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Shutdown this, markets crashing that. Hey, if the Americans want to self-destruct their country maybe they should start with Guantanamo Bay.
It was a nice morning.
I had made coffee and just finished toasting up a zesty jalapeno and cheese bagel for Intransigentia and myself to share before we went to work. The dog was happily crunching on her kibble, the cat was mewing sonorously(?) as he always does and, of course our radio, was on CBC radio One listening to the news. And this is the story that I heard causing me to promptly choke on my the half of my bagel, ruining subtle sweet heat that only a sumptuously slathered creme cheesy-bagel can deliver in the morning.
The source of my bagel negation was this:
“An Alberta pensioner says she feels like a prisoner after her Calgary rental property was claimed as an “embassy” by a man she says identified himself as a Freemen-on-the-Land, a growing movement of so-called sovereign citizens that is raising concerns with authorities both north and south of the border.”
Da fuq?
My ire, and my curiosity have been put on hold until now, as I have the time to do a little research into what the “freeman” on the land movement is all about. But before we get into the back story of these wackaloons, we should finish with the embassy angle.
“A few months after the renter moved in, Caverhill went to inspect the work and she says she found the entire kitchen and bathroom had been gutted. All the doors inside had been removed and the floor of the master bedroom had been painted black, she says.
But Caverhill quickly learned she had much bigger problems.
“He walks me to the door and he’s yelling at me, ‘I’m a Freemen-on-the-Land,”‘ Caverhill says.
“I said: ‘This is my house, not yours.’ He said: ‘No. This is an embassy house now and it’s mine and you have no rights,’ so then he slams the door.”
She says she discovered the locks had been changed and pounded on the door.
“I said: ‘How come the key doesn’t work?’ He said: ‘I changed the locks.’ He said: ‘It’s not your home.”‘
Just as simple as that. This dude just declares the rental property that he recently gutted as embassy and tells the landlady to shove off. This is fucking stupidity with all the upgrades. It gets better –
“She [the landlord] says she later received an invoice from the renter’s personal company for $26,000 in work[?] done to the home.”
This high vicar of stupid who is/was illegally occupying this person’s house then had the audacity to charge her for wrecking and doing weird shit (painting doors black?)to the place.
I would not say that the freeman-on-the-land movement is the zenith of human stupidity, but I believe it is strong contender in the field. More importantly, these besotted tinfoil hat failures at life ruined my bagel experience. For that, they shall feel the pointy tip of my logos-based wraith as I investigate who these people are what their movement all about, in a daring series of lightly researched yet mildly amusing blog posts.
Bill Moyers on the shutdown and republican intransigence…
It’s nice to see a little Sun everyone once and awhile in the toxic soup that is comprises much of the Media in the the US.
One hour of your time, one hour to appreciate an alternate point of view of how the world works.
Kai Davis and Safi Niara – Brave New Voices 2012 – Philadelphia Round Two
Your horn-rimmed glasses,
Sweater hoodies,
Vintage leather oxfords,
Authentic woven Guatemalan bookbags,
And your crafty, handmade, wooden iPhone cases,
Tell me you are none other than a self-affirming,
Self-satisfying,
Self-righteous,
DOUCHE.
Dear dirty hipsters,
It’s bad enough, I see you every day on the same corner of the park,
Smelling of week old piss,
Jammin’ with some dope Rastafarian drummers,
Dancing–off–beat,
Bein’ all integrated and shit,
Hugging trees and smoking them in the same breath,
… hair dreadfully resembling locks
Acting like you’re down because you say “fuck the system!” but in the same
breath, are quick to gentrify the hell outta my hood!
When you call them on it,
they say things like “I don’t see color,”
“Oh my god, I didn’t even know you were black until just now.”
What you meant to say was, “oh, I’m choosing to deny your personal identity and heritage in order to make me feel more comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable enough to say ‘nigga’ with my black friends, and by the way, I have black friends.”
They’re quick to suck a culture–appreciated, appropriated–
Act like it’s an act of love and solidarity, when really you just turn it into organic, alternative, indie, vomit.
“Yeah, I listen to rap music–I love A Tribe Called Quest.”
And this is the part where me and my homies give you the side eye.
Why do you think that’s okay?
You don’t get cool points because you’re 13% “Native American.”
You don’t get points for slumming it in the hood when you still clutch your purse every time you walk past a black man, when your privilege is still the most prominent thing about you.
And butchering African songs, buy yourself Indian garb, “is that racist?”
Yes, it is.
And we don’t mean to offend you by calling you racist,
We know that according to you, we’re all a part of the “human race.”
But you have the tendency to treat animals better than humans.
We know you hipsters like cats with ironic pet names, like Ernest Hemingway, or Zooey Deschanel.
I just hope to God you don’t feed it meatless, gluten-free, toxin free… kibbles and bits,
When you know DAMN WELL YOUR CAT DON’T LIKE THAT SHIT!
You’re as intolerable as an Odd Future lullaby.
We don’t need to hear your feelings about OUR ISSUES!
“To be fair, as a white person–“
Nuh nuh nuh, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
You’re constantly biting at our ears with unwanted opinions, you’re blogging Tumblr posts concerning your liberal perspective.
Not to mention your ability to multiply, gathering followers in every second hand bookstore, leafing through anarchist literature, claiming you’re an activist–
KONY 2012!
Walking past the poverty in your own city towards a donation box for mythical African children, because all that continent needs is another ivory savior who’s convinced Africa is a country.
…
I’d rather eat my own face, chew raw venison,
Than listen to you tell the same story about how you don’t listen to CD’s because you’re strictly vinyl.
I’m sure these points will fly above your ninety dollar haircut,
Designed specifically to make you look like a vagabond.
And I’ll walk down the street and see another one of you.
Crank up your dubstep mixtape,
Sip on your raspberry seltzer water.
I’ll call you a douche,
You’ll call me “reverse-racist,”
Then hopefully you’ll cry hipster tears of sorrow,
Sauntering towards the next removable trend, so when the suburbs call, you can answer properly,
Just as long as it still affirms your individuality–
Because being cool, while not being cool, is almost as cool as being yourself.
Currently reading Democracy Incorporated by Sheldon Wolin. He speaks of totalitarianism in a different form as opposed to that described by Hannah Arendt, but of what he terms inverted totalitarianism in which the state is hollowed out to serve corporate interests rather than those of the public. Thus quote originates from chapter 4 in which two ways in which nations can slip into autocratic rule.
“Tocqueville democrat comfortable with despotism and Hobbes’s free rationalist who opts for absolutism share an elective affinity. Tocqueville imagines a despotism made possible because citizens have chosen to relinquish participatory politics, which he and singled out as the most remarkable, widespread, and essential element of American political life. By abandoning their intense involvement with the common affairs of their communities in favor of personal ends, they, like signatories to Hobbes’s contract, have chosen to be apolitical subjects rather than citizens.
The contemporary moral to be drawn from our detour through Hobbes and Tocqueville is this: while it may prove possible to mobilize voters around the slogan “Anything to beat Bush!” it take more persistence, more thoughtfulness to dismantle Superpower and to nurture a democratic citizenry. The lesson of Hobbes and Tocqueville can be boiled down to a brief but chilling dictum: concentrated power, whether of a Leviathan, a benevolent despotism, or a superpower, is impossible without the support of a complicitous citizenry that willingly signs on to the covenant, or acquiesces, or clicks the “mute button.”
– Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated p.80-81.
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