Brutally Honest Rant - 04/25/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: We the Sheeple?
Audio Transcripts
04/25/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and 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.

Last week during the whole media goregasm surrounding the Virginia Tech massacre, there were several things brought up that really pissed people off. One of those things was airing the shooter’s video and pictures. People were really pissed off about that. They didn’t want to put a name to the shooter or to know why he did what he did.

The other thing that really pissed some people off was this quick question raised by people like talking head and questionable libertarian Neal Boortz: why didn’t some of the people in harms way try to defend themselves?

Well some people DID try. They DID try to save others. One of the 32 people who were killed was a professor who sacrificed himself to keep a classroom door closed so that others could escape. It was a touching moment of selfless heroism.

And yet, at the same time, to ask THAT question so soon after the tragedy… well that just wasn’t a good thing to do. Boortz obviously got some verbal abuse from the air-fluffed media over asking it, even though they turned around and used it to bring the matter up themselves. Sneaky little bastards!

The TIMING sucked, but the question itself was still a valid one. Why didn’t more people do more to fight back or to save other people?

It’s a good question, but I really don’t think that people will like the answers.

The first answer, obviously, is FEAR. Hey, some nutcase just came in and shot your professor dead at point-blank range! This wasn’t a TV program; this was REALLY happening right in front of these people! Not everyone will suddenly leap into action when faced with a sudden and shocking traumatic moment.

The second answer, equally obvious, is selfishness. Hey, it’s one thing to offer to give the guy next to you a couple of bucks for a cup of coffee… it’s another thing entirely to offer your life to save people that you probably barely even know.

These are college kids! These are young people with futures ahead of them! Places to visit, money to make, drugs to take, beers to drink, and other people to sleep with; and not necessarily in that order. They’ve got their futures ahead of them, and they’re not going to risk any of that because of some lunatic with a couple of handguns. They probably felt that if they didn’t do anything to get this psycho’s attention, then they might live to see another spring break. Yes it is self-centered, but it is also very true and very much human nature.

But then there is the third answer… and it is one that I’m sure will embarrass a whole lot of us.

The third answer as to why more people didn’t try to stand up and do something about this shooter while he was on his killing spree is because they have been CONDITIONED to not take action!

Let’s get brutally honest here… there has been a gradual and deliberate crusade to effectively DESTROY individuality in our Western society and replace it with either a liberal or conservative form of socialism, and it has been going on for well over a CENTURY now! It has been slowly and passively eating away at our will and our ability to stand up for ourselves and to make our own decisions and to carry out our own activities.

Education is one such example. Before public education got started it was the responsibility of every household to make sure that their children would know how to read and write. Now they’re told that they don’t have to worry about it! THE GOVERNMENT will do that for them! The government will make sure that your child is educated… and educated right with standardized tests that emphasizes reading, writing, basic math, but somehow NOT civics.

Think about it! Schools will eagerly tell you to worship sports and how to fix a car or bake a cake, but yet somehow teaching how and why our government works gets treated like the ugly stepchild. Now WHY is that? It really don’t think that it was simply an oversight.

Our government TELLS us that WE DO NOT have to do anything about crime in our neighborhoods! That’s THEIR job! They’ve got the paramilitary forces with the guns and the license to kill. Let THEM handle the bad guys. You don’t have to defend yourself; just let the police – YOUR GOVERNMENT – protect you from the bad guys.

Look at all of the anti-gun message and anti-gun legislation out there today! The continual message is that YOU as an INDIVIDUAL are simply UNABLE to defend yourself or to defend others. You can’t do it! Even if you get the same kind of training as the police, you simply are not capable of doing it! You’re told that it is better to let THE GOVERNMENT carry that burden for you! After all why else do they have that slogan “To Protect And Serve” on their vehicles?

And that message worked. In the early morning of March 13, 1964, a 28-year old woman by the name of Kitty Genovese was murdered outside to her apartment in New York City, much to the view of several of her neighbors. When she screamed for help, those screams were ignored by her very neighbors. One might dare say that they believed that they should not have to do anything. After all, it is THE POLICE that are supposed to handle these things.

Mind you, that was a little over forty years ago.

Now fast-forward to February 19 of this year: a drunk who is cut off from drinking violently assaults the bartender in front of the other patrons. Nobody in the bar does anything to stop this drunk from brutally assaulting the female bartender who is half his size and weight. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this vicious thug who deserved to be dragged out into the street by his feet and shot in the head like any other mad mongrel was also a Chicago police officer. Or maybe once again the message kicked in to NOT take action, because THE POLICE would handle things… even though the vicious criminal in this case WAS the police.

Of course this vicious thug would STILL be a police officer today if not for the fact that the bar had a surveillance camera that caught the whole thing in graphic detail, and someone had the forethought to post it on the Internet for the world to see. No doubt THAT person would be branded as “evil” because he or she did a decidedly INDIVIDUAL thing. Not to mention that it also caught the friends of that officer trying to bribe the still-injured bartender into silence.

But the lack of personal action in both these incidents and many others that you and I have probably encountered in our lives are a direct result of this eternal crusade to banish individuality in the name of collectivism.

We have a government that abbreviates its laws with cute-sounding acronyms that sells something that is the complete opposite of what that law actually does. They write individual laws that are so thick that it makes the complete Encyclopedia Britannica look like a Tijuana comic book in comparison. The annual federal budget is the only federal document that I know of that comes with its own complimentary hand-truck to carry it around. We have a tax system that is so confusing that even so-called “tax experts” can’t come up with the same figures. It can’t bring in the money needed to pay for the promises made, and yet nobody wants to do anything to correct this.

In short, our government is continually telling us that we shouldn’t have to worry about the things that we are paying for! Just read their cute little summary statements and leave everything to “the experts” to deal with. Cripes, most members of Congress don’t even bother reading what they hell they are putting into law anyway!

They don’t even want us to VOTE! Both the Democrats and the Republicans have deliberately run dirty campaigns to thoroughly disgust enough voters so they won’t bother showing up at the polls! This is considered standard operating procedure for both parties now. They intentionally block third-party candidates from running so the voters think that they don’t have alternatives. Not only that, but the AARP – the old-farts lobbying group – even kicked off a campaign in the 2006 mid-term election telling voters specifically “DON’T VOTE!” I’m serious! They stick critical government issues into the primary ballots because they know that the only people who care enough about the primaries are the diehard party wonks and they can count on those votes.

Our government is also telling us that THEY know what’s best for us in terms of what we see and hear. The FCC’s baby-faced chairman Kevin Martin told America that parents COULD do their jobs and keep track of what their children watch on TV, but he said, and this is an exact quote now, “why should they have to?”

“Why should they have to?”

Yes, yes, why should parents engage in INDEPENDENT thought about what their own flesh and blood should be watching and hearing when they have THE GOVERNMENT willing and eager to do all of that thinking for them? If it was good for the U.S.S.R. and is still good in Russia, then it should be equally good for the U.S. of A. It makes you wonder why they even bothered to shove those TV ratings and the V-chip down our throats in the first place.

We have organized religion doing everything possible to make sure that THEIR beliefs are codified into law by any means necessary. They are quick to tell you that YOUR interpretations of the religious texts are irrelevant. THEIR interpretations are the only ones that matter, just like THEIR interpretations of the First Amendment – which gets boiled down to just the freedom of THEIR religion – are the only ones that matter. THEY will tell you what to believe, YOU just have to believe it and obey.

Put that all together and what do you have? You have a continual barrage of messages that tell you that you are nothing but bipedal sheep. You’re just a cog in the greater societal machine; there to do your job and nothing else. You do whatever the authority figures tell you to do and let THE GOVERNMENT handle the really important things. The most important thing that YOU should concern yourself over is deciding who should win “American Idol”.

So now here’s a lunatic with a gun killing people seemingly for no reason whatsoever. And you’re expecting HEROISM from the masses inside that killing zone?

Well unfortunately HEROISM is one of those little things that gets sacrificed when you’re destroying individuality, because the act of heroism is an INDIVIDUAL activity.

And remember that professor who sacrificed his life so that others could escape? He was a Holocaust survivor. He knew FROM EXPERIENCE what the sheep-like mindset does to people. It is a pity that it is one lesson that his students, and many others, will probably never learn.

(Computer – appropriate stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

I know I’ve said this before, but like some of the other things I’ve said, it is always worth repeating…

One of the things that I found curious when I was in college was that some of my professors used to chastise us for not being as PASSIONATE about current events as the students before us were. They remembered the 1960’s and all of the people who used to orchestrate protests and rally people around certain issues.

What they didn’t understand, though, was that the very spirit of individuality of those days got diluted by two decades of collectivism from both liberal and conservative sides. Don’t ask questions, don’t question authority, don’t challenge the system, don’t rock the boat… the 1980’s wasn’t about change… it was about conformism.

The sad truth is that people who have been brought up to be collectivist sheep really can’t be passionate about a cause. To be passionate about anything requires a sense of self, which means they have to actually SEE themselves as an individual first. As soon as they do that, they set themselves APART from the whole. It defeats the whole purpose of collectivism.

If you want people motivated, then you have to get them OUT of the sheeple mentality! You actually have to ENCOURAGE individuality. Then you can get them fired up enough about an issue or a cause to actually DO something to help it.

(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)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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If Trump hired another Apprentice, would anyone care?

Okay, so there was yet another Apprentice finale last night. I think we pretty much jumped the shark on this whole series, because I couldn’t find a more lamer run than this one.

First of all, the whole “haves and the have-nots” concept was lame. Here you have the cream of the crop, and they’re living like homeless people. Instead of the “final three” or even “the final two” there were “the final two teams”. That in and of itself was lame. The final tasks used to be HUGE productions designed to show off the creativity and managerial skills of the finalists and to prove their worthiness, and instead this final task is another lame task.

And the person who won pretty much stayed under the radar the whole time! There was no clear leadership moment for this candidate. There was nothing that screamed “Apprentice” until we saw her individual profile video.

The whole thing screamed “waste”! Many of the shows were airing at 10pm, including the finale, which in and of itself takes out potential viewers.

The only good thing about this finale was that it was only an hour long, and most of that time was in recapping events and eliminating the worst of the two teams before focusing on which one of the two remaining candidates should win. Most of these finales dealt with either there was too much time or not enough time.

At this point, though, I think this is it for the Apprentice. At least it really would be for this viewer… unless someone I knew ended up in the next one. Trump kept on saying he wanted an LA run… he had his LA run… it sucked… that’s it. I really don’t think he can make things better at this point. His best bet is to give it a rest, maybe bring it back after a season or two of other programming if he feels so inclined.

Quick complaint: online polls

Okay, I have a quick complaint about online polls.

Why is it that most of the online polls I come across seem to have only two really crappy responses?

Here’s a good example from an ACTUAL online poll:

Question: Having children is…

Option A: a right.

Option B: a privilege.

That’s it. Those are the only two options!

How about a few more options?

Option C: an annoyance to others.

Option D: a waste of resources.

Option E: a blessing.

Option F: a biological function.

Option G: a burden I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

I could go on and on, you I think you get the point. I mean, NEITHER of the original options is a good answer to the question, and it doesn’t express your true feelings on the subject.

Or you get the poll question with the complex answer such as…

Question: Do you think we are winning in Iraq?

Option A: I support the War in Iraq and in George W. Bush’s attempt to rid the world of evil Islamic terrorists. George W. Bush is the greatest man to ever hold that job. I would sell my soul and the souls of my children’s children for him.

Option B: I have never supported the War in Iraq. I hate our president. I hate our country. I wish I was never born.

I mean, YOU KNOW you’re forcing a person to make a stupid response, one way or another! Or else they don’t participate… kind of like how people don’t participate in our elections today because they think that they only have two options to choose from, and those two options really SUCK.

Come on guys! How about giving us poll question that don’t suck? If you want us to participate, then give us a few more options!

Brutally Honest Rant - 04/18/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Unacceptable Truths – Public Tragedies
Audio Transcripts
04/18/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and 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.

Well I suppose I should talk about it, shouldn’t I?

You know… the mass-shooting over at Virginia Tech.

I suppose somewhere there is this unwritten rule that says that no conversation can take place without mentioning the most horrific tragedy of the moment. I’ve seen this with other mass-shootings too. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a school or a workplace or a Texas clock tower, we gotta talk about it.

And yeah, I’m going to be doing the same thing here… but the public attention on this tragedy is also a good opportunity to get out a few more “Unacceptable Truths”. You know, things that are true, but we seriously REFUSE to accept them as such.

And I’ll start out with THE BIGGEST unacceptable truth on this subject… and THIS one is directed straight at the media!

SATURATION is not a substitute for INFORMATION!

I spent most of my time at home on Monday with the TV set turned OFF! Do you know why? Because the cable news channels were repeating everything over, and over, and over again!

Look, I don’t need to hear the same story played and replayed endlessly! This is why I don’t like having major events happen because every news network will want to rehash and regurgitate the same thing over and over again!

And CNN is by far the WORST right now. EVERYTHING is a “breaking news” item. Oh, wait, hold on…

(Audio – News into)

This just in: CNN reports that one of the investigators handling the Virginia Tech massacre just picked his nose and scratched his ass! They will have live IN-DEPTH coverage of this BREAKING STORY as soon as they can find a bunch of idiots who can pretend to be experts to discuss the possible social and legal ramifications.

Look, it sounds stupid, but that’s pretty much the bulk of the cable news networks right now. EVERYTHING is an “urgent” breaking story to them. If they’re talking about a subject and they get handed something new about it, then they treat it like they were announcing the end of the world.

Oh, and how about some of the video being aired? CNN kept on repeating this jumpy cellphone video of police officers staking out positions while you can hear gunshots from inside the classroom building. You don’t really SEE any of the violence, but the air-fluffed media personalities were quick to call it “grizzly footage of THE CARNAGE”. Oh please, give me a break! That video made the Zapruder film look like a Spielberg blockbuster in comparison! And it goes right along with the peephole video of police officers moving down a dormitory hallway. Yeah, that’s BREAKING NEWS right there! That’s freaking Pulitzer Prize quality!

I understand that a 24-hour news network needs to fill a lot of time, but if you don’t have anything new to offer at the moment then dammit MOVE THE HELL ON and get back to the story in a little while! There’s more going on in the world that just ONE news story.

That is just one the many “unacceptable truths” when it comes to these situations. And as long as all of the media outlets engage in that fallacy, then there’s nothing that can be done about it… except of course to turn off the television sets, turn off the radio, and not buy newspapers for a couple of days. Why do you think people have started to watch the Food Network and Home and Garden Television?

Here’s another one: all of these horrific mass-shootings do not “just happen”. Every single one of them has some event that set things off.

The media likes portray these shooters as lonely disturbed time bombs. They keep to themselves, they’re isolated, and it’s just a matter of time before they just… go off… for no reason whatsoever.

Well I’ll let you in on a little secret: I know a little bit about those “time bombs”, because for the longest time I was afraid that I would be one of them! I was also a loner. I also kept to myself. I also had issues with depression. Still have them. And unlike our unnamed shooter, I didn’t have access to resources to deal with my problems. The people who were supposed to “help” me didn’t. I had to deal with this on my own. Maybe one quarter of all of the courses that I took in high school and college were taken in part to deal with my problem on my own because nobody else was willing to. I plunged myself into dozens of social activities, sometimes at the expense of my grades, just so I wouldn’t feel like a loner, and even that didn’t work. It wasn’t because of my not wanting it bad enough or because I didn’t try hard enough. Other people let me down and there was nothing that I could do about that. I just didn’t fit into their plans and into their view of how the world should be.

So yeah, I know “a little bit” about that anger that builds up. I know about the natural injustices that exist in our society, and about the frustrations and aggravations that grow and fester like a cancer. The person who is alone doesn’t have an outlet for those things. They can’t turn to a friend or a loved one to get some measure of understanding or compassion.

And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about high school, college, or our adult lives, these things build and build, and without some kind of release or outlet, it is just a matter of time before some event triggers that person to react in ways that everyone regrets.

The person who “goes postal” doesn’t do so at random. There is a reason for their action. They are carrying out what they believe is justice.

You go back to the high school shootings. You go back to the workplace shootings. You go back to the disgruntled postal workers, where the whole phrase “going postal” came from, and you find a pattern. These are people who are isolated, alone, stigmatized, tormented, and then something happens that puts that person over the edge.

Kids can be cruel, and adults equally so, but as Clint Eastwood once said “A man’s gotta know his limitations.”

But, of course, that too is an “unacceptable truth” in our society.

Here’s another one: this asinine belief that the violence in our society in things like our music and movies and games is causing these shootings. Please! That’s like pouring gasoline in a room, striking a match, and then blaming the wooden floor for being so combustible. The unacceptable truth here is that violence in our society is a SYMPTOM of a much larger problem that we systematically REFUSE to deal with.

Remember that bit about natural injustices that exist in our society? THAT is the real problem! There are plenty of people who feel isolated, alone, and shut out from what they see is the great and wonderful world happening all around them that they can’t take part in.

Do you know why movies like “Fight Club” are so popular? Why they strike a cord in our lives? Because some of the elements of that movie, and of the book that it is based upon, are TRUE! There are people out there in the world that feel left out. People who work hard and play by the rules and still feel like they’re getting screwed out of the basic things that everyone else takes for granted!

They’re told to get help, and then that help fails. They’re told to keep themselves busy, and they can’t. They’re told to just deal with it, and they can’t. So they react. The violence isn’t the problem. Our social interactions are the problem.

And all of these demagogues in the media and in politics are only making matters worse! All of these people who are saying that “violence in the media is BAD and we need to do something to BAN IT” and all of the people using this tragedy in their self-appointed crusade to ban guns are not doing anything to change society for the better. All you’re doing is leaching the tragedy for your own personal crusade, and that is shameful and disrespectful.

I have to give the Governor of Virginia some credit. At least HE was quick to go in front of the media and ask that people NOT use this situation to push for knee-jerk legislation. That is a brave stance, and I seriously hope that others follow suit, not just for this situation but for all future tragic events. It is high time that we end the “bloody shirt” crusades!

But that unacceptable truth is still there. It’s not the violence in our culture that is causing these tragedies to happen. It is just a convenient scapegoat to avoid having to do anything to deal with the REAL source of the problem. It’s easy to blame it all on TV and video games and rap music and wash our hands clean of the matter than to actually wonder why people like this shooter are out there.

It’s easy to simply say “ban guns”, but unlike other countries, we’ve had to deal with guns in our society and our culture. And the operative words here are “deal WITH guns”. Look, how the hell do you expect people to “deal” with other dangerous things in our world like drugs or alcohol if we’re substituting prohibition for some utopian fantasy when it comes to guns?

Yes, guns are weapons, but so are broadswords and rapiers. Guns just happen to be easier to use than a knife, or a sword, or a machete, or a hatchet… or, for that matter, a box-cutter. When Lizzie Borden committed her grizzly crime, which was just as shocking and sensationalized back then as our recent tragedies are today, nobody used it to propose a waiting period for buying hatchets or an outright ban on them.

Okay, I have one more unacceptable truth for people to chew on, and this one is a doozey.

Once again we gotta go back to the media here. The media likes to talk about these tragedies in the gravest of terms. They like to call these tragedies an “EPIDEMIC of violence” as if this was some sort of communicable disease that can be treated and inoculated from.

And they’re not the only ones using that line. The liberals are picking up on that for their anti-gun legislation and their new calling to supposedly “clean up” the airwaves.

The conservatives are also using it, but for a slightly different reason. The conservatives are picking up on this terminology to push for theocratic measures. They want to impose school prayer – preferably Christian prayers of course – and posting the Ten Commandments in every government building. They want people to think that all of these shootings are all “God’s punishment” for America not being “religious” enough.

Well let’s get brutally honest here… the biggest of the unacceptable truths here is that these tragedies, which shock and sadden us all, are NOT “epidemics”, nor are they “God’s punishment”. These tragedies, though horrific in nature, are symptoms of a flaw in how we deal with other people.

We’ve built up these various systems to deal with other people. Various levels of interaction depending on where that person stands in our own guideline of how things “should” be. And unfortunately there are some people who just don’t fit into those “perfect plans” of ours. These tragedies remind us that our little systems of dealing with others aren’t as “perfect” and “flawless” as we think they are.

And it doesn’t matter how many times we pray, or to whom we pray to, or how many times we see violence on TV or in the movies, or whether or not there are guns available… these tragedies will continue until we realize that the fault lies not with the heavens or the airwaves, but amongst ourselves.

It’s much easier for us to say that this is an “epidemic” because it absolves us of any responsibility of fixing things and accepting the fact that maybe… just maybe… WE need to do something about it. And that is REALLY why this is an “unacceptable truth”.

Mind you, I’m not bringing these things up to absolve the shooter in Virginia Tech for what he did. I saw the path that I was being led towards in my own life and I chose to go with what little bit of hope remained within me that something better will happen. Other people, like these people who carry out these shootings, make different choices. This guy chose to embrace his pain and isolation until he reached that final breaking point. He made the decision on his own. All I’m doing is pointing out how he got there and why WE have to deal with it, and hopefully do something to make sure that the next person that we come across in similar situations won’t fall down that same path.

(Computer – some appropriate stuff that you have to listen to understand)
(Fade Music In – “Who Am I” by Peace Orchestra)

There’s something about this particular tragedy that sort of bugs me. There is this collectivist chant going about both in Virginia and pretty much over the Internet too with people saying “we are Hokies”. Well I hate to burst your bubble, but so was the shooter, and that still didn’t change the fact that he went postal. If there was something magical and life-changing about a specific college, then why didn’t it prevent this tragedy from happening?

The truth is that there is nothing magical about the college. The “magic” really comes from the individuals who make up the community.

But again, if we’re continually transfixed on the communal, then we forget all about the contributions of the individuals. That THAT is what has led us to this problem in the first place.

(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)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Quick thought on a certain web deal

Was going through some online video segments and I saw a quick ad from a certain big-name bank plugging a $40,000 loan for $283 a month. Wow, that doesn't seem too bad, does it? The web ad even lists some of the other things you could spend that much money on per month of that $40,000 loan. Things like four dinners out per month. Hey, you could forgo four expensive restaurant dinners per month and afford to remodel your kitchen! Doesn't that sound neat? Well it would... if you go to expensive restaurants four times a month.

There's just one little thing wrong with this idea: the math. $283 per month for a $40,000 loan means you'll be spending almost TWELVE YEARS of your life paying that loan off! That's a pretty LONG time to go without restaurant dinners.

And that would be if you were just paying the straight value of the loan! Let's not forget interest. Oh yeah, that's where the bank really gets its money from! Are we talking a fixed rate or one that changes with the economy? Even on the low end you're looking at maybe fifteen-to-twenty years to pay off that $40,000 loan at $283 per month.

All of a sudden that doesn't sound like a good deal, does it?

It's rather deceptive, though. Sort of like that charity commercials that promise you can help out some starving child for "just pennies per day". Yeah it all sounds cheap, until you start doing the math.

Brutally Honest Rant - 04/11/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Some recent things that bug me
Audio Transcripts
04/11/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and 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.

Well I hope everyone managed to check out the rants for the past few weeks concerning changing our failing tax system. I’ve been calling it tax REFORM, but as was pointed out by RJ Evans over at Shocknetradio.com, what we really need is not tax REFORM, but rather tax DESTRUCTION! We need to actually SHUT DOWN our current tax system, literally destroy it, and start fresh. So thank you RJ for setting the record straight on that.

Meanwhile, of course, there have been some other things that have happened.

The most recent “thing” is this media BEAT-DOWN concerning longtime radio talking head Don Imus over what he said concerning a female college basketball team. And even the words “beat-down” are pretty weak to describe what the media is doing to him right now.

So let’s just get this out of the way. I know what Imus said. I heard the comments. And you know what? They were tasteless and crude and insulting. Here’s a female basketball team that made it to the championship game and then finished second… and Imus – and his co-host, because Imus pretty much parroted off what he said – had to try to get in a cheap shot about how they looked. It was stupid. It was pathetic. And it certainly was NOT funny!

But is it worth losing your job over?

Well that’s what the beat-down perpetrators want to have happen. Reverend Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, both of whom are equally guilty of saying offensive words in the past, want Don Imus to lose his job, lose his career, lose his ability to SPEAK, over this otherwise stupid insult.

Well I say unto Sharpton and Jackson, and to ALL of his supporters, a certain quote that these so-called “messengers of God” should know all too well… LET HE WHO HAS NOT SINNED cast the first stone!

Reverend Sharpton, Reverend Jackson, are you both willing to forfeit YOUR OWN jobs over some of the offensive and insulting words that YOU BOTH have said in the past? Are you both willing to lose YOUR voices, YOUR livelihoods, and YOUR ability to speak, over YOUR OWN words?

My guess is that they wouldn’t be willing to do that. They have way too much invested as publicity parasites to put their own pasts up for the same inspection. Besides, if they had to apply their own standards to themselves, they would have had to cut out their own tongues.

Mind you, Imus isn’t getting away with what he has said. He’s already lost a couple of weeks of work because of what he’s said. He’s getting grilled by every single media outlet you can find. He is having to apologize for everything that he’s said and just about every perceived SIN ever made by any demographic he belongs to.

But that is not enough for either so-called “ministers” or the other people who are hogging airtime on this subject. No, they want EVERYONE in the world to gang up on Imus and beat down on him and condemn him. They’re even parading this issue in front of all of the 2008 presidential wannabes and DEMANDING a condemnation from each of them.

So I’m going to extend my open challenge to ANYONE who wants to join in on this media-driven beat-down: if you think that Don Imus deserves to forever lose his work over what he said, I want you to put YOUR OWN JOB on the line for the things that YOU have said in the past! Go ahead. Do it. I DARE YOU!

Mind you, I’m not here to defend Imus. I’m not even a supporter of his show! I’ve listened to his show on occasion and find it boring and very dry and about as comical as a full IRS tax audit. But I am DISGUSTED at the media’s handling of this matter and of the publicity “ho’s” who are trying to make a name for themselves posing as “experts” who are quick to crucify Imus just so they can get some undeserving 15-minutes of fame. If you’re hell-bound to set some sort of measuring stick for free speech, then you had DAMN well better make sure that your own speech is squeaky clean first before you insist on imposing that standard on others!

At the end of the day, this matter is between Imus, his employers, and with the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. For everyone else, if you don’t like what Imus says, then you do what I did a LONG time ago: suck it up, count to 10, and stop listening.

(Audio Clip – “tiniest problems”)

Okay, the other thing that I REALLY have to talk about concerns the Iraq War.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m getting REALLY sick and tired of hearing the hypocrisy and doublespeak coming from Republicans concerning funding for the Iraq War.

Let’s go back a few months… the Democrats take control of the Congress, and one of the first things they do is draft resolutions to condemn our handling of the Iraq War. The Republicans immediately go into spin mode and say “Oh, the Democrats are just wasting valuable time on this nonsense! If they don’t like how the war’s been going, they should just CUT OFF FUNDING! That’s what they should do! They should just go ahead and CUT OFF FUNDING!”

Now mind you, this was the sentiment echoed from the White House, echoed from the GOP lemmings who got their talking points from Karl Rove, and from all of the con and neo-con and other Imperium ass-kissers out on talk radio! Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz… they ALL said the SAME THING! They all said “don’t waste our time with resolutions; if you’re opposed to how the war is being handled then CUT OFF FUNDING!”

That was their argument back then. That was their reason why they opposed the resolutions, and what they used to kill the Senate’s version of the resolution.

So now the Democrats are following through on that advice. They proposed a budget that included a cut-off date for funding if the troops are not home by fall of 2008. And now, of course, the Republicans – and especially those in the Bush Imperium – are throwing screaming temper tantrums over this.

And I don’t know why they’re bitching about this… because this is EXACTLY what they wanted! THEY are the ones who kept on saying “cut off funding if you don’t support the war”! THEY said it! Hannity, Limbaugh, Boortz, the GOP parrots in Congress… THEY were the ones who challenged the Democrats to do what they did. You don’t get to say that and then bitch when it happens!

And then there’s our Dufus-in-Chief. Where do I begin about him? Bush Junior is bitching and crying about what will happen if the Democrats cut off funding for the troops. He complains that the troops would be under-funded and under-supplied. He complains that they would have to serve longer tours with shorter leave time between tours.

Well let’s get brutally honest here… that crap is ALREADY happening! It is ALREADY going on RIGHT NOW! It’s been going on for almost FOUR FRIGGING YEARS!

We’ve had to deal with under-funded troops, ill-equipped troops, ill-trained troops, troops that have had their tours extended and their leave time reduced. And there was ANOTHER tour extension that was just announced this afternoon!

We have soldiers ending up with head traumas from the combat helmets they need to wear, because they lacked a simple piece of padding that could be retrofitted in a matter of seconds for PENNIES per soldier! Remember when whole communities pitched in to help buy the needed ARMOR for the vehicles their soldiers were driving in? And remember what the government did when they heard about it? Did they pitch in? NO! They forbid the practice! How about the abysmal conditions our wounded servicemen were facing over at Walter Reed?

And all that was WITH a Republican-controlled Congress rubber-stamping the Bush Imperium’s wishes! Where the hell was all of this concern about the welfare of our troops back when they had FULL control of the purse-strings and spent money like crazy? I’m a taxpayer and I WANT TO KNOW!

The absolute abject hypocrisy over the funding of this war is DISGUSTING! And mind you, I’m not happy that we’re talking about setting a specific calendar date either. At the same time, though, we have a White House that REFUSES to talk about what it would take to end our presence there. They are carrying on as though we are destined to be stuck there for ever and ever, and that is just plain WRONG!

Mister President, if you want start regaining the trust that you carelessly pissed away, then just come up with the conditions needed for us to go home! At what point, Mister President – condition-wise, not calendar-wise – do we get to say “we’ve done all that we can do, it’s up to the Iraqis now to do the rest”? THAT is what we need to hear! If you can just answer THAT question, sir, THEN you’d probably see a more receptive bunch of Democrats willing to give you that second chance that you claim that you need to get the job done.

(Clip – “Everything you touch turns to suck”)

Oh, I’ve got one more… how about the latest thing from the White House? It seems our Dufus-in-Chief is looking for someone to supervise the combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Someone who can answer to him. Someone who would supervise the activities and coordinate what’s going on with the Pentagon and make sure that everything is working the way it should.

Now the White House is calling this position a “WAR CZAR”… but you know, I think this is a really GREAT idea! Yeah, we NEED someone who can coordinate all of the WAR activities and make sure that the Pentagon people are up to speed as to what needs to be done. Someone close to the President… maybe even make this a CABINET position! Yeah!

But change the name, you know? “WAR CZAR” sounds too much like a communist position. We need a better-sounding title. Something… official. Something to fit in with the rest of the White House hierarchy. Something like a War… SECRETARY! Yeah! A SECRETARY OF WAR! Doesn’t that sound GREAT?

Oh, but wait a minute… we ALREADY have that position, don’t we? Yes we do! In fact we’ve had a “Secretary of War” for two centuries now! Only we changed the name of the job after 1947. Today the “Secretary of War” is called the “Secretary of Defense”… and the White House just PUT someone new in that position.

So if there is already someone whose JOB it is to coordinate all war efforts, why is the White House looking for another person... to do the same job? Maybe it’s because this “new” position would be someone that doesn’t have to answer to Congress like the current job-holder has to. I guess that would be sort of handy when you don’t have a bunch of rubber-stampers on your side, wouldn’t it?

I would hope that you guys would pick up on this… but then again, between being told to get “offended” over Don Imus, and getting obsessed over this Sanjaya guy on “American Idol”, and having to deal with whichever White House scandal is covering up the previous White House scandals, I suppose I shouldn’t blame you guys for being a little too… distracted.

(Computer – some timely stuff)
(Fade Music In – “Flawed Legacy” by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

It’s becoming clear, at least to this commentator, that we are deal with a White House that is engaging in a bunker mentality, not just against Islamic terrorists, but also against anyone that doesn’t blindly support everything that they do. And that’s a dangerous mentality to engage in. It’s part of the reason why the Democrats managed to fumble their way into favor with voters.

This is a president that we have to put up with for two more years, and what the folks in the White House political bunker need to understand is that THEY also have to put up with US for two more years. Now they can either spend that time praying for the apocalypse to happen, or they can spend it trying to salvage what’s left of their positive image and actually work WITH the rest of this nation instead of trying to divide it.

Trust me, they’ll get a lot more done doing the latter.

(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)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
------------------------------

Eco-spin on the rampage

Last week the US Supreme Court issued a new ruling that supposedly was a setback to the Bush Imperium.

At stake was whether or not the Environmental Protection Agency can regulate vehicle emissions under the Clean Air Act and whether or not they can stand aside and not do it. Confusing, I know, but part 2 was something that the Imperium wanted for their “friends”.

The Supreme Court pretty much said that, yes, the EPA CAN regulate vehicle emissions, and that, no, they CANNOT sidestep their responsibility unless they can prove the danger wasn't there.

Now what amazes me is the level of spin involved on this. Spin 1 was that the Supreme Court was siding with eco-nuts & "global climate change". Spin 2 was that this was all a "setback" to the Imperium.

The horsecrap meter is in the serious red-zone here, guys.

First, the Supreme Court DID NOT rule for "global climate change" or for the eco-nuts. They ruled on the side of GOVERNMENT CONTROL! You have a government agency set up by Congress and enacted by the White House, and ordered to act based on specific LAWS as passed by Congress and signed by the President. THAT is what the Supreme Court ruled for. They said that there's a government agency and a law in place and you cannot violate these things!

Second, this is not a setback to the Imperium! The Imperium IS the GOVERNMENT! All the Supreme Court said was that the Imperium CANNOT avoid doing their jobs. Either obey the law or change the law but that's it! And this is EXACTLY what the Imperium wants to hear because there are a couple of OTHER laws that they have, in the past, not tried to enforce. But now that the Supremes ruled in this case, the Imperium can use that as the justification to rigidly enforce OTHER laws!

The level of sheer ignorance just astonishes me! Come on people! The White House has plenty of shysters on their team! You don’t think they wouldn’t be told what kind of ruling to expect?

Blog Against Theocracy Weekend

I didn't know about this until now, and it's a pity because I would have done something a little more formal if I did.

Today is the start of a little show of support called "Blog Against Theocracy". The people behind this movement believe as I do that you cannot have true religious freedom without the separation of church and state.

This video should help explain things.



Now there is one thing about this video that I disagree with. The slogan "Democracy NOT Theocracy" is very creative, but America wasn't set up as a democracy. It was set up as a democracy inside a republic. And that's important, because it's that limitation of democracy that maintains our freedoms. A true democracy would destroy our freedoms the moment the "majority" finds them distasteful. And that is already happening right now. If you don't believe me, I've got three words for you: Federal Communications Commission.

A democracy inside a republic says that there is something more important than majority rule, and in America that "something" is the US Constitution.

But I do have to say that I think the video is GREAT because it really puts a human face (or faces in this case) to the argument.

Anyway, check out Blog Against Theocracy and the folks at First Freedom First. Then come back here and let me know what you think.

Oh, by the way, go check out the transcripts from the first "Unacceptable Truths" rant I made a couple of weeks ago concerning religion. Pretty much ever theocratic argument made backs up what I've said about religion.

Q100 and Six Flags: Nobody was THINKING!

A local radio station (Q100) thought they had a nice little promotional gig this week. Show up super-early in the morning and get in free at Six Flag for that day. Hey, it’s in the middle of Spring Break… kids are at home… and they had to be there between 6 and 9am to take part in the whole melee. What a great little promo, right?

There’s just a few things wrong with that wonderful idea…

1. Nobody told the local authorities this was going to happen. Interstate 20, the only major road to Six Flags, was PACKED with travelers. I-20 is normally packed anyway because of rush hour traffic, but all of the obsessed parents trying to rush over there only made it worse!

2. Nobody mentioned that only the first 10,000 people would be allowed in! If they did, it was only on the radio and NOT in their online information.

3. The doors opened at 6am and they were at capacity in FIFTEEN MINUTES!

4. There were WAY TOO MANY IDIOT PARENTS who decided to not listen to the radio when they were told the park was already full. They were the ones who jammed the roads and even ditched their cars and tried to show up on foot, which wasn’t allowed in the first place. Some parents tried to drop their kids off at the park, which also wasn’t allowed, only to leave them stranded at the locked gates.

The end result? Plenty of pissed-off parents, disappointed kids, fouled-up roads, and people pointing fingers at each other over who is to blame for it all.

Well you know what? Q100 and Six Flags EACH get the lion’s share of the blame here! Six Flags should have KNOWN what roads would be like on I-20 on a normal rush hour morning, with or without school in session! Q100 should have known that any time parents hear about free admission to Six Flags that it would be INSANELY popular and they should have mentioned the maximum limit so parents would know the rules.

But I’m not going to let the parents get off on this either. There were WAY TOO MANY idiotic parents who thought that they would just drop their precious tax deductions off and have a good time. YOU contributed to the chaos as well. Especially those of you who were STUPID enough to ditch your vehicles on the highway and try to show up on foot! ON FOOT! I hope you LOST your vehicles when you had to walk back! Serves you right!

Being a parent is NOT an excuse to let your dead brain cells do all your thinking.

Brutally Honest Rant - 04/04/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Tax Reform and Willpower
Audio Transcripts
04/04/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and 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.

For the past few weeks I’ve been talking about tax reform. About how our current system of taxation is slowly destroying our way of life, about how we NEED to scrap the entire system and start fresh, and about what it takes to do it. I’ve given you the alternatives. I’ve even spelled out and explained the number one thing that destroys any discussion of changing our current failing tax system.

There’s only one element left that I haven’t really delved into: what it takes to get any kind of needed changes made.

You see… I’ve been talking about the need for tax reform for a couple of years now. I bring it up in my columns, in online commentaries, in chat room discussions, and even one-on-one in personal conversations. And every time… every single time… people will nod their heads in agreement and say that they like the ideas I bring up. They agree that reform needs to be done, and they even like the alternatives that I mention. HOWEVER, they really don’t think that ideas like this will ever see the light of day in Washington. They have become so JADED by the corruption and the bureaucracy and the petty ego-driven political games to believe that anything could EVER be done to make the system work for us instead of screwing us over.

And I really don’t blame them for thinking that way! I really don’t! Look, we as voters took the GOP OUT OF POWER in 2006 because they were a bunch of corrupt arrogant bastards who couldn’t get anything done outside of rubber-stamping the White House agenda. And they couldn’t even do that right!

And I’m not happy with the politicians who ARE in power right now. So far they’re pretty much a lot of talk and very little action where it is needed the most. So yeah, I can understand why people are jaded about making government work FOR us instead working AGAINST us, as it has been doing.

But at the same time, we need to do something about this failing tax system, and we need to do it pretty damn soon.

So what does it take? Quite simply, it takes the WILL to get it done.

You see… politicians know, especially from this past election, that if you piss off the voters enough, they will DEMAND that something be done to fix the problem. And they will vote accordingly just to save their own jobs.

This is why many of our politicians seem to suffer at times from a lack of direction. They’re waiting to see what OTHER PEOPLE will tell them to do. For some politicians, it’s a party leader. For some others, it’s a special interest group. And for the rest, it’s whatever the POLLS tells them to do. You know why? Because they lack the SPINE to decide for themselves how to represent their constituents… and because we’ve all become so JADED by the ineptitude that WE pretty much don’t give a crap about the process… and so the decision-making process defaults to these other groups.

That’s why our system is screwed up the way that it is, boys and girls. We’re not taking part in the process… either by our apathy, or by conscious decision, or even by some orchestrated conspiracy by special interest groups. Blame whomever you want to, but the fact of the matter is that we’re not doing our jobs.

But here’s the thing: if there is enough WILL from the public, then we can MAKE these changes happen.

And as luck would have it… I happen to have a little story from our own history to prove that it can be done.

You see… once upon a time there was a certain measure that a certain special interest moralist group wanted enacted. Now this was something that the public, by in large, DID NOT want. But that didn’t matter to the moralist group… THEY wanted it enacted, and they did whatever it took to get their way. They infiltrated the government and made sure that the politicians passed THEIR laws exactly as THEY wanted them passed.

But every time that the moralists seemed to get their way, their efforts were stopped by the general public. Moralist laws on this subject either got repealed or else they got shot down in the courts. People made it clear that they DID NOT want these laws enacted. Unfortunately, this moralist group was determined to have their way, and when they had just enough political power, they passed their law in such a way that they believed would NEVER be removed. They made it a part of the US Constitution, which meant that the courts couldn’t throw it out, and the public couldn’t repeal it once enacted. They believed that they won. Game over.

This law stayed on the books for a little over a decade, enforced by the government at the behest of the moralists. At first the public tried to ignore this action, but then once the government started enforcing this law, the public pretty much turned to criminals for help, because they were essentially criminals at this point anyway.

The moralists didn’t care, though. If the general public became criminals, then so be it! Their will be done!

But there were still those who said that this WASN’T over with! They believed that the measure was fundamentally WRONG, and they did everything possible to get rid of it. They tried to go to Congress to change this… only to find that the Congress was still corrupted by this moralist group. They refused to do anything, even when proof came out that this measure was causing the very problems that they claimed they were trying to prevent! Still didn’t matter, though… because the moralists wanted it, and THEIR WILL be done!

Well it turns out there WAS a way to bypass Congress on this. The moralists thought that it would never happen, but it did, and the measure was finally repealed.

Now to fill in a few of the blanks here… the moralist group in question was a collection of Christian fundamentalists, women suffragists, temperance activists, and, believe it or not, a certain bigoted organization with the letter K in each of their three initials. You can probably figure out that the matter in question was the outlawing of alcohol. And the only Constitutional Amendment that was ever repealed in a manner that did not involve congressional action… was Eighteenth Amendment, otherwise known as the Volstead Act or simply as Prohibition.

But let’s get brutally honest here… this repeal would have NEVER happened if people didn’t stop trying to make it happen! They took a stand and they continued to press for a way to shut down that measure. They heard the same arguments as those being made today about tax reform. They were given the same amount of skepticism as the people pushing for tax reform are getting today. They knew that the corrupt bastards in Congress wouldn’t lift a finger to do what’s right.

Prohibition would STILL be in effect today if there wasn’t sufficient WILL from the public to make that repeal happen! The repeal would have never been passed if the public wasn’t pissed off enough to WANT it.

And that is EXACTLY what needs to be done here for REAL tax reform! The public REALLY needs to get PISSED! They need to know what is at stake here with our current failing tax system. They need to know that within a decade, we are facing a serious, SERIOUS crisis. We won’t have to worry about how our grandchildren or even how our children will handle this problem… because we’ll be right there as it happens! It’ll happen when WE are still alive! THAT is the kind of urgency we need. The public needs to know how important this is, and that the only way that this failing tax system will change is if WE REALLY WANT it to!

Now once that happens… once the masses are determined to make these changes happen and have the system work FOR us instead of AGAINST us, then the politicians know that they can either support us, they can step aside, or they can look for another job. The GOP found out that little lesson just this past fall, and that was for just incompetence, ineptitude, corruption, and one hypocritical child predator. Imagine what it would be like if the masses actually had something to rally FOR!

(Computer – a real FairTax promo – yes there is one! And you have to listen to the show to hear it!)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

Our failing system of taxation is in place today because we as voters have been lulled into thinking that we can tweak an already flawed system and keep things going just long enough to pass this problem on to another generation. Listen to the rhetoric about Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare! They’re not talking about fixing the system! They’re talking about simply making it work just long enough for it to become someone else’s problem… and preferably that would be some point after we’re dead so we wouldn’t have to deal with the consequences.

Well guess what? The delaying games won’t work anymore. Our system is on borrowed time right now, and the expiration date is a lot sooner that you think!

And here’s the punch-line: our elected grifters and shysters have KNOWN this for a long time! They’re just waiting for US to tell them that this is an issue.

(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)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
------------------------------

Where we are at...

I really like this video. Todd McFarlane, who created Spawn, directed this video featuring the group Disturbed.



The song was originally performed by Genesis, and their video used celebrity puppets to get their point across. I don't neccessarily agree with the symbolism of the video, the message is pretty much on-target.

DOJ firings: Not an issue? Like Hell!

Okay, as promised, here’s a quick sampler from this week’s column about the look into the firing of those 8 US Attorneys and whether or not they’re really “an issue”.

Also bear in mind that this is an Attorney General who is already under fire for how the Department of Justice has used its power under the PATRIOT Act. The FBI is already being investigated for abusing that tyrannical law. TRUST in the Department of Justice is pretty much on the low-side right now. And here we have the U.S. Attorney General – the highest law enforcing officer for the government – unable to even come clean about how eight of his prosecutors were fired!

I think that’s pretty significant, don’t you? I mean, if this guy can’t even be trusted to explain how eight of his own people got replaced, then how the hell should anyone trust him or his department for the REALLY SERIOUS stuff like enforcing our LAWS?

I think this is a pretty strong reason in and of itself why we need to look into this issue.

What do you think? Go to the Weekly Column link, read the whole article, and then come back here and post your comments.

No joke, it’s actually been ELEVEN YEARS!

For most people, April 1^st is a time for jokes and pranks. But for yours truly, April 1^st is an important day, because it marks the date that my first online column appeared.

Can you believe that I've actually been doing this for ELEVEN YEARS now? Eleven years of writing columns, posting them online, and having people respond to them… or in most instances simply ignoring them. Hey, one of the perks of being at this for so long is not having any delusions of being a great Internet wonder. When my name shows up on one of the big-name sites as a regular contributor, then I can have delusions of importance.

I did a call-in with RJ Evans over at Shocknetradio.com on Friday night, and it was somewhat refreshing being tapped for my perspective on how things are going. If you can stomach a little atheist discussion, I definitely recommend you tuning in on Friday nights from 7-11pm ET over at shocknetradio.com and check out the "American Heathen" show. (I also recommend you use the free WinAmp player to listen… it really whips the llama's ass!) I'm usually in the chat room during showtime giving my quick $1.95 on the issues. And when RJ's show isn't on, and Shocknet doesn't have other scheduled programming going on, they've got classic rock playing, so all-in-all it's a good online radio site to check out.

For those who haven't checked out the website(s) yet…

For the past few weeks I've been doing my audio rants on tax reform. April 17^th is fast approaching, and now is the prefect time to talk about doing what it takes to replace our failed tax system before we get into some SERIOUS trouble. The transcripts to my discussions on tax reform are up on the blog site. I've got at least one more discussion on the subject on tap and then it'll be back to figuring out what the heck to talk about.

In the coming months, I'll be doing some more on the ongoing series called "Unacceptable Truths", because there are still quite a few of them around that need to be brought up. I'll also be resurrecting the "Government Out of Control" series, and you can be sure that a couple of badge-carrying thugs in Chicago will be on the top of that list.

By the way, if you're just checking out the transcripts instead of listening to the audio rants, you're really missing out on some interesting components. If you have broadband access, then you shouldn't have any problems hearing the show without any interruptions.

Over at the weekly column, I've got two new additions to the "Target: Moralism" series, and I've really been hammering in on the failings of the White House, as well as this asinine idea to kickstart the 2008 campaign season so damned early.

This week's look is at the whole matter with the 8 fired U.S. prosecutors and why, contrary to the BS being spewn by Imperium ass-kissers like Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity, this IS a serious issue. It shouldn't be, but it is. Read the article, decide for yourself, and I'll even post a sampler up on the blog so you can comment on it.

Oh, one more thing… you may have heard about the recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board
(a part of the U.S. Copyright Office – a federal agency) to change royalty payments for online broadcasters like the folks at Shocknet Radio. These changes were put in place at the request of the recording companies and are retroactive to 2006 – which in and of itself is a gross violation of the US Constitution – and will literally shut down all small online broadcasters unless this is stopped. These new rules need to be blocked before they can be enacted. Please visit savenetradio.org and sign their online petition to let the federal government know that you as a voter do not support this gross abuse of power.

Understand that (1) the recording companies are not protecting the artists when they pull stunts like this. They don't care one bit about the artists. They only care about their own profits and in destroying all audio mediums until the only ones left are the ones THEY control. That's why they sue old ladies and little children. And (2) these royalty payment rules only apply to online broadcasters, NOT to terrestrial radio stations! You know, the SAME terrestrial radio stations owned by big corporations and have been continually cited for violating federal Payola laws for getting PAID by the recording companies to play certain songs. Yes, you heard me right, terrestrial radio doesn't pay ONE PENNY in royalties. They actually GET PAID to play songs!

I understand businesses need to make money, but as you may notice from my talk about tax reform, I believe in a level playing field when it comes to the government. Online broadcasters should only pay as much in royalties as terrestrial broadcasters have to pay – no more, no less. And if terrestrial broadcasters currently don't pay anything in royalties, then neither should online broadcasters. Period.

I consider this kind of abuse of power by the CRB a backdoor form of censorship because it is being enacted BY the federal government AT the behest of special interest groups. It was wrong when it was enacted eleven years ago, and it is wrong today.

So if you happen to agree with me on this, please go to savenetradio.org and help take a stand. It only takes two minutes of your life, but you'll be helping in a good cause.

See? I even manage to squeeze in a quick rant!