hillary - who you gonna call?

ok, here we go - she's won twice lately, but I'm just now getting around to the poster... I guess I'll have to do that blond lady from the view sometime soon too, although it's sad to mthink she has enough impact to warrant fear monger status... but I suppose the ugly truth is that she does - probably has more influence than any of the others. anyway, here's hillary and we'll see about the other later.


ok, here we go - she's won twice lately, but I'm just now getting around to the poster... I guess I'll have to do that blond lady from the view sometime soon too, although it's sad to mthink she has enough impact to warrant fear monger status... but I suppose the ugly truth is that she does - probably has more influence than any of the others. anyway, here's hillary and we'll see about the other later.

hillary wins again!

once again hillary clinton wins the fear monger of the day award - and I've really got to find the time to make a poster, but not right now - in a bit of a rush. you've probably all already seen it and heard the controversy, but here it is anyway. admittedly, she's not as much of a fear monger as a lot of 'em, but she's a democrat fear monger and that pisses me off even more - she really ought to know better and so should her advisors... but obviously they're just not getting it.

click the arrow to play this video

stagflation - variations on a theme

in some ways of course, it really is about the economy... anyway, here are a few poster designs.

there is no terrorist threat!

vindication! a friend of mine mentioned an unrelated bit of trivia that led me to michael moore's website - while there, I was shocked to see my own words staring me in the face! for more than a year, I've repeatedly used the phrase, "there is no terrorist threat" to convey the point that we've been manipulated by our government officials and by the news media to believe that there is danger where in fact there is not - this has allowed us to be manipulated by fear and has had a devastating impact on the quality of life of most americans. the threat from terrorists to an average american is so minuscule compared to virtually all other dangers that it hardly bears attention or concern at all, and yet many of us have been convinced that this is a major issue and concern and justifies gigantic expenditures for defense and homeland security. the truth of course is that if terrorists wanted to attack us again, they could find any number of ways to do so no matter how diligent the efforts of homeland security are. the only conclusion that can be made is that there is in fact no (or at least only an extremely small) terrorist threat here in the u.s.

so anyway I was very gratified to read the heading "there is no terrorist threat" leading to this article from michael moore's website. clearly I'm not entirely alone and there are others who seem to see through the smokescreen.

by the way, I've been busy lately and haven't made any "fear monger" portraits, but recent winners that I'll try to get to soon are hillary clinton, who keeps talking about how we need somebody with experience in office as president because we are in such danger from the terrorists - grrr, democratic fear mongering! and that blond lady from the view - which I happened to watch recently, what's scary is that that program is where countless american women turn for their political information... i just don't have a solution for that one... I guess we need an alternate morning talk show with women who remember political events beyond the past few days media manipulations and propaganda - even barbara walters seems to go out of her way to confound and confuse the simplest of issues - grrr again.

john boehner is a fear monger

I don't remember ever reading or hearing anything about john boehner that didn't make him seem like a pompous idiot. he wins the fear monger of the day award - happy valentine's day, and don't believe the fear mongers. see below for an excerpt of the story.

Bush criticizes Congress on terror bill

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

In a day of political brinkmanship, President Bush pressured the House on Thursday to finish a bill giving the government more leeway to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists. House Democrats didn't budge and angry Republicans staged a walkout down the Capitol steps.

From the White House, Bush argued that the House has plenty of time to pass a bill before modifications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act expire at midnight Saturday. The president plans to leave on a five-nation trip to Africa on Friday afternoon, but said he'd delay his departure and stay in Washington "if it will help them complete their work on this critical bill."

On Capitol Hill, House Republicans stormed out of the House chamber to boycott a vote to hold two presidential confidants in contempt for failing to cooperate with an inquiry into whether federal prosecutors were ousted for political reasons.

"We have space on the calendar today for a politically charged fishing expedition, but no space for a bill that would protect the American people from terrorists who want to kill us," said Rep. John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, the minority leader.

"Let's just get up and leave," he told his colleagues, before walking out with scores of Republicans in tow.

read more.

mitt romney - fear monger of the day

mitt romney ended his campaign in the most fear mongeringly asinine way possible today:

"I must now stand aside, for our party and our country, If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror," Romney, speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. (full story here).

need I say again, there are real dangers facing us, terrorism is not one of them. an article appeared today stating that Tobacco Could Kill 1 Billion by 2100 - that beats the shit out of terrorism as far as threats to us go, but you don't see it having much of an impact on policy do you? and while we're at it, I also read today that;

The CDC (that's the centers for disease control) reports that from 1999 to 2004, unintentional poisoning death from prescription drugs sleeping pills, antidepressants and tranquilizers grew 84 percent to 20,950 deaths, overtaking cocaine and heroin combined as the leading cause of lethal overdose.

please note two things about the above quote - 20,950 deaths in five years! once again kicks terrorism's ass. and two, it even outnumbers deaths from heroin and cocaine - but we're not likely to declare war on the pharmaceutical companies are we? yet we still use the "war on drugs" slogan when it suits us... remember the war on drugs? that was the other make believe war we waged until the newer sexier war on terrorism distracted us. but never fear, even though we've forgotten the war on drugs, it's still marching on as plenty of south (and central) americans could tell you... were they ever given a voice with which to do so.

so anyway. mitt romney wins the fear monger of the day award.

Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate

by way of clarification - when I talk/write about fear mongers, I'm talking about people who preach fear in such a way as to overstate a threat, usually for their own selfish reasons, but sometimes just through falling prey to the misinformation and propaganda of others. however, there are real dangers and threats that must be addressed and the people who are shouting those warnings are not fear mongers since the dangers are real and the concern justified - and the agenda is unselfish - that's why I continue to try to expose fear mongers when I encounter them - to distinguish them from those who are desperately trying to convey important messages to an unheeding world. I'm including an excerpt from an article about shrinking rainforests below to call attention to a real threat and to show why john mccain's statement quoted in my previous post is so repugnant to me. there are clearly many more important challenges facing the world during this coming century than "radical Islamic extremism".

the following is from Rain forests fall at 'alarming' rate.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

The alarm was sounded decades ago by environmentalists — and was little heeded. The picture, meanwhile, has changed: Africa is now a leader in destructiveness. The numbers have changed: U.N. specialists estimate 60 acres of tropical forest are felled worldwide every minute, up from 50 a generation back. And the fears have changed.

Experts still warn of extinction of animal and plant life, of the loss of forest peoples' livelihoods, of soil erosion and other damage. But scientists today worry urgently about something else: the fateful feedback link of trees and climate.

Global warming is expected to dry up and kill off vast tracts of rain forest, and dying forests will feed global warming.

"If we lose forests, we lose the fight against climate change," declared more than 300 scientists, conservation groups, religious leaders and others in an appeal for action at December's climate conference in Bali, Indonesia.

The burning or rotting of trees that comes with deforestation — at the hands of ranchers, farmers, timbermen — sends more heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all the world's planes, trains, trucks and automobiles. Forest destruction accounts for about 20 percent of manmade emissions, second only to burning of fossil fuels for electricity and heat. Conversely, healthy forests absorb carbon dioxide and store carbon.

"The stakes are so dire that if we don't start turning this around in the next 10 years, the extinction crisis and the climate crisis will begin to spiral out of control," said Roman Paul Czebiniak, a forest expert with Greenpeace International. "It's a very big deal."