SCAT & E-PISTLES

-Archived writings of the Midnight Dread-


2012 SCAT:
DREAD TO THE TRIBUNE: PUBLIC SECTOR DIMINISHED
(It's hard to get several under or never-reported worthwhile concepts into the required maximum 250 words but I try!)

To: Tribune Letters To The Editor
Subject: Post Office Shortfall
Printed: 3/8/12

The United States Post Office is in our Constitution. Our highway system was built around it. It was created to facilitate literacy, communication, commerce and community. It should be fast and affordable so the rest of us profit. Itıs a Public Service that must be rethought not reduced. (See savethepostoffice.com for more.)

Capitalism requires a strong Public Sector to function properly. Dollars may distort motives; service is more altruistic. They both do best when their dissimilar worlds work together for their special goals.

The Post Officeıs shortfall mostly results from a burdensome 2006 law mandating it pre-fund its pension and retiree health benefits for 75 years. No other government agency or private company has to do that. Itıs not the only place in the diminished Public Sector to suffer such distortion.

Its 1970s privatization began a calculated drive to recast crucial Public Services as self-interested entities. Such shenanigans infect our once enshrined Commons, where a fair economy gets its civility. Our government exists to establish justice, promote the general welfare of all and defend the nation. Government operates differently from families and businesses. Post Office chiefs earn twice what our President does. Yet they promote austerity and timidity like quarterly obsessed CEOs instead of acting as public servants that spark growth by expanding services. Rural areas drive long distances for many things their local P.O. could offer.

Wall Street oil speculators boosted most recent gas price increases. Oil companies receive over 4 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Close loopholes - not Post Offices.

Sincerely,

  Doug Wendt
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, February 29th, 2012


2011 SCAT:
Disappointing Smart People (excerpts)
To: CBS' Bob Schieffer
Subject: Defacing The Nation
Sent: 1/9/11

Smart folks on Face The Nation today had little clue what really brought us here post-Giffords' attempted assassination. I wish anyone on your program had addressed a glimmer of what's really going on. The shift away from public/private balance began with the Post Office, an original public service turned profit center (not!)...

Later Reagan voiced "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." accompanied by sketchy voodoo economic thinking that claimed deficits don't matter and lower taxes magically work by taking the governor off runaway greed. Demonizing public service, sectors, utilities and government by the people is the new common sense...

RE: Socialism. Being sociable is still acceptable isn't it? How about sociopathic Ayn Rand followers like Justice Thomas? If you are found anti-social you got real problems if not jail time. Common folks seem more in touch. Who feels it knows it.

Doug Wendt


2007 SCATS:
DREAD TO THE TRIBUNE: BOOZE DROOLS

To: Tribune Letters To The Editor
Subject: Toxic Planning
Printed: 5/20/07

Nineteen idiots with box cutters spooked our country into overreactions of epic proportions because businessmen refused to re-enforce cockpit doors as recommended in the 1970s.

The Montana legislature goes into overtime to get job one done while Great Falls' growth stagnates for thirty years with a misnamed developmental agency rowing in circles. What's behind all this infectious impairment? Could it be a common substance?

Montana doesn't have a meth problem anywhere near as bad as society's acceptance of alcohol, a proven poison and depressant that affects judgment for days at a time, even from a few ounces. Call it L.U.I. (Living Under the Influence). It helps explain a lot of misguided and mean-spirited behavior.

Our representatives must pledge to stay off booze while they are doing the peoples' business before we vote for them.

They should be tested just like working folks. Firewater is stunting our culture and potential. Peer pressure should reduce its use like what's happened to tobacco. Stop drinking and start thinking.

Read Richard Florida's CREATIVE CLASS books to see how to really spark sustainable development. Read Edwin Black's INTERNAL COMBUSTION to learn why we get filthy coal plants instead of easily attainable decentralized clean energy sources so vital to our nation's security and independence.

Thomas Jefferson said that "liberty has nothing to do with religion or money" so why do they seem to be driving everything? Study the fall of Rome to see how blurring the line between the public and the private dooms civilization.

Sincerely,

Doug Wendt
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, May 17th, 2007

DREAD TO THE TRIBUNE: CRAPITALISM FAILS I & I
To: Tribune Letters To The Editor
Subject: Take Responsibility
Printed: 2/11/07

It's time that the party that claims to be for personal responsibility finally took some.

The way out of this time of malfeasance and cronyism is to find out what happened, whether with Katrina, Cheney's secret energy plans or Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive attack.

The Libby trial reveals the President's office leaked the name of a covert CIA agent in charge of monitoring nuclear proliferation in the Mideast, an actual threat to national security. These treasonous activities also destroyed the works of the cover company, Brewster & Jennings. That's why the CIA asked for the investigation.

For months a majority of Americans have supported impeachment at a rate over twice as much as they ever did for Clinton. When those responsible are held accountable the U.S. will get its integrity and international support/reputation restored and find the only honorable way to leave Iraq.

The facts surrounding Cheney's energy manipulations will also help us find out why archaic ideas like the Highwood Coal Plant get going while Apollo-like projects to free ourselves of destructive energy sources and Mideast politics get no traction.

While many game the system, the majority flounder in jobs that don't pay enough to cover the expenses of what it costs to properly present themselves at work.

Better to call it 'crapitalism' when few profit while the rest need credit to break even. Between its environmental degradation and human devolution, this economic era is more like suicide than liberty, a concept we understood better when civics was mandatory.

Sincerely,

Doug Wendt
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, February 11th, 2007


2006 SCATS:
DREAD TO THE TRIBUNE: ELITISTS LIE
To: Tribune Letters To The Editor
Subject: Save The U.S.A.
Printed: 11/2/06

Elitists of unprecedented power are ruining our country. They use disingenuous techniques first acknowledged in the book HIDDEN PERSUADERS to distort the truth. They keep control through public relations but do not serve the public. They promote privatization (selfishness) and deregulation (lawlessness).

The elitists seek permanent bases in Iraq, more terrorists. The public wants temporary bases. The elite favor low wages, reduced freedom, and insert the government in personal affairs. Their opposition promotes higher pay, increased freedom and keeping the state out of private lives. The rulers avoid oversight, love secrecy. The freedom-lovers respect rule of law, openness. The elitists keep everything to themselves. Most folks want to be their brothers' keeper.

The elite use tax relief to relieve themselves of their duties as citizens while shielding private corporations from personal responsibility. They put party loyalty before both competence and country.

This election it's authoritarian conversation-stoppers versus tolerant individualists. Allowing corrupt power-drunk elitists more years of control, after they've abolished habeus corpus and ginned our voting machines, is unacceptable. The way out of this adman-created mess is to forget the sizzle and concentrate on the steak.

For instance, Senator Burns changed his vote on working conditions in the Marianas Islands after receiving $5,000 from lobbyist Abramoff. BURNS' BOUGHT VOTE KEPT FORCED ABORTIONS LEGAL. Thatıs how money distorts politics.

Resist phony slogans from snake oil salesmen. Return us to an era of checks and balances. Vote American, vote ethics, vote morality, vote consciousness, vote dignity, vote Democratic. Save the U.S.A.

Sincerely,

Doug Wendt
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, October 27th, 2006


DREAD TO THE TRIBUNE: REASONS TO IMPEACH
To: Tribune Letters To The Editor
Subject: Gross Misconduct
Printed: 2/10/06

Impeach President Bush? Why?

His administration planted false stories in the press that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction then used those same stories as independent proof the weapons existed. He chose to rush an invasion of a country that did not attack us while Bin Laden remains at large for nearly 1,600 days.

His other illegal innovations include outing a CIA WMD unit, immoral torture, kidnapping, indefinite detention without charges, representation or notification of next of kin. He smears his critics, awards sycophants, appoints ill prepared cronies, ignores Congress and skirts the courts.

To buy votes in 2004 Bush broke new ground when he gave $2 billion to favored churches. His re-selection featured hackable computer balloting boxes with 'winners' serving as referees. He said several times that wiretaps on Americans were being done with warrants.

He selected Judge Alito and his bizarre unilateral theory of executive power in order to endorse these unconstitutional activities.

Our President's blend of authoritarianism, official secrecy and incompetence is self intoxicating. His ineptitude makes us vulnerable.

Impeaching Bush will show the world how democracy works and restore our integrity.

Congress needs to give us an actual 'up or down vote' on any future war.

Congress must stop abdicating its oversight role. As Al Gore said in his must-read speech on Jan. 16, Bush has become "the central threat that the Founders sought to nullify in the Constitution - an all-powerful executive too reminiscent of the King from whom they had broken free."

Sincerely,

Doug Wendt
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, January 26th, 2006


2005 SCATS:
DREAD TO THE PREZ: SET A PROPER EXAMPLE
To: president@whitehouse.gov
Subject: Please bring us together & set an example for our youth
Date: 10/26/05

Dear Mr. President,

Your administration planted stories in the press and then pointed to those sources as independent confirmation of their own opinion. This incestuous scam spooked the Congress and country to rush into your war of choice. Forged and false documents sold your invasion of Iraq. These are not moral or ethically pardonable offenses unless you think our troops should die in vain. Please do not pardon anyone who has worked or is currently working in your Administration as directed by Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution.

Why didn't you call your staff into your office 28 months ago and clear all this up? You would have saved yourself and the nation a lot of needless consternation and expense if you had. You promised higher standards than the Clinton era. You said in 1999 that you would have voted for the impeachment of President Clinton if you could, since perjury and obstruction of justice were that serious. If you flip flop on this your trustworthiness may totally evaporate.

Please form the coalition government you should have ethically given us in 2001 when the election was basically a toss-up. It's the common sense way to bring the country together. Now's the time to follow through on your promise to unify, not divide us, as your policies have sadly done until now. Your party killed the "fairness doctrine", then consolidated media, and America's been in a crescendo of polarization ever since. It's up to you to permanently reverse this disturbing trend and bring us together.

For months you have allowed your staff to misinform and spin the American people in connection with this hideous matter without ever disciplining one person. That is a horrible example to set for our youth. No one has ever been held accountable for lapses in preparation and judgement from 9/11 to Katrina. Scott McClellan, your press secretary, assured the American people that neither Mr. Rove nor I. Lewis Libby were involved in the C.I.A. leak and that they told him so. The opposite is now true. In my household that is called a lie. I wouldn't let my teenagers get away with such deceit but now they can say "the White House does this all the time".

Mr. Bush, this is not some dalliance with an intern or 'the criminalization of politics', this is a politicizing of criminality that also poisons the morality of the young. Mr. McClellan. Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby remain undisciplined for their statements. Today Vice President Cheney was named as being involved in this unnecessary outing of an expert on weapons of mass destruction. Our country is less secure because of it. One could conclude that your low ethical standards foreshadow actions by you in the future that will again teach our children that anyone can evade accountability, even when they breach national security.

Outing an intelligence operative is one of the most serious offenses under law since it jeopardizes other operatives and intelligence assets. The offense is far worse when done during a time of war for purposes of a political vendetta. That is why, during the drafting of our Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote, the "power of pardoning in the President has . . . been only contested in relations to the crime of treason."

You must agree with Mr. Hamilton that there is no justification for using pardon powers to protect those who would commit such acts of disloyalty against our country. Please set the right example for our children. Thank-you.

Sincerely,

Doug Wendt
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, October 26th, 2005



WHO LET THE DOGMA IN?
Click here for the full version of this article with its own songtrack.
Come we go reason now.
Marley and The Wailers often use lines from the Bible in their songs to stunning effect. Yet a strong strain of radical resistance to organized religion runs through all The Wailers' works. The real lyrics to "Get Up Stand Up", for instance, have never been printed correctly in any of the liner notes accompanying the many releases of their landmark 1973 album on which the song made its debut. Do most people actually absorb exactly what they are being prodded to get and stand up for?
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, April 4th, 2005
Click here to read the rest of this article and to listen to its songtrack.




SMiLE JAMAiCA (IN HONOR OF BOB's 60th)
SEEING MISTER MARLEY LIVE...

starting in my life-altering moment at The Matrix on Broadway in San Francisco, 1973, just after Bob, Peter Tosh, Joe Higgs, The Barrett Bros, Wire etc. got dumped off the Sly Stone tour for, ahem, stealing the show. I had just seen THE HARDER THEY COME film earlier that same week, then saw a notice in paper about some Jamaican 'raggae' group playing that night (October 30th). I figured these guys (The Wailers) must have been in the movie (I was knocked out most by Toots & The Maytals) and went to the small venue show. The curtain opens and there stand several men I have never seen or know nothing about who proceed to play selections mostly from CATCH A FIRE and BURNIN'. I can only compare the moment to seeing SMiLE live last summer (at least I was somewhat prepared for that). The very next day (after being ambushed by Bob, Peter, Joe & crew the night before in '73) I put all my rock records in a trunk in the attic and went out to Tower Records and bought Bob & Wailers' BURNIN', THE HARDER THEY COME soundtrack and a couple cheesey cover Trojan Records reggae compilations. Controlled Wailers' CATCH A FIRE the following day. There was no turning back for me (except for Brian Wilson & The Boys, Devo, Dylan, Leonard Cohen, a few others and world music, I missed most 1970's, 1980's rock/pop). Then I saw Bob at The Boarding House in S.F. twice (1975), at The Paramount in Oakland (1976) and then at The Greek Theatre in Berkeley with Little Anthony & The Imperials (July 21st, 1978), if you can imagine that. This was the Greek show where Bob came back in street clothes for an unprecedented third encore having jumped out of his limo as it was pulling away from the curb and Marley ran back on stage for, what seems now like, a twenty minute never-repeated version of "Punky Reggae Party". The jammin', the clashin' were there in abundance. Pure ecstasy, pure epiphany inna Berkeley. Finally, I also stood outside and heard Bob's sound check for his last ever San Francisco Bay Area show at Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland in 1979 (where Keith Richards very tastefully barely tickled his guitar in reverance for most of the show!) Check my website's re-materialized Peter Tosh interview & Bob / Wailers, and additional world material. Those who saw The Man Marley in The Trance are forever gratefully, dreadfully hypnotized. We are bathed indelibly in reggae, a back beat music that is swamped in history & destiny for all-time, just like other works, that once you feel them, you can never get out of your blood. So also is Brian Wilson's amazingly deep legacy (see my SMiLE tribute at bottom this page). Dive In and Go Deh!
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, February 6th, 2005



NATIVE SON EXPLODING: American Indians call January 'the Moon of the Exploded Trees' meaning trees up north actually make loud cracking pops as their bark blows asunder in severe cold, usually about 4am. It's wild. The trees survive.



AUTUMN 2004 GUIDE TO SCAT VOTE:
On November 5th we were told the crucial 'Moral' issues won the struggle for the hearts of the heartland's massives. My response follows. No retreat, just my scat on the street.

The separation of church and state was considered by our founders as one of the cornerstones of our democracy. It's freedom of and from religion that matters and it makes us different. That, and our unique, embedded 'pursuit of happiness'. Politics and religion don't mix well. Who would Jesus bomb? Would he support dropping huge munitions from thousands of feet in the air hoping they 'find' the right guys? How did that ever become a 'manly' thing to do?

Apparently as long as you state you are against abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research you can get away with anything.

CEOs now get 350-500 times the salary of their lowest paid workers, not the 20-30 times that was usual when we were kids. Public utilities and services have been privatized and deregulated in order to enrich the few at the expense of the many. (The deregulation of radio and the end of the 'fairness doctorine' allows the public owned media to run rampant with falsehoods and false equivocations that are rarely challenged, something I know a lot about.) We read yesterday where dam owners will soon control water resources thanks to sneaky back-door Republican tactics.

I could list another 100 things that the current administration has helped perpetuate that are harmful to democracy and our children. They defend insurance companies that cherry-pick & traffic in fear and paranoia. They allow hospitals to charge poor people ten times what those with insurance get billed. They think corporations, that have rights like a person but no individual responsibility, know best. They got rid of overtime. Plus a lot of what 'BushCo' has been up to has been slyly hidden as they game the system through back-door methods designed to stay off the radar. If he is re-elected we will enter a new Watergate-like era where all this rampant corruption will be revealed, undercutting his administration at tremendous cost & damage to our country.

Check history and consider voting for your best interests instead of just for the hot-button issues that the hypocritic Republicans have figured out how to push so effectively. Under Democrats the economy booms, we win the wars Republicans started, and we spread freedom by example, not by force. Under Bush all we mainly get is 'bully and gouge'. No time off, no vacations, no savings, no healthcare, and no regulation of the harmful effects of runaway capitalism where corporations are incorporated to act like the definition of a 'pyschotic mental illness' where all that matters is self-interest, i.e. profit always above ethics, morality, and religion.

It is best that George just go back to Crawford and we forgive him. Especially since abortions are way up for the first time in over ten years under his four-year reign. That's part of the undesirable effects you get when more and more people can't earn a living wage. Nobody is for abortion. Nobody wants to take away anyone's guns. Nobody wants high taxes. Don't get us started on Iraq!

Anyway, don't feel bad if Kerry wins next week. In a world at risk of religious extremism we need to restore our secular, open society to be truly safe and an example to the world. We live in a liberal democracy, raised with a liberal education, while looking for liberal servings whenever hungry, liberal odds when making any kind of gamble. 'Conservative' connotates to hoard, 'liberal' connotates to share. We're with those who share.

We believe God's intent/design is often best revealed through science and art, both areas this current administration seems to actively disdain. Be careful, as evil is really tricky and may disguise itself as pro-life, anti-gay and against scientific progress using those wedge issues to take us straight down the plughole.

Love & Mercy,
- MIDNIGHT DREAD, October 20th, 2004



OCTOBER 2003 SCAT:
Greetings,

I spent 4 glorious days in Glacier Park communing with reality last Autumn (2003). While there I had the thought that capital-ism needed to be changed to lower-case-ism. I began to think of BushCo as some sort of ultimate reality tv show, completely unreal and constructed, where the 'Fear Factor' makes us all eat worms to stay in the game.

I turned on the AM radio at 4am in my van in the Many Glacier campground where one of my best friend's sisters had been in 1967, the infamous 'Night of The Grizzly', when campers in 3 widely separated areas of the park were viciously attacked, 2 killed, despite years of no fatalities ever in the park. (My pal Robert's sister Ellen was in a tent with her best friend when the bear dragged her buddy up the hill and ate her alive over several tortuous hours while bystanders were paralyzed into inaction.)

(I saw a huge Grizzly scat on the asphalt earlier during my recent visit in a closed area of the St. Mary campground. It was tremendous in size and filled with half-digested huckleberries that when combined with the bear's acidic fluids seemed to be oozing beyond its main bulk as if it was some sort of natural 'Blob' designed to breakdown concrete. It was doing a good job.)

I scanned thru dozens of AM stations, mostly filled with right-wing hate radio, like Michael Savage, Lars Larson and their numerous cohorts in confusion. A couple times I picked up CBC Radio One stations out of Canada featuring all-night news of the world with huge blocks of time devoted to African News, Australian News, German News, and so forth. Media that existed to inform and broaden minds. Something even NPR and CBS fail to muster in these darkened days.

All of a sudden the scanner hit on Paul McCartney's "Freedom" song. I don't know if you saw his special on A&E recently about his concert in Red Square but it was filled with astounding proof that The Beatles were the prime movers in undermining the Soviet Union. Not bombs, not coercion, not Ronnie, not Gorby, not Berlin, not Afghanistan, not a million other assumptions. This is what we all intuitively suspected. Art and culture always trump politics and power. But artists are rarely consulted, lobbied for or have their visionary qualities applied to progress except in round-about ways. But their art seeps thru like Grizzly squat, applying a thick layer of reality over the amalgamated illusion of permanence.

But then I was rudely removed from my reverie as the song was replaced by the booming voice of Lars Larson lamenting that poverty was NOT on the rise and why. I was unaware of the latest report that poverty was up, income down but I figured something had provoked Lars' ranting. I was very offended by this juxtaposition of truth and lies, using an ex-Beatles' heartfelt paen to freedom to forward what Arundhati Roy has pointed out as
"among the myriad freedoms claimed by the U.S. government are the freedom to murder, annihilate, and dominate other people. The freedom to finance and sponsor despots and dictators across the world. The freedom to train, arm, and shelter terrorists. The freedom to topple democratically elected governments. The freedom to amass and use weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, and nuclear. The freedom to go to war against any country whose government it disagrees with. And, most terrible of all, the freedom to commit these crimes against humanity in the name of "justice", in the name of "righteousness", in the name of "freedom"..."

Here's what I just sent Mr. Lars Larson thru his website to which I got the form reply "You could be right." (Kind of reminded me of an old DJ trick. When someone makes a lame request you always say "Great idea! I'll see if I have it and try to work it into the mix." It's cordial, it's positive, it's a lie.

Mr. Larson,
How dare you use Paul McCartney's "Freedom" as theme music the week it was revealed that the real freedom The Beatles represented brought down communism from within more than most any other factor. The freedom you represent is basically the freedom to gouge and bully. Your take that poverty is not on the rise is contradicted by the families who work three to five jobs, still don't break even, have no health care, no savings, no vacation or any time off, while their kids are lured into the military by the promise of college and when still at home, no parents are there after school to supervise. What country do you live in? Not one with any balance in the media, that's for sure.
Sincerely,
Doug Wendt

Is anyone tired of being eaten alive by Babylon? Are we dead yet or are we bystanders paralyzed into inaction?
Forward ever,
Doug