(Author Unknown)

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot, Before the days of Dylan, or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me, For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born, Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn. We learned to gut a muffler, we washed our hair at dawn, We spread our crinolines to dry in circles on the lawn. We longed for love and romance and waited for our Prince, And Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one’s seen him since.

We danced to ‘Little Darlin,’ and sang to ‘Stagger Lee’ and cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and three was one too many, And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,

And when they made a movie, they never made it twice. We didn’t have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three, Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp, And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp. We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T, And Oprah couldn’t talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they’d go, At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,

And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We’d never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead, And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson and Zeppelins were not Led. And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkeys lived in trees, Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We’d never heard of microwaves or telephones in cars, And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars. And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and ‘gay’ meant fancy-free, And dorms were never co-ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We hadn’t seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,

And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag. And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea, And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Buick’s came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks, And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks. And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee, And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues, We all wore superstructure bras, designed by Howard Hughes, We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea Or prime-time ads for personal things in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,

And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill. And middle-aged was thirty-five and old was forty-three, And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.

But all things have a season, or so we’ve heard them say, And now instead of Maybelline, we swear by Retin-A. They send us invitations to join AARP,

We’ve come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans, And wonder why they’re using smaller print in magazines. And we tell our children’s children of the way it used to be, Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

The storming of the Capitol: America’s Reichstag fire?

The media are already spinning a narrative around the events in Washington DC. One that bears no resemblance to reality, does not hold up to any kind of scrutiny and will have massive, far-reaching consequences for all of us.

By Kit Knightly | Off-Guardian.org

They’re calling it “one of the darkest days in our nations history”, a day that will “live in infamy”. It will likely be memed into a shorthand date – 1/6/21, like 9/11 and 7/7. It will be the day “American democracy was attacked and prevailed”, the day the nation nearly fell to “fascists”.

It will become just one more grand sweeping illusion upon which the teetering structures of US Imperial power are built.

The story we are being told goes as follows:

Yesterday, as congress was preparing to pass the vote endorsing Joe Biden’s election victory, thousands of violent right-wing thugs stormed the Capitol building.

Acting according to Trump’s wishes, and with his endorsement, these domestic terrorists overran the police barricades in an attempt to overthrow the senate and preserve Trump’s presidency.

Fortunately the police were able to secure the situation, drive the violent rioters out and the democratic process was able to continue.

Not one single part of this story is true:

• There was no “storming”
• There was no “incitement”
• There was no “violence”
• And the riot effectively ended Trump’s presidency.

Let’s tackle them one at a time.

1. There was no “storming”. Rather videos show police opening barriers to let the “rioters” in.

In the entrance hall, the “violent thugs” respected the velvet ropes and kept in orderly lines, took a few selfies with the cops, posed for the press and – when the main events were over – they were quietly allowed to leave.

Compare and contrast the police’s treatment of those people inside the capitol, with their later treatment of protesters breaking curfew on the streets.

2. There was no “incitement”. All of Trump’s social media posts on the subject instructed people to “go home” “with peace and love”.

Is that inciting violence?

Twitter and facebook took the totally unprecedented step of completely removing those posts, and blocked him posting any further. They claimed to be preventing further violence, but it looks more like they concealed Trump’s denunciations of violence.

3. There was no violence. Indeed whether or not Trump “incited” anything is moot, because there was no violence. Disregard the reports of chemical weapons, pipe bombs or IEDs – none of which ever appeared. None of the “rioters” are as yet shown to have hurt anyone.

The only person reportedly killed or injured was a protester allegedly shot by the police. Compare and contrast the attitude of the media to this “violence”, vs the “fiery but mostly peaceful” protests all last summer.

4. The riot ended Trump’s presidency. Although the Congressional session was widely described in the press as the “confirmation vote” for Joe Biden’s election victory, it was actually rather more than that.

VP Mike Pence was chairing a joint-session which intended to allow full speeches from those opposing the election and maintaining there had been fraud.

The violence brought this session to an end prematurely, totally undermined Trump’s legal and procedural challenges and killed any chance he had of overturning the electoral college vote. No sooner was the “attack” over, than many of the Republicans in both houses who were planning to oppose Biden’s election backed-down.

More than that, it seems Trump’s “incitement” of the rioters means he may well be removed from office by enforcement of the 25th amendment, which would end not just this term, but make it illegal for him to run again in the future.

Facebook and Twitter have outright banned him from posting. The press and television pundits are openly accusing him of treason and sedition.

So, who has really benefitted from the “chaos at the Capitol”? Because it surely isn’t Donald Trump.

One should always be wary of any event which “accidentally” achieves the exact opposite of its stated or apparent intent.

* * *

In the title, I refer to this as America’s Reichstag fire, and that’s not just emotive language, the parallels are pretty clear: A staged attack on a political building, deliberately misattributed to political enemies and used to consolidate the power of a freshly installed leader.

Even the media coverage is similar, the Nazi government and their tools in the press talked about it in the same exact terms as the US establishment is describing this farcical “coup attempt”. Aiming to terrify people into thinking they were on the verge of an all-out civil war.

Read this quote, and ask yourself if it couldn’t be lifted almost completely from the front page of the Washington Post or New York Times today:

The burning of the Reichstag was intended to be the signal for a bloody uprising and civil war. Large-scale pillaging in Berlin was planned for as early as four o’clock in the morning on Tuesday. It has been determined that starting today throughout Germany acts of terrorism were to begin against prominent individuals, against private property, against the lives and safety of the peaceful population, and general civil war was to be unleashed…

Within 24 hours of the Reichstag burning, the German President had passed the Reichstag Fire Decree, which declared a state of emergency that totally reversed every civil right the Weimar Republic had guaranteed its citizens:

Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of (opinion) expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications.

While these freedoms have already been severely undermined in the US by the Patriot Act and its successors, those few rights left to American citizens will definitely be under threat once Trump is finally removed and Biden (or Harris) is put in his place.

Although there is not yet any talk of legislation, it’s certainly true there are whispers of purges and other measures to “protect the constitution”.

Some prominent voices are calling for all lawmakers backing Trump to be expelled from office. The Washington Post claimed “seditious Republicans must be held accountable”.

The anti-social media campaign has begun again in earnest too, with Parler and GAB already being blamed for allowing “violent language” on their platforms.

As Twitter and Facebook limit discussion, alternative platforms will be shutdown. Enforcing a corporate monopoly that cooperates with the state…the very definition of fascism.

All this in the name of protecting the nation from “neo-nazi thugs” or “white supremacists” or other phantom threats. In the name of “protecting the constitution”, they are tearing it to pieces. In the name of “preventing a coup”, they are carrying one out in front of our eyes.

It puts in mind Huey Long’s famous quote when asked if fascism would ever come to America:

Sure, we’ll have Fascism in this country and we’ll call it anti-Fascism.”

 “The storming of the Capitol”: America’s Reichstag fire? – [your]NEWS

If you drive I-94 this could be very useful to have on your cell phone esp. in the winter.

MDOT Michigan Drive Map

Super Bowl Sunday from a Marine Corps Colonel in Afghanistan:

“So with all the kindness I can muster, I give this one piece of advice to the next pop star who is asked to sing the national anthem at a sporting event:

Save the vocal gymnastics and the physical gyrations for your concerts. Just sing this song the way you were taught to sing it in kindergarten – straight up, no styling “Sing it with the constant awareness that there are soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines watching you from bases and outposts all over the world.

Don’t make them cringe with your self-centered ego gratification. Sing it as if you are standing before a row of 96-year-old WWII vets wearing their Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and flag pins on their cardigans and you want them to be proud of you for honoring them and the country they love – not because you want them to think you are a superstar musician.

They could see that from your costume, makeup and your entourage. Sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ with the courtesy and humility that tells the audience that it is about America, not you. And please not everything needs to be spunked up! We’re getting a little weary of that. Francis Scott Key does not need any help.

” Semper Fi