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Thanks Bob, you always know what to say. 

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In Praise of Commas

H/T: Ralph Roberts.

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Portrait of Hunter S. Thompson by Ralph Steadman, from the cover of our Fall 2000 issue.

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Bradley Manning Could Still Walk

Bradley Manning, traitor to some, hero to most, has finally been sentenced after three years of forced, illegal and torturous incarceration, and after much circlejerking by the American military. To summon, according to Alexa O'Brien:

"Manning is guilty of 20 offenses, including six violations of the Espionage Act; five offenses of stealing U.S. Government Property; and one violation the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This warrants Manning "up to 136 years in a military prison, dishonorable discharge; and forfeiture of all pay and allowances."

For all the details, please read through Alexa's website. She has done an ineffably terrific job covering this trial over the past weeks (without pay), and much thanks goes to her and her colleagues Kevin Gosztola and Nathan Fuller. All beasts and each deserving multiple Pulitzers and Peabodys for their efforts. There were others like Ed Pilkington, of course, but these three have stood out, in my opinion.

So, what do we, those who care, do about this whole situation? A young man who saw the inherent evil in war and its physical face manifested in the very same uniform he wore, will now rot and die prison. Likely under unimaginable conditions. For those who do not know, Manning has been tortured while awaiting trial, and the maltreatment he is about receive will never see a single news reel, simply because his story will find its media end in a couple of days when the court martial hands out the time to be done.

From my side of the border, I personally cannot do anything, except implore however many Americans I can reach with this post to use the White House page, We The People, and petition the government to add a nation-wide referendum pardoning Manning to the ballots of next year's Midterm Elections. As far as I know this is the official site for citizen initiatives. If it makes the rounds in Congress, and given the Defund NSA tally of last week where the Yes's lost by only 12 votes, this just may work out.

I do not mean to undermine other pardoning petitions in any way (here and here). I just believe that petitioning the White House for a pardon directly - that means the President - could be brushed off quite easily with: "Justice has spoken in a fair trial in a recognized court of law." And the issue would be done and over with, until Obama maybe receives a letter by Manning himself in the last days of the presidency, asking for a pardon. That will never happen. Obama's ego would never allow him to renege on one of his milestones in curtailing an essential freedom of Western civilization.

Petitioning for a referendum to be included on the 2014 ballots would not only show which Congressmen are with the people, but it would FORCE Obama to free Bradley Manning. In short, it would make it a lot harder for him and his administration to circumvent a pardon. If it fails, well, you all will have your answer that America is NOT a land where democracy, honesty, and freedom rule.

I will try to nag some Congressmen into supporting this. I would imagine Ron Wyden and John Conyers will get behind this, as well as Justin Amash. If these are YOUR representatives, help out and contact them. But for now, please ONE of you AMERICAN readers start a PETITION FOR A REFERENDUM ON 2014 MIDTERM BALLOTS TO PARDON BRADLEY MANNING. Use hashtags (#PardonManning, perhaps?), use Facebook, use Twitter. When you do start it let me know about it. We'll go from there. Let's get this man out!

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On Dan Savage and Russian Gay Rights

We have a new social media trend: Change your avatar to #DumpStoli, specifically, and ask your local watering holes to stop offering all Russian vodkas, in general. Bars who are independently proactive about this are making the news cycles already. It was pioneered last week by gay Seattle writer/activist/sex adviser, Dan Savage, of whom I am personally a big fan. His Savage Love column in my local Georgia Straight is probably the most coherent account of sexuality today. He started the Dump Stoli campaign in protest to Putin's signing in a new legislation which outlaws the "propagating" of the gay agenda, including teaching children in schools that homosexuality is on par with heterosexuality and that gay marriage should be part of Russian society.

I am not sure how much of a firestorm it has already generated on Facebook, but I would imagine that somewhere around 25% of my former list have taken up yet another Display Image Cause that, as with Kony2012, will do nothing for greater human rights in a sovereign country half a world away. Dan Savage is a very smart man and his column has, in its own right, opened up the eyes of people like me, who in their teenage years were not at all accepting of such "deviant" lifestyles. Today, I could care less about who loves whom and in what ways. As long as they don't hurt children, they deserve all the rights in the book. I also understand that he is in some ways a savior to people who otherwise feel judged because of their lifestyle and he gives them, for the most part, very sound advice on how to go about their love lives.

So it strikes me a bit odd that a person with a good amount intellect and proven rationality would start a boycott of another country's export item, in this case alcohol, as if this part of the world will somehow influence the Duma to change their archaic way of thinking. If you're doing it in solidarity with gay Russians, then all the power to you, but if you're trying to change mentality or punish an economic behemoth like Russia, then you may be a bit delusional, and I would argue, quite vain. Also, what about human rights globally? Shouldn't we treat everyone the same then? 

For one, I really hope that everyone here in the West realizes that Gay Rights in Russia are on par with Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia and Children's Rights in the Congo and the Central African Republic. Yet, we still guzzle oil like a nation of nimrods and are slowly developing cortical tumors because of our cell phone use. I am sure that Savage has at some point driven a car or taken a cab, in which case there's a 1 in 5 chance that the fuel the vehicle used came from the Saudi lands, where they will behead women without a second thought. With certainty, he uses a cellular phone, which cannot work without the crucial minerals mined in the Congo by children under catastrophic conditions and with no protective gear whatsoever. So my question is, whether we will start a boycott of cars because of the awful Arabic traditions in regards to women, and whether we will boycott cell phones now, as well, since children are central to the extraction of those raw materials. (On a side note, these minerals make their way to factory cities in China to be processed and then assembled into high-end phones by tens of thousands of workers in, again, disastrous conditions for microscopic pay; we definitely need to boycott cellular technology.)

Then, there is the issue with who exactly are we, the West, to castigate other countries on human rights violations? Canada was complicit in the illegal incarceration of a teenager at Guantanamo for seven years and the United States not only allows on-going, unpunished murders of black teens, but also shrugs off any and all responsibility to address or, by some miracle, allay the pernicious indiscriminate mass surveillance of the whole Western hemisphere? Are we so deluded with our own hypocrisy and farcical activism for universal human rights, and are we so mentally isolated that we cannot see our own transgressions right here, but only focus on the cretinous deeds and laws of other countries whose mentality we do NOT understand.

By all measures then, we HAVE to boycott everything made in Europe and North America. Americans need to boycott Canadian maple syrup and tar sands oil, and Canadians have to boycott Coca-Cola, WalMart and its whole culture. I am with Dan on the point that the whole American national team has to opt out of the Olympic Games in Sochi next year, but try explaining that to professional snowboarders, skiers, hockey players and especially their sponsors.

Dan, as it was in the United States and the rest of the West throughout the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and underway still today, gay rights in Russia will evolve eventually. So naive a protest as refusing to drink a particular beverage will not in any way affect the laws there. What happens if SPI does receive a hard enough blow to its net income, the state will take over that company, as it has with many other ones, and sell its stock to places like China and Saudi Arabia and Uganda; places that could really give a fuck about gay rights. Sad as it is.

For what it's worth, I prefer Bourbon over vodka any day and recommend everyone else to drink that. Vodka is neither classy, nor for an adult to drink. So let's keep America American, have three fingers of Wild Turkey and do some self-reflection before we judge others, even if they deserve judgement.

Yours on par,

Sasha

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Cheesy quote, but the font is cool

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This is why I love Rob Delaney.

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‘Merica!

Via Richard Gutjahr.

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BC Legislature terror plot thwarted by RCMP - Of Course, it was Muslims

Over the last three hours, there have been incremental reports that yesterday, on Canada Day, the RCMP has thwarted an "Al Qaeda inspired" terror plot to bomb the British Columbia Legislature in the provincial capital of Victoria. The two suspects, John Stewart Nuttall and Amanda Marie Korody, were arrested today in Abbotsford and "were each charged with knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity, making or possessing an explosive device, and conspiracy." According to the CBC, the RCMP has been on this case since February and informed the Premier in Kelowna yesterday morning about the plot and the RCMP's interception.

Our Premier, Christy Clark, thanked the RCMP for their invaluable work and is happy that British Columbians can live another day in full safety under the auspices of our elite federal police force. However, the RCMP gave no details about the two suspects other than that they were inspired by Sunni Islamic Terrorism and were "self-radicalized." Also, there is no statement on the official motive of bombing the legislature. Korody and Nuttall have an eerie resemblance to the pair of brothers who bombed the Boston marathon last April. In this case, Korody and Nuttall used the internet to educate themselves on pressure cooker bombs and chose a high-profile day to execute their evil plan. There are pictures of rusting nails in pots, and nuts and bolts in metal containers. Proof enough apparently that this was Islamist inspired.

Have they been quoted officially stating that they are Islamists?

Not much else is known, and it looks like, for some lame-brained British Columbians not much else is needed to arrive at the automatic answers already given to us by the RCMP's press people. It seems to me like a nicely packaged and palatable explanation for the province with the inarguably most complacent Canadian citizens when it comes to political issues

The news media fail to mention that Nuttall has a history of violence and drug abuse as far back as 2002. They just may be as much inspired by Al Qaeda to bomb the BC Legislature as they were by Timothy McVeigh, who by all measures was also self-radicalized. These just may be damn lunatics and I am not buying the official story. I mean, what do these two suspects even looks like? Email me their pictures, if you have them.

On CBC News right now, they have some "experts" polemicizing (bullshitting) about the root causes of terrorism and what it means for our (BC) society. The general rhetoric is one of thickly-layered fear mongering, with a threat to democracy at its heart and one which calls for vigilance among BC citizens - whatever that means. What it probably means is that British Columbians are being primed for acceptance of reduced freedoms and increased surveillance as part of the Five Eyes Alliance. This is sad and it's damn likely to work very well in the authorities' favor because thinking and acting otherwise may impede some folks' status quo around here.

I sincerely hope that some people see through all this politicking away of our rights. Of course, I am happy that nobody got hurt yesterday and that two lunatics are dangers no more, but now we have to be vigilant about what this still-dubious plot will mean for our freedoms - however many we think we have left - more so than about the very very very low potential of terrorist attacks and home-grown terrorists. Don't drink the kool-aid, folks....

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Michael Hastings: Not A Friend

Last night, some hours after I landed back in Canada, I found out via Twitter that one of the biggest beasts in journalism today, Michael Hastings, died in a car crash last week under circumstances that stink to high heaven. I had been away for the last three weeks dealing with family matters and the internet was not really a priority during my time away. At first, I could and would not believe it, as likely many did not when they heard the news; maybe, it was some other Hastings or, maybe, it was all a bad joke Twitter likes to play on most famous people. It's no secret that Twitter has killed more people than the First World War, only this time, sadly, it was true. Normally, I could give a shit about someone dying whom I did not know personally, and especially so if they're "in the limelight." There are children killed every day and we keep on worrying about how some Hollywood dingbat's rehab is coming along. But this was a bit different.

About two years ago, at the same I reentered Twitter, I was reading Hastings's "I Lost My Love in Baghdad," the account of his reporting the Iraq war in its most gruesome stage, which eventually took his fiancee's life in an ambush. After reading "The Runaway General" on former US General Stanley McChrystal and his first book, I was immediately a massive fan of his work. A dude who wasn't much older than me had actually the balls to criticize the American government damn harshly and showcase the internal distrust among the separate arms of it. This was also a time when I went back school to study journalism myself, and this guy was basically what I had in mind - the ideal I wanted to pursue for myself. So i figured I start following him on Twitter and shoot over a question or give him props on his work, as i do with many other folks on there: "What sort of animal, mythical or otherwise, do I have to slaughter to become a freelance journalist?" Something moronic like this that usually gets ignored 49 times out of 48.

Not even 10 minutes passed and he responded in like that if a writer works to the point of mental break-down, racks up a hotel bill in the 1000s and is left hanging with it, I would be half-way there. "On a serious note, you have to get out there and live it and breathe it every day. No other way around it." He kept tweeting me that if I wanted to break into a publication to tell the interviewing editor that I was only after collecting data and writing about the issue at hand. "NEVER mention that you want to become a writer." In that miniature conversation with him I learned more about real-life reporting than I had in the two semesters attending university. By the end of our exchange he followed me back, and in the preamble to his second book, The Operators, I direct messaged him asking whether he was ready for the right-wing shitstorm brewing. He responded that he would probably get it from the left, too, and thanked me for spreading the word about it. A genuinely nice dude, I figured at that point.

It was this book that really gave birth to the Rolling Stone article about Gen. McChrystal. Whereas the article was an aside, in the book he goes quite a bit more in depth on how disconnected the US government's military and civilian arms are and how pointless the Afghanistan had become, and, of course, how Counterinsurgency (COIN) was a lethal waste of time, energy, and money. It was, as he put it, tantamount to digging a whole in the desert and filling with dead bodies and money. This was the sort of writing that attracted me to his work.

People like to compare him to Hunter S. Thompson, and even though it may seem as a compliment, I think it's a bit of slap in the face. Hastings carved out his own place in this media environment rife with hacks and jingoists masked as ballsy reporters. He embodied the gut punch that others more famous than him would never dare to even think about becoming (see CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Washington Post, and most other "serious" publications and broadcasters now). He did not live up to or satisfy some other standard set today or in Hunter's times, for that matter. It is true that, like Hunter, he stuck his nose into places that would burn him because of things he tried to pry out of officials, and that attracted a lot of heat on both of them in the end. One such example was Hastings being strongarmed and manhandled by Rahm Emanuel and his goons in Chicago ahead of the 2012 elections.

Unlike Hunter, however, Hastings was not that mad man with a beautiful mind that would instill the fear of god into anyone who crossed him. Hastings admitted himself that he was an asshole - he was a professional shit disturber. He would never "rip out his teeth if he tries to welsh," but he would publish any and all emails if you tried to lie and fuck him over. This brings me to a different point, also.

Paying attention to a lot of his published and social writing, Hastings, to me, never seemed like a guy who would gun a car to beyond 100mph at 4:30am in LA. His work did get him into a lot of messed up life-threatening situations by the mere nature of his work, but this was LA where he had no reason to get himself into such a situation just for shits and giggles. This was not Iraq or Afghanistan where road bombs go off on an almost daily basis. Was he drinking too much that night? Doubtful, as his experience with alcohol took him to an early exit. He had to be bailed out once after a night of drinking and had lost his pants along the way. Then there is that frantic email he sent to a group of people 15 hours before the crash. According to it, he was to break a "big story," which probably meant some heads were to roll. Again. He had too many connections to too many people this US government would like to see gone, including all of those vilified or thrown under the bus by mainstream news outlets.

I believe it was William S. Burroughs who said that "if you're not paranoid, you are not paying attention." In the recent weeks, anyone with two ounces of brain must have become terribly paranoid, not because they necessarily have something to hide or are involved in illicit activities, but simply because our governments with the help of the CIA, FBI, Facebook, Google, NSA and GCHQ have access to anything you have ever done on the internet. They can dig up any activity, and that's scary. And I am sure, given his body work and the repercussions of it, Hastings was with certainty a big fuckin target for these fascists in Washington and Virginia. Did they kill him? Maybe, maybe not. Would you put it past them? Absolutely not, their history speaks all for such operations. But I am digressing.

I did not know Michael Hastings personally, but he did care enough to give me advice at a time when I was very lost and did not understand a damn thing about the media environment. He had no obligation to do it, but he chose to do it; as a fan, that meant a lot and it still does. Inasmuch as I don't believe in harebrained conspiracy theories all too much, I sincerely wish the one about his faked death is true. To me, he was the gold standard of Western journalism, which is so set on celebrity scandals. In the game, he outhustled and outshined the most revered and awarded reporters, and we exigently need more people of his caliber to strike these cowards and nazi thugs we think we elected. 

My thoughts are with his family and friends

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In Ankara, two young women hold Turkish flags against water canon.

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“Long live the resistance” says Parisians

#taksim #gezi #paris

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Meanwhile, Taksim is having its second day of calm (18:50PM Monday.)

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 A man suffers extensive head injuries at Kizilay Shopping Mall in Ankara

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A man plays the accordion in Adana behind the barricades.