Jack Layton's immortal words are right there in orange and white
RIP, Jack: one of the greats is gone. You would have been an awesome Prime Minister, and you put that kitten-whoring robot who’s serving as Fuhrer in fear of his political life!
I know what I’ll be drinking tomorrow: The Layton: orange crush and jack!
Before he left, Jack Layton wrote Canada a letter, and never was there better proof that the man held his country foremost in his thoughts and close to his heart. Here it is:
Jack Layton's Letter to Canada
Jack Layton's Letter 2
Artist Stuart Thursby has translated some of Jack’s words into the powerful art you see at the top of this post, as well as others you can download from his site (he continues to update the site with new works). (via Tris Hussey)
And here, because not everything in memory of a man like that can be somber, are the song stylings of Jack “Party for Sale or Rent” Layton. And if you despair of human nature, look at the comments on the YouTube page: that man’s power of nobility is such that it even inspired YouTubers to behave with grace.
While my cousins drive down to Fort Windsor and check to see that the cannons are still working, I’ll be heading up to the DEW Line to make sure no wiseass loonbat troublemaker is coming over the border from Alaska to get their greedy, Republican mitts on any of our delicious, free healthcare.
Play them off, William! Fucking! Shatner!Who better to update that hoary old classic than this h – you know what? Forget I said that. Enjoy your refreshed national anthem, Canuckistan!
Oh Canada, our home and native land
ON native land true patriot love
of same sex partnership in all our sons’ command
and our daughters’ with glowing hearts
like ET we see thee rise the true north, strong and free
free healthcare … all this is … NEW! from far and wide
redundant Oh Canada
BIG SMILE we stand on guard for thee God keep our land
all gods or, or, or no god glorious and free
free of smog Oh Canada we stand on guard for thee.
Oh Canada we stand on guard
guard yourself from frostbite for th-
it’s all … I don’t even know what we’re doing here thee.
Congratulations! You are Newt Gingrich: Despite strangely strong public affection for dinosaurs and space exploration and shocking contempt for the women you routinely divorce, you actually made it big in politics—15 years ago.
This is, like, SO not fair. I’m not even gay-married!
Anonymous vs the Police which is not exactly a new thing
Dear Nonymite: you do realize you’re flipping off the photographer, not the cops, right? Jesus, EVERYONE hates the paparazzi!
Compare and contrast to our earlier Nony in London:
Work it, V!
This is a democracy! VOTE, DAMMIT!!!
Whichever you prefer, the mere existence of Anonymous reminds us that the present moment, yes, this exact moment, is one that has never come before, and will never exist again. It won’t be long until existing power structures have either shattered into a new, digital Brownian Motion model of solipsistic yet collaborative civilization OR the fascists have infiltrated and wiped out the free thinkers, resulting in something akin to the Orwellian KleptoReich that Putin’s got going in Russia.
And that, my friends, reminds me of this, from the great prophet Hunter S. Thompson. Think carefully about these words, because for just this particular second of time, they apply again.
“It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant…
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of ‘history’ it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights — or very early mornings — when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour… booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turnoff to take when I got to the other end… but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that…
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning…
And that, I think, was the handle — that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply PREVAIL. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Where will you be when it does?
UPDATED: a couple of hours after I posted this, I found the following video, which claims to lay out the one-year plan of Anonymous. Presenting The Plan:
“While the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.”
I have a copy of the Manual of Afghani Jihad (the CIA translation) and selections from the Japanese Kamikaze documents, and said back then that if we in the West had any documents as spiritually compelling as those, we would have no alienated teens, no existential crises. It’s literally unthinkable to most people in the affluent nations that their individual lives could actually have meaning; why is this so, when their nations wield the greatest financial and political power on the planet? When they enjoy personal freedoms undreamed-of in most of civilization and throughout history? Why is this, when destitute citizens of the poorest states on Earth change history every day as if it’s their birthright?
And it is.
Could this video and plan from Anonymous actually be That Call, the call to the hearts of the people of the West, for which we have been waiting?
No, it’s a FACT. Now that you truly understand the reason for war, it’s time to put the nail in the coffin of your optimism with today’s roundup of pointless celebrity gossip.