UNCLE SAM

Uncle Sam (born July 4, 1776) is the national personification of the United States, an economic and cultural imperialist, the mascot of the New York Yankees, frequent used car salesman, and a dick.

From the very moment Uncle Sam was born, he immediately began insisting that everybody else live exactly like him – speak his language, wear his style of clothing, listen to his music, eat his mass-produced fast food products, ect.. He's a dick in the same way as your pretentious friend who demands that you listen to Radiohead, watch The Wire, and eat organic food because all those things are "sooooo amaaaaaazing." The big difference is that your pretentious friend won't launch precision air strikes on your apartment or incinerate your entire city with a nuclear bomb if you don't like the new Bradley Cooper movie.

EARLY LIFE

The bastard son of several European fathers, Uncle Sam was born in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, though he would not assume his elderly anthropomorphized form until 1852. As the embodiment of the United States, Uncle Sam had a rough childhood at the hands of a domineering mother, Great Britain, an astounding dick in her own right. Sam was forced to do demeaning chores such as grow fields of wheat, corn, and tobacco and chop down miles of timber, all for his mother's benefit. This dysfunctional mother/son relationship has been celebrated in many classic films, most notably Alfred Hitchcock's, Psycho.

Like most toddlers just learning to speak, most of what came out of little Sam's mouth were dick-ish demands like "I want lower taxes" and "I want representation" and "I want all this land." If he didn't get what he wanted, Sam would throw a tantrum and do things like dump all is mother's tea in Boston Harbor or intentionally give Indian tribes blankets infested with smallpox.

After a bitter squabble lasting eight years, Uncle Sam was finally emancipated from his mother and allowed to live on his own even though he wasn't quite ready to take care of himself.

TEENAGE YEARS

As with all teenagers, Uncle Sam made some poor choices. Unfortunately, instead getting caught with beer or accidentally knocking up his girlfriend, Sam's missteps involved enslaving millions of black Africans, brutally forcing them to work on his plantations, and treating them like animals. The word "dick" doesn't even really cover it, although "bag of dicks" comes a little closer.

As Sam matured, he finally started to realize the error of his ways, but also realized that he had become accustomed to constant free labor. Much as young, horny guys often put off breaking up with their crazy girlfriends because of the hot porno-style sex, Sam just couldn't bring himself to dump his slave states, settling for abolishing slavery only in his Northern states. In keeping with the crazy girlfriend analogy, it
was only a matter of time before the Southern states freaked out and set fire to all Sam's clothes on the front lawn.

ROAD TRIP!

Bored of the Eastern seaboard, and not yet tied down by a wife or kids, Uncle Sam headed west on a road trip of North America. As he moved west, Sam ran into thousands of so-called "native" Americans, all of whom claimed he was trespassing on sacred land that had belonged to their people for hundreds of years blah blah blah. Sam responded by using his thundersticks to dickishly murder most of them, take their land for himself, and force the survivors to live on small parcels of dusty land nobody else wanted. For the hell of it, he also killed most their buffalo, turning them into burgers, boots and cool jackets .

On his westward journey, Sam collected all sorts of awesome souvenirs like Florida, Texas, California, the Louisiana Territory, and the Oregon Territory. He also laid down a bunch of railroad track so he could continue to haul more and more souvenirs back to his new home in Washington, D.C.

ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN, ON FOREVER

As predicted, Uncle Sam's issues with his crazy girlfriend eventually flared up and the Southern slave states
officially broke up with Sam in 1860. Uncle Sam refused to accept the breakup and threatened his exes with violence if they didn't come back where they belonged. Calling Sam's bluff, the South attacked at Fort Sumter in 1861, starting a 5 year domestic dispute, much like a drunken redneck couple having a trailer park fight on COPS.

Sam's brute strength and short temper proved to be too powerful for the Southern states to fend off, and after he taught them what happens when they get out of line, the couple got back together with a shotgun wedding at Appomattox Court House in 1865. At the reception, when the Southern bride was asked why she had a hundred mile-wide bruise near Atlanta, Sam dickishly glared at her and she timidly answered "I fell down the stairs."

SAM SETTLES DOWN AND TAKES A FACTORY JOB

Newly married and in need of cash, Uncle Sam decided there was more money in industrial work than there was in farming, so he got in the business of manufacturing steel beams, canned food, and those crazy old-timey phonographs you had to turn with a crank. Sam's business acumen would inspire other's for decades to come.

He invited millions of starving immigrants from other countries to come work in poor conditions for little pay. With the unwashed masses toiling away at his sweatshops, Uncle Sam experienced a never before seen period of economic growth, and like a true dick, he made sure to flaunt his newfound wealth by purchasing flashy material goods, like imported suits, large estates, Alaska and Hawaii.

MID-LIFE CRISIS I & II

Not such a young spring chicken anymore, Uncle Sam clung to his fading youth by abandoning his policy of
isolationism and joining in a World War to prove how virile he still was. After winning the war, Sam continued acting out, carousing around town every night in his Model T, listening to jazz music on the radio, and banging flappers at speakeasies.

After a brief bout of depression, Uncle Sam joined another World War in 1941, after Japan looked at him funny at a bar in Pearl Harbor. In the biggest dick move of his midlife crisis, Sam got even with Japan by dropping atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, obliterating them into a fine radioactive powder and killing over 200,000 people.

Even Sam himself had to admit that this was a pretty serious dick move.

FEUDING WITH THE NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR

With a few victories under his belt, Uncle Sam moved to the suburbs to live the American Dream with a white picket fence, two cars in the garage, and no black people to be seen for miles. The only problem Sam had was with his neighbor to the west, Russia, in whom he had met his dick match.

Ever since Uncle Sam dropped the bomb, he started acting like a total dick to all his other neighbors— carving up the world into a bunch of new countries, starting various world organizations that he unofficially controlled, talking everyone into buying all the junk he manufactured, and making everyone listen to his loud rock n' roll music. But neighbor Russia, also in possession of the bomb, wanted nothing to do with Sam's favorite export: capitalism. Russia preferred a different economic system based on waiting in long lines for items the country didn't have enough of, like food.

In a classic case of keeping up with the 'Jones-ski's', Sam and Russia each kept passive-aggressively buying more and more nuclear weapons until each was capable of destroying the other 100 times over. Rather than openly fighting each other, they instead took sides in fights that other neighbors were already having. This dick bickering ("dickering?") escalated until the 1980's when Russia ran out of money. Uncle Sam, on the other hand, celebrated his victory by snorting cocaine and having frequent casual sex at disco clubs.

EASING INTO RETIREMENT

Once AIDS showed up on the scene, Uncle Sam began to calm down with the partying. Having recently celebrated his bicentennial, Sam retired from actually manufacturing stuff, and instead began a leisurely life of consumption. He bought food, houses, cars, yachts, electronics equipment, invested in technology, and reaped the benefit of his decades in the work force.

As old people often do, Uncle Sam has also stopped caring about things. His once hardworking male children have become video game playing, iPod listening slackers who spend more of their time online than in the real world. His once pure and virtuous female children now have tattoos on their vaginas and make out with each other at parties for attention. His once top-notch entertainment industry now pumps out mindless reality programs where people pretend to fall in love with former celebrities and game shows where people eat snails and/or feces for chump change.

Enjoying his golden years, however, hasn't precluded Uncle Sam from being a dick. Even in retirement, he has still managed to start two simultaneous wars - one under false pretenses and the other fought half-assedly. And like any crotchety old dick, Uncle Sam doesn't seem like he'll ever die.

~ EJK

During its 15-year or so existence, Sin Dios (Without God) was a very well-known anarchist hardcore-punk band from Madrid, not only for its music, but also for its members' active participation in social movements and strict adherence to the "do-it-yourself" lifestyle. The band could've easily "sold out" to a mainstream record label –it was that famous– but instead, it remained "underground," successfully producing its own records and tours.

The band's drummer, Canino, whose real name is Javier Couso, is now in a place he never imagined he would ever be: he is a member of the European Parliament's Confederal Group of the European United Left. In Spain, he is a member of the Izquierda Unida (United Left) political party.

^{Canino recording drums for Sin Dios}

In the European Parliament itself, he is vice-chair (and occasional chair) of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and of the delegation for relations with Iraq. He is also a member of the Subcommittee on Security and Defense and of the delegation for relations with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

No one who knew Canino a few years ago would've ever expected him to end up working for any sort of government, much less any mainstream political parties.

This is the story of how it all happened

"I started getting involved in social movements when I was 12 years old. We would get together to liberate spaces to hold cultural events and concerts to try and transform our neighborhoods," Canino recalls. "In those times, the 1980s, soon after the death of Dictator Franco, Spain was going through a deep crisis, unemployment was very high and there were still neo-nazi groups roaming about."

Canino eventually became involved in the political hardcore-punk movement, which in Spain was linked to anarcho-syndicalism. Anarcho-syndicalism, he notes, was a huge part of Spain's history up until 1956. In fact, at one point, "two out of every three workers was a member of the anarchist syndicate, the CNT (the National Confederation of Workers)." The CNT is still active.

Active in many bands in the 1980s, Canino became best known for being the drummer of Sin Dios, with whom he played all over Europe, Latin America and even Japan.

The band, which started out in 1988 playing in squat houses, was extremely vocal about political issues. Among many other issues, Sin Dios strongly denounced Israeli aggression in the Middle East, Spain's FIES "anti-terrorist" incarceration regime and military overseas interventions by the United States.

Tragedy strikes

In April 2003, Canino's brother, Jose –a photojournalist who was covering the Iraq war for Spanish television station Telecinco–was murdered in Baghdad by the US military, which intentionally attacked the Hotel Palestine, where Jose was staying, knowing full well that it was housing international journalists.

Ukranian photojournalist Taras Protsyuk, of Reuters, was also killed in the same attack.

^{Canino's brother, Jose, while working in Iraq}

The Pentagon, while admitting it knew the hotel was a media hub prior to attacking it, claimed that the hotel was attacked in retaliation to enemy fire. It's worth noting the US military had attacked two other news stations, Abu Dhabi and Al Jazeera, that same day, despite the news organizations having provided the Pentagon with their exact locations.

To this day, Canino and his family continue the fight for the extradition of the US soldiers responsible for the murder of Jose so they may be tried for war crimes.

The murder of Jose changed Canino's life and brought him to question the movements in which he was involved with for most of his life.

"My trajectory changed radically when my brother was murdered," Canino says.

"I realized that I had been involved in movements that lacked the profoundness of the social movements of the 1930s. I realized that we were employing a misunderstood radicalism, a radicalism based on esthetics and of wanting to at the margins of society. We were trying to understand the world of the 21st century based on theories from the 19th century."

The immediate response by some in the anarchist movement was nothing short of despicable. "My brother was brought back to Spain in a Hercules, a military airplane, and his casket was covered with a Spanish flag.

All of a sudden I start getting criticized for not removing the Spanish flag. Someone even wrote an article titled "Journalists in Iraq: Imperialism's Soldiers.""

The article, which has since been removed, appeared in anarchist website La Haine. In a nutshell, it contended that journalists in Iraq, Jose included, were puppets of the US.

"My brother was not involved in the anarchist movement. To him, the Spanish flag was not a symbol of fascism, it was simply his country's flag," Canino explains.

This, coupled with the break-up of Sin Dios, prompted Canino to move on. "I began to meet councilmen who, for example, were participating in strikes against evictions, trying to make a change in a time when yet another financial crisis is causing people to be thrown out of their homes, when young people again must leave [Spain] to find work elsewhere, and I said to myself: 'something must be done. Maybe I can't be a sword, but I can be a shield to defend my society, my country, the people I love, such as my daughter, so she can have a future'."

The power to annoy those in power

In 2011, Canino joined the ranks of the Izquierda Unida party in Spain. Later on, in the European elections of 2014, he was chosen to represent the party in the European Parliament.

"When you're in the squat houses, your protests stay there, but in the European Parliament, it's incredible because you have the opportunity to hurt [those in power]. They hate hearing voices that are not in line with the discourse sold by the large media conglomerates," Canino says. "I was insulted in my very first intervention [in Parliament]. They –incorrectly– called me a 'Spanish Stalinist'," he adds with a laugh.

Although Canino is part of a minority, left-leaning group in a Parliament dominated by conservative, right wing-leaning groups, he still enjoys the power to give voice to the oppressed.

In one instance, he and his colleagues proposed investigating what had happened to the infrastructure that the European Union had financed for Palestine, but that had been destroyed by Israel. "Everyone voted against us. We only obtained 52 votes out of a total of 751."

But despite being an underdog, Canino aims to use his position to defend human rights based on international law, not on how those rights may be defined by the US and its political allies. "To the US, human rights are an issue in Venezuela, but not in Saudi Arabia and I just don't buy that," he says.

He illustrates this with the case of Venezuelan right-wing opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who in September was sentenced to 14 years in prison by a judge friendly to the Socialist government. He was accused of leading anti-government protests that turned deadly.

"Leopoldo Lopez was involved in the 2002 coup d'etat [against Hugo Chavez]. He was a governor and he assaulted the Cuban embassy in Caracas. Still, Chavez pardoned him in 2007. The media does not mention this," Canino says. "Later, when Nicolas Maduro wins the elections by a small margin, Lopez doesn't accept the legitimacy of the results. He called for violent protests to force Maduro to step down. These actions ended up causing 43 deaths. So now he has been jailed, but he is not a political prisoner, he is an imprisoned politician."

US-based non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, siding with the opinion of the US government, has criticized the imprisonment of Lopez, calling it "a travesty of justice."

(In December's elections, the opposition won a majority of seats in the National Assembly, ending nearly 20 years of Socialist dominance. While Nicolas Maduro will stay in power, he does face the risk of being ousted by the new Assembly. The new Assembly has vowed to free Lopez.)

Meanwhile, Canino notes, two years ago, a woman in Saudi Arabia was accused of witchcraft and decapitated and nothing has been done. "So I must insist: 'Do human rights count for everyone?'"

In October, Canino was at it again. He came to New York City to demand that the United Nations follow up on its promise to assist in the decolonization of Western Sahara and to denounce the repression happening there against a populace that is fighting for independence from Morocco.

^{Canino meets with Sahrawi delegates Edih Noucha and Momma Dah, in the European Parliament.}

Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, is currently ruled by Morocco, its neighbor to the north. Although the United Nations have promised to help it achieve independence as part of its declaration of decolonization of 1960, Western Sahara is the last remaining territory yet to be decolonized in Africa.

"Nothing is ever said about what is happening in Western Sahara. Sahrawis are being tortured and killed for demanding independence. The repression they are suffering is terrible," Canino explains.

He also notes that Spain should be able to help in the decolonization process, but that it doesn't because it may be counterproductive to its commercial relations with Morocco. "Morocco is a very important trade partner of Spain. Also, when Spain and Morocco have a disagreement, Morocco tends to resort to using migratory pressure [allowing more people to migrate illegally to Spain]. It is a very tense relationship between the two countries. And the fact that Morocco is an ally of the US doesn't help either," he says.

You can't please everyone

There were some people who had negative, even insensitive reactions against Canino when they learned he was joining the European Parliament, just like they did after his brother's body arrived in a casket covered by the Spanish flag. One anarchist blogger wrote an entire post pointing out the contradictions between what Sin Dios said in its songs and what Canino's new job entails. The blogger, basically, cried that Canino had betrayed his trust and admiration by taking a cushy government job.

But others in the global anarchist/hardcore punk movement, rather than judge him, recognize that his new position does, in fact, allow him to be more effective in fighting economic and social injustices. It can't hurt to have an ally in power. After all, those who have known Canino for many years know he has been a steadfast defender of human rights. And that he still is.

Douglas Hughes, whom IFZ has immortalized in word and song as, "Superhero Autogyro," responds to an inquiry about his latest court appearance.

Doug Hughes is the pilot who flew his gyrocopter into Washington, D.C. and landed on the lawn of the Capitol Building. As a USP employee, Doug was merely making a mail delivery of 535 letters to each of our national congress people, urging them to take action against to the out-of-hand amounts of secretive money that stains our electoral system. He is still paying the price for his very highly-skilled effrontery.

Following is Doug Hughes verbatim response to IFZ's inquiry regarding his latest court appearance:

"...will return to DC for sentencing on April 13. That's an unusually long time from a plea to sentencing but with the holidays and the complexities of arguments (we argue for probation, not jail) the judge allowed.

A request is under consideration for the judge to allow me to participate in a march from Philadelphia to DC - April 2 to 11.

Even if I can't participate, there will be thousands of demonstrators on the subject of money in politics in DC on the mall in the week of my sentencing. Awesome!"

To participate in the action to end the corruption of big money in politics and ensure free and fair elections Click HERE

There are simple things in a place that mark the difference. I live in a country which has a government with a very low level in performance, due to the lack of key elements, such as values toward the society, which affects the rest. This scenario makes everything look cumbersome.

Currently, we are living the frikiest time of our political history, affecting the rest of aspects in the country: social, economics, etc. We don’t understand why we haven’t been able to set ourselves free from this situation after 16 years, and the only conclusion that I can come up with is there are foreign elements who/which don’t want us free. Who or which are those factors?

In recent years, we have observed and learned that International Organizations, such as OAS or UN, act as private clubs of governments, and don’t represent or take care of their peoples’ needs at all. It’s unbelievable to see that they don’t or can’t do anything to protect the lives of people under evident mistreating from a particular government. Instead of correcting the government behavior, punishment by the government goes straight to people.

To solve this kind of things, we have to learn that people need to know how to provide their needs by themselves, respect themselves and make a government respect them. This requires a permanent investment in education in all levels. If a society, or in a unit scale: an individual, pursues a better level of life and conditions through the interaction with other cultures and understands the importance of key values, everything good is achievable. And this principle holds from simple things to complex projects. For example, I have proved it to/by myself, in a simple process like getting a driver’s license.

First, I needed a lesson in a key value: respect. I learned how to drive a car in US, going from scratch, getting driving lessons, taking the theory-practical driving test, passing it, obtaining my California driver’s license and continuing the cultural interaction and getting familiar with that web of rules that everyone in general respects there. That way of being pays off: if one respects, the same will return to us.

So, when I returned to my home country, I decided to obtain the corresponding driver’s license, after going through the above-mentioned process of taking a driving test and so on, as I did in US. But I observed that this way of doing things is the less practiced in Venezuela. Why? Because there is a lack of basic values in this part of the world: the public institutions are extremely slow (I suppose it is the same everywhere but here is the worst), a lot of paperwork to complete things, transportation system is not well-designed, each and all of these elements consumes a lot of time. The consequence: everybody turns impatient, wants everything at the moment, and decides to pay third parties to have things done. And this has happened since a long while ago, which has obscured simple processes like obtaining a basic personal document.

What did I do? Since there is an evident absence of respect in every instance in the public institutions, I took the long way, to do every step and prove to myself I can make my goal, following the lesson accomplished in US. I could observe the behavior of the various elements participating in the process, and at some moments they tried to convince me, tacitly, to return the fast way. But I hung in there despite those attempts and proceeded as I planned. The result: I made it, and it was thanks to the guiding model I saw and cultivated overseas.

In conclusion, cases like these are fundamental for each individual to live and understand about the impact of practicing values toward himself/herself and toward his/her surroundings.