freedom

Know Thy Enemy
or
Tea Party Hypocrisy
by Saab Lofton

"In the case of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, he's planning to hold back $614 million in 'performance bonuses' from the plane's lead contractor Lockheed Martin. (And you thought only bankers and financial wheeler-dealers got performance bonuses!) But it's striking that there are no tea party movements out in the streets of America demanding our money back or claiming that we're going to be broken by this."
--Tom Engelhardt, a Yale AND Harvard graduate, March 19th, 2010

Uganda and Arizona? We're Comin' Fo' Ya!
by Saab Lofton

"While the wicked stand confounded, call me with thy saints surrounded."
--The Boondock Saints

Don't get it twisted: The homophobes behind Uganda's anti-gay legislation are NOT equal to the white supremacists behind Arizona's anti-Latin legislation. Sure, they're both ignorant as pig shit, but whites are FAR more powerful than blacks, as I explained in the following commentary years ago ...

http://www.lasvegascitylife.com/articles/2004/02/04/scorched_earth/fear_...

The Future of Humanity's Economy
by Saab Lofton

"Money is a terrible thing. Why do people work at jobs in Star Trek? Why does someone become a baker? Because the family is going to starve to death? No. People become bakers because certain people love the smell of things baking."
--Gene Roddenberry, from Yvonne Fern's book, The Last Conversation

"By the time I joined TNG [The Next Generation], Gene [Roddenberry] had decreed that money most emphatically did NOT exist in the Federation, nor did 'credits' and that was that. Personally, I've always felt this was a bunch of hooey, but it was one of the rules and that's that."
--Ronald D. Moore, writer and producer of several Star Trek episodes

... I got your "hooey," right here, you fucking bastard ...

What YOU Can Do
by Saab Lofton

"In Oregon, author Andy Mangels organizes an annual October event called Wonder Woman Day to raise awareness of domestic violence. Original artwork of the Amazon princess created by the superstars of comic book artists is auctioned off, with the money raised going to women's shelters."
--Mike Madrid, from his book, The Supergirls

See, that's what I'm talking about! Here you have a fictional character (as a storyteller, that's my area of expertise) quite literally making the real world a better place! Since its 2006 debut, Wonder Woman Day has raised over eighty-nine thousand dollars for battered women's shelters and I hope/wish/pray this is just the beginning!

Pacifists, NOT Masochists!
by Saab Lofton

"Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character."
--philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632 to 1677)

In the Star Wars saga, the Jedi are able to psychically detect and physically manipulate emotions in a variety of supernatural ways. Well, all too many whites in the peace movement are under the delusion that they're capable of the same exact thing and it's costing the rest of us dearly.

The Real Welfare Cheats
by Saab Lofton

"Probably the worst part of the S&L bailout is the message it sends to high-flying con men. It says, 'Plunder all you want. As long as your political connections are solid, you'll get to keep the money and probably won't suffer more than a slap on the wrist.' (Charles Keating only went to jail because his abuses were so extreme; he was the exception, not the rule.)"
--from the book, Take the Rich Off Welfare, by Mark Zepezauer

Beware of False Prophets
by Saab Lofton

In the comics, Spider-Man's superheroic career was often hindered by the libel of J. Jonah Jameson's Daily Bugle, and boy, can I relate -- be it online stalkers or right-wing hate mail, my reputation has taken more hits than a crack pipe, and as D.J. Casey Kasem would say, the hits just keep on comin' ..!

They Keep Us Safe And Free
by Saab Lofton

Xerxes: There will be no glory in your sacrifice. I will erase even the memory of Sparta from the histories. Every piece of Greek parchment shall be burned and every Greek historian and every scribe shall have their eyes put out and their tongues cut from their mouths. Why, uttering the very name of Sparta or Leonidas will be punishable by death. The world will never know you existed at all!

Leonidas: The world will know that free men stood against a tyrant, that few stood against many, and before this battle is over, that even a god-king can bleed.

--from the movie, 300

The Problem is White Women
by Saab Lofton

"The Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate."
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., The Letter from Birmingham Jail