holiday

The "holiday season" begins here, appropriately, for Hallowe'en was originally observed by the ancient Celts as the dividing point between those days in which light predominated and the darker half of the year. Their name for it, "Samhain," roughly means "summer's end."

After the one God had killed all the old gods or driven them underground, the pagan ambience of the holiday persisted in its designation as All Saint's Day. Even to this day, those who fear paganism also fear that this prominent day in the ancient lunar calendars provides an opportunity for "unclean" spirits, never entirely banished from either the European imagination or the Christian religion, to enter our lives and make mischief. The Wikipedia article on Halloween tells us that The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home whilst harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks.

The Celtic honoring of ancestors foreshadows some modern uses of this time of year. Because Hallowe'en marks the advent of the "darker half" of the year, it has acquired aspects of a festival of the dead, and is so celebrated in many Latin American countries on the first or second of November.

But in English-speaking North America, where a secularized, hedonistic population avoids disturbing or spiritually ambiguous subjects, the holiday has been rendered harmless and relegated to the status of a children's dress-up day and neighborhood lark. This is merely another sign that we are afraid of our own shadows -- and for good reason.

seattle autumn

It's one of those fall days in Seattle where it doesn't exactly rain, but it doesn't exactly not rain either. It's not warm today, but not really cold either. Today has no distinguishing characteristics other than its utter absence of distinguishing characteristics.

Everything is still, even in places with lots of traffic.

It's a good day to be inside, in a snug little overheated apartment in the Ravenna Park neighborhood or a rented flat in Ballard or a second-floor walkup in Greenwood or a one-bedroom bungalow in West Seattle. Time to get a log going in the fireplace, cook a pot of tea, turn on the radio (NPR "All Things Considered," of course), and stare idly out the window at the unweather outside.

It's a good day to have a cat on your lap, and an excellent day to not work.

Back in the day, the Indians got all their work done in the summer and early fall, then retired into cedar buildings for the late fall and winter, and spent their time feasting, socializing, and dancing -- activities to which the season here lends itself.

eulogy

I guess this is good-bye then. And what a long strange trip it's been, to borrow a phrase.

You weren't always good. In fact, you had a lot of trouble from the very beginning, and you hurt a lot of people.

But despite not always being good, sometimes you were great. And boy, didn't we have some times! Nothing will ever be the same now you're gone.

So good-bye, U.S.A. You'd still be alive if you'd been able to learn from others' mistakes, but you were too goddamn arrogant for that. You always thought you were special. It's too bad you weren't a little smarter.

R.I.P.

*************************************

People who are 30 years old today will be able to tell their grandkids how they remember living in the USA. Some of them probably even remember the good old days of the cold war, when there was infinite firepower but hardly anybody died. Our beloved enemy in those days, was the USSR, better known as the Soviet Union. God, how we miss him!

"What happened to him, grandpa?"

"He went to Afghanistan. And then he died."

"Why?"

"Because that;s what empires do. Afghanistan is the last place on earth, so it makes sense that it's the last thing a great empire sees as it closes its eyes for the final time."

The United States has gone missing in the mountains of Afghanistan. It'll probably be a few years before the world accepts the fact that it's dead.

Beedle-E-Baum

(What follows is a true narrative of agony and ecstasy; take your pick. it's a didactic and instructional tale, told by one who has lived it.)

I woke up this morning 'bout half past four,
Saw my baby, couldn't use her no more.
I know a .38 slug, beedle-E-baum,
She's got a .38 slug, beedle-E-baum,
Hey, can't nobody use it,
Mama's got a .38 slug.

Get back, pretty mama! Why should I die?
You done made me love you now your man done come;
I know a .38 slug, beedle-E-Baum
...
Mama's got a .38 slug.

I remember a time, honey, you were so cushy and nice,
Before you made me your human sacrifice,
She's got a .38 slug, beedle-E-Baum
...
Mama's got a .38 slug.

But then last night when you came to bed
You stuck a loaded pistol up under my head,
She's got a .38 slug, beedle-E-baum
...
Mama's got a .38 slug.

She's got her hair piled high, she can have most any man,
Long as she stays out of places got ceiling fans
She's got a .38 slug, beedle-E-Baum
...
Mama's got a .38 slug.

Now I got a kid; he shines like gold.
The womens all tell me that his papa's gettin' old,
I know a .38 slug, Beedle-E-Baum
...
Mama's got a .38 slug.

There was a monkey and a 'rang-a-tang sittin' in the grass,
One says "No" and the other one say "Yass"
She's got a .38 slug, beedle-E-baum
...
Mama's got a .38 slug.

And don't forget it.

--30--

the river

Dick Cheney needs to make a pilgrimage to India before he dies, and I fear his time is running out fast.

Even the most skilled western doctors can't keep a heart so hard as his ticking forever. The lotus of his heart chakra is upside-down, closed, and petrified. He needs to soften it, and turn it right-side up so it can open.

He needs to divest himself of his clothing and wear the white robe and sandals to visit the ghats of Benares, to see how real people live, die, and travel to the next life. If he doesn't do this, he's in danger of being reborn as one of Michael Vick's dogs.

He desperately needs to then join an ashram whose directors can counsel him regarding his new diet of rice, fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and direct him in his daily activities of yoga movement (asana), proper breathing (pranayama), prayer, ritual, and meditation. He might meditate on the pain he has inflicted on others, and on the ways in which he has ruined their lives, and be washed in the river of his own tears of shame and remorse.

His prayers should be addressed to a power great enough to forgive him for his sins, which are many. In this way he may progress far enough before dying to cleanse himself of at least some of the iniquity he has gathered to himself by engaging in sadism, butchery, warmongering, and megalomania coupled with hysterical self-justification.

There's hope for everybody. Even Dick Cheney.

change you can believe in

Why, just look at that dog! He looks like he's losin' his mind!

--Cab Calloway
"Have You Ever Met that Funny Reefer Man?"

The good news from the Ovular Office last week was that President Obama has directed the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) to stop persecuting state-recognized cannabis patients and state-licensed marijuana distributors in those states where medical dealers and users are protected by state laws. Up until now, of course, they've still been violating Federal law, which has never recognized the legitimacy of any medical applications for the drug.

This is actually great news for reefer smokers all over the country, not just cannabis patients, because it's a way station, a brief stop on the road to full legalization. And it's also great news for revenue-starved American governments at every level, because they're going to ride a wave of dollars flowing from the changes in the law they are planning even now. This sudden infusion of money will do much to restore them to solvency, especially if the Feds can combine reforms of their prodigal spending habits with new sources of income.

So in addition to ending a pointless and un-winnable war on pot smokers at home, they might want to seriously consider ending a pointless and un-winnable war on fundamentalist Muslim hillbillies in Afghanistan, halfway around the world.

We can expect a struggle between the Fed and the states over who will get the lion's share of this money. Since the states have taken the initiative in the push for legalization, my sympathies are with them. In return, the national government could benefit by not having to send as much of the money it collects in Federal income taxes back to states and localities.

Marijuana is already the number one cash crop in California, which is otherwise an agricultural powerhouse. Debt-strapped governments everywhere are very much aware of this.

The fee for becoming a licensed grower or distributor, and the state and Federal taxes on the final product have yet to be negotiated of course, but any combination of taxes exceeding $10 an ounce for packaged marijuana would be excessive. And if governments get too greedy, we can always go back to growing it and smoking it illegally. We already know how to do that.

It looks to me like Cab Calloway will turn out to have been a strange American prophet, one who appeared to us swaddled in a Zoot suit and asking that cryptic musical question, "Have You Ever Met that Funny Reefer Man?"

The Mermaid

The mermaid came again last night and sat out on the shore,
And sang the way I've heard her sing a dozen times before,

A cold and lonely song she sings, of life out in the sea;
For otters, fishes, and birds she sings, but never yet for me.

She sees her blue lips in the mirror, she knows her time's not long;
As the sand runs out it amplifies the sweetness of the song.

If she might only look about, and see me standing above,
Her heart might thaw in the warm, wet rain, and surrender her deep, blue love.

Then darkness falls, the tide runs out, starlight enfolds the world;
And I'm left standing all alone, a lonely soul unfurled.

tom rushen's blues

Seems like the story of my life...

By Charlie Patton

I Laid down last night, hopin' I would have my peace,
Eee-hee-hee;
But when I woke up, Tom Rushen was shakin' me.

What happens then, Charlie?

When you get in trouble, it's no use to screamin' and cryin',
Mmm-hmm
Tom Rushen will take you, back to the prison house flyin'.

An' it's boozy booze, now, Lord, to carry me through;
But each day seems like years in the jailhouse where there ain't no booze.

Let me tell all you folks just how he treated me,
Eee-hee;
Well he threw me in a cellar just as dark as it could be.




__________

Clash of the Titans

Rev. Al Sharpton is in the initial stages of bringing a defamation suit against Rush Limbaugh.

In (an) op-ed published in Saturday's Wall Street Journal Limbaugh writes Sharpton "played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews ‘diamond merchants’) and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot."

The Crown Heights riot began after a Hasidic Rabbi accidently struck and killed an African American boy with his car. The boy died from the injuries–sparking four nights of riots. The Rabbi was not charged, but Sharpton played a large role in rallying on behalf of the young boy’s family and the African American community.

Details of this are at CNN News Ticker.

I'll go out on a limb right now and predict that Sharpton will basically win the case because he's got real evidence, but the terms of his victory won't be made public because Limbaugh's attorneys will finagle some kind of undisclosed, out-of-court settlement.

autumn comes to the pacific coast

What a gorgeous image. It was taken at Big Bear, CA, and signals that fall has come to the Pacific Coast region.

Photo by Jim Otterstrom, of the Earth Home Garden blog.

Mike and Tom

I wonder if there'll be a revolution. I'm not saying there will be, but I wonder. If there is one, or something in some way similar to a revolution (like 1968-69), I think Michael Moore will turn out to have been the most important revolutionary since Thomas Paine helped turn the world upside-down.

Moore was on Scarborough's "Morning Joe" this morning, not advocating any action, but simply describing our current state of affairs:

Moore: Oh! It’s so incredible. Yes. Fifteen million people out of work.

Scarborough: Isn’t this a perfect example for you? Isn’t this a great example of what you’re trying to say? How there’s a disconnect between what’s going on on Wall Street, 10,000, and Main Street, 10% unemployment?

Moore: Oh, it’s not a disconnect. It’s connected very well. It’s connected just the way our economic system is set up. It’s set up so that the pyramid scheme that we call capitalism—it’s become a pyramid scheme now—the very few at the top get away like bandits making billions and billions of dollars. And everybody else in the lower parts of the pyramid are told to work really hard and maybe some day they can come up and be on top of the pyramid too. Well guess what? There’s only a few people that can sit on top of the pyramid and it’s just so revolting and so immoral when we live in a country—the wealthiest country on earth—fifteen million people unemployed. One in every eight homes right now is in foreclosure or delinquency. And they’re celebrating on Wall Street? And they’re paying each other bonuses?

What I noticed first about Moore's little spiel is that it's descriptive, but not prescriptive. All he's doing is telling people where they are, not what they should do about it. And that's all a revolutionary has to do. No wonder the Republicans, most Democrats, and all other reactionaries and greedheads hate this guy!

And actually, it may be worse than he describes. Some economists advocate using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' "G-6" unemployment figure rather than the "G-3" number our news sources always refer to, which now stands at 10 percent. G-6 includes workers who want to work full time but are working only part time instead -- "underemployed" as they say, and that figure is now 17 percent. How many millions of people that amounts to depends on how one computes the size of the labor force, but any way you figure it's a hell of a lot higher than 15 million.

the real thing

The more I listen to this guy, the more I find I can't get enough of him.

Mance Lipscomb was born in east Texas to a former slave from Alabama and a half-Choctaw mother in 1895, and neither the harsh realities of sharecropping nor the threat of white terrorism were strangers to his formative years.

He played and sang from the time he was 11, and in his youth was acquainted with recording star Blind Lemon Jefferson and the gospel singer Blind Willie Johnson. He also apparently had opportunities to play and tour with the white Oklahoman and "blue yodeler" Jimmie Rodgers, but passed on the chance and never recorded or gained any notoriety beyond Navasota, his birthplace and hometown, until he was "discovered" in 1960.

At his first big concert, playing for an audience of 40 thousand at a folk festival in Berkeley in 1961, his version of the traditional lament, "Motherless Children" left the audience so stunned that he couldn't gauge their reaction, and thinking that maybe he'd done something wrong, ended his set after just three numbers.

Motherless children have a hard time when their mother is dead.
They don't have any place to go;
Wandering around from door to door...

In the 13 years that were left to him Lipscomb recorded fairly prolifically, and his pleasant voice, prodigious fingerpicking style, and amazingly wide-ranging repertoire (he called himself "a songster," not a "blues singer") are well documented. He also left an oral autobiography whose transcriber unfortunately felt it necessary to phonetically reproduce Lipscomb's east Texas patois, but it's still worth the read.

If you're curious enough to want a taste right now, check out this incredible YouTube video (from a '60's documentary) of Mance tearing up "Jack of Diamonds" (mistitled at the site). This is atypical, as he didn't play slide very often, but here, with a jackknife in his left hand and a broken finger on his right, he demonstrates that he could make a guitar do anything he wanted it to, in any style he chose.

leaving the past behind

Now that I've spent more than enough time contemplating the Google Maps street-level view of my old happy home, and wasted enough hours mooning and moping to the melancholy sound of Sinatra and the Hi-Lo's '50's version of "I'll Never Smile Again," and having determined that the past is dead and gone and never coming back, and that I'm neither dead nor dying, and will probably be somewhere on this earth, working and active and cultivating relationships with other humanoid carbon units for many years to come...

I've resolved myself to the fact that all we ever have is the here and now, which unwinds minute by minute and day by day into an uncertain but somewhat calculable future, and the knowledge that if we're going to make the best of it we need to let go of that past, no matter how seemingly happy and wonderful and joyful and fulfilling we remember it as being. And maybe it wasn't really that wonderful anyhow; maybe I'm just misremembering. Come to think of it, I also recall being frequently exhausted in those days, but I don't remember things like that as easily as I remember all the good stuff.

Tempus fugit...but don't let it fly away from you because you're looking over your shoulder at what's behind; and keep your eye on the ball.

sunshine in seattle

It's a beautiful sunny day here in the Pacific Northwest -- clear and cold, almost like January. But you won't catch me complaining.

I was sick yesterday. Still a little under the weather today, but I'm going to Seattle for my monthly five-hour yoga class just the same. It should be a glorious boat ride and an easy motor commute on the other side.

Didja ever notice? After being sick, you feel better during the recovery than you normally feel, even when you're healthy and firing on all four.

shining city on a hill

Babylon is the seat of all corruption. It's had several names and locations over the centuries; Bertolt Brecht, for example, called it "Mahagonny" and placed it in the middle of Alabama. For Martin Luther, the hierarchy of priests who ran sixteenth-century Rome and had perverted Christianity, turning it into a predatory, for-profit enterprise, had also transformed "the eternal city" into the source of all evil.

In our own time, corruption's main thoroughfare, Wall Street, runs 230 miles from New York City to Washington, DC, and the Whore of Babylon rides the beast, whose seven heads have names like Goldman-Sachs and Citigroup, back and forth along its well-traveled asphalt. Like all whores, she's adept at pretending to be different people at different times, but no matter whether she's assuming the "liberal" persona she favors today or the "conservative" personality of her recent past, her only concern is to be fed by the beast, and to feed him a hundredfold in return.

The dominion of the Whore is no longer in any doubt when one of the key players at the very pinnacle of power candidly says of the U.S. Senate that "the banks own the place," as Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald recalls today. Greenwald analyzes the details of this openly confessed corrupt regime, linking to and leaning heavily on the most recent episode of Bill Moyers' Journal, which featured interviews with author Simon Johnson and an outspoken Democratic congresswoman from Ohio, Marcy Kaptur.

Even more revealing of our national identity is this post from the blog "Politics in the Zeros," which reproduces the Populist Party platform from 1892. As the poster of this item notes, with a few changes in its language it would be perfectly applicable to the social conditions we're facing today. (Found this item via Crookssandliars.com.)

I keep watching my fellow citizens place their hopes for change and for a viable future for themselves and their families on the Democrats, as if something good might come out of that festering pustule of political degeneracy. It's true that there are some Democrats who still have some integrity, like Representative Kaptur, for example. But the party itself is hopeless, and a people thirsting for reform will eventually realize that the Democrats are a very frail support to lean on.

We need to find some real representatives, people willing to do whatever it takes to lay this detestable whore six feet under, and send the beast she's riding back to hell where it belongs.

fake reform

Here's something I wrote a year and a half ago, in June of 2008. I believe it's possible to make accurate predictions -- if you know what's happening.

And vice-versa.

June 28, 2008: What do you have when you have a country where the government has "fought many wars," bringing the country "to the verge of bankruptcy?"


--Where "an inefficient...financial system" is "unable to manage the national debt," which is "both caused and exacerbated by the burden of grossly inequitable" (and insufficient) "taxation?"

--Where there is a deep resentment of the continuing "conspicuous consumption" of the ruling class?

--Where there is ongoing and rising high unemployment and inflated prices?

I'd say you have the French Revolution on your hands, from the looks of it.

The major social disruptions usually occur when a society has been experiencing the sort of crisis described above, and then things improve just a little bit. At that point all hell can break loose, as it did in 1789.

This is the year the Republicans will be swept from power. The Democrats will take over, and people will be expecting big improvements. But the Democrats won't deliver the kinds of big changes voters are anticipating.

There'll be some improvement, but there'll also be a lot of foot-dragging. We won't be leaving Iraq any time soon.

That is, unless major social disruptions occur. Could happen.

All the quotes are from the linked article, "Causes of the French Revolution."

So Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, something Bush could never have done. But do we have peace?

I'm telling you, the Democrats are no help. You'll have to look elsewhere for solutions.

the embers

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

--William Shakespeare

neurotic? or delusional?

Ninety percent of the time Jim Kunstler is one of the smartest, toughest, and most honest cyber pundits who ever posted to a blog. The other ten percent of the time -- and I really find this inexplicable -- he goes off on foolish and ethnically blind Zionist rants. I've never been able to understand how somebody able to get as totally real as this guy is when it comes to, say, the future prices of oil and gas and what they mean, is also capable of acting as a sewer pipe for some of the war machine's and AIPAC's dumber lies, such as the one he repeats this week concerning "Iran's bomb-making capacity."

Ahmedinajad is going to have a very tough time making a nuclear bomb considering his country's five-percent-uranium-enrichment capacity. But, hey, facts are stupid things, as Atrios always says (quoting Homer Simpson, who in his turn was channeling Reagan).

So this week's prize for best commentary doesn't go to Kunstler as it so often does, but to Glenn Greenwald, another perpetual contender, one who frequently walks away with that honor, and who chose yesterday to write on the same topic as Kunstler -- the Great Iranian Satan and how it is menacing us with nuclear bombs it doesn't have. Noting that Sunday's "Meet the Press" star haircut boy David Gregory used such "liberal" information sources as Charles Krauthammer and Newt Gingrich in his questioning of Obama aide Susan Rice about what she knew of Iran's plans to soon nuke us in our sleep, Greenwald ended by drawing the inescapable conclusion, and expressing it better than I've ever previously seen it articulated:

Reviewing the Sunday news shows and newspapers creates the most intense cognitive dissonance: a nation crippled by staggering debt, exploding unemployment, an ever-expanding rich-poor gap, and dependence on foreign government financing can't stop debating how much more resources we should devote to our various military occupations, which countries we should bomb next, which parts of the world we should bring into compliance with our dictates using threats of military force. It's like listening to an individual about to declare personal bankruptcy talking about all the new houses and jewels he plans on buying next week and all the extravagant trips he's planning, in between lamenting how important it is that he stop spending so much. That would sound insane. And that's exactly how our political discourse sounds

So...the answer to the question posed by the title of this post? Delusional.

Key to the Highway

Someone very close to me is moving to Portland, Oregon.

Which causes me to wonder, "Will I end up living there?"

Mebbe. Mebbe not. Wouldn't surprise me though.

I've got the key to the highway;
I'm billed out and I got to go...

It's the only burg on the west coast I haven't lived in; Seattle, San Francisco, L.A. (short time there), Anchortown -- they've all had me as a resident at one time or another. Portland has generally been a place I passed through to get to somewhere else, although there've been times when it was a destination.

I'm going to leave here runnin'
'Cause walkin's most too slow.

Back in '63 and '64 I ran the highway between the Bay Area and Portland a lot. A female was responsible for that, of course.

When the moon comes over the mountain
I'll be on my way...

In those days my mode of transportation, by necessity, was a Greyhound bus. I still remember all the bleak little bus stations along the way, and buying coffee out of vending machines in places like Medford at one in the morning. Ah, those were the days -- not.

I'm gonna run this highway
Until the break of day.

Now my highway running days are just about over. No reason to go to California these days -- it's always on fire. I'll say farewell to the Golden State, being as how it's not so golden any more.

Good bye; fare-thee-well;
It's time for me to roam,
'Cause you haven't done one thing here
But drive a good man from his home.

As we get older, the highway gets shorter.

Photo: Big Bill Broonzy, photographer unknown.

legacy

Masters of War is early Dylan -- very early if you consider "Subterranean Homesick Blues" the turning point of his career. It's pre-1965, back when he was still an earnest, big-haired young kid making the transition from trying to sound like Woody Guthrie all the time to sounding more like himself.

Here's a picture of him with Joanie from about that time.

The song proves that Uncle Sam's perpetual war we're dealing with today has been around a long time. As a bumper sticker on my sister's car says, "Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam."

Actually, it goes back a lot farther than that, to the great cataclysm in which the parents of people now in their sixties fought. On the back cover of the issue of Life Magazine published the week I was born, a handsome soldier relaxes in a bed of tropical foliage and leans against a palm tree, his right hand grasping the pack of Camels as he contentedly puffs away on the lit cigarette he holds in his left.

"When you're thousands of miles from home," the ad copy reads, "on a shell-racked tropic isle...or high on a rocky ridge...

"How precious, then, is that "taste of home"...how comforting the rich aroma and full flavor of a slow-burning, cool-smoking Camel...the cigarette that is the first choice of men in all the services."

I don't know what's up with all the ellipses, but I see the double legacy conveyed by the ad, which put us on notice that a lifetime of wars in faraway places and addiction to a sharp-toothed drug was to be our lot in life.

As a people we're doing a pretty good job of dealing with one of these legacies. How long before we deal as decisively with the other?

Let's wake up. As another pop singer said, "Give peace a chance."

roadkill

On my way to the ferry today, on rural Paradise Bay Road, a raccoon dead on the center stripe, lying half on its side, half on its back, the upside down, open-eyed face frozen either in a grimace of sheer terror or snarl of rage, or both. This was a large, full-grown animal, its forepaws raised in a futile, beseeching gesture toward the insolent chariot that ran it down several minutes or an hour at the most before I passed that spot.

What had this unoffending animal done to deserve such an ignominious and horrifying death, other than to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? I doubt very much that the raccoon owed some sort of karmic debt which required its being offered up as an animal sacrifice to the god of automotive hegemony. It wandered onto Paradise Bay Road with a purpose in mind, motivated by its animal independence, and unafraid, because like all such sentient creatures it possessed a sense of its own dignity and self-importance. What a rude shock for the beast to discover, in its final seconds on earth, that its sense of itself was all wrong, and its life irrelevant, and very cheap of purchase in this bizarre world of which it knew nothing.

Our casual, unintended violence against the mild and harmless creatures we live among is shocking and frightening, and provides an analogy for the impact our modern, industrial way of life has had on our world. Our crimes against the earth, our mother, have been characterized until now by carelessness and slovenliness rather than evil intentions, but that too has begun to change as the pressure for us to reform our ways of living is increasingly resisted by a criminal and intransigent capitalist oligarchy.

There'll be lots more roadkill before we're done with this way of life.