SCHOOLS GET MORE FASCIST (AGAIN)

We don't call 'em the GOPstapo for nothing, people.

According to the Associated Press (yeah, the APee isn't exactly the voice of the aggrieved proletariat, but hey, they're "official"), right-wing school officials in Sutter, CA, have taken a giant step towards fascism. Fuck, it's not just a giant step. It's a full-fledged leap into the deepest abyss of the brimming, boiling cauldron of right-wing tyranny.

And people are hopping mad!

A new policy established by school officials forces all students from kindergarten through 8th grade to wear a badge that contains an internal antenna that transmits their personal data to a receiver above the doorway of each class. The receiver picks up the student's ID number and sends it to a computer that supposedly keeps track of attendance.

The school system claims the new policy is supposed to improve security, but that's malarkey and they know it. In addition to the possibility of unauthorized people intercepting the transmissions, the IDs are easily lost, left behind in classrooms, or found by other students, which can cause false data to be relayed. Pupils who are missing and may be in serious danger may be falsely marked as present, and nobody would know the difference.

Parents also point out that the badge features - in visible format - loads of personal information on students, including their names and photos. This - in addition to undermining the right to privacy - is the cause of most of the opposition to the new policy, for any creep can just see the data on the badge and abduct a student by telling the school they had permission to pick the student up. But of course the school doesn't give a shit. The school has a thirst for control, and doesn't care about the risks that the badges pose, because the desire for control outweighs that.

Make no mistake about it. Control is what this is about.

As proof of the arrogance of the school system, superintendent Earnie Graham was quoted as saying that the badge "is just like a textbook. You have to have it. I'm charged with running the school district and I get to make those kinds of rules."

Well, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were charged with writing the Bill of Rights, and they got to make the kinds of rules that protect the right to privacy, instead of tearing it down. So you're outvoted, Earn.

The badges containing the antennas are made by InCom, which is based in Sutter and of course showered loads of money upon the school to use the badges. Lovely. I guess as long as companies make bullshit products like this, they'll pay off schools to force everyone to use them. Oh well. Just another step forward for tyranny that probably won't even be noticed in another 5 years because everyone is so brainwashed that they'll just lean back and let it happen. Our freedom has been chipped away little by little in recent years, and the trend shows no sign of ebbing.

It's not like forced ID badges are completely new to schools in postdemocratic America, as we've discussed 'em before - although badges used in other school systems don't contain a transmitter. Yet. Right in Northern Kentucky, Grant County High School adopted mandatory ID badges 3 weeks ago, and students are required to wear the IDs around their necks gallows-like. This fascist policy has prompted angry protests and resulted in a riot involving about 150 students. Naturally the school was so incompetent at dealing with the defiance that it called the cops and had many of the students arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.

Privacy and personal autonomy are among several things that help form the foundation of a democratic republic. Furthermore, the ID badges fail to make America's young people more secure, despite supporters' claims to the contrary. And, as we've seen, it's a slippery slope, for if such a policy goes unchallenged, it will slowly become more intrusive.

Do you really want to become a prisoner of technology, a robot whose every action is controlled from afar by some bureaucrat?

ANOTHER REASON DEMOCRATS KEEP LOSING

...besides the fact that the Republicans keep suppressing turnout and using faulty voting equipment, which the Republicans do.

Here's a quote from Sen. Joe Biden (D-Delaware) during the Condoleezza Rice hearing that shows why the Democrats have such a hard time winning elections these days: "I spent a little time in Europe recently, and I have one simple message: Get over it. Get over it. President [sic] Bush is our President for the next 4 years, so get over it and start to act in your interest, Europe."

This coming from a Democrat???

Yeah, that's real brilliant, Joe. Just stick your head in the sand because you think Bush's fascism will be over faster if you do that.

The Democrats have been doing this for at least a decade, regarding the 104th Reich and other Republican power grabs, and look where it's gotten them.

We wish it wasn't so. But it is.

Oh, but we're still gonna be opposing the Bush regime. With a little luck, we'll have him impeached soon enough. Yeah, we know, winning by 3% because of broken voting machines is a "mandate". As conservatives like to say, whatever. In major elections in recent years that Democrats clearly won - by 8% and 5% - the Republicans tried to redo the election by impeaching or recalling the winner. Well, we're gonna support the same fucking thing - yes, impeachment - against Dumbya. And there's plenty of grounds for it.

Come on, Democrats. Stand up for yourselves. The GOPee isn't getting any less graceless about their so-called "mandate".

BUSH CULTIST A PROFESSIONAL VICTIM FOR HIRE

You may recognize the name Phil Parlock. He's the Bush follower from Huntington, WV, whose 3-year-old daughter was - according to news outlets that snatched up the story unquestioningly - frightened to tears when a union volunteer allegedly ripped up their Bush sign at a Democratic rally that Parlock crashed. You'll recall that this supposed incident last year was publicized massively.

When we first heard of that episode, we were highly skeptical of its authenticity, because conservatives have cried wolf so many times before. Yes, I know there was a photo accompanying the article, but all it showed was the little girl crying, not the act of the sign being ripped. But in the interest of fairness to Bosh's cult, we never publicly discounted the story outright. (I am a passionate man, but I am also fair.)

Turns out our initial suspicion was right on the money. Yes, the whole thing was staged. Surprise, surprise.

We're not the only people to call Parlock a professional victim for hire because of his involvement with staging similar incidents. The phrase is also used here:

Oops, wouldn't ya know it. That site was suspiciously silenced after exposing the Parlock fraud. Oh well, try this one (although it doesn't use that phrase):

You know what, folks? We gotta get all these dissenting websites organized so these stories can get wider circulation. Notice how all the bogus stories on conservative sites are automatically picked up by most other like-minded outlets (because all major right-wing sites are funded by the Republican National Committee or one of only 3 foundations) and the "mainstream" media. But the story of Phil Parlock's dishonest ways has been on a few nonconservative sites for months but has taken this long to reach even us.

If you're reading us, you're probably pretty sharp-eyed, so you may have been lucky enough to read about this scandal somewhere else by now. But even though it's a few months old, we're gonna bring it up just to rub the GOPstapo's nose in it.

We and other dissenters may never have discovered last year's incident was a hoax if not for the fact that Parlock has been pulling the same shit at least since 1996. Someone finally thought it strange that he and his family seemed to have their signs shredded in the exact same manner during every single election.

As you may recall, what happened last year was that Parlock was carrying his 3-year-old daughter on his shoulders at a Democratic rally when a campaign volunteer allegedly grabbed a Republican sign right out of their hands and tore it to pieces. At least that's how Parlock tells it. But it turns out that back in 2000, Parlock's 12-year-old son went to a Democratic rally where a teenage girl sitting on his shoulders supposedly had a Bush/Cheney sign ripped from her hands. A Gore spokesperson said, "That sounds like an exaggeration." As you'll see, it was more of a hoax than an exaggeration.

Investigating this incident further, we find that a police officer working at the rally said Bush supporters tore their own signs - apparently so Democratic campaign workers could be blamed (Charleston Daily Mail, Oct. 28, 2000).

In 1996, Parlock was allegedly knocked to the ground by a Clinton supporter at a rally for displaying a sign sayng "REMEMBER VINCE FOSTER". Now, you know we weren't Clinton backers then, as Clinton did lean pretty far to the right by our standards. Parlock, however, was one of these right-wing conspiracy goofs who went around spreading false propaganda about Clinton, like that whole big theory about how Vince Foster died.

Strange how Parlock also happened to be around when his local GOPoo headquarters was shot by an unknown attacker.

If Phil Parlock and his family had been attacked so many times before at campaign rallies, why would he take a 3-year-old to such an event? Don't you think it would be a little bit dangerous for a child of that age?

(The sound of a pin dropping.)

And now it turns out that the young man in the union t-shirt who supposedly tore up the sign last year bears a striking resemblance to one of Parlock's sons! Apparently the union shirt and ball cap were his idea of a disguise.

Parlock was also a Bush campaign coordinator, so it makes sense that he would participate in a manufactured story like this. Sounds to us like it's part of his job to pull these types of capers.

An entry on the Daily Kos website (www.dailykos.com) compiled from eyewitness reports tells us what happened at the rally - which was a private event anyway, a fact that the media always seems to ignore. According to this account, Parlock gave a sign to one of his sons and violently shoved a boy who was in front of him. Then the son accidentally dropped the sign. Parlock - who by this time was taunting the crowd - then shoved the boy in front of him again and picked the sign back up. Parlock lifted his daughter onto his shoulders, but she was crying after being scared by her dad's odd behavior. At some point, Parlock called a reporter to come down to the scene, because he knew something was going to happen.

The idea that the guy who shredded the sign is an older Parlock son disguised as a union volunteer is backed up by the fact that the shirt bears the initials of the painters' union - which Parlock also blamed for the alleged attack in 2000.

If these events are hoaxes, just think of what other crap the Republicans have pulled for which they haven't been caught.

After I read about the Phil Parlock episodes, I started connecting the dots regarding an incident I read about in the 1996 campaign. Like so much else from that era, this was one of those stories repeated endlessly on the Internet that I knew was manufactured but just stuck in my craw for years.

According to the RNC propaganda mill, Clinton opponents were barred from a campaign stop in Ashland. Sun Myung Moon's scurrilous Washington Times claimed that a group of farmers was escorted out of the rally by Secret Service agents. The Times has zero credibility, and the item was quickly debunked. Not forgetting the bitterness of those years, I researched to see if Parlock had any connection to the stink surrounding this. I found none, although a similar agitator in Chicago verbally threatened Clinton and had the nerve to complain about the unfriendly response that followed.

I'm damn bitter. But at least I don't go around pulling shit like this and making up stuff. I don't need to make up anything, because I was at the Bosh rally in Devou Park in 2000 where some asshole in a Bush t-shirt assaulted a Nader supporter by grabbing her anti-Bush sign and ripping it up, and where the police attacked me and other Nader backers for trying to chase the assailant. Strange how the assault by the Bush cultist was never mentioned by the "mainstream" media. Then there were the fights started by Bush followers at or near Oktoberfest in Cincinnati last year, which are discussed on my blog, but which the media swept under the rug like the Devou Park Showdown. And these are just the battles I've seen firsthand. Others have reported Bush supporters doing these same things all over America.

If the media had covered each of these incidents to the same extent they covered the manufactured attacks involving Phil Parlock, that 51% "mandate" would have melted pretty quickly.

MEDIA CONTINUES TO MISLEAD, AND NOBODY DARES TO CALL 'EM OUT

OK, people, is this misleading or what?

Here's an AP headline we saw regarding Bosh's costly coronation ceremony: "Bush Starts New Term, Seeks End to Tyranny."

Oh, so you mean he started a new term and then resigned?

No, of course that's not what it means. This is the APee we're talking about. The "mainstream" media paints Dumbya as a giant of human rights, and nobody dares to argue.

The headline sounds like it belongs on some congratulatory article you'd read in the official press in some dictatorship. You can probably imagine an official Iraqi newspaper in the Saddam era declaring, "Saddam Starts New Term, Seeks End to Tyranny." Similarly, you might guess that papers in North Korea, where the crazed right-wing dictator and Elvis impersonator Kim Jong-il insists on being called "Dear Leader", may have said, upon Kim Jong-il's rise to power, "Dear Leader Starts New Term and Abolishes Injustice Worldwide."

North Korea's official radio station has been estimated to spend 34% of its time on the air praising Kim Jong-il or his father Kim Il-sung. Faux News Channel and most talk radio stations in the U.S. spend at least this much time fawning over Bush. We're not exaggerating. Ever listen to the damn things? It's breathtaking.

The only thing missing is references to Bosh as "Dear Leader". We suppose, however, that the Kentucky Post calling Bush the "pro-life president" will do. Mind you, this wasn't in an article that was labeled as an editorial.

Oh, I get it now. Executing juveniles, bombing a soccer field, starting a war in violation of international law, and issuing an executive order to gut a law that protected emergency room patients from being dumped is "pro-life". Uh. OK. And I'm the King of Mars.

Next time you hear someone bellyaching about a bias against Bush in the media, this should be more than enough to put that tired old fable to rest.

Damn, this is fucking depressing.

(Incidentally, a Hear The Issues survey reports that 87.1% of respondents think Brit Hume has a right-wing bias - while Dan Rather, who is hated by conservatives, was ranked as the most unbiased news anchor in America, with 59.7% of respondents categorizing him as unbiased. These numbers tell you right there that the whole notion of a liberal bias in the media is bunk.)

BROSSART DISGRACED AGAIN

Hahahaha, this is funny!

If there's one thing Bishop Brossart High School hates, it's bad press. This is probably why you never hear anything about the many frivolous lawsuits it files (which can be found on the computers at the courthouse in Newport) or all the other shit it's pulled. The "mainstream" media doesn't want to give Bro$$art the negative attention it so richly deserves.

Welp, now we've got another reason to ridicule this hated pseudo-educational institution. Seems there was some invitational basketball game at Lexington Catholic in which that school invited Brossart to play against some other school. We don't know all the details, but it seems the game went awry when some students and adult fans of Brossart became enraged at the referees. From what we can gather, spectators from Brossart verbally threatened the refs and went on a rampage when their threats failed to bring favorable consequences. We don't know how this stacks up against the riot that erupted at that one game back in '90, but we know it must be embarrassing, because people on the Mustangs message board refuse to go into detail about it.

Anyway, the school is so disgraced that - as damage control - the principal wrote an open letter to Mustangs fans about the incident:

Yeah, I know it takes a long time for the letter to load, since they weren't wise enough to upload it as text instead of a JPEG.

If you haven't ruptured your gizzard from laughter at that first 75-word sentence, you probably will at some point as you read the letter.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

To The Editor Of The Last Word:

I just read your article 'Campbell Co. Constitution-Hating Fuckheadedness'. I must say, as a current student at CCHS, I could not agree with you more about the drug testing. It is so damn ridiculous. I think what students do outside of school is our own business. Also, I think if students have to get drug tested, the faculty should as well. They say there is no tolerance for drugs and tobacco, yet at damn near any moment throughout the day, you can go outside and see teachers, janitorial staff and administration smoking out on the loading dock. There is a coffee can full of cigarette butts hidden in the corner. So, faculty is allowed to smoke. Yet, an 18 year old student, who is of legal age of possessing tobacco products gets suspended for having it in their car. It makes no sense to me.

The only thing if the article I do not agree with is the year-round scheduling. I actually prefer it. It's not really even year-round, that's just what they call it. I mean, we get one and a half to two months off in the summer. Also, it's nice having a fall break. Since there aren't very many schools with our type of schedule, if we go to Disney Land or somewhere of the sort, it isn't near as crowded as it is in the summer. It does sort of suck to start so early, but I usually get bored during the summer anyway.

Drug testing in schools is stupid.