PERVERT-ION OF JUSTICE

I got the following note in my email this morning from Ed "The New Jersey Weedman" Forchion. It seems the judge on his case has been busted for possession of child pornography. No one can say why the investigation was begun.

I rather like that this judge will now have to bear the effects of the same 'justice' he has been dealing out in implementing the Sexual Offender Registry program. I wonder what his classification will be if he is convicted?

Ed comments on the judge: At the end of my trial my trial Judge-Judge Thompson said to me, "MR. FORCHION you hold strongly held beliefs, unfortunately your beliefs are misguided". Well guess what,Judge Thompson obviously believes in kiddie porn, recently he was caught ordering a child sex video online with his "OWN" credit card.

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POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Here's a heartening little story about a little website that took on FOX news and when all seemed lost, got the blogger community's attention and now appears to be winning. It's a good tale for a holiday that embraces the concept of freedom won against the odds. Good luck agitproperties.com. Think I'll order an O'Reilly Youth tshirt myself.

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TALK TALK

So I'm up to over 170 archived posts on the GNN forum.

I'm in a lively debate right now on the Elitist Scum thread.

I make some good points I think but these kids are a tough bunch to convince. They never back down. Here's some of my favorite exchanges:

So tell me, infinitely wise one, what the fuck am I gonna drink my martini out of?

Your girlfriend's $239.oo satin slipper of course.....

Um - yeah. Seriously now, you made quite the claim here. You apparently really believe that the only reason people go to the mall is to hoard things they don't really need.

I don't recall speaking in such absolutes. I'm talking about a general trend not each individual specific act of shopping. The original premise of this thread was elitism. I think elitism occurs on many levels and looking at US society as a whole, your status in the hierarchy is partly based on what you own. Indeed people frame their identities by what they choose to possess.

Go ahead, tell me I bought that stuff cuz I was programmed to need clothing by Madison Ave.

Don't take it so personally. If you don't fit the profile then take yourself out of the line-up, but can you really tell me you don't know anyone who defines themselves by always being the first to get the cutting edge of the latest electronics or fashions?

If my premise is so absurd, how did we get to the point where teenagers will kill each other in the streets of the ghettos to get a pair of sneakers or a jacket that costs more than their parents make in two weeks, when a pair of $20 Keds would fill their actual need for footware? How did planet destroying SUVs (and now these hideous Hummers) become THE vehicle when a $5,000 Ford would still provide reliable transportation?

That is what Mad Ave does. It creates a desire to over-fulfil a need with a specific product. In marketing circles, they call this branding. The products they promote are not necessarily well made, are often manufactured under socially and environmentally destructive conditions and the profits do not stay in the community but rather go to corporate interests.

You and I may just be running into the mall to pick up our semi-annual supply of black Levis and tshirts but most of the shoppers are there for what they saw in a magazine or on TV last night.


The former, IMHO, is directly attributable to poor parenting.

More attributable to parents who are poor. They are forced to work 2 or 3 part-time service jobs for corporations that figured out long ago it is cheaper to pay 3 part-timers than one full-time employee with benefits. They are forced to be absent and when they are at home are probably exhausted and emotionally unavailable. The greatest formative influence on their children then becomes the TV and peer pressure. The economic deprivation creates an environment where the violence can flourish and corporate employment policies creates the deprivation in the first place.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, creating a cycle of poverty is a neat way to keep the masses oppressed. Add to that mix the political clout to get laws enacted that ensures a third of their men will be put in prison and cut the social programs created to help them out of poverty. Even if it isn't part of a pre-conceived plan, it sure is effective. Ironically, the products that become the must-have items of status in the ghetto create the massive profits feeding the corporate beast that is devouring the residents.

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There's plenty more at the links. Am I wasting my time with this stuff? Sometimes I think I should be using my time a little more productively but the discussion helps me focus my own position on these issues. These kids are often misguided (to my mind) in their thinking but they offer a challenging discourse and I like their energy.

Besides you have to love a place where you can engage in debate with a guy named Evil Josh whose tag line is:

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Mark Twain