"Californication" is about the California dream

and all the complications of never

growing up when you don't have to

Duchovny nimbly navigates Hank's angst

about his writer's block,

his unapologetic hedonism and his general self-loathing,

all grounded with the deep, ironic detachment

of a novelist's point of view

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Media hacks have internalized the process

so thoroughly they don't even know

they are conditioned creatures

in a larger corporate/state machine

The dumb fuckers grinding out "The Daily Mindbender"

actually believe they are in the news business

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Keywords: mind, media, indoctrination, propaganda, control

‘Terrorist’ is a deliberately loaded term, seductively pejorative label, because it reflects conditioned hatred. Compare it with soldier. It's ot hard to see how the propaganda works.

The Germans used 'terrorist' to describe wartime resistance fighters in occupied Europe. today it is used to describe an Islamic resistance movement that is fighting Western Imperialism. But our propaganda prefers to call them fanatics, extremists and jihadists who slaughter innocent civilians.

Conventional armed forces kill far more ‘innocent civilians’ in the course of pursuing their purposes than any terrorist group has contrived, as many Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians would testify after experience at the hands of the US and Israeli armies and air forces.

Yet most people feel less abhorrence towards the old way of war, because it operates within frameworks of ritual and order with which we are familiar.

It is a cultural conceit of democracies that we take for granted a right to go about our daily lives in peace.   more »

Even as Iraq has dominated America's political stage it has occupied a parallel universe in mainstream society.

Military families may listen intently to every news report and live in constant fear of a visit from two uniformed officers in the wee hours.

But the rest of the nation is shopping. This is the only war in modern American history that has coincided with a tax cut. "People seem to think war is OK as long as it is someone else's kid doing the fighting," says Zach's dad, Don.

Serving in it falls on the shoulders of the poor and the dark, who are over-represented in the military.   more »

Welcome to one of the hottest new trends of Campaign 2008: raising money by being insulted. Or, at least, acting like you've been insulted.

A growing number of candidates have adopted the motto, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words ... will allow me to significantly add to my campaign coffers.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is the latest to try to turn a bash into cash.

After Barack Obama recently chided Hillary for being "Bush-Cheney lite," Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle quickly fired off an aggrieved email, seeking retribution via contribution.

"Can you imagine??" fumed Doyle. "Hillary like George Bush??!! Or Dick Cheney!!" (Focus-group testing must have shown that double punctuation is extra effective when asking for money.)   more »