I Don’t Hate Republicans, & I’m Ashamed I Said So

As the days wind down and we collectively inch toward the general election it is becoming clear that there has been a quantum shift in the momentum of the presidential campaign. Barack Obama is displaying a clear 10 point lead nationally, and the McCain Campaign is thrashing about wildly, lashing out at Obama with incendiary assaults on the senator's character and truthfulness.


At McCain's rallies an alarming climate of anger and disappointment is coalescing into an element of blind rage. He is called a traitor, an Arab, a terrorist. Calls of "kill him" and "bomb Obama" have been heard coming from people in the crowd, coming from McCain supporters.


This is the last sad chapter to the dark, cold years of the Bush Administration, because this atmosphere of hatred and distrust, this unsavory environment of scathing attacks, denigration and borderline racism are extensions of the policies and attitudes of the Bush Administration.


The systematic unraveling of the McCain campaign is a product of rabid arrogance, blind nationalism and a degree of incompetence that is almost hard to completely fathom. The idea that a young, black freshman senator could win the White House fair and square is something that these people just cannot seem to reconcile within their beings.


The right wing which has governed the Republican Party since the Reagan years feel such a sense of divine entitlement, feel so morally and spiritually superior to the liberal mind set of elements of the Democratic Party that they honestly believe that almost any end justifies their means.


They call us socialists, traitors, baby killers. I have been told multiple times at rallies or protests to "get a job", "take a bath", "get a life." I have been called a communist, a socialist, piece of shit, a loser, a faggot, and even a lesbian.


I have been spit on, I've been shoved, I have had a sign ripped out of my hand and shredded, and I have had the police called on me with false reports of crimes that I did not commit.


Almost every last person who subjected me to this treatment was a Republican. Naturally, I don't think for a minute that every republican thinks or acts that way, that every republican supporter is filled with hate, with bigotry, with disgust for people who may not share their political beliefs or affiliations.


I do, however, believe very strongly that the Republican Party supports policies that promote hatred, poverty and nationalism that is almost always draped with the flag and a cross. I believe that the republican platform, that republican spokespersons, that republican policies are often subtly racist, openly favoring the corporate sector, and anti-labor.


The lies and the denigrations that McCain and Palin have been spewing are shocking, disgusting and revolting, and I condemn them wholly. In fact the Republican play book must say to continually and relentlessly accuse the opponent of doing that which they are doing. McCain accuses Obama of not answering the hard questions, of answering questions about policy in vague terms. That is exactly what Palin and McCain are doing, naturally.


I don't hate republicans, and it was totally fucking terrible for me to have said and promoted such an idea. It is a sign of how ragged and worn down I am these days. The normal, centered and grounded me would never use the word hate directed towards a broad cross section of Americans. I am ashamed that i posted a bulletin or blog like that.


However, for the record, I have to reach deep down inside of my craw to find the strength to locate a place of compassion, of forgiveness, or acceptance. You see, I hate what the republican mind set has done to our nation, to our world. I fear republicans, because many of them hate me and would see me thrown in prison for years in a hummingbird's heartbeat just for being who I am. Just for being a stoner liberal democrat who supports gays and a woman's right to choose. For being a person who supports diversity and unions and the envrionment. THEY HATE ME. It is true, millions of them hate me and my kind and would throw us all in prison.


I fear them because they like guns and war. I fear them because they are cold and heartless to3ards the homeless and the poor. I fear them because they support the mass slaughter of animals and have no concept of compassion for animals that taste good and little respect for those who support the environment, which they see as given to n..them by God to trash. I fear them because they believe in a God of division, of of anger, of retribution.


The Bush Years have been disgraceful, depressing, and actually criminal. America has been drug through the mud, our international standing ruined, lowered, stained. I fear we may never be seen exactly the same way again, the cat is out of the bag, the truth is known. Bush and his cronies are wholly and totally to blame. it doesn't even matter if they "did" 911, they are so guilty, so responsible, so at fault for so much suffering.


These people believe they are more decent than the rest of us, that THEY are TRUE Americans and we all are somehow second class, second rate Americans. We are somehow beneath them, uncivilized, commoners.


No, I will never accept such ideas and notions. I will stand for diversity and liberty, for equality and justice for all, for freedom from tyranny. I will stand for peace and compassion, and I will stand for truth and for dignity.


You don;t need money or a nice house to be a good person and a decent American. You don;t need to have gone to war or be in the military to be a patriot, to be a contributing American.


The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream in which he stood on a mountain top. Dr.
King saw a vision, a vision that he could see looking  down into the valley of the future. We are all about to finally see what Dr. King saw that fateful night before he was struck down so coldly, so callously by the exact same brand of energy that has been witnessed at McCain rallies lately.


We are about to see America rise like a phoenix from the ashes of despair, from the darkness of these Bush years, from the mind set of hatred, distrust and bigoted arrogance . We are about to see racism take a fucking blow to the heart in this nation and equality become a reality once and for all.


We are about to see the beginning of the end of a long, dark period. it ain't over yet, anything could happen and we can't count our chickens before they hatch. However, things look good.


if we win this election, we dare not gloat and prance about as our opponents have the last few election cycles. We dare not take for granted our responsibilities to bring peace, to bring unity to our nation. We must be above the division, even though they will attack us, attack our character and our honesty with everything they have.


They are sore losers, trust me. We must be humble yet forceful in our leadership and our advocacy.


Yes We Can! Gobama!

I hate no human being, yet I also forgive no crime against humanity. Let's put unity into our communities with impunity, because the sun may be about to shine after a cold, long, dark night.

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50 years old...My Life in Pictures (and birthday party invite)
Category: Life

I am turning 50 years old and you are welcome to my birthday party. This is a call out to all my friends over the years and my future friends as well. I have assembled some of my favorite bands from my life and I want you to come party with me and my posse of psychoactive saddle tramp anti-authoritarian swashbuckling freedom warrior rugged individualist punk-metal-hippie-gypsies.  The Café Authors (Featuring Steve Fossen of Heart), The Herbivores (The Seattle Hempfest House band), The AMAZING Super Sonic Soul Pimps and the legendary Seattle band Second Coming. Here are links to them all…

www.myspace.com/secondcoming www.myspace.com/theherbivores www.myspace.com/intellijamus  www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRGw_L9uJY4

I have assembled a photo montage to demonstrate what a crazy semi-charmed 50 years it has been.

Myself and American refugee Renee Boje, Canada 1999

Haloween 1984, Lake Tahoe, I won a TV set and $200!

My attorneys and I when I challenged the constitutionality of Seattle's defunct poster ordinance. 1996

Dread Mullet. I make my own trends, I don't follow others. I don't let hippies make fun of my haircut, I mean come on!

This is not my day gig. OCF forever.

Kickin' it and chiefin'.

I am a manly man.

Snoqualmie Moondance, 1994, what a high gathering.

Insidiously inflammatory

No resemblance at all. My not so little girl.

This was on the front cover of the Seattle Post Intelligencer

Oregon Country Fair Dragon Magick

I have several friends on the police force

Kisses from Kim Racer of Miss Crazy, fringe bennies of Hempfest

Man at work

I am a colored person

A day's work over

With Eddy Lepp at national NORML convention in San Fran

Emcee'n the Grand mythological Ball '96

Getting ready for an OCF Dragon run

Around  '89 with my youngest son, Alex 

Our old band Stickerbush

'83 Lake Tahoe, I was a Cinderfellah! No, not a perm.

Singing in the band The Krunch, '82 Lake Tahoe

Toke it easy, now.

Puffin' and Chiefin' with my girl

4:20 after performing a wedding 2004

Stickerbush

Timothy Leary and I, Peaceworks Park Vigil, Seattle, 1990

Remember Rachel Corrie. I sat next to her parents at her memorial.

Yes, I was a glam rocker. Got laid a lot back then.

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NORML gushes over Hempfest 2008!

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I am quoted in newspaper

Pot smell isn't cause to arrest everyone in a car

Police need more evidence, state justices say

By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER

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MY LETTER TO GOD...

Dear God, can I call you spirit? I feel the name God invokes so much negative baggage, and is so terribly limiting, describing our human projection of you in our inferior image. Besides, if you do exist at all beyond our imagination, you transcend names and words, as you created their possibility. Also, how could your name be the opposite of dog, when my own dog is certainly a thousand times more saintly than any human?

As you know, I am a legal minister who has officiated at over 25 weddings & commitment ceremonies, at several last rights, and who has performed all too many memorial services. I may be the only minister in the world who admits he does not know if you exist at all. It does not matter much to me though, because, as my principle mentor Stephen Gaskin says, "We may not know what God is, but we know what God is not, and that is the next best thing."

I don't know if you exist, but I feel that you do. I'm almost sure you don't reside up in the sky, or in heaven, as my heart tells me you have a permanent place in its deepest corners, but I am often too consumed with fear and doubt to let your love pour out through me.

You see, Spirit, although many fancy me as some sort of brave warrior, as a leader of men, I am just an ordinary man. Sometimes I am so scared, so uncertain of myself that I can barely go on, but I don't dare reveal it. As you must know, sometimes I am so weak I feel like I can't go one step forward, but I cannot and must not stop. I am so incredibly lucky and fortunate to know that I am loved and appreciated by so many pure and beautiful souls, yet often I feel so isolated and lonely, as if I am completely alone even when surrounded by thousands of friends and admirers.

There are atheists on my friends list who surely will think me naïve and weak for reaching out to you, for they must see, feel and hold something to offer up their belief in it. I don't blame them, there are so many charlatans in your name, and there has been so much suffering, torture and death perpetrated by those who have claimed to be your followers, prophets and messengers. The atheists must not enjoy the luxury that I do, as I can see the signs you give me everywhere.

You have given me so many chances when I have let you down so bad so many times. I have been weak, and doubtful. I have been vain and selfish. I have been cruel and self-absorbed. In my life I have hurt those who I have loved, and only you know how badly I have been hurt and betrayed, wounded by those who I have loved with all of my own being. Yet you have never let me down, despite the worst of my failings, despite the darkest moments of my life. I have made so many mistakes along the way, but I have always tried to be the best person I could be, even when I have fucked up so terribly, and somehow through my failings you have seen the part of my that is trying so desperately hard to just be human, to be good, fair and just.  

I look around me, Spirit, I look at the world today and I can see why so many would deny your existence. The cruelty, the callousness, the heartless and senseless violence and suffering is sometimes more than my eyes and my heart can withstand. Millions of children totally alone, countless needlessly sick and dying, so many old and lonely spirits adrift in an ocean of uncertainty and confusion, while millions, no billions look on as if they were helpless to make a difference. Nothing could be more untrue.

I expect no reward when my life is over. My life has been my reward. My children, my grandchild, my dog, my friends, my culture, these are the rewards I have been given regardless of my performance as a human being. I surrender to your love and I cast my fate adrift on the open seas of compassion. I seek merely to honor the miracles that you have granted me by being a good, and caring person who acts not just who looks, who gives not just takes, who appreciates the limitless glory of your creation. Life may not be fair, but that does not mean that we cannot be so. Our lives may contain no meaning at all other than that which we give it with our thoughts, deeds and actions, with our copious free will. That is enough for me.

When my life has passed and all that is left is the story of it, I pray that my story is one worth telling, I pray it will be a love story for there is only the first draft, and we have no chance at rewriting any portion of it. If we are lucky we can write our own ending.

Despite all of my weakness, my fear and my egomania, I will try harder each day to live up to the ideal that I feel that you are. I need not ever know or met you, that is not important to me if it is not so to you. All I ask for is the strength to endure my own Karma, the courage to face my fears,  the wisdom to make the right choices for me, the guidance to stay on my path, and the ability to heal myself and others in the process.

Spirit, I suffer so. As you know my life now is rife with pain, and each day is so much of a struggle just to maintain my center, my ground, my confidence. I have asked for and have been granted a great challenge, and I humbly pray to be worthy of such an honor to have been given a chance to make a tiny little impact on this unimaginably beautiful yet challenging world, on this minuscule dot of compressed stardust that we are riding shotgun through the Universe on.

You speak to me through the eyes of my dog, through his smile when he sees me after just minutes apart. You spoke to me when my children came back to me, one by one, as they grew old enough to make their own decisions. You proved yourself to me when I found my daughter after 18 years of not knowing where she was or if she was even alive. You have proved yourself to me every time I have heard my "hemp cheer" echoed by thousands upon thousands of smiling spirits, peace signs raised high up in the air.
I turn fifty in a few months, and I am in the autumn of my life (I hope), and I am watching myself change a little more each day, a little more gray, a little closer to non-existence. As I leave this mortal coil, exit stage leftist, I am only concerned with one thought and two words;

Thank you!  

P.S. if you have a beautiful, supportive and loving old lady in mind for me I do not require you to wait any longer, for I am more than ready to meet her and to honor her just as much as I strive to honor you, for there is nothing but oneness in this huge and tiny Universe. And Spirit, feel free to leave a comment, you are at the top of my fiends list. Your profile is awesome!

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You DO NOT have the right to smoke, eat, drink or fuck!
Category: Automotive

Dear Abby recently chastised a tobacco smoker for being a dirty, iresponsible cretin. I nhave an opinion...

Risking both rimshot and buckshot, Did you hear about the burn victim who found it hard to quit smoking? Doh, me is soooooo bad! :)

Yeh, people don't have the right to smoke. However, corporations have the right to infuse our biosphere with deadly, deforming chemicals on a daily basis. The "medical" "institutions" have the right to poison us endlessly with their drugs of choice for us, using us as Guinea pigs and irrefutably killing millions in the process from the adverse effects of those chemicals. They are the drug dealers of all time. The military has the right to release depleted uranium in its war zones of choice, deforming and sickening those in the region for generations to come. The food industry has the right to sell us worthless, nutritionally deficient crap loaded with all kinds of chemicals of their choice in order to increase their obscene profits while they cause disease, death and gross obesity.

However, those people who want to inhale tobacco smoke should be ashamed of themselves! How irresponsible!

I have never smoked tobacco in my life. I hate cigarettes so much that you will never, ever catch me sitting next to someone burning the noxious weed. However, since I embrace and value my own freedoms and liberties to do as I wish with the sanctity and the sovereignty of my (only true) and most precious possession; me, I support wholy people's right to do stupid, indulgent, hurtful things to themselves.

We are all going to die and very soon. You cannot beat death. Your body was created to be destroyed. That does not mean that you do not honor, care for and worship for earthly flesh temple, au contraire, life is not intended for suffering and misery. However, the most egregious violation of one's temple is outside force and the external application of someone else's will upon our own choices. We have free will.

"It's my Karma and I'll die if I want to, die if I want to, die if I want to. You would die too if life happened to you!" :)

So puff that cancer stick like it was pure unadulterated oxygen from the rainforest 1,000 years ago. Swill that java like it was the nectar of life itself. Guzzle that alcohol (oh yeh, what about the fucking alcohol?) as if it were mother's milk to a baby's immune system. Snort that coke as if it were your own dad's dandruff. Shoot that smack as if you were inoculating against reality. Eat that X as if it were that aspirin a day your thumping pumper enjoys. Watch that tube as if it were sucking your brains back into your head through your eye and ear holes. Buy those "things" as if they were an anchor that will keep you in the material plane. Worship that God as if he were anything but a projection of your insecurity, loneliness and confusion about the nature of your existence. Suck that rod and eat that pie as if they were the very sustenance of existence.

In the end it is only you who will have to answer for your own thoughts, deeds and actions in this brief and fragile twitch that we call our lives. In the end it is all washed clean, all evened out, thoroughly eviscerated.

We run from pain and towards comfort. We cannot be content to control our own lives, in fact we cannot control our own lives completely and that pisses us off so much that we compensate by trying to control other people's lives, which is an even grater disaster in the making each time.

All we can control is our hearts and our minds, because our bodies are not truly ours, they are merely a brief loan from the mystery of existence.

I have not smoked pot, drank alcohol, ate meat, had caffeine, eaten refined sugar for several days. I am as clear, clean and pure as I am gonna get. How would you like it if someone forced you to take all those substances? That would be NO FUCKING DIFFERENT than someone restricting you from doing do.

I AM MY OWN GOD so don't tell me how to live and I will do the same for ya'll.

"The rich-text editor is currently disabled" and so am I.

Give my puberty or give me meth!  Don't shed on me. Don't shoot until you see the whites of her thighs!

See what happens when I don't smoke pot? Does anybody really want me to abstain when the result is this eruption of insidious inflammatory insanity?

Let he whose not stoned cast the first sin and let it be on me!

Muahs, your friendly neighborhood Vivian

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I woke up today and thought to myself...

I woke up today and thought to myself "Hmmm, I think I will use hundreds of muscles and organs to pulse, throb, quiver, undulate and gyrate until I generate the heat in my body. Talkin' bout my thermoregulation.

 You see, I have a hydronic heating system. Heat is distributed to my body through the blood I pump from my heart. At the top of my body's heating system short list is maintaining and regulating my central body core temperature. Hot crimson noggin nectar is delivered from my loving hippie heart to all of my extremities, with my toes being the very last to quench their cold with the viscous life fluid I have prepared, warmed and delivered.

 When it comes to emissivity, well I am just full of it, but you already knew that. By the emission of electromagnetic waves I carry energy away from my heat emitting self. Now if you don't find me rather agitating, I have news for you. I conduct heat by means of molecular agitation. I also distribute heat by mass motion of fluids such as air and blood, which is caused to move away from my source of heat, carrying energy with it. This is why I try to keep some air and blood handy at any given time. Go ahead, call me security conscious.

 My true inspiration, though, is my perspiration, because, heat gain equals heat loss. I can gain body heat from the sun and conditions of high temperature. I get all hot just thinking about it. But the majority of heat is produced from motion and stress occurring when heat gain is greater than heat loss, resulting in an increase in body temperature.

When the ambient temperature is above my body temperature, I have to get to work to stoke up my radiation, crank up some serious conduction, and get my convection fired up to transfer heat into my body instead of out. Now here is where I really need a net outward heat transfer, and my only mechanisms I possess under these conditions happen to be the evaporation of my perspiration through my skin combined with my evaporative cooling from exhaled moisture.

On a good day I can bang out in excess of 600 grams per day of "insensate loss", just from the moisture from my skin, but you already knew that.

And, boy can I get glandular. For heat sensors I use neural feedback mechanisms, mainly through my hypothalamus gland. If I get chilly, I have a grab bag of techniques by which to get me outta the frigid pink. I can stop the flow of heat to the skin with vasoconstriction, shiver my timbers to generate warmth, turn off the sweat faucet, and whip out some British thermal units by cooking up some norepinephrine, epinephrine, and thyroxine.

My total radiation and advection at my skin must be about the 
same as my metabolic heat. About half of this is radiation and 
about half is advection. But you already knew that. My cooling 
rate is 90 watts, which should explain why, for a guy who is so 
damned hot, I am not really all that bright.

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FASCIST CHRIST (Check it out before you judge me)

by TODD RUNDGREN

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Woody Harrelson at Hempfest 2001 (vintage choice)

Check it on outski...

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R.I.P. Mariska Veres - 38 years of VENUS!

Mariska Veres (pronunciation (help·info)) (1 October 1947 - 2 December 2006) was a Dutch singer who was best known as the lead singer of the rock group Shocking Blue. Her appearance was striking, featuring kohl cosmetic-lined eyes, high cheekbones, and long jet black hair, (was really a wig). She had a very powerful voice, distinct from other females, which was compared to that of Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane. Veres liked cats. She did not smoke, drink, or experiment with drugs. When she joined Shocking Blue she made it clear to the other band members that romantic relationships not going to happen.^[1]

10:52 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment