."

That'’s right... these men - and you know which ones I’'m talking about - are living in FEAR that their sins, their tactics, are going to come back to haunt them. These are people who have amassed, wielded, and indeed abused power over the years, and did so thinking that they would get away with it time and time again. They believed themselves to be untouchable. Now, they'’re waiting with baited breath to see if they really are untouchable... if they can truly avoid justice.

Take a look at the chief executives of Enron and WorldCom. It used to be standard operating procedure for companies to simply fold up. Now when a company goes under, the suits can end up going to prison. You don'’t think that doesn’t have an effect on the rest of the execs? You don'’t think that executives and accountants aren’'t double-and-triple-checking their stuff? They'’re AFRAID! They'’re AFRAID of getting caught playing destructive money games that used to be tolerated and excused with just a wink and a nod.

But there is one more fear out there that isn’t discussed... one more fear that strikes right at the HEARTS of people all around the world. You know what that fear is?

It’'s the fear of being WRONG!

You want to know what fuels a moralist? What drives a theocrat? What motivates a conservative or a liberal to go on a freedom-hating tear that reduces their platitudes of freedom and liberty to empty hypocritical buzzwords? Well let’'s get brutally honest here... at the heart of these drives is not just the quest for power, not just the desire to dominate and control all that they see and know about, but the FEAR that they could very well be wrong!

Take religion. Religious belief is a gamble. You’'re betting your life, even your soul, that your understanding of the universe and the great hereafter is right. And it helps to have a whole bunch of people who think just like you do... who have also taken the same gamble and bet on the same horse.

But then you realize that not EVERYONE is betting the same way as you are. They don'’t value the same things as you do. They don'’t interpret things just like you and your peers do.

All of a sudden, there’'s doubt. What if you don’t have it right? What if these other people are right? What if THEY are the ones going to get the eternal reward?

That’s where the fear comes in. You’'re AFRAID that they might actually be right. And the longer that these people exist and carry on doing the things that they do, the greater the chances that OTHER people may believe that they are in the right and that YOU are in the wrong.

So to quell those doubts and to shut off that fear, you decide to wage war against all those who don'’t believe like you do. You don’'t wait for God or Buddha or Allah or Yahweh or the Great White Father or Joe Peshi to punish these people for doing the things that you consider evil and sinful. If you don’'t act, then there’'s an even greater chance that you really COULD be in the wrong. So you decide to step in yourself, or, better yet, to get the government to be your personal avenging angel. After all, if you act, then you'’re a terrorist. But if the government acts on your behalf, then you’'re considered a powerful and successful religious leader.

But that'’s only half the battle. The other half is to make sure that no other belief can be treated the same as yours. You NEED to have your beliefs edge out over all the others so that there is no doubt that YOUR beliefs are ONLY ones that are right. And of course, you can'’t just bluntly IMPOSE your will over these other beliefs. No, you have to do it subtly, quietly, in incremental steps so that nobody would ever realize what is going on until it is already a fait accompli.

And it'’s all done not in the name of patriotism or the family. It'’s not done for the good of society or for the sake of the children. God and country are irrelevant here. You'’re really not trying to better society or even to save lives.

No, it’s all done because YOU'’RE AFRAID of waking up one morning and finding out that everything that you believed in is wrong.

Now THAT, my friends, is fear!

(Computer: – Fear-mix1)
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With all of this talk about fear, there’s something that needs to be pointed out.

No matter what it is that you fear the most, there are people in this world who make it their business to know what that fear is and how to exploit it to their advantage. Some of these people are moralists. Others are members of the media. Still more work for the government.

But they all have one thing in common... they need to know how to manipulate you and to push your buttons. And they need to know that because it’s a whole lot easier for them to manipulate you through fear than to convince you on the justness of their actions through intellectual argument.

And if you should ever wonder why those moralists, government wonks, and members of the media treat the rest of us as something less than human... well it'’s only because they already see us as nothing more than Pavlovian animals.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production, all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)

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[End of program]

Will "Scooter" be the fall guy for Rove?

Here'’s an interesting thought...

Is "Scooter" Libby the sacrificial lamb for the Bush Imperium? Is he taking the fall to protect Darth Rove and the rest of the inner circle from the Valerie Plame affair?

Let’s think about this for a minute. According to the Special Prosecutor brought in to investigate this matter, every minute of the investigation was being hindered by misinformation and perjury, supposedly instigated by Libby. The charges against Libby are all based on his role in the HINDERING of the investigation, not the crime of the actual leaking of information itself.

That’s why the conservatives are spinning this horsecrap about "criminalizing politics" and spewing this myth that "it'’s JUST perjury!" Hey ass-kissers, whatever happened to the RULE OF LAW??? You didn’t tolerate Bill Clinton saying "it’'s JUST perjury", so why should we excuse THIS instance?

The special prosecutor needs something to hang his hat on. Someone has to go down for this breach of federal law. So here’s the plan: Libby is the only one of the "inner circle" with the most against him right now. He’'s already gotten one New York Times reporter thrown in jail AND put her credibility on the line over this mess. He takes the hit and puts up a good front, fighting the charges all the way. No doubt Rove and the others will all point their fingers at Libby and make people think that it was ALL his doing. Libby has his trial, maybe even be found guilty and get a modest sentence, then it either gets tossed out on appeal... OR Bush Junior pardons him. The bulk of the inner circle stays intact. The Vice-President gets away unscathed. Darth Rove gets away with it... AGAIN.

Hey, if it worked for Susan McDougal over Whitewater, then it can work for Scooter Libby over Plamegate!

"Scooter" Indicted. Darth Rove WALKS. . . For Now

Okay, this is just hitting the wire services...

Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Chief of Staff for Vice-President Dick Cheney, got indicted for obstruction of justice and perjury. He has supposedly already tendered his resignation.

Libby was one of the key "inner circle" people who runs the Bush Imperium, although he was more successful in hiding his role than some of the other players... i.e. Karl Rove, the dark lord of politics.

But Darth Rove has YET to be indicted. So far he's getting away with his role in violating federal law and revealing the ID of a CIA agent. I'm hoping that at some point this afternoon this will change.

There are four key players in this game that should be sweating bullets:

• Darth Rove
• VP Cheney
• Robert Novak
• Scooter

So far only ONE out of the four is facing punishment. That's not good.

Miers Is OUT! Was this her call or was it Rove's?

File this under the category of "HOLY CRAP".

Harriet Meirs, the Bush Imperium lawyer and apparent in-house cheerleader of Bush Junior, has withdrawn her nomination to the US Supreme Court.

This news is surprising, partly because the Imperium was hell-bent on getting their favorite crony into the highest court, and also partly because in all likelihood, the US Senate was going to roll over and confirm her anyway.

This is something that I already pointed towards in recent columns. Sure both liberal and conservative groups bashed Miers. Sure she was a crony! Sure she seemed to have less judicial experience than the judges in all of the fictional crime drama shows combined. Sure she was more mysterious than amateur night at the Impromptu Ad-Lib Theatre. It didn't matter! The Senate was still going to roll and vote to confirm her, kicking and screaming if possible. Once the process got into gear, the GOP was going to confirm her.

She was being given every opportunity to come off as credible. She blew the take-home exam and was given a "do-over". She was being GIVEN the questions she would have been asked in the confirmation hearings IN ADVANCE! These are not things given to a nominee that was going to be left for dead.

That's why the conservatives are busy doing a post-mortem on her withdrawal. "Oh, she would have been a GREAT Supreme Court justice! She would have been the PERFECT nominee! She would have done such a GREAT job!" Yeah, right. You know, she could have been the Torquamada of the high court... or she could have been another David Souter, it really doesn't matter at this point. The conservatives couldn't trust the Bush Imperium enough to simply rely on the president's good word.

So the real speculation is... did SHE decide to pull herself out of the game on her own?

There IS a chance that she simply didn't "feel the love" from the Republicans. She was going out there to Capitol Hill day in and day out visiting Senators, and she wasn't getting the glowing praises that she was expecting. She was getting praises from the Imperium ass-kissers, but that's pretty much it. Maybe she realized that she wasn't going to get any kind of respect if she got the job.

Or MAYBE she was FORCED to bow out by Darth Rove and Scooter Libby? Not as a diversion, mind you, but simply to cut their losses. The Imperium is going from being compared to Emperor Nero to being compared to Emperor Claudius. (And that's really not a compliment.) Indictments are in the works. The FEMA ineptitude is still going strong. The spin has spun out over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, folks. Something's got to go.

Well either way, I'm getting a little annoyed by the libs who are saying that now that Miers is out, the next nominee will be even worse. That's a pretty damned fatalistic approach to this situation. Miers was a wild card crony nominee packaged as being a diehard evangelical bible-thumper. I'd say it's a little hard to find someone "worse" than that. The only reason why she was opposed by the conservatives was that she was TOO much of a wild card.

Also, you libs shouldn't be praising Senate MINORITY Leader Harry Reid for his "brilliant political tactics" over this situation. (Are you listening, Randi Rhodes?) Reid did NOTHING. Just like he did NOTHING to stand in the way of the confirmation process of John Roberts. This was all the doing of conservatives, neo-conservatives, and the Religious Wrong. They didn't trust the Imperium enough to allow this nomination to go through unscathed. If they stood behind the White House and put faith in Bush Junior's decision, the confirmation process of Harriet Meirs would have been a cakewalk, and Reid would have been gutted by his liberal "friends" for doing the same thing... NOTHING.

The liberals were LUCKY on this one.

Talk Liberty is BACK!

Well I got some good news from Randy.

Talk Liberty is BACK online!

Just... not in the way it used to be.

Back in its day, Talk Liberty was a GREAT online broadcasting forum. We were doing this LONG BEFORE you even heard the word "podcasting"! Before you heard the words "Sirius" or "XM", there was online radio. Randy developed the site and provided the bandwidth, and I helped provide the content. First I did my weekly half-hour (and then FULL-hour) "Brutally Honest - LIVE", Randy would have "The Freehold LIVE", and then I helped flesh out the nightly shows with the "Liberty Free-For-All".

We had potential, folks. We had both East-and-West-Coast talent. We had people working on other shows. We were even making arrangements to have a best-selling author join in... before the Clinton Regime decided to make an example out of him for advocating (and using) medicinal marijuana in California.

Unfortunately for us, things didn't work out. Bandwidth isn't free. The people who were talking about joining in didn't. Peter McWilliams died from the side-effects of his own medication. We couldn't get advertising. The website came down.

Obviously I still try to keep things going with the audio rants. The audio rants you hear now are just a FRACTION of the talent that Randy and I gave every week!

BUT now Randy has let me know that Talk Liberty is BACK on the Internet, although for now it's primarily going to be a blog site. I'm sure that at some point Randy will include links to my work, and if there is any chance that he's able to get audio set up again, you know that I'll be ready.

So welcome back Talk Liberty, and welcome back Randy!

Jim Gordon: "You're just one man?"
Batman: "Now we're two."
(From Batman Begins.)

BH Rant: Halloween tips

Okay folks, I put up my Halloween rant on Friday, and of course the transcripts went out today. If you get the chance this week, tune in and hear it. If not... well I was thinking about posting the transcripts here. What do you think?

Anyways, sound off! (Just don't SPAM.)

Update (10/23): After thinking about it, I've decided to just go ahead and post the transcripts to all of my rants from now on. So starting next week, the HTML transcripts will also appear here, allowing you to post your feedback on the issues I discuss.

King DeLay: I AM the law!

You have to wonder if KING Tom DeLay is a fan of the Judge Dredd comic book.

Judge Dredd is a one-man judicial system in a fictional "megacity" in a very brutal future. People are tried by Dredd according to his interpretations of the law, and they go to prison - or are killed on the spot. He is judge, jury, and executioner. His favorite line is "I AM THE LAW!" He’s always considered to be right, and nobody would DARE question his decisions, because he’d kill them for being in contempt of court, or at least lock them up for five years. This is the kind of power that police officers and politicians in the real world only DREAM of having!

And of course there is that "I AM THE LAW" line that Dredd uses. And KING Tom DeLay would no doubt love that, because he is deluded into believing that HE IS THE GOVERNMENT!

KING Tom DeLay had to do the perp walk this past week. He was arrested and fingerprinted and had to post bond and was officially arraigned in court. Of course he WAS given preferential treatment, because HE IS the self-appointed KING of the Congress. He didn't have to be photographed with a booking number. He wasn't strip-searched or forced to sit around in a filthy jail cell with other people. He didn't have to show up in a bright orange jumpsuit.

How many other people accused of a crime get such preferential treatment? Oh, that's right, I forgot, KING Tom DeLay is NOT like any other person accused of a crime! No, HE IS THE GOVERNMENT!

And KING Tom DeLay did his best to make sure that HE DID NOT appear beaten or broken. He strolled around the process, smiling and grinning in his expensive suit like he owned the whole judicial system. And why shouldn't he? After all, HE IS THE GOVERNMENT, right?

And then, when he DID have his arraignment, the first words out of his lawyer's mouth were "Judge, you’re biased! We want a new judge!"

WHY, you ask? Well it seems this judge is not only a DEMOCRAT, but he once gave money to MoveOn.org, and they supposedly have a t-shirt out with KING DeLay’s mug shot on it! Although MoveOn.org flatly denies even HAVING t-shirts with KING Tom DeLay’s snug mug shot on it. Oh, I guess that’s a little detail that needs to be ignored. If KING Tom DeLay says it, then it MUST be true, right?

Apparently KING Tom DeLay feels that ONLY REPUBLICANS can sit in judgement of other Republicans! You know, that’s NOT what the whole "jury of your peers" is all about. Besides, what about when HE sat in judgement of a DEMOCRAT almost a decade ago? Remember the Clinton impeachment?

Mind you, while all this was going on, Saddam Hussein was also going through the first of many trials over in Baghdad. And his attitudes were NO DIFFERENT than those of KING Tom DeLay! He also challenged the authority of the government to try him! He ALSO pled innocent of ALL charges against him.

Then again, maybe if Hussein smiled and joked through the whole process like KING Tom DeLay did, then people might believe that he’s somehow innocent.

Look, KING Tom DeLay is someone who badly needs to be knocked off his self-appointed throne. He’s waltzing around with an attitude like nobody can touch him. He truly believes that he is ABOVE the law. Not only that, but he believes that HE IS THE LAW.

He needs to be humbled. He needs to be humiliated. He needs to have his power stripped away from him. We did that to Saddam. We need to do that to DeLay as well.

And maybe, somewhere down the line, some other self-righteous power-mad people will be joining him. It may even be sooner than you think.

A sick and twisted idea from a sick mind

Okay, if you've read my column called "Grand Theft America", then you know that I made references to a certain shyster who threw hissy fits because of "The Sims 2" game, where people can be seen in virtual worlds in various stages of dress or undress. Yes, the nudity is pixilated, but there is a quick tweak where the pixels are removed.

Well it seems this shysters is now insulting the video game makers by putting up a $10,000 "challenge" for them to create, distribute, and market a game of his creation, which involves a really sick, sick, storyline.

The shyster's fictional storyline involves the father of a victim of a murder going on a killing spree deciding to take out his frustrations on a corporation that created the virtual game that supposedly "inspired" the killing. Not only killing the fiction CEO, but murdering and desecrating the corpses of the female exec's family members, including her children. Then slaughtering everyone in a string of electronic stores, the law firm that defended the company, and then killing every executive visiting the E3 conference.

That shyster has some serious issues. He needs some serious psychological help before he becomes the next Eric Robert Rudolph or the next Paul Hill or the next Tim McVeigh.

And did video games make him this way? No sir! It's MORALISM that did that!

But he'll just blame it on the video game industry anyway... after all, responsibility is just something that is passed on to someone else. Preferably some company with lots and lots of money.

By the way, $10,000 going to charity is a paltry amount for such a challenge. You're exposing a company to potential lawsuits by other shysters like yourself, not to mention congressional hearings, possible criminal charges... the legal damages alone would drive any company into bankruptcy. How about $10,000,000 and the promise that you'll never EVER practice law or make a single complaint about the video game industry EVER AGAIN? I think that's only fair. After all, you're challenging the industry to be everything that you want them to be. Wouldn't it be WORTH putting your very livelihood on the line if you can get them to prove you right?

(Thanks goes to Yaoi Huntress Earth for the article)

Flightplan Nonsense

Just want to toss in a quick word or two about the flight attendants throwing temper tantrums over the movie “Flightplan”.

Apparently the flight attendants, stewardesses, stewards, aviary assistants, or whatever the hell they want to be called nowadays don’t like how they were portrayed in the movie starring Jodie Foster. It seems that the flight attendants in the movie really didn’t care about the main character’s plight, and THAT supposedly has the real flight attendants in a tizzy.

And my quick thought is this: with ALL that’s been going on with the airlines of late… with flight attendants being fired for showing a little cleavage in their own weblogs, with airlines going into bankruptcy, with airlines defaulting on their pensions, with THEIR OWN JOBS on the line… they want to make a federal issue OVER SOME LOUSY MOVIE???

The flight attendant unions have FAR more pressing matters to deal with, and they had better focus their attentions on them and NOT on some movie!