I have emailed Mercy for Animals, the publisher of the video, asking for the names of people involved.

UPDATE:One of those featured in the video is Billy Joe Gregg Jr., who has been charged with 12 counts of animal cruelty. Each carries a measly maximum sentence of 90 days in jail. I can’t find a phone number for this scumbag, but if somebody does, please post it so we can be sure to let him know how we feel.

Several of “the usual suspects,” including myself, spoke. There’s no doubt, though, that Eric Sterling stole the show. I have seen him speak 10+ times, and he is one of the best and most engaging public speakers I have ever been exposed to. Fortunately my camera was rolling:

….now before you jump on me about the “order of magnitude” comment with encryption – I fully realize that with increasing strength that decryption becomes several orders of magnitude more difficult, but as this was not a technology conference, I didn’t want to belabor the point.

Keene is a BS conservative who sold himself out to Arlen Specter and then tried to solicit Fedex to give him millions to write a positive op-ed.

Ziegler was supposed to be on a panel at the conference where this encounter occured, but got booted after putting the tough questions to Keene.

I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a Ziegler lover, but this video is absolutely sick.

Check it out:

Now, without any legislative backing or public hearings, the New York State Health Commissioner has made an “emergency executive order” demanding that Jessica, her mother, and every other medical service professional to be vaccinated with both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines.  If they decline to allow this, they’ll lose their jobs.

Remember, these are not government employees.  They are private citizens who have worked hard to build a career around helping people be healthy.  They know better than anyone the risks of being, or declining to be, injected with swine flu vaccine.

A recent small protest on the steps of the New York State Capitol in Albany got a bit of news attention, with local TV coverage,

Later, a lawsuit filed got more coverage, and the decision of a New York State judge got even more coverage when he issued a restraining order against the State, preventing it from vaccinating people until a hearing is held.  The hearing is scheduled to begin October 30.

Many health care professionals have said they’ll be fired rather than allow themselves to be injected with the vaccine.  As with all flu vaccines, it’s quite risky.  In addition to the typical risks, though, the plaintiffs say that this vaccine was rushed to market hastily and has already caused more sickness than usual.

Does anybody have the relevant documents?  I’m looking for, but cannot find:

• The text of the mandate
• The brief filed by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and the response, if any, from the state
• The restraining order
• Any kind of press release from the State defending the mandate

I have started a facebook group.  Please invite!

The underlying message here is simple:  You must expose yourself to surveillance.  You may not take any steps to defend yourself against state or corporate incursion into your privacy.

This reminds me of the order in Seattle back in 1999 that made gas masks illegal.  The thought process seems the same:  Your communication data and your muccous membranes must be exposed to the state so that they can be utilized to control you.

Dear Republican Haters,

To quote your own diatribe, “Fuck you. No, I’m not joking. I’m sick of this bullshit.”

I’m sick of the way you have perpetuated the tired, childish, brain-dead notion that there are two and only two polar opposite ideologies in the politics of the USA and that every person must determine their position along the line that connects them.

I’m sick of the way you have pigeon-holed every person who is the least bit inspired by the Republican ideals of limited and enumerated government enshrined in our founding documents into a behemoth straw-man.  You pretend that every Republican favors war, torture, greed, prisons, homophobia, and environmental destruction.  This is the only way that you feel comfortable responding to our thoughts, because it allows you to feel self-righteous about your various causes.

I’m sick of the pretense that the worst parts of the United States Government, particularly 1) the propensity for worldwide military conquest, 2) the disastrous “war on drugs,” and 3) the regulatory structures that have enabled mega-corporate dominance over nearly every facet of human life, are the fault of Republicans.  Democrats, and the democrat philosophical tradition, are at least as much to blame for these evils, and it’s going to take a trans-spectrum collaborative effort to fix them.

I’m sick of the blind, zealotic fervor with which you embrace every policy that comes out of the mouth of the god-king Obama.  Like everybody else, he has some good ideas and some bad ideas.  I think it’s notable that most of his good ideas became taboo once he became President, while his bad ideas have been given front-burner status.

I’m sick of the outrageously and transparently partisan selectivity with which you pass moral judgment on the legitimate role of government.  When George W. Bush turned out to be a jackass and mass murderer, we turned on him (actually, many of us never supported him in the first place!) and joined your chorus of contempt for the bloating of the size of the federal government under his regime.  Now, when we point to the same exact tendencies under Obama, suddenly big government is OK with you.

I’m sick of the ludicrous yet omni-present claim that government is the only solution for providing quality health care for all.  I’m also sick of your comparisons to the health care systems of nations that are 1% the size of ours.  I’m sorry, but no government, much less one infested with decades-worth of pure evil from both parties, can provide health care for every person from the Atlantic to the Pacific and make it work well.

I’m sick of the myth that corporatism is our burden to bear.  Whose side are the big corporations on now?  The biggest, most fucking wretched pharma companies are falling over themselves to support your health care takeover.

I’m sick of the twisted, sadistic legal justifications given for torture and extraordinary rendition.  Yes, I’m talking about those coming directly from the Obama Administration.  Your so-called “anti-war candidate” has taken the art of making excuses for doing evil to an entirely new level.  On top of that, you have the unmitigated gall to refer to this stuff as “centrism!”

I’m particularly sick of you blaming us for the war on drugs.  While some Republicans have said some stupid things about drugs (particularly Nixon and Reagan), none have ever done even a fraction of the damage that your previous messiah, Bill Clinton, did.  He was, by any reasonable empirical measure, the worst drug warrior in the history of the world. Your abhorrently self-styled “first black President” put more people in prison – and in a more racially disparate fashion – than any other leader ever, anywhere.  So yeah, fuck you on that one.

I’m sick of you holding up the worst fringe lunatics of the Republican party and pretending that they represent the mainstream.  Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter are not mainstream Republicans.  They are media-whoring nutjobs.  For once, try responding to our real thinkers like Peter Schiff, Radley Balko, Ron Paul, Jacob Sullum, Ayn Rand, Adam Kokesh, or really just about any everyday Republican you meet on the street.

I’m sick of you pretending that the media favors Republican ideas.  I mean this is really just outrageous.  Look at the idiotic characters the media puts up to represent our corner!  In media-speak, anyone who is paranoid, deranged, and misinformed is a Republican.   Never are thoughtful, open-minded Republicans given an opportunity to participate in the dialogue.  But then, the job of the media is to maintain the notion that everybody belongs on the one-dimensional political spectrum.  Simple.  They make you look stupid and they make us look stupid.  They certainly do not win us any friends, so stop pretending they are in our pocket.

I’m sick of your refusal to talk about spying, wiretapping, and surveillance of US citizens, which your top dogs support enthusiastically.

I’m sick of you pinning of every fear-driven prejudice, from racial bigotry to homophobia to xenophobia and beyond, to some kind of byproduct of Republican ideals.  Just so we’re clear about our respective political traditions:  We always wanted to free the slaves.  You resisted.  We had to go to fucking war against you to get you to admit that slavery is, well, wrong.  We wanted open borders and a welcome environment for immigrants.  You insisted on a federal minimum wage and controls on the economy that make immigration a far more complicated issue than it needs to be.  We never wanted government to be involved in marriage at all, and now you are upset because government marriage led to bigoted regulations on who can and cannot get married.  Imagine that.

Finally, I’m sick of you blaming us for the current state of affairs of our country.  You control both houses of congress and the white house, don’t you?  Or maybe you are finally realizing that no matter what fancy title and political affiliation a power-holder has, he or she will nearly always act in a way that preserves their power, to the exclusion of doing the good for good’s sake.  If you are so convinced that government is the solution, well, 70 million people just handed you the keys to the government.   Don’t whine to us because shit is going terribly wrong.

(Note to commenters: I realize that this post uses divisive language that I don’t usually use or condone.  However, I wanted to respond “in kind” to the original letter, using the same style and some of the same language, although I toned it down from a nearly constant stream of “fuck you” to only two uses of the phrase.  )

UPDATE – I thought of some more:

I’m sick of being made to feel like I’m not allowed to talk about or care about poor people.  Look, the government has done a bang up fucking job taking care of poor people right?  There are homeless in every major city – come to New York in the winter and ask a freezing homeless person if the expansion of the welfare state over the course of the past century has helped them.  There are over 2 million people in our prison system, most of whom, at least at the federal level, are there for non-violent offenses and most of whom are poor.  And then there’s the biggest elephant in the room: the federal reserve system, which you constantly pretend is a non-issue, fucks poor people really really hard.  So yeah, from now on, you don’t get to be the party of compassion.

I’m sick of hearing about “the Government’s lack of response to Hurricane Katrina” and other disasters.  Lack of a response?!  Oh, they responded.  They responded the way governments always do:  by shooting at poor fucking dying people trying to flee New Orleans.  More government was not the solution to this problem.  In fact, paramedics who were on the ground will tell you that the terror there would have been far less if the government had just stayed out and let charities saturate the area with food and fresh water.

I’m very, very sick of brain-sucking references to the status quo as the “free market.” As in the following exchange:

“I believe that the free market can create quality health care for everyone.”

“What, like we have right now?!”

No, not like we have right now.  There are so many laws, regulations, regulatory agencies, trade restrictions, and other bullshit that a person can spend their entire lives studying them and still not be sure if they are allowed to sell a fucking toothpick much less an innovative health care system.  When we advocate market solutions, please don’t say, “but it’s not working now!”  Of course it’s not working now, because your contorted efforts to make the market more safe have predictably resulted in it becoming less non free.

There are a number of places with commentary, if you want to join the discussion:

• The comments section of the post itself is the best discussion, and the one I’d prefer to house the archive.
• My Vimeo page for the video has quite a few comments as well.
• Also, there is a hilariously childish discussion on a third-rate yuku site called “The Rant.” I don’t know whether to laugh at these people or feel bad for them – if nothing else, the site seems to serve as a place to vent.  I didn’t expect my post to cause these kind of tantrums, but perhaps it’s therapeutic for the participants.

UPDATE:

Now a forum has started here at a website I’ve never heard of called bcvoice.com.  It’s somewhat similar to the yuku site, but with a modicum of maturity.  One thing I love is that people – quite a lot of people at this point – will sit and waste their time at their keyboard wondering aloud why this <insert fairly random disparaging adjective> “kid” would waste his time asserting his basic rights in his own community.

Update: Apparently YouTube deleted this video, along with most other C-SPAN videos of the house floor.  Where to go now for this content?