The Comfort of Loss

A beautiful Spring day - birds chirping, smells of grass & flowers on a soft breeze.

Who wants to think about politics? So dirty, increasingly obscene. Big government crushing people in favor of a small elite. Shameless deception driving nations to senseless wars. Receiving a flag for your fallen family member, or a $211 payoff for loss of a limb, and belatedly understanding it's all a scam.

Economics is no better. Work hard, pay your bills, steadily get ahead? But a speculative bubble suddenly engulfs your home equity. You lose everything, yet you watch big government bailout wealthy bankers and industrialists. Or perhaps your retirement fund depreciated due to 'bad investments' that favored insiders, or maybe corporate reorganization allowed new (lower) pension calculations?

The bottom line? You're fucked. To ask an elected representative for help is an option. But it's as likely to flag your file as a troublemaker as to generate justice. Eat grief - and more misery is coming.

Recognize now - the domestic war already began; your side lost. Reason, justice, fairness, are words our masters use to wipe their butts. Your best option is organizing strategic retreat.

The USA created a chain of torture sites, illegal concentration camps, around the world. The USA is shamelessly killing its opponents & also its own citizens extra-judicially with drone weapons. Spending on military, on police, and on prisons is unlimited. Big industry says the nuclear waste dump built beachside is perfectly safe. They lie. There is no oversight - the torturers & murderers & profiteers answer to no one.

Find a bit of peace if you can. Retreat to the hills. Don't worry anymore about rising Fascism - it's already at the helm.

War & Weapons Winners

Yesterday Japan began construction of a new military base some 6o miles from Taiwan on Yonaguni Island (link), roughly 400 miles southwest of the Japanese mainland. Forward deployment of troops, weaponry and intelligence gathering functions are planned for Yonaguni base, which is also about 6o miles from the disputed Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands.

Munitions makers and arms dealers are surely cheered by the news. As tensions cooled around the European Union, many large markets for weapons systems dried up. But Japan, China, Taiwan and Korea can raise huge amounts of money for "security" expenses. Taxpayers in those nations have no leverage to resist -- it's all patriotic and grand.

Japan is Bad

This is a follow-up to my earlier post, Japan is Good (link)

After two weeks in Japan, here are some negative findings:

-- Most bus stops in Tokyo are without roof cover or benches.

-- Such extensive plastic packaging! Wasteful layer on layer...

-- Rather scuzzy apartment buildings take ultra-grand names:
    zzzz "Royal Heights" or "Palace" or "Grand Villa" ...

-- Use of gauze face masks by public workers has increased.
    Perhaps 50% of such people are masked.
    It's difficult to hear a voice through a mask.

-- Noise pollution. Too many announcements continuing too long.

-- Employers require a standard health check - 健康診断.
    I had to push hard at the clinic to get a copy of my own data.
    It's as if the population are lab rats. We are not 「 マルタ 」 !

-- (Positively, there is great care in food presentation, but : )
    Negatively, behind the form, can be horrible fabrication.
    I've received thin tiny slices of processed frankenfoods.
    Pleasing to the eye, but poor taste & maybe even dangerous...
    Some food & drink coloring agents are unnaturally garish.
 
-- Fabrication is too often of poor substance. Surface finishing of
    buildings and public works is good, but substandard materials 
    soon deteriorate. Instead of wood & brick, it's fancy plywood
    and artificially concocted thin veneers that flake away to soon
    expose rust & cheap filler products. Surface beauty, with
    doubt inside.

-- Japan remains a monoculture in a multi-ethnic world.
    It's still very tribal here, perhaps racist. Imperial Japan
    promoted itself in the late 1930s as putting "all corners of
    the world under one roof" and for Co-Prosperity, but the
    reality then & now puts non-Japanese Asians as inferior
    (other peoples & races are valued as zoo critters).
    Not everyone feels or acts negatively if a non-Japanese
    human is near, but it's tough to swim against the tide...

Japan is Good

After two weeks in Japan, here are a few positive impressions:

-- So many flowering trees! In the parks, in people's gardens, along many rivers & streams. Great!

-- Food preparation care is typically high-quality. Attention to detail is really nice.

-- I had my first real smell of Spring the other day. Wow!

-- Tiny kids are commuting by themselves. It's weird but reassuring seeing such minis out & about.

-- There's much kindness here in the midst of crush & hurry.

I'm sure to remember more & add them later.
Japan's bad points will go in another post (link)...

Left Wing Snot

Reading masses of arguments & 'reports' by left-wing journalists & candy-ass lefty bloggers,  99% boils down to being clueless.

It's a jungle out there. Can lefty wake up in time?

America is beautiful, but we're deadly. We kill & torture. We pry, we spy & we lie. Deal with it. 

Lab rats live brief lives. We kill chickens & pigs & lots of cute critters - good eating. One day you folks could become the next meal option. Supersize it all.

Our rich folk own the rest of us. You'd better kiss ass to get along. 
Even the more well-off had best know their place.

In God's eyes, most of us are semi-precious...

Work hard & dream! But we're in a race for survival. Imagine the 100m where the favored start 90m ahead; they win, take the prizes, and also make the rules & laws.

Enjoy the natural world. B'fore Mr. Richy rapes it dead.

Japon toujours

La brièveté et ...
Une belle histoire collective
Maintenant, sakura !
 

Question of Need

We "must do this" and "need do" that
say the lying sacks of shit

Hired lips in Washington

Bernie Madoff billions

Whoever can you trust
It sure ain't them.

Spend our money
That's the least of it

Take your life
Enslave your kids
To militarize the world

Each suffering elder
Learns indignities
Before an early death

Lonely
Unavengable

The Master Race
is unconcerned

Erosion of the beach
A point of interest
Njoy while you can

The Greatest Target

Muhammad Ali.  Cassius Clay.  He surely riled The Man.

Listen (*) to his political speeches & banter.

Then, Ali was struck-down. 
Unnaturally convenient...

Where might someone leak a truly dark story?

Suffocation Torture

It's terrible the USA admittedly tortures people.

It's illegal to torture convicts. It's worse torturing people not yet charged or convicted, using torture to punish and intimidate. Torture is always illegal.

The 'waterboarding' euphemism is a deliberate fun park phrase. Let's be clear - suffocation is horrible, forcibly restrained, fighting for air, suffering pounding heart & quaking panic, knowing death by suffocating murder is within seconds.  Torture.

The torturers and those who protect them are criminal.

Swedish people believe our government should follow international law & condemn crime. We expect bold complaints, as we see ourselves as law-abiding & neutral. Sadly, our present Government of Sweden is corrupted by empty dreams of power - Swedish leaders say little and do nothing about continuing torture programs by the USA.

Moderate Swedish Tiger