The Morning My Travel Buddy Had an Emotional Breakdown

We got on a train in Munich with plans of going to Berlin, but during a transfer in Mannheim I realized that I was in a city I didn't even know existed, and thus should explore. Sure, we lost money on the ticket to Berlin and the hostel that was already booked there, but I convinced my travel buddy that hostels and beds were overrated; "We're just going with the flow, bro," I told him. 

And so we left our bags in the lockers in the train station and set out drinking in the city of Mannheim. You can drink on the streets of Germany, so to my buddy and I it was like we were back in Korea, during the alcoholic prime of our youth, fighting an everyday existential war against our livers. But it was the case that I had been in Andalucia the Unsober preparing for our trip to Germany, while my buddy languished in New Jersey trying to save money and obeying strict drinking laws.

I don't remember whether we were in Munich for five or for fifteen days, and the reality is that I have decided not to write in detail about Munich as of yet because of concerns about the statute of limitations of certain incidents and lawsuits that may or may not surround these incidents, but it's clear from financial data that we were consuming on average 20 liters of beer per day. During the course of those dozens of liters, I saved my buddy from getting stabbed in the forehead by an irate Afghan veteran, and during another incident took a blow to the jaw that was probably aimed at him, and which eventually succeeded.

So, besides receiving two blood-inducing blows to the jaw and almost getting stabbed, we had a relatively incident-free Oktoberfest: I didn't even protest. However, my buddy decided to protest in Mannheim over what I consider to be a much more timid incident.

So, it was Monday at 2am and we had been drinking and walking around Mannheim. I still haven't bothered to Wikipedia the city, but it looked post-industrial and like the whole thing was under construction. So, my buddy wanted to be in Berlin but I was happy to be drinking in the streets of a strange city. Eventually we asked for directions to a packed bar and managed to get into the groove quite well. 

I think the bar was called "El Diablo" and that immediately made it sound like the kinda place where we'd want to go drinking. Yea, so we were there a few hours and socializing with the locals while my friend was hitting up a German chick. Eventually she says something about Americans not speaking languages, and then I got into an argument about how I was American and could speak more than one language. I'm generally the most rabid anti-American writer that I know, but for some reason Mannheim turned me into a flag-waving CIA fan.

So, it was closing time in the bar and I was pissed to the second power in both Irish and America when we exit the bar and the German girl gives my travel buddy her name and number in a piece of paper. However, her anti-American radicalism made her inadequate in my eyes, so I grabbed the paper, ripped it up into tiny pieces, threw it on the ground, stomped on it, and then spit on it. My buddy and the German girl just looked at me in disbelief. Somehow, as she and her friends were walking away, she still managed to say: "do you want to join us in the next bar?" but I immediately replied to her: "why the fuck would we want to hang out with  people like you!?"

So, yea, it was 4am and she knew what other spot was happening that night, but I convinced my friend that we could just walk around and find something, eventually ending up in a liquor store near a bridge after wandering around drunk for hours, buying cheap booze. We had left our bags in the lockers and hadn't bothered to book hotels, so while stumbling across the bridge, I suggested a nap. I used my buddy's leg as a pillow, and after about an hour or two he starts moving his leg up and down, complaining that it had fallen asleep. By that point the nap had helped some of the booze wear off, and I just wanted to sleep, so naturally I was extremely agitated that he was moving his leg, and thus waking me up.

So, as the sun was rising and we were getting up from the bridge, I grabbed a bottle of booze that was lying nearby and still had some stale juice, and offered it to my buddy. I thought he would be happy about the adventure we had in a strange city, but he started shouting: "I didn't work this fucking hard to sleep under a bridge! I didn't work this fucking hard to sleep under a bridge!"

He started hyperventilating and pacing around erratically, but I eventually managed to calm him down and convinced him to stay in Mannheim another day. The next day things would repeat themselves, and I would lead him to sleep in a underground alley, before making our way to some cardboard boxes near the train station.

The Twisted Logic of the Law

As I wrote in my article  -- "Gunpowder of Mass Destruction" -- on the 16th of April, the US government planned to classify gunpowder as a WMD in certain capacities. 6 days later, a patsy from Chenya who conveniently is now mute was charged with: "conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in the United States resulting in death." As with all things in the Eric Holder justice department, one should consider carefully the nuances of the law and what the intended legal precedent is desired. And indeed, the precedent desired here is that gunpowder over a certain limit qualify as a WMD.

So, did the Tsarnaev brothers actually use a WMD? The government doesn't have to prove nor allege that. The government simply has to prove that the result was death, and once that falls into place there is proof of conspiracy to use something, making it nearly impossible for a judge to rule that there was not a conspiracy to use X resulting in death. Once the government wins the case against Tsarnaev -- which they have to -- they call tell a future judge that X amount of gunpowder was previously used to convict someone of using a WMD. And that, my friends, is the twisted logic of the law. It is not by accident, it is by design. I saw it coming a week before they handed it down.

Here is what else I see coming: the Senate will pass the amnesty law for immigrants in the US. But of course, as with all bills involving thousands of pages, there is legislation hidden in the footprints that erodes civil liberties. The passing of the bill in the Senate will be massively opposed because immigration is controversial, but the real reason for which every single American should be concerned about the bill is because it will turn the US into a veritable surveillance state. 

The Senate immigration bill calls for 100% surveillance of the borders, as well as plans for a national biometric identification system that can be used to verify the identity of any person in the United States. Furthermore, the Senate bill includes plans for tracking the exit of persons from the US. Now, this may sound good, but if you remember one of my previous articles, the Obama definition of the word border is not what you'd expect. The border of the United States extends 100 miles inland, enveloping the entire state of New Jersey and making the vast majority of Americans into "border residents." 

Now, what I'm not certain of is how the bill will do in the House, but I believe that the fact that the House is currently living a veritable Nixonian dystopia means that the bill may encounter opposition. Obama has no intentions of resigning in the event that the House impeaches him, and opposition to the immigration bill will be used by Obama's supporters to highlight racism. America is an interesting country indeed: Obama allowed 4 Americans to die in Benghazi and his defense will simply be alleging that it is a conspiracy against Hispanics, and many will believe him, because they also have no choice and it is in their best interest.

Then along comes one little fly with too much gunpowder and bang*, a nation-wide crackdown is initiated on anyone who has stockpiled ammunition. Again, this is not a fringe scenario, this is playing out right now... in reality, and Federal military commanders will be around to make sure that everyone complies. They won't even have to get authorization from the President if he's busy with Michelle, they will simply quell the "civil unrest" at their discretion. 

Federal Military Commanders: Overlords of Tomorrow

Well, it seems that the Pentagon is at it again: trying to give itself the power to patrol the streets of America without oversight from Congress. In America there used to be something called the Posse Comitatus act of 1878, which prevented the military from conducting police activities. It is the case that this separation of power has been under attack in the United States for quite some time.

Back in 2007, when I was a junior at Yale, Congress passed the John Warner National Defense Authorization act, eviscerating the PC act of 1878. Not many people at Yale read news of real significance, since they are mostly too concerned about the latest local incident offending someone's emotions or racial sensitivities, so it was quite a shock when I submitted an article to the Yale Daily News praising the legislation. 

The article was titled: "Making US a police state would lower health care, prevent national disaster." As with all good satire, it was published under a pseudonym: José Abrego. I chose Abrego since it is close enough to Abreu to throw off people trying to find me in the Yale facebook, and indeed the mystery surrounding who wrote the article, and how right-wing it was, terrified the poor Yalies. The article gave me a lot of play in the Yale Political Union, and I'm almost certain that I contributed to the swift repeal of the John Warner act a few months later. 

The Rumpus, the Yale tabloid which keeps the population in check, didn't criticize me in its pages for the article. Instead, they criticized the editor -- Mangino -- referring to him as "Mangina." They simply accused me of trying to profit from the national attention, but I don't see anything wrong with that.

However, I don't think that in 2013 there will be controversial and offensive satire that will make people realize how dangerous some legislation can be if taken to its probably intended extreme. The Department of Defense has now claimed that "Federal Military Commanders" -- whatever that means -- can quell civil unrest if the president cannot be reached. The DoD memo effectively sets the stage for a military coup in the United States, for the Pentagon can now "legally" deploy force in the United States without oversight from Congress or the President.

If this doesn't alarm you, then you haven't also been paying attention to the recent debate surrounding the AUMF, the act passed after 9/11 giving the United States president the power to go to war with whoever attacked us that day. In a recent congressional hearing, the Pentagon claimed that the AUMF gives it the power to fight anywhere in the world, without permission from Congress. "The war is from Boston to the FATA [Pakistan.]" 

And we should pay close attention to the DoD memo in conjunction with Pentagon interpretation of the AUMF as giving it power in Boston; the Pentagon is essentially telling the American people that they are at war in the United States. Senator Lindsey Graham made it clear: "The Homeland is the battlefield."

Everything that has happened this month has made it clear to me: the United States government expects war with its own citizens, within its own borders. 

Whispers of a Coup

Could Obama be impeached by the House? The possibility grows more likely every day. If you haven't been keeping up with news reports on investigations into the Benghazi crisis, what you basically need to know is that the Obama administration went through considerable lenghts to obfuscate the facts surrounding the attack in Benghazi. If I were going around alleging about the Obama administration what some members of the House are alleging, I would be labeled a conspiracy theorist. And indeed, some members of the House are claiming that Obama and Hillary Clinton conspired to mislead the public.

The zeal and confidence with which House Republicans have investigated the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi signals that they have enough evidence to lead motions against the sitting president. Although they will likely succeed, impeachment will not pass the Senate -- as 67 votes are needed. Though Johnson and Clinton were both impeached by the House, and with no ensuing social unrest, America of 2013 may be different.

My friend in DHS tells me that impeachment in the House and an ensuing wave of economic uncertainty creating breeding grounds for dangerous conspiracy theorizing are the main reasons for the continuing armaments buildup by the Department of Homeland Security. My source says they fear that initiating impeachment proceedings for Benghazi will open a Pandora's box of dangerous conspiracies. There is already heavy monitoring of current and former soldiers. By all accounts, the level of monitoring is increasing. It is increasing because many former military officials often find themselves at odds with the current administration.

It is one thing for citizens to believe conspiracies, and it can be dangerous, but it is far more dangerous when elected politicians and soldiers espouse conspiracies. Though most Americans are completely ignorant of the fact, there are thousands and thousands of armed, well-trained killers with years of experience who believe that their own government is at war with them. Most Americans are further unaware that their government has recognized these individuals and is heavily preparing for the eventuality that a large number of them will orchestrate an attempt to seize power.

 One group that draws particular concern to the US government is the Oath Keepers, founded by a lawyer from my alma mater. It is uncertain how many Oath Keepers there are -- some estimate about 40,000 -- but what is most worrying to the government about them is their pledge to disobey any order they see as unconstitutional. With a deadlocked congress and an impeached president, the possibility of a group like the Keepers disobeying a presidential order en masse increases daily. Once that happens, the US will be effectively at war with itself. 

There are groups other than the Oath Keerps. In fact, no one knows how many groups or how many individuals in uniform will disobey an order from Obama. No one can predict what the response from the Obama administration will be, but if DHS bullet purchases are any indication, there will soon be blood on the streets of America.

The Duck Stamp of Tyranny

America is descending more and more into tyranny, and with each passing day another person falls into a lifelong vicious cycle that is hard to escape. Take for example 6 year-old Masidon Grimm of South Dakota: she is now the artistic equivalent of a federal felon for life.

"But, why," you may ask, "would the federal government go after a 6-year-old?"

Well, it seems that Madison decided to submit a stamp to a contest with a duck that was not fully produced by her; the juvenile delinquent decided to trace one of her father's ducks. Now, tracing an unpublished duck was not clearly banned by the rules, and nobody decided to check up on Madison's skills, or to ask her the specifics of the duck before awarding her the prize.

A 1st grader broke an unpublished rule and now she will have to forever answer some questions when she's applying to a job, a contest, a school, etc. Anyone who googles her name will know that the feds went after her for plagiarism. And if at 6 you're capable of fooling federal officials before a thorough investigation points you out as a fraud, then the government is only working to keep us safe. I'm certain that by 12 Madison would likely have moved up to Picasso forgeries, and by her early self-emancipation at 16 would likely already be a hardened, known art criminal had it not been for the feds; they did the people a public service.


Update: After proper outcry, the ruling has been reversed.

The Crowning of a King, Dethroning of a Beer

According to a friend of mine from West Amsterdam, Euroshopper beer is getting phased out. I'm too lazy to google whether that is true or not, but I will take his word for it. I think it has to do with the whole horse meat scandal, since horse meat was found in Euroshopper lasagna. Of course, that's just speculation on my part, but I think it makes economic sense.

Now, if you're not familiar with Euroshopper beer, it's one of the cheapest decent beers in the supermarket. For 1 euro a liter, you can knock yourself happy. I was pleased that public drinking is permitted on Queen's day because it allowed me to gauge how people responded to Euroshopper beer and me drinking it. One onlooker who noticed the beer said: "Man, that beer taste like piss."

Not a Euroshopper beer in my hand, but I thought
the horse made it relevant to the story

He then grabbed the beer can, examined it and noticed that the label was in more than one alphabet. "They sell this in Russia!?" he exclaimed after noticing Russian letters on the front.

"I don't know, but this beer taste alright to me. Beer is beer and the low price makes it taste better than you can imagine," I said. I kept drinking and interviewing people throughout the night about their thoughts on the death of a cheap beer, but I don't remember anything. I vaguely recall falling asleep in a gay bar and biking home, but I digress -- I should have taken notes.  

Anyway, the same friend in west Amsterdam who told me that Euroshopper is getting phased out also told me that it is the same formula as Bavaria beer. It's the day after Queen's day here, so I'm not in the mood for calling sources and googling leads; I'm simply going to accept that Euroshopper beer is the same as Bavaria. Even if I weren't hungover, I would still refuse to find out the truth, simply because I want to imagine that the most generic beer in the supermarket is just a better beer relabeled. Even if it's not true, I want to believe.

So, yea, I got the general impression that people weren't very impressed with my choice of beer yesterday. Maybe many people won't care if Euroshopper beer dies, but it has been on the market long enough for it to have made an impact on civilization. As the great philosopher Barney Gumble said: "We know how many people have died because of alcohol, but we don't know how many have been born because of it." I'm too lazy to google if it was really he who said that or if those were his exact words, but the truth is that Euroshopper reminds me of how true that quote is.

There are people walking around right now who were born because somebody bought a few liters of Euroshopper beer on fire sale. There are also people in the cemetery who were probably pushed over the edge by that same fire sale, but such is life: kings come and go. They say that the king will only have limited power, and I know it will be less than beer, for beer can give and take life.