Highlights From Tonite's GOP / TMoGM Debate in Jacksonville, FL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This evening saw the final debate ahead of Tuesday's GOP Florida Primary in Jacksonville. The debate marked one of many GOP-MAYHEM debates in which candidate for the American presidency and Grand Minister for General Mayhem, Jared W. Adams was invited to debate Republican presidential candidates despite his non-membership in the party. Sources from each of the major media outlets that have featured the Grand Minister in their hosted debates (all but FOX News) have indicated that Adams' surging poll numbers, and more-so the ratings his participation brings, inspired the repeated invites.

"I'm always willing to discuss my surging poll..." the Grand Minister told reporters, looking utterly pleased with himself. "..........numbers!!!"

The Grand Minister, known for being intensely truculent with the media, surprised reporters by actually attending his scheduled pre-debate press conference, arriving sober (though he began drinking at the podium) and even agreeing to field questions concerning hot topics ranging from President Obama's State of the Union Address, Iranian nuclear paranoia and even disgraced/dead Penn State coach Joe Paterno.

"It won't affect the pederast case," the Grand Minister shrugged. "Plus, if the date is pushed off for a year, I think Sandusky stands a great chance of securing the GOP nomination."

Concerning Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's recent criticism of President Obama as "thin-skinned" the Grand Minster replied:

"Whether the President's skin is thin or not, it's certainly too dark for Governor Brewer's liking."

When asked for his thoughts on the president's leadership over the past four years, however, the Grand Minister snorted almost an entire can's-worth of Modelo Especial in mid-sip.

"Well, I don't think anyone can answer that question because we can really only speculate on what Obama leading anything would be like, can't we?" Grand Minister Adams replied. "The Republican Party has very clearly been the leader of any and all domestic proceedings for the past four years, with the president and his party allowing them to continue leading us further down the road to oblivion, only breaking pattern for the unconstitutional assault on Libya so as to eventually raid their vast oil reserves."

The Grand Minister arrived unshaven to the debate, alongside Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, clad in sunglasses, a tie and a suit adorned with several hundred American Flag lapels. CNN's Wolf Blitzer moderated the debate and began with Grand Minister Adams.

"Grand Minister Adams I was wondering-"

"Yes, Wolf," GM Adams smiled. "I still hate you."

"...yes... I... assumed so," Blitz said. "But my question was concerning..."

"No one gives a fuck," the Grand Minister scoffed. "You're a fucking charlatan. You're a disgrace to your post, your country and your beard. I'll ask the questions tonite, bitch... Willard, let's start with you..."

"...uhhh..." Romney said.

"Daddy's not here anymore, is he?" Adams said. "You've got to be a big boy now. And releasing your tax returns was not the way to do it. That's called 'caving' or 'giving in' or 'being a punk ass.' No one needed to see that shit, but you sold out, didn't you??"

Romney looked into the crowd, facial muscles unmoved.

"Santorum..." Adams said. "...you're finished...and once you're out of this race, no one will remember you for anything other than... THIS!!!!"

Santorum looked into his podium as the Grand Minister brandished a diagram detailing The Great Dan Savage's description of a "santorum."

"Ron..." Adams said. "...you better keep the anti-war talk going because it's the only thing you're doing this country any favors on going forward..."

Paul nodded.

"And Newt..." Adams said, Gingrich turning to face the Grand Minister straight on. "... is this moon colonization shit for real??? I mean... can that shit actually happen???"

"My people are looking into it," Gingrich nodded. "What they're finding is incredible."

"Goddamn!" Adams replied. "Are you serious!?!?!?"

"An actual self-sustaining colony on the moon by 2020," Gingrich nodded.

"That's fucking incredible," Adams shook his head.

"It is," Gingrich nodded. "Fucking incredible."

"Wow," Adams said.

"Yep," Gingrich smiled.

After a brief pause Adams responded.

"It's good to know that when I'm president, and I find a way to throw you in prison, I won't have to share the same planet with your dumb ass," Adams smiled.

Gingrich's grin melted into a deathly glare, and he shuffled his notes without abandoning Adams' gaze. The Grand Minister then thanked the audience for attending and for "giving a shit about our broken down jalopy of a political system" before cuing Daft Punk's "Around the World" to be played over the speakers and exited the forum as a ravenous gang of Occupy Wall Street-affiliated furries flooded the stage and viciously dry-humped the shit out of the Grand Minister's republican opponents.

The Grand Minister continues to enjoy a 2 point lead ahead of President Obama and a 3 point lead ahead of GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in the latest polls. Tomorrow he will make a campaign stop in New Orleans before returning home to Brooklyn, NY for a confidential weekend-long meeting with Ministry Officials Attorney General Crooked Nate and Commissar of Weights and Measures Johnny Scapino. The Ministry-led sabotage of Jan Brewer's latest memoir continues to go viral.

- The Mayhem Ministry Press
The foremost source for radically leftist news bulletins since 1909

The Hammer Falls

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

- Ike Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17th, 1961

"It is indeed difficult to conceive how men who have entirely given up the habit of self-government should succeed in making a proper choice of those by whom they are to be governed; and no one will ever believe that a liberal, wise, and energetic government can spring from the suffrages of a subservient people."

- Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amerique (1835-1840) Vol. II Sec. IV Ch. VI

"And I know that it sounds mundane.

But it's a stone cold shame.

How they got you tame,

And they got me tame."

-  TV On the Radio

Oh great foulness unending!! Oh treasonous filth unspeakable!! What bestial abhorrence!! Betrayers most stained! Behold the supreme void by which all form is to be consumed! Behold the Fall of Man! The Senate is drunk with the blood of saints!! The House filled with the names of blasphemy!! With each passing year the siege of our destruction is spelled out to the letter within the annals of armageddon by the very hands of the elected. Their inkpot filled with the blood of the innocents by the horse-masters who tends stable for the harbingers of The Final Judgement. The Kings of All the World now lie with the United States Government, and she has revealed her true name to be Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth!! The enemy has surpassed the gates!! The homeland is the battlefield!! Woe to those who dwell in the Land of Obama.

Never trust a president. They've always got too much to lose. Never underestimate their capacity for treachery. Never belittle the threat of the fascists. Never trust a president. Not the one before, not the one after and not the one now. I never trusted him. Not for an instant, in fact. And how could I? As I knew I must be, I was roundly impervious to the romantic stylings of his gaggle of campaign wizards who, from 2006 through his heartwarming election day, orchestrated a fantastical dream-like campaign, rich with darling allegories to a national redemption story foretelling the gloriously transformative future that awaited us all, should this splendid protector assume the helm. Nothing but the default setting of any political campaign, but for the presidency that it sought to follow, the horrific condition of the economy and the more horrific condition of his challenger, all underscoring the message in so buoyant a fashion that it ascended to a level nothing short of divine prophecy. For the average American voter, whose political attention span ranged somewhere betwixt slightly alert, casual or unconscious, the portrait of our president as a liberal candidate, a bright candidate and a candidate who was, above all, nothing like Bush.

All of these people were wrong.

They were wrong.

For those incapable of degrading their awareness to such pathetic and paltry levels as these, a much more accurate portrait of the man was constructed than the one force fed to the nation by his quasi-liberal sycophantic apologists and the indifferent docile masses alike. It was made maddeningly abundantly clear that this administration, even prior to its initiation, was to be naught but an annexation of its predecessor; advancing the gradual deification of the corporatist apparatus, escalating its empirical stranglehold abroad and bolstering the center-right stasis to further accommodate the financial industry's dominion over all proceedings. Obama was to be nothing but the latest steward of our national downfall.

And while I never trusted Barack Obama, I preferred him a great deal more in the early days of his presidency, when he was simply a worthless waste, a child ruler, feigning exasperation over conservative blockage while making what he could for himself on the side. It was infinitely easier to accept the failed presidency of an incompetent statesmen, than it is to abide the out-and-out destructive force he's transformed himself into upon this New Year's Eve; a destructive force whose latest assault is far too egregious for me to discuss without easing into it bit by bit, crime by crime, as so.

The latest National Defense Authorization Act entitled  H.R. 1540 contains the usual atrocity of appropriating hundreds of billions of dollars ($662 billion) to an over-sized imperial force that funds the empire's omnipresence across the globe while our people are forced from their homes. Our service persons are sacrificed to Middle Eastern deathtraps just to hold the line long enough for the generals to level the joint and let the contractors in to profit off the reconstruction effort. Departing Iraq is burning a big hole in Uncle Sam's pocket, so, really, thank god the Afghanistan effort was stepped up when it was.

"At a time when we have tripled defense spending since 1997 and spend more today on defense than the rest of the world combined, I get concerned that my deficit-hawk friends say we've got to cut Social Security, Medicare, education, health care and other programs that help working families, but when it comes to defense spending the sky is the limit."

- Sen. Bernie Sanders, Dec. 15th 2011

While the thieving bastards' bounty is laughably "offset" by the bill's 40% limit on funds to the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Fund and new sanctions imposed on the Central Bank of Iran (not to mention an ultimatum for two-timing financial systems doing business both here and there), when it comes to the true atrocity of this year's model: it's really not about the money this time.

Within the pages of H.R. 1540 the jackals have finally, incontrovertibly, turned the guns on the rest of us. In a bill presented on the floor of the Senate by John McCain, a man increasingly dead-set on taking the nation down with him on his way out the door, and Carl Levin, the classic modern Democrat who wouldn't show up for a thumb war without twelve legions at his back, the two joined together as another sizable acre of the farm was sold away. After several weeks of minimal debate, with McCain barking down any opposition as submission and Levin invoking the President's power-grab, an easy volley from Senate to House and back to Senate saw the bill's passage of 86-13 on December 14th 2011. That date will be a day long remembered, as a bill whose first version passed the Senate 93-7 and the House 283-136 and went on to decisively set ablaze our Bill of Rights by invariably embracing the horrors of the Bush Era Orwellian leviathan and rendering several of its foretold appendages flesh.

Ultimately the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2012 will codify into sacred script the provisions that allow for the indefinite detention of Americans suspected of aiding America's adversaries in this eternal War on Terror. Through this bill, the designation of our entire nation as a battlefield in the past decade is solidified more explicitly than ever. Through this bill, the parameters for those that the president may target are expanded beyond those set down in the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 to include those who "substantially supported" al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." Through this bill, this president or the next or whichever, is made capable of criminalizing dissent and sending all suspects before a military tribunal or worse.

Too many of my brothers and sisters arrested throughout the fall have already felt the cold icy boot of indefinite detention upon their necks; plucked from the streets whilst engaged in demonstrations against a savagely defaced powerstructure that now fosters such barbaric legislation as this act. Allies would tell me of riding around in packed vans for hours before being deposited in a cold cell for days, sometimes an entire weekend or longer, waiting for a judge to crawl out of his Johnnie Walker long enough to come in and sign off on the case. Such abuses of our justice system, that continue to befall my neighbors on Wall Street, are nothing compared to what awaits us now.

"The discussion now to suspend certain rights of due process is especially worrisome since we are engaged in a war that appears to have no end. Rights given up now cannot be expected to return. So we do well to contemplate the diminishing of due process knowing full well that rights we give up now may never be restored."

- Sen. Rand Paul, November 29th, 2011

Allow me to abridge the usual libertarian disclaimer that accompanies any mention of the Paul clan and their followers, by simply stating that my enemy's enemy is my friend on this one. You can always count on the libertarians to show up for a row like this and Paul delivers one of his typical history lessons to a Congress, unfortunately, in dire need. By citing Lincoln's Civil War era suspension of habeas corpus, Paul inadvertently shines a light on the irony of a president who gave us one of the most impassioned warnings against casting away our civil liberties with his Lyceum Address and was in turn responsible for dealing them one of their most egregious violations. With two weeks until his 29th birthday, Lincoln's speech before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois asserted the belief that America's true downfall would not come from outside attacks, but by implosion:

"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

That gun is now loaded. It's in our nation's hand. The barrel is digging into our collective temple. With the passage of the 2012 NDAA, all activist groups will automatically make the shitlist. Not the list they were already on. It's common knowledge that the FBI already keeps terror-watch tabs on everything from Greepeace to PETA. Now we have yet another reminder that it's more dangerous to be an activist than it's been in over 50 years. But there will be plenty of room in the cell for the disengaged as well, who go about their business and quietly love their country and scream for their neighbors to defend them when the State Dept. drags them from their homes. Soon we will all feel the same day to day scrutiny put upon the American Muslims, who have spent a decade as lightning rods for a nation's paranoia. The same palpable fear that is felt at security checkpoints in airports the nation over, increasingly crippling us through every text message we send, every phone call we make: The Fear of saying something a little off, something a little un-American, something our great overseers decide lends aid to The Enemy.

"No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices."

- Edward R. Murrow, in a speech to his staff, March 9th, 1954

It has been said that when the day arrives when all but our last remaining civil liberties have been sold away and they finally seek to embed us all with internal tracking devices, that they will not have to hunt us down with Academi mercs or scour their camera networks to pin us down and force it upon us: they say that lines will form. That we will demand that such a device be administered, all in the name of our safety, handed down from our paternal god-king authority. Safety, they call it. And I ask, who is the one to decide that for which I should not risk my life, when he is the same one who takes away that for which I would give it? And yet we continue to support this dystopian future along with its very architects; applauding them, endorsing them, loving them. But regardless of who pulls the hammer back, we must remember who put the gun in our hand and sat back and waited for us to pull the trigger.

We must not believe for one moment the impassioned assertions and lengthy signing statements coming from this administration insisting that this bill changes nothing. This president knows the law and the constitution and knows how this game is played. It's not about what the text requires him, or any other president, to do. It's about what it's broad enough to allow them to do. Obama tasted blood with the bin Laden assassination. He liked the way that felt. And while he claims to have only passed this temptation of unholy fire to the next president, vowing not to utilize this great power of indefinite detention of his opponents throughout his remaining time in office, never forget that his signing statement is in no way legally binding and that this promise comes from a man who killed an American citizen on foreign soil.

While I maintain that he was poisoned from the start, his tale may very well be painted as the epic tragedy of the man who assumed the tyrant's throne with the intent of ruling as the good king, as the bright new son of a peaceful nation, who would deliver it to the days of glory. He would rule in accordance with the ancient texts and not seek power outside his designated bounds. Though sure enough, somewhere along the way, he faltered, and the insatiable lust for power consumed the good king, as it had all crowns prior, and the monarch strove less and less to conceal the ravenous beast within. Until one dawn his people awoke in a wasteland shadow of their nation's former splendor and the king at last relinquished the throne to the soulless ghosts of consumption that hover over all nations, profiting with no allegiance, operating without law, obeying only the relentless command of excess as do all those whose hearts dwell in the Shrine of Moloch.

Prepare yourselves. Prepare yourselves now. For this is the penultimate chapter of our nation's true narrative. The epic poem of our beloved country is not now nor has it ever been written in the latest vacuous GOP debate or the president's latest preposterous bus tour stop or a wasteful White House honor service for the Dallas Mavericks. The true divine verses are inscribed through the bloody faces of the LA anarchists, the feet that carry fearful Muslims to the mosque, the fingers that create a nationwide boycott in mere days and the eyes that look upon the truth that once seen is never unknown again. We must all hold this quill now in order to write this most essential chapter or be doomed to suffer an eternity of its demonic fascist transformation, which not only writes us out of all pages to come but tears out and burns all chapters preceding.

-

Jared W. Adams
Grand Minister for General Mayhem
Irving Bastion, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
January the 1st 2011
1:28 AM EST

Midnight for Occupy Philly

 

It’s raining in Philadelphia and as I write this a small but constant collective of its residents will see shelter in the shadows of City Hall plaza. Some will retire to store-bought tents and warm pairs of socks. Others will seek shelter under tarps and makeshift lean-tos. Even more will simply huddle together in wet sleeping bags, wet body pressing against wet body in an effort to keep the blood warm.

All of them will, at some point, look at the cold November sky and consider their options in the coming days. Occupy Philly is facing its biggest crisis yet and its members will have to decide if they are people standing up for vague beliefs or part of a larger perpetual motion machine aimed at saving the shrinking middle class and holding on to the ever-swelling living poor before even more people drop between the cracks.

It is nighttime for Occupy Philadelphia and there is no tell when, or even if, the sun will rise.

The facts are these: on Sunday, November 13, Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter, a Democratic incumbent voted into his second term in office without anything resembling reasonable opposition, held a press conference addressing the issues at Dilworth Plaza and West City Hall, otherwise known as the location of Occupy Philly.

His words, while measured, were clear; his message, obvious: Occupy Philly must go.

From the mayor’s press conference:

“Occupy Philly has changed, so we must change our relationship with them. Things have changed. We’re seeing serious health and safety issues playing out on almost a daily basis. Occupy Philly is fractured with internal disagreement and disputes. The people of Occupy Philly have also changed and their intentions have changed … and all of this is not good for Philadelphia.”

“When I met with representatives of Occupy Philly on Wednesday Oct. 5 in my office, I made it clear to them: that the City would in fact protect their free speech rights and that we wanted to cooperate with them, but I also said that the life of the City must go on: it is our daily business that must be conducted and not be impeded.”

“… I pointed out to them that day that there is a major project planned for Dilworth Plaza, that it’s been in works for a number of years now – a $50 million remake of Dilworth Plaza into an open, green, vibrant space … built by the 99 percent for the 99 percent.  And they told me that they would be peaceful, that they would not be disruptive, that they would obey the laws of the City of Philadelphia and that they would communicate with us regularly and they only wished to express their free speech rights.”

“Friday night, the Occupy Philly general assembly voted against moving from Dilworth Plaza: Occupy Philly is now purposely standing in the way of a nearly 1,000 jobs for Philadelphians at a time of high unemployment. They are blocking Philadelphians from taking care of their families.”

Since the mayor’s press conference, members from Occupy Philly have told the media that they would be willing to relocate, but that the mayor’s office had been “vague and general” about where the protest would relocate to. Several more vocal members have told local outlets that they would not be moved. “No man has the right to tell another man where to go,” a protestor said.

Since the mayor’s announcement, police presence has been increased near the protest site.

And so, after beginning with a small shanty town consisting of less than 40 college undergraduates on October 6, only to grow into a small city-within-a-city with its own citizens, mixing socio-economic backgrounds but sharing their cause, Occupy Philly faces its first true moment.

The protestors are faced with a difficult proposition. They are going against a recently reelected mayor kicking off the beginning of his second term, a man looking to create construction jobs and green space in a city that is low on both. The protestors are facing a man with swagger and vision at a time when the Occupy movement has moved out of the news cycle and, sadly, out of the minds of many of those gadflies who originally stopped to watch and aid their bray to the cacophony.

At a time when Occupy WallStreet was nearly toppled, Occupy Philly is going to have to stand or fold and it will do so alone: as global as the movement has become, what city could lend its hand to the City of Brotherly Love? What could they do?

If what the mayor says is true: if this project will truly bring  1,000 construction jobs to the city, if the health concerns are such that disease is a real issue and human life is truly in question, if these protestors are standing in the way of the 99 percent, then movement should be considered.

However, if the movement jumps without fighting, if the masterminds who are currently trying to keep themselves warm in the Atlantic coast rain surrender what ground they have now, this will be the end of Occupy Philly.

There is a way to solve this. There is a chance for both government and protesters to work together for the greater good of the city. I pray that all those involved are smart enough and strong enough to act on behalf of Philadelphia. I hope that the protestors do not back down without taking Nutter for a ride. I hope that Nutter gets a peaceful evacuation and gets his project off the ground, if it is as beneficial as advertised. There is a way to solve this, but I cannot see it. I can only hope the angels of our better nature hold sway in the coming days.

Regardless of what happens, Occupy Philly will face its greatest challenge yet in the coming days. Regardless of the outcome, the movement in Philadelphia will not be the same.

-

Crooked Nate Adams
Attorney General for the Bureau of
Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, Explosvies & Penguins
Philadelphia, PA

November the 15th 2011
7:19 PM EST

Occupy Forever

"The limitation of tyrants is the endurance of those they oppose."

- Frederick Douglass

First and foremost, I wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a eulogy. In fact, it's as far from one as could be. Despite what you've heard by now, nothing has died, nothing has ended. It would be absurd to even consider the possibility that this one act of aggression by the mayor and the mercenaries of the banking industry could conclude, let alone stifle, the momentum of this movement. If anything, let this transmission be considered a birth announcement, or more aptly a re-birth announcement, for a new one is at hand.

As I watch the feeds coming in from Liberty Square, and listen to the cries of defiance from my allies ricocheting against the smaller cries of the bankers relayed through their hired white shirt lapdogs in the NYPD, there is an undeniable horror and revulsion the grips me at the sight of the grotesque scene. As mountains are built of the debris of the living spaces of my comrades and countless laptops and video equipment are destroyed before their eyes; the mayor's brute squad cackles at the sidelines, well-pleased with the mindless destruction they've wrought. They see no violent reprisal from the Occupiers, as this is a movement based upon a core peaceful resolve that the uniformed carrion crows of repression would never even consider, while indeed exploiting this self-applied handicap to the Occupation's battle strategy, beating our people bloody whenever those holding their leash call them to do so, never understanding how our refusal to fight makes us win over and over again.

And that horror we all feel, as we see the scenario that played out in our minds since the day the park was taken, since the day it became Liberty Square, yields to the horror that brought us there in the first place and persisted throughout as well as now: our city remains overrun with crooked cops, the cannibal regime of corporation still runs the show, the leaders of American homegrown terrorism within the banking system remain at large and the mayor who bought himself an extra term still wields illegitimate power over it all and the Wall Street capitalist marauders continue.

The freedom from that fear comes, as it always does, in knowing that we will continue as well.

On the late night into early morning of October 14th, as I laid in Liberty Square, cold rain dripping off the flaps of the cardboard box hanging above my face and my body frigid and shaking beneath the blue tarp that was my blanket, I stared straight up passed the trees to the monstrous imposing skyscrapers and above to the mist that gathered at their midsection and blocked the stars from view. I listened to the moonlight sonanta of the agitators. I heard cries go up every now and again, as I lied their in wait for the big cry of the masses which would herald the arrival of our adversary. It was upon that day that we were alerted to the impending attack that was planned for that morning, but would not finally come to be launched against us until now. I looked up to that sky and listened to the sounds around me and felt a crushing pain envelope my body as I wondered if this phenomenon that had captivated my imagination for an entire lifetime prior to its occurrence was coming to a close, as I wondered "is this really the end?"

All over the park that nite so many had seemed to have resigned themselves to the idea that it would be their last nite ever spent in the park. Various information stations educated the crowds on what the experience of being arrested would entail, which at that time was very much a reality for anyone who stayed into the morning. They wondered what would happen to this national and international movement if the flagship demonstration on Occupy Wall Street was eliminated. They wondered if it would all fall away, lost in time. When the morning came around and the line of riot cops bordered the park, we held fast, we stood strong and by the strength of our numbers, as the cavalry of hundreds upon hundreds suddenly appeared, rather than by violent opposition, we beat them that day and scored one of the most vital victories for this movement thus far.

And now, one month later, as we watch the fate unfold that ran through our nightmares throughout this entire Occupation, we find ourselves both one month older and wiser. Old and wise enough in this struggle to know that all those fears of an end and of the movement entire hinging on a single strategic placement and that the ones we stand against have the power to halt us in doing so, are all nothing more now than what they always were.

Illusion.

The fact remains that another group of Americans have lost their home. The foreclosure was executed by a mayor, one of the seediest foul little hustlers to ever pervert the realm of public service since the day he slithered into our mayoral office. But even this latest foreclosure is not an absolute. The question at the moment is not if, but where this NYC Occupation will find its new home. Many will soon re-enter Liberty Square once the forced clean-up is completed, though the new anti-Occupation regulations that Brookfield Properties have attempted to enact since Day One have now been put into effect (no sleeping bags, no tents, no anything essential to long-term occupation). Currently Foley Square is filling up for an initial general assembly before sunrise and as of now the parks at 6th and Canal have been selected for the official Post-Raid General Assembly.

We must cling now more than ever to those deep incomparable overwhelming feelings of affection we felt throughout our time in Liberty Square, whether that time was every day for two months or just over two hours. The persistent twinges of fury and hatred we surely all feel now will not be enough to sustain us upon the journey ahead. We must cling ever-tightly to the warmth that grew deep within our chests when our shivering bodies were covered by the spare cloth of a neighbor. We must remember that our cause is not only one of dismantling the human-made machinations of our destruction, but also a radical reformation of this nation's hearts and minds.

I know Thursday's rally is still on.

I know the Occupation of NYC will continue.

I remain, steadfastly, unwaveringly, entirely yours, one more amongst the Occupiers.


-

Jared W. Adams
Grand Minister for General Mayhem
The Ministry
November the 15th 2011
3:26 AM EST

Mayhem 2012 Campaign UPDATE!!!/Famed Anarchist Johnny Scapino Named Commissar of Weights and Measures!!!/Kim Kardashian DIVORCES!!! Grand Minister Blamed!!!/Smash The Ministry Switches Gears!!!

It was a proud day for Mayhem and devout anarchists the world over on Thursday as Famed Anarchist Johnny Scapino, an invaluable ally of The Ministry for years, was officially inducted into The Ministry of General Mayhem and adorned the eminent and prestigious title of Ministry Commissar of Weights and Measures!!!

The grand induction ceremony was conducted in Rochester, New York with the glorious city's skyline in full view. Clad in festive celebratory robes, Grand Minister Adams and Scapino embraced on stage as the announcement was made to all ceremony attendees, uttering their ancient mantra of "warm and cozy... cozy and... warrrrrrrrrrrmmm!!!" It was then that all rights and privileges of overseeing the Weights and Measures Contingent of The Ministry were truly entrusted to Scapino.

Attorney General for the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, Explosives & Penguins, Crooked Nate was in attendance at the ceremony. Scapino served as a brigadier general under Crooked Nate in South Africa during The Giant Crab Wars of '10. Crooked Nate of course led Ministry forces to victory against the crustacean menace and cited Scapino as a vital component of his winning battle strategy.

"I really enjoyed the robes," the Att'y Gen. said after the ceremony. "I was also pleased to see Johnny given this appointment. He served The Ministry well in the wars and supplied some indispensable intel on the surrounding townships that proved significant to our overall goals."

The afterparty was hosted by John Lithgow, one of Rochester's most beloved sons and lasted long into the early hours of two days later, with musical entertainment provided by They Might Be Giants who opened with "Can't Keep Johnny Down."

The Weights and Measures ceremony supplied the Grand Minister with a brief reprieve from a rigorously demanding campaign schedule which he has been on since late July when his candidacy for the presidency of the Unite States was formally announced.

Also breaking up the Grand Minister's usual schedule of campaign stops across the country, hobnobbings with high-profile leftists and lengthy meetings with his campaign advisers, has been his stays at Occupy Wall Street in Liberty Square.

While the OWS movement is one of obvious significance to the ever-ongoing worldwide Mayhem crusade of unending revolution, and even more obvious personal significance to the Grand Minister for General Mayhem, several campaign aides to the Grand Minister have indicated to the Mayhem Ministry Press that the Grand Minister may be consulting members of the Occupy Movement to aid him in crafting his campaign platform. Those close to the Grand Minister have cited the Occupy Movement as revitalizing Adams spirit and the spirit of The Ministry of General Mayhem in the process.

The leading anti-Ministry website on the web, Andrew Breitbart presents BIG Mayhem has been uncharacteristically silent despite major developments in the Mayhem 2012 campaign in recent weeks. It has been several weeks since their last disparaging article against The Ministry. Insiders are hinting that this is most likely an indication that they are merely refocusing their efforts. No word yet on what this new strategy will be, save one report promising it to be "unlike anything seen before at the ever-expanding intersection of dirty politics and fake reporting."

This week's People magazine cover story is an outrageous indictment of Grand Minister Adams and his many-times flame and recent divorcee Kim Kardashian. The article, which finds its one source in a rejected wedding cake artisan, alleges that Kardashian and Adams used her wedding to a basketball player as a mere front to garner funds for various leftist causes and socialist movements.

The Ministry of General Mayhem issued a statement regarding the scandal this afternoon:

"Holy fuck, we hope this is true."

While this report has raised the unbridled ire of conservatives, the response from the general public has been naught but an overwhelming resurgence of inquiry into the pair's relationship status. For our part, we at the Mayhem Ministry Press couldn't be more PLEASED!!!!!!

The Mayhem 2012 Campaign hits the road again tomorrow and we in the MMP are QUITE delighted to make the exclusive announcement HERE and NOW that Presidential Candidate and Grand Minister for General Mayhem, Jared W. Adams will be participating in the next GOP Primary Debate in Spartanburg, SC this Saturday Nite!!! We here at the MMP are certain that the Grand Minister's participation in the debate, as a candidate running on the Mayhem ticket, will bring a much-needed flair and panache that has been sorely lacking from the wanting, pitiful, abysmal, slack-jawed, bow-legged, out-and-out fuckery the American public has been subjected to thus far in the debates.

Be sure to tune-in RIGHT HERE at The Ministry of General Mayhem at 7:30 pm for the Pre-Game show!!! It's gonna be one helluva nite!!!


- The Mayhem Ministry Press
The foremost source for radically leftist news bulletins since 1909

The Uganda Affair - PART II

THE
UGANDA AFFAIR
COMMISSION
REPORT

2

THE GIANT CRAB WARS

"...Our present relationship has, we believe, resulted in some very substantial changes: the very fact that now the blacks have ability -- being in labor unions or even having their own labor unions; the fact they can buy property in the heretofore white areas; that they can own businesses in some 40 white-dominated business districts. They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country -- the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated -- that has all been eliminated."

- Ronald Reagan, August 24th 1985

South Africa was in the depths of apartheid when President Reagan gave its government the glowing acclamation above. Not only were his assertions roundly untrue, but they reflect the tenacity with which an American president remained unwaveringly determined to support one of the most vile, bigoted and destructive regimes in history.

Colonized in the mid-17th century with the founding of Cape Town, the land that would become the Republic of South Africa was beset by slavery, war, uprisings, repression, over a remarkable history of struggle that would galvanize one of the most inspiring people's movements in history and come to define the African continent for the rest of the modern world.

The original colonists took control via Cape Town at the behest of the Dutch East India Company, using the township as a way station in the transport of slaves from the East. In addition to the Dutch, the occupying peoples were primarily Flemish, German and French settlers who would eventually come to comprise the original occupier class known as the Boers.

Following an invasion from the French and a declaration of bankruptcy by the Dutch East India Company, the British took control of Cape Town in the first decade of the 19th century. Battles with the native Xhosa and Zulu people raged throughout the 1800s as the tribes fought unsuccessfully to take back control of their land. Many of the land's original colonists, the Boers, departed the Cape Town Colony to escape British rule and founded two new republics further inland: the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. The discovery of rich gold and diamond deposits in these new republics initiated the Boer Wars, as the British fought to expand their grip of South Africa and utilizing one of the earliest implementations of the concentration camp on the Boer people. With the British victory that concluded the Second Boer War, the empire took control of the Boer Republics in 1902.

The first half of the 20th century would see a gradual ease of England's grip upon the South African Union and as relations improved between the British and the Afrikaners, as the Boers had come to be known, the repression of black South Africans and Asians only intensified.

While segregation had been firmly in place ever since the abolition of slavery in England's colonies, the apartheid government of South Africa commenced with the National Party's rise to power in the election of 1948. What would follow would be an era of legally institutionalized segregation forced upon the native inhabitants of a land by a government of second-hand occupiers comprising a white minority regime who had no more right to rule than the British Empire that had granted it independence.

Under apartheid the black South Africans were restricted to inferior public services to those of the white ruling elite, including medical care, education and overall standard of living. Repression was rampant as resistance groups and civilians alike faced horrific atrocities from police and the government.

In August of 1962, two years after the Sharpeville Massacre in which police gunned down 69 protesters, a charismatic anti-apartheid leader named Nelson Mandela was arrested by government security forces thanks to a tip-off from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Mandela had been the leader of the armed wing of the African National Congress where he coordinated sabotage campaigns against military and government targets. Mandela was found guilty of sabotage and treason and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

Under Botha's rulership South Africa would see the murders of thousands of at the hands of police and the military as well as the imprisonment of tens of thousands during various government declarations of a "state of emergency." Throughout the 1980s Botha would, in pure desperation, impose minor reforms to the apartheid government in answer to increased outside pressure. As international opposition to the apartheid government and support for Mandela grew from beyond his prison cell walls, Botha had found one unfailingly steadfast friend in Ronald Reagan. Reagan cherished South Africa as a vital strategic ally against the Soviets and made it abundantly clear that there was no atrocity the apartheid government could committ, no matter how egregiously heinous, that would deter him from that course.

Outrageously declaring Botha's regime a "reformist administration," Reagan supported a policy of "constructive engagement" with South Africa, opposing all calls to impose sanctions on the fascist government and continuing to flow aid to the white minority regime. It was during this time that Reagan declared Mandela and the ANC to be Marxist terrorists and stood by the government even as Botha declared that "one man, one vote" would never work in South Africa. In late 1984, shortly following Reagan's landslide election, Archbishop Desmond Tutu came to speak on Capitol Hill upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance efforts in South Africa. During his speech, Tutu shocked the nation and world declaring that not only was the apartheid government "evil, immoral and un-Christian, without remainder," but that the Reagan administration's response to it was the same. 

"In my view, the Reagan administration's support and collaboration with it is equally immoral, evil, and totally un-Christian. . . . You are either for or against apartheid and not by rhetoric. You are either in favor of evil or you are in favor of good. You are either on the side of the oppressed or on the side of the oppressor. You can't be neutral." 

In 1986 Congress voted overwhelmingly in support of imposing sanctions on South Africa. In an incredible display, an incensed Reagan vetoed Congress' vote, but the Senate vote was strong enough to override the veto. America, along with the U.K., began sanctions, but Reagan made sure they were as weak as possible.

2.1 The Botha-Reagan Crustacean Appropriation 

With increasing unrest and worldwide condemnation of the apartheid regime growing, Botha summoned Reagan in desperation to a secret meeting in the summer of 1986 to address their shared fears of the apartheid government being dissolved and power going to the majority. This led to the Botha-Reagan Crustacean Appropriation...or the BRCA... or the Crustaceans Reagan Appropriated to Botha... or the CRAB.

The CRAB was a confidential emergency measure granted to Botha which would utilize advanced nuclear mutagenic technology to ensure that apartheid would continue even if it became impossible for Botha, his regime, or any human to maintain it.


The 1st phase of the CRAB involved a covert submarine operation by the U.S. Navy, depositing a massive flock of coconut crabs 1000s of feet below sea level inside an underwater grotto at the base of the western South African coast.


The 2nd phase of the CRAB was lining the cave with nuclear mutagens which, when activated, would manipulate the cell structures of the coconut crabs causing them to expand to anywhere from 10 to 20x their natural size. As the nuclear radiated gigantic crabs moved inward, the certain desolation they would lay upon the populace would ensure the continued reign of the apartheid regime, which would be granted a counterbalance to the crabs, which could disable them after they'd served their purpose. This countermeasure was also kept strictly confidential.

The CRAB installation operation was successfully carried out in the spring of '88. All that was required to activate the implanted mutagens were the correct nuclear codes which were known only by the scientist who secured them and Reagan himself. Reagan withheld these codes from Botha, promising to provide them when and if an end to apartheid became truly imminent. The identity of the scientist, and these details of the project, remained unknown as well.

Unfortunately for Botha, Reagan's alliance with Mikhail Gorbachev, then head of state of the Soviet Union, made Botha's friendship superfluous in Reagan's quest to disband the U.S.S.R. Reagan and Gorbachev would go on to end the Cold War and Botha would have a career-ending stroke and fall into obscurity. In the months following the fall of the Berlin Wall, anti-apartheid groups in South Africa were legalized, Mandela and the political prisoners were released and the apartheid regime was gradually dismantled.

On April 27th 1994, after centuries upon centuries of struggle and strife, South Africa held its first racially inclusive democratic elections with Nelson Mandela becoming the nation's first black president and the nightmare of apartheid was over.

Only the crabs remained...

2.2 Weekend @ Rimet's

In mid-February of 2010, The Ministry's new Attorney General for the Bureau of Tobacco, Alcohol, Firearms, Explosives and Penguins dashed through The Ministry's hallowed halls in a mad panic, radically deviating from the usual composed demeanor he exhibited for his fellow Ministers and Mayhem constituents as they toiled in solidarity for The Cause. Att'y Gen. Crooked Nate, having just gotten off the phone with The Ministry's South African consulate, harbored news so wildly astounding that it would alter the course of The Ministry of General Mayhem forever.

As he hustled along, urgently, pushing his way past the likes of Arab revolutionaries, feminist organizers, Canadian anarchists and hemp-dressed eco-warriors crowding the halls, his mind was centered squarely upon the horrific, unfathomable news he had just heard. And as he reached the high high steps of the Left Wing Tower and swung wide the door to The Grand Minister's chamber, the horror he'd heard was momentarily superseded by the horror he saw.

"No one should have to see one of their relatives like that," Crooked Nate said. "No one should have to see...anyone... like that..."

Though he refused to go into detail for this report, having spent a full 48 hours soon after the incident in intensive memory-erasing therapy with Dr. Elkan Reskew as well as ingesting a hefty dosage of propranolol, the Attorney General describes that moment, when he entered unannounced into the private chamber of his cousin The Grand Minister, as the moment when a critical portion of his soul was forever compromised, when he looked upon the highest high peaks of wanton excess and the dankest, murkiest depths of unrepentant depravity. On that day, he saw true horror.

"There were... atrocities...unspeakable," Crooked Nate trails off. "I saw... I saw motorbutting..."

Recordings of Crooked Nate's sessions with Dr. Reskew describe the Grand Minister making gleeful declarations to all revelers inside his chamber such as "everybody shut the fuck UP!!" Making curious threats like "you want me to cancel your FUCKING CREDIT!?!?!?!" and making confoundedly impossible threats like "You want me drive this fucking party off a FUCKING CLIFF!?!?!?!?" Only to follow all outbursts with "OHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!"

A Ministry artist's rendering of the revolting scene, based on Dr. Reskew's tapes of the sessions, depict the incident as so:

"It was awful," the Att'y General said. "I will never NOT knock on that door again."


                 *                                                *                                                   *


Once all occupants of the chamber had departed and the Grand Minister had partially dressed himself and the Att'y General had partially regained temporary control of his senses, the cousins sat down to discuss the new word from South Africa.

"Crabs," the Att'y Gen. said. "The new word was: 'CRABS!!!!!'"

A Meeting of the Ministers was immediately called to fruition and 2 days later assembled, as the entire Ministry High Command, of Grand Minister Adams, Att'y Gen. Crooked Nate, Surgeon Gen. Dr. Elkan Reskew, Sec. Gen. Colum O'Connolly, as well as one entrusted recorder of the minutes, were  assembled in The Grand Chat Room to discuss the dire situation in South Africa.

Crooked Nate's report to the gathered ministers, his first ever in his capacity as Att'y Gen., was decidedly succinct, focused and free of all unnecessarily complex ministerial jargon:

"Where's our fucking super-power, nightmarish military when you goddamn need it? Forget the Chinese, the Koreans, the brown people, DROP EVERYTHING! Get the fucking Navy in here! The enemy is coming from the sea and, like its primordial ancestors, wants to take the very fucking LAND from beneath our feet! THIS IS MY NIGHTMARE.

You want health care reform? No one will be safe until this fucker and his ilk are murdered off the face of the earth! You want family values and marriage rights? You think this thing gives a flying shit about your sexual orientation? Gay, straight, bi, aesexual, horse fucker, WHAT THE FUCK EVER you are, this thing dreams of murdering you. Protecting our borders? Fucking right, but not from Mexicans looking to do the shit work you wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole, from the ocean's MONSTER CRABS!

Listen, People. We can get together on this. Yes we can, kill the giant crabs."

The Ministers were left dumbfounded for a moment. At first, they believed what they'd heard had simply been the stuff of brilliant political theatre; an absurdist commentary on the petty partisan Washington infighting in the face of certain economic and ecological destruction. But Nate's face was grave, O'Connolly's face was inquisistive, Reskew's face was concerned and the Grand Minister's face was... delighted...

"So... you're serious, then?" O'Connolly asked. "Crabs... giant... bloody... crabs??"

"DEAD ASS!!!" Crooked Nate responded, clutching the edge of the table.

"Giant... bloody... crabs... " O'Connolly continued. "In South Africa..."

"Well, they're not actually IN South Africa yet," Dr. Reskew chimed in. "Many miles off the coast, though according to our reports they're advancing quite rapidly towards the shore."

It was then that the Ministers began to realize the severity of the situation's gravity. Dr. Elkan Reskew soon brandished the Archivists' report on the Botha-Reagan Crustacean Appropriation, which detailed the details of the CRAB and the reasons the project was brought about. Though not telling entirely who was involved.

"How can we find this scientist?" O'Connolly inquired. "If what these files show is true, then he's the only one who would have known the codes."

"But shouldn't we be focusing on finding who actually did this?" Dr. Reskew chimed in. "The report from the Leninist Analysis Dept. indicates that the group that stands to benefit most from this atrocity is not politically motivated!"

"WHO IS IT THEN!!!???" Crooked Nate asked calmly.

Dr. Reskew steadied himself before answering and after a long pause responded.

"Recording artists."

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL!!!???" Sec. Gen. O'Connolly asked. "How could there be any sense in that at all!?!?!? Musicians unleashed the crabs!?!?!? What are they going to do??? Write a Top 40 hit about a massacre perpetuated at the claws of giant crustaceans!?!?!?"

"This is an extremely detailed and comprehensive report!!!" Dr. Reskew replied. "We can't begin to comprehend the logic of Leninists!!!"

"SO WHAT DID THE TROTSKYISTS SAY, MAN!?!?!?!?!?" the Sec. Gen. asked.

It was then that the doctor and the secretary general became aware of the attorney general who, at that very moment, slumped to the floor, clutching his cell phone with eyes wide in the finality of a realization that had transcended any semblance of normalcy.

"He's having a really tough week," the good doctor informed O'Connolly.

In the palm of the Att'y Gen.'s hand the two discovered a text message transmission; one which the sender had crafted entirely in Morse Code (due to the vastly ironic nature of an archaic form of communication being received by a far more advanced device, mind you).

The message read, simply: "As usual, you are way behind the times. Be sure to send word when you tire of your organization's deductive mediocrity and wish to obtain the answers you seek. The situation is time-sensitive, if that matters."

The phone number was unavailable, but the signature was legible, and O'Connolly wondered aloud.

"Who the fuck is Jules Rimet???"

The very name harnessed a power comparable to smelling salts for the Att'y Gen. and he immediately came to, at its very mention.

"'Who is Jules Rimet?'" he breathed, wild-eyed and staring off into nothingness. "Jules Rimet is the fiendish prisoner of his own uncompromising mind. An ingenious instigator incapable of inspiring intrinsic impetus instead incessantly initiating infernal invented intentions. As much street corner song and dance man as omnipotent globetrotting megalomaniac. The tastemaker's tastemaker, wielding vast and wildly illegitimate power over the public opinion in the area of musical entertainment. He is a modern day Machiavellian hijacker of the transformative nature of pop culture, directing the tides of the entirety of the musical spectrum, for which he inexplicably holds the reigns, unwaveringly navigating the course of events toward a heading that serves to bring about his own singular intransigent vision of a more perfect world. In years past, he has been directly linked to some of the most pivotal occurrences in the realm of modern popular music. Some of these events include, but are not limited to, encouraging Kurt Cobain to commit suicide, encouraging the breakup of the Pixies, preventing the breakup of Radiohead, introducing Whitney Houston to Bobby Brown, introducing Pete Doherty to cocaine, introducing Cat Stevens to Islam, introducing MC Hammer to a financial adviser, orchestrating the discovery of Lady Gaga and blueprinting the Milli Vanilli project. He has propped up bands and taken them back down again as if they were ads upon a billboard. He is a man bound by no code of ethics, no restraints hold him back, he is but a machine driven solely by the accomplishment of his own ends, by whatever dastardly means required. He is a social media sociopath with endless ambition, never revealing the ultimate aims of his grand design, tirelessly weaving the fabric of our era into the complex convoluted musical tapestry that is: Jules Rimet."

The room absorbed the stirring description their colleague had just uttered, as if he'd been momentarily possessed as the very herald of the antichrist. Upon brief reflection, O'Connolly was the first to speak.

"Sounds like we could use this man right now," he said.

Nate's face was grave.

"This man," he said. "Is diametrically opposed to everything I have ever believed in."

"Nate..." Dr. Reskew began.

"This man is a terrorist!!!" Nate yelled. "He is a MUSICAL TERRORIST! Consorting with him would be the equivalent of us negotiating with terrorists!!!"

This let loose an uproarious guffaw from the Ministers, as well as the recorder of the minutes.

"We're The Ministry of General Fucking Mayhem, man," O'Connolly chuckled. "We negotiate with terrorists ALL the time!!"

"I can't be the one to meet with him," Crooked Nate shook his head. "I absolutely refuse."

"Nate, this is the only way," Dr. Reskew offered.

"Back when I was doing Left of the Dial!?!?" the Att'y Gen. exclaimed. "Rimet trolled my page... EVERY DAY... whenever a new review was up, no matter what band it was... EVERY FUCKING DAY he hated and hated and hated on it!!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO COMMUNICATE WITH SOMEONE LIKE THAT!?!?!?!?"

The room fell silent as Nate furiously rubbed his furrowed brow, before pausing and staring at the wall again.

"I know it has to be me," Crooked Nate conceded at last. "I know I have to go."

"You're the only one among us qualified for this kind of conference," Dr. Reskew said.

"You're the only one who will know what the fuck he's talking about," O'Connolly said.

"I know," Crooked Nate nodded, getting to his feet as his fellow Ministers rushed to assist him. "I'll leave at daybreak, from the Stronghold on the Jersey Shore."

"You'll commandeer one of the hovercrafts?" O'Connolly inquired. "How do you know where you're going?" 

"He'll direct me," Crooked Nate scoffed. "The bastard will be delighted to do so. All I have to do is ship out."

"Agreed," O'Connolly said. "We'll have a transport to New Jersey ready within the hour." 

The group suddenly became aware of their Grand Minister, leaning as far over as one could along the edge of the table, arms in an impossible tangle all about his head and neck, an expression of pure satisfaction plastering his visage.

"Jared hasn't spoken for over an hour," the good doctor announced.

"Grand Minister!" Sec. Gen. O'Connolly called. "Do we have unanimous consent on this mission???"

The Grand Minister stirred slightly.

"Hey... Hey... Nate... Hey Nate.... Naaaaaate! ...Nate..." Grand Minister Adams said, eyes set squarely upon the Att'y Gen. with an endless manic grin curved in all manner of directions across his devilish mug, before sliding off the edge of the table with a tremendous crash to the floor, though they could hear him from under the table.

"What them lobsters is doin'???"


           *                                                   *                                                 *



The Att'y Gen. struck off at dawn as planned, departing The Ministry HQ and setting off for the East Coast of North America, riding along to his Jersey Shore Stronghold where he commandeered The Nimo, one of The Ministry's state-of-the-art solar-powered hovercrafts, and took to the high seas without a heading.

No sooner had he left land than the Att'y Gen.'s predictions also went off as planned. According to the ship's Captain's Log, the last thing he remembered while aboard, was that the ship was raided by what he described as "Shinobi-looking SWAT team Shaolin gunmen (coolest-looking motherfuckers I ever SEEN!!!)" who dropped from a helicopter and forced a sleeping agent upon the Att'y Gen. (presumably orally) sending him into a deep slumber with dreams-aplenty. He was wearing white onesie PJ's and flying through a massive fantastic Slumberland with a young princess to his right and a giant bullfrog on his left that continuously yelled "BLAAUGGGHHHH!!!!! BLAUGHHGGHHH!!!!!!"

When he came to, he was sitting before his quarry. 

"Good morrow," said Rimet. "Welcome... and all that."

With eyesight slowly developing, adjusting to the soft orange hew of the tiny warm drawing room's lighting, and the smaller piercing light blue glow from the veranda several rooms down the hall, Crooked Nate found himself surrounded by three high walls of horrendous artwork he didn't recognize and one entire wall of vinyl albums. Sitting in front of that wall, and directly in front of him, was the man who had been the greatest scourge of his world since before he was even aware of him, the man who commanded the currents of popular music, continuously crafting the musical realm in his own image. For the first time, Crooked Nate at last looked upon Jules Rimet.

He was a slight man, spindly and pale-skinned; he'd managed to curl his entire form into an old oak brown leather office swivel-chair. A multicolored afghan was draped over his shoulders, though most of his chest was showing, adorned with a thin baggy low-cut purple tank top, while his bottom half was clothed by black spandex. His gaunt face held a thin coal-colored beard, the length of which had grown in so even that it looked like the stubble was intentionally shaved to those precise dimensions. He periodically scratched the fuchsia knit cap, which was clearly irritating his scalp, perched atop his sheer straight shoulder length hair, dirty brown and parted on the right and slanting across much of his forehead. Despite the myriad of events the Att'y Gen. had tied him to, dating back over four decades, he didn't look a day over 30. He was peering down over his dark thick-rimmed glasses, reading the liner notes of an album the Att'y Gen. didn't recognize.

"I've never understood why artists feel the need to leave their gratitude to people who had absolutely nothing to do with the project's production or had any hand in bringing it about," Rimet mused. "I'm pleased to find none of that here in this album."

There had to be hundreds of vinyls on the wall behind Rimet. They went all the way up and Crooked Nate leaned back to see where they met the ceiling.

"Quite a collection, Jules," Nate said, returning his gaze to his quarry.

"That's not my collection," Rimet replied. "Those just came in this week."

There was a distant monotonous hum filling the entire room. It sounded as if a microphone was lying on the floor somewhere with the amplifier still on or like something heavy fell on an organ and was holding down some keys. Forever.

"We are currently listening to Composition 1960 #16," Rimet said, without looking up. "The instructions that accompany the piece state that a live tiglon cub should be released into the room with the listener for its duration. So mind your feet."

Nate glanced at the floor where what appeared to be a striped lion cub slept by his chair. He heard Rimet chuckle to himself all of a sudden. 

"Apologies," he said, clearing his throat. "I just realized I used the word 'duration' when describing a La Monte Young piece. I suppose it seemed necessary to provide proper context, given the present company."

Nate shifted uncomfortably in his chair, he was slightly hungover from whatever the ninja assassins had shoved down his throat that morning.

"There's coffee in the French Press to your left," Rimet said, still reading. "I assume that's what you drink in the morning."

Crooked Nate, with eyes fixed upon his quarry, picked up the French Press without looking, poured himself a mug, stretched it out to his right and poured its continents on the carpet with a splash.

"Charming," Rimet said, eyes still down, as a servant rushed in, rapidly cleaned the spill and left. "I suppose you've wanted to do something like that for some time."

"Aye," Crooked Nate scoffed.

"Why not stand up on the table?" Rimet offered, waving a hand as he continued to read. "Juggle your balls and howl at the moon? It will make no care for my part, as I trust you are already aware."

Crooked Nate gritted his teeth, digging his fingers into the leather cashmere- topped armrests of his chair, despite their soft pleasing feel upon his forearms. Rimet abruptly closed the album at last.

"Well, Albarn you've certainly made your bed," Rimet muttered, reaching the album above his head and pushing it between others on the shelf behind him.

"That the new Gorillaz?" Crooked Nate asked, eyeing its spot on the shelf. "Doesn't that not come out til next month?"

"Yes, but don't excite yourself," Rimet said, returning his hands to his lap, finally setting eyes upon Crooked Nate. "You'll hate it; quite famously, in fact."

Nate glared back as his quarry, the incessant hum continuing in the  background.

"And, as usual," Rimet said, eyes, cold and fixated. "You'll be alone."

"Well," Crooked Nate replied, through bared teeth. "Everyone's a critic."

"Yes, but not everyone knows the proper plane upon which to base their critique," Rimet returned, adjusting his seated fashion. "The axis is no longer one of 'good' or 'bad,' and I say never truly was. No. The axis is only meant to determine whether the project serves a purpose or fails to do so altogether."

Crooked Nate shook his head.

"And what a purpose Animal Collective has served," he said.

The right side of Rimet's face allowed a smile at that remark.

"What a purpose indeed," Rimet said. "The grand vessel of the Collective. My they were so close to whole without me and yet would have never truly coalesced into what they are now had I not intervened. I recall quite vividly when I became directly involved with them in the winter of '03 as they were embarking on their fourth essentially anonymous work. The techniques I introduced them to during this time would redirect their efforts and redefine the band forever. The triumphs that followed Here Comes The Indian are well-documented, by yourself included, but even these were trivial matters by comparison to the true force in the band. The animal for which the collective served as but a mere expendable vehicle; I'm referring, of course, to Panda Bear...my finest creation..."

"Your finest puppet," Nate sneered, as the tiglon awoke.

"Ah," Rimet nodded. "Is that how you're characterizing me these days? As a mad master of marionettes? That I hold the strings and dance them across the stage? No. You are wrong. For I am not a woodcarver by trade and none of them have strings. They perform by their own volition, I only get them to the stage or take them off. And for the ones I do create, I give them no strings and grant them the power to walk on their own. That is a skill that this Geppetto you've imagined me never could've hoped to possess."

"You're right," Nate smiled. "You're much more like The Fairy."

The two fell silent, only staring back at one another for a moment or two. The tiglon was running its claws on the chair leg and Nate tapped his legs signaling for it to jump up. The cub leapt into Nate's lap and curled up there. Rimet finally spoke.

"I suppose you're wondering why you're here." 

"I'll take a drink," Crooked Nate offered.

"You won't be here long enough," Rimet responded, picking up his own water glass and rising. "You're losing time already."

"If you've got anything to do with this crab attack," Nate said, with eyebrows raised. "I'd say you're the one whose short on time, Julesie." 

"Please, save me the coy insinuations and the idle threats," Rimet responded, refilling his glass at the Pellegrino water cooler in the corner of the room. "You know full well I'm involved and you haven't the jurisdiction or means to tie me to it."

"But I could choose not to fix it," Nate replied. "And you wouldn't have sought my help if something hadn't gone wrong. Something's not going according to your plan."

"No," Jules replied, raising the glass to his lips. "Not at all..."

He drank deeply, his back to Nate, as the Att'y Gen. stared him down, squeezing and releasing his seat's pleasing cashmere toppings. Jules finished the remains of his glass and turned back to his guest.

"To fully explain what you're up against," Rimet said. "I'll need to tell you the entire story."

"It just so happens I'm on holiday," Nate said. "I'll have that drink now."

Rimet glared at him from behind his glasses.

"Cleaning up other people's shit always works up a terrible thirst in me," Nate smiled.


"Kjartan!" Rimet called, as the servant appeared almost immediately. "Bring some whiskey."

Nate was beaming.

"How does your guest take his drink, Mr. Rimet?" Kjartan asked.

"In a bottle," Nate responded. "And make sure it's absolutely repulsive, Charrtann!"

Kjartan nodded and departed as Rimet slowly paced about the room.

"I think you have a general idea of what it is that I do here," Rimet said, continuing to pace. "Though I realize you can not begin to imagine how I do it."

"I'd rather not imagine," Nate said. "And I'd rather not know. I'd rather save South Africa from the goddamn monsters you've unleashed upon it and then go back home to Philly."

"You know so little," Rimet smiled. "I have to remember that. That's why you must hear everything."

Kjartan returned with a large bottle of Evan Williams which Nate snatched and poured into the coffee mug.

"Talk and talk fast!" he said, offering a few laps of whiskey to the tiglon. "I'll stop hearing you in about ten minutes."

Rimet grimaced and began.

"I first became aware of the transcendental power of music in 1984 while watching the Congressional Hearings of the Parent's Music Resource Center," Rimet said. "The goal of the artists testifying was to prevent the stigma of a rating system from being applied to their works and to convince the Senators gathered that parents would have a more significant effect on their children's upbringing than the music ever would."

He paused, drinking deeply from his water glass to pick at a plate of some Thai cuisine he'd perched on the bookshelf in the corner.

"It was only then, I think, upon hearing the artists themselves say that," Rimet mused. "That I finally knew that they were lying."

"You actually wanted the Parental Advisory stickers?" Nate asked.

"You misunderstand," Rimet said, pausing in place for a moment. "It's never been about what I want."

Nate drank deeply of his whiskey and settled back in his chair.

"The monotonous mantra from the libertarian side of the debate," Rimet continued, pacing again. "Was one striving to convince the nation that music alone could not move people to commit certain acts, specifically acts seen as destructive to one's self or others. What they never discussed... was that music heard in conjunction with a complex well-orchestrated agenda, could move people to commit... all kinds of acts...

"From  battle hymns to advertising jingles," Rimet continued. "I became fascinated, obsessed, with cognitive dissonance, cultural dissonance, memory, nostalgia and so on. This led to my expert analysis of constantly evolving demographics, market trends, foreign affairs. I needed to understand people's preferences and motivations, with regard to music."

"And why was that?" Nate asked.

"So I could understand this world," Rimet responded.

"And control it," Nate said disgustedly.

"The study was long," Rimet said, ignoring Nate's comment. "I was already a scholar of musicology, and the applications of modern psychology came quite naturally to me. That's all very technical and I won't get into it because I doubt you'd be able to comprehend any of it, but the key principle here is that once I realized that I could essentially transform any scenario into one I considered more favorable... I then began to attempt to determine the very course of events itself..."

He refilled his glass.

"And I succeeded," Rimet smiled. "Incessantly."

"No one man should have all that power," Nate frowned.

"Oh please!" Rimet moaned. "No one in my position, upon discovering these possibilities, would have simply let them be. It was like riding a ship into a hurricane and discovering it had a helm for the first time."

"So how'd you do it?" Nate asked. "Initially, at least."

"Oh, it was quite simple," Rimet grinned. "I became a session musician and my aptitude allowed me to ascend quite rapidly through the ranks to work with some of the most sought-after and avante garde projects of the time, finally achieving the roles of an engineer and finally a producer."

"Your long-desired role," Nate nodded. "You probably still consider yourself a producer, don't you? One who needed the whole goddamn world for a studio."

Rimet smiled at that. 

"When Berry Gordy was running Motown," he continued. "He ran it like a corporate product line. He would hold quality control meetings every Friday and have the latest offering performed before a room of radio execs, music critics, producers and the like. He knew that a positive response from that room would give him an advanced guarantee of a hit." 

He swished the water in his glass. 

"But he was an amateur," Rimet smiled. "All Gordy cared about was money. Once he'd collected on his product in the short-term, he simply made another, and was unconcerned with how that product lived on in the general public, the events it would inspire and how the endless tide would carry it off for eons to come."

"You wished to control the tides," Nate said.

"I did," Rimet said. "And I do."

He began to pace again.

"You'll understand there have been necessary evils along the way," he said with a shrug. "I had joined a dance which, like any dance, was about give and take; I was constantly writing and rewriting a complex algorithm of society's wants and needs in music. This has, at times, led to trends in popular music appealing to the lowest common denominator of the public and containing very little content of any high cultural musical worth. These are, of course, the most preferred musical trends of your cousin the Grand Minister."

"Europop," Nate said with a shudder.

"Yes," Rimet said, with a cough. "I suppose I would apologize, had it not been absolutely necessary."

"No apology will suffice for Aqua," Nate said flatly.

"Nevertheless, they had a role to play," Rimet said. "But even the most useful eras in popular music eventually outlive their usability thanks to minorities of diehards who prolong the inevitable. You, for instance, remain clinging to your pitiful punk rock, though it died decades ago. Like the rest of your subculture you are comparable to an extra in Weekend at Bernie's, as the band carries that lifeless corpse of a genre from place to place, fooling the world into believing it's still alive."

"Nice reference, douche," Nate said.

"My thanks, cock," Rimet returned. "But these drawbacks along the way exceeded such mutated lepers of the pop culture genome. There were casualties as well. Bands disbanded and solo careers that needed to falter or conclude altogether. This, of course, made my anonymity and multiple aliases essential."

"Why?" Nate asked, drinking deeply.

"Because I'd never be able to get close enough if they knew," Rimet responded. "Which brings us to the matter at hand."

Nate sat up in his seat then.

"When I take an act off the board as one alias," Rimet said seriously. "That alias is then retired as well. Until that time, I operate under that name, and how ever many others I need, and build its reputation accordingly... I recently retired such an alias..."

"Of course," Nate said. "You broke up the Crab Band."

"I assumed that one was coming," Rimet rolled his eyes.

"Glad I didn't let you down," Nate said, raising his mug.

"While operating under my most recently deceased alias," Rimet went on. "I was approached by a band that had found massive notoriety extremely quickly and like many before them in a similar position, they found themselves short on ideas and barely capable of finishing their sophomore effort. As they mixed down their second album, the singer came to me, desperate and in hysterics, pleading for assistance on garnering inspiration for the third effort."

"He wanted you to directly give him inspiration to write an album?" Nate inquired. "Even you aren't capable of that!"

"No, I'm not," Rimet replied. "And that's not what he asked me."

He eyed the remains of his guest's whiskey bottle. It was nearly empty and his guest's smile was becoming more unsettling.

"Direct inspiration is not my role," Rimet continued. "I want as little to be known about me as possible, let alone play muse to a piece of art. When it comes to that, I merely give the artist a nudge in the right direction. Whether its having a Brooklyn thrash group listen to Merzbow or flooding the mp3 blogs with a buzz band or blind-siding the recording industry with a Latin explosion. The enterprise, of course, varies in intensity with context-

"Or convincing a rock icon to kill himself," Nate said bluntly. 

"If you're referring to Cobain then it's really time for you to move on from that," Rimet said. "There was no 'convincing.'"

"You took a clinically depressed heroin addict to a firing range," Nate replied. "One wonders where the conversation drifted that day."

"Hardly his first experience with guns," Rimet replied. "And he chose his time... it appears another musical act has now as well..."

"So what happened?" Nate asked, pouring another mug.

"The singer that approached me for help told me there were primarily two sources of inspiration for him," Rimet continued. "Namely, Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel."

Nate froze in his seat.

"Neither of those sources had put out anything of real worth in some time," Rimet went on. "And the troubled singer decided the reason for this was both Simon and Gabriel had put out their most impressive solo material during the reign of South Africa's apartheid government."

"He wanted to bring it back?" Nate said.

"The singer essentially believed," Rimet answered. "That a South Africa in peril would resurrect the talents of Simon and Gabriel and restore the fountain of inspiration for him to sip from once again."

Nate sat nonplussed. If had finally dawned upon him. He had already gathered what the next words to leave Rimet's lips would be.

"It was Ezra Koenig," Rimet nodded. "The singer of Vampire Weekend."

It all made so much sense.

"I'm sure you're already aware of the Botha-Reagan Crustacean... whatever they called it," Rimet recommenced. "With Reagan gone there was only one remaining individual possessing the nuclear codes necessary to activate the disaster. The disaster would appear to be of natural origin to anyone unaware of its true origins and the united world effort to liberate South Africa from a Giant Crab holocaust would be enough to provide proper inspiration to... Simon and Gabriel... and then inspire Ezra and Vampire Weekend vicariously."

"He was willing to sacrifice an entire nation so he could write an album," Nate said.

"Yes," Rimet nodded.

"And so were you," Nate breathed.

"I supplied the identity of the scientific engineer, the only living person with the codes," Rimet said. "I had been contemplating the effects of refocusing the world upon that country for some time now and saw ways that the world music community could utilize the effects of this cataclysmic event. But I never dreamed they would do this now."

"Why does the timing matter?" Nate asked.

"Why... the World Cup is in South Africa this summer," Rimet said incredulously.

"Oh yeah?" Nate asked.

"Yeah," Rimet said, eyeing Nate perplexedly. "You really can't think of any reason that would be significant to me?" 

"Honestly?" Nate said. "Soccer barely even exists for me."

"...well, regardless, I can't allow it to be disrupted," Rimet continued. "In fact, the early reports are showing that the Cup will put more focus on the nation and its music than there's been in years. The Crab Infestation is no longer... necessary..."

"Oh!" Nate exclaimed. "Well thank god for that!!"

"And the reason I've told you who's behind this," Rimet said. "Is for the same reason I take any act or artist off the board."


Nate raised his eyebrows.


"Because I've decided it's time for them to be done," Rimet smiled.

Nate gulped straight from the bottle then, as Rimet stared at him over his glasses, swishing his sparkling water in his glass.

"Ahhhh..." Nate's satisfied breath came, as he wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "So..."

"So?" Rimet replied.

"How do I kill the things?" Nate asked.

"Kill them?" Rimet asked.

"Yes!" Nate said. "Eradicate! Exterminate! How?"

"With large guns, I'd imagine," Rimet shrugged. "Bombs... maybe you could feed them some poison or use fire..."

"Are you for real?" Nate asked. "You don't know how to... undo this??"

"I do not," Rimet said, shaking his head. "That is the very point of such chaos. Once activated, the plan is usually to allow it to run its course. I predicted it would take a major military coalition approximately 3 months to quell the threat. I would give your Ministry a little over a year."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Nate said. "Good luck sleeping tonite, you filthy bastard."

"You said I was a producer," Rimet said, as the Att'y Gen. downed the remnants of the bottle.

"Hah?" Nate asked through blood-red eyes.

"You said I was a producer," Rimet said. "But you mischaracterized me again."


Nate raised his eyebrows, awaiting a statement.


"I am a conductor," Rimet grinned. "This is all a symphony; and in my own way I lead it as I see fit, constantly removing and adding performers, fortifying different sections when necessary and, to the best of my abilities, enriching the sound to the nearest perfection I can."

"You're fucking insane," Nate said.

"You know that I'm not," Rimet said. "You're probably nearly as convinced of the superlative virtues of your own musical convictions as I am of my own. In many ways I'm sure you desire the power I have."


"If I did what you've done, Julesie," Nate said. "I would've gone the way of Cobain many moons ago."

"I might've asked you to join me once," Rimet mused. "If I didn't already fucking despise you with every fiber of my being."

"Back atcha babe," Nate said, with a point and a wink. "On that second part, at least..."

"That's the difference between you and I, you know," Rimet went on, as Nate looked behind himself for the first time and spied the record player that had been playing the monotonous drone for nearly an hour.

"You've spent your entire life attempting to evade the current," Rimet said. "To fight against the hype and decry its validity. Whereas I recognize that in any fight as in any dance its all about leverage. You use that current to your advantage. You use that hype and channel into a productive end."

Nate burped for about half a minute then, smiling while he did it, and then stopped abruptly.

"Shit... is... BUNK!!!" he exclaimed.

"Do you know what's happening right now!?" Jules asked heatedly, rushing to the table and slamming his hands on the end of the table, startling the tiglon, which leapt from Nate's lap and darted out of the room. "Right up there! Directly above our heads! There is an entire war room, filled with 106 television screens, 18 rows of MacBooks and 1,000,000+ GB hard drives powering my operation as 50 of the most dedicated minds in the world monitor mp3 blog aggregators, record sales, music reviews, concert attendance, music store figures and the live music scene of every major city on the planet. It is an operation whose reach and scope and vision makes The Ministry of General Mayhem look like a social club! The public opinion we monitor is the public opinion we've created!"

Nate was wide-eyed, near-laughter and DRUNK.

"I have the resources!" Rimet screamed. "I have the vision! I have the power! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE!!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

He rose from the table's edge. Nearly out of breath. Stood there for a moment looking out the hall. Then retreated to his Pellegrino dispenser. Nate arose then. Wobbling in place.

"I know what I like, man," he said. "I know what I don't."

Rimet shook his head, his back to the Att'y Gen.

"And I know... what I hate..." Nate said. "And I hate... this fucking shit... you've been playing..."

Rimet then heard a truly horrific sound: a zipper unzipping.

"But don't worry," Nate said. "It's about to get better."

Rimet spun around to discover a sight that shocked him to his very core. He was not a man accustomed to being shocked, as he was an analytical man of incessant calculation. Every stone was unturned, every possible scenario was considered. But for the first time, Jules Rimet's face went an even deeper shade of white.

"Listen to the incredible tones I'm achieving!" Nate called over his shoulder, as the constant tone they'd been listening to was warbled, strained and changed frequencies. "Yeah, this is the optimal version! As it was MEANT to be heard!"

"You're... you're..." Rimet stammered. "You're... URINATING ON THE ALBUM!!!"

"Yeah!" Nate exclaimed. "I found some...uh...extra instructions in the record sleeve!! It says to piss directly on it after you've listened to that fucking dial tone for more than an hour!"

Suddenly, Nate's pants slipped to the floor.

"Oops!" Nate exclaimed, with a laugh. "There's my ass!"

The warped and fluctuating tones finally reached their apex as the needle began to slide all about the vinyl as the flow of urine increased. It was a true testament to the potential of experimental music.

"That is..." Rimet gasped. "A first...pressing...the... original!!"

"Oh good!" Nate said. "So there are other copies!"

He began to wrap up relieving himself all over the record as Rimet slunk back towards the far wall, slamming his back against it and clutching his face in horror. Nate zipped his pants back up and gave the pleasing cashmere topped armrests one last squeeze.

"Alright then!" Nate said. "Thanks for the booze! I'm out bitch! Crabcakes are ON THE MENU!!!"

He balled up his pants, which felt a bit heavier than before and walked for the door. Rimet was standing with his head against the wall to Nate's left. The Att'y Gen. paused for a moment as he entered the hallway. He finally noticed a piece of art that didn't suck. Standing in the midst of a darkened wood, in the streak of light shone down from a small break in the thick canopy, was depicted a young vixen: bushy tailed, green-eyed and staring determinedly into the darkest portion of the woods, crimson, proud and alive.

"Wow, Julsie," Nate said with a grin. "What a perfect little red fox."

He didn't even notice the ninja assassins tackling him, they were upon him so fast. The last thing Nate remembered was sailing over the houses of Greece, NY aboard his childhood bed, with friendly goblins by his side and his flying squirrel companion upon his shoulder, curving up Mt. Read Boulevard and flying low down to Churchill Drive, he finally awoke on the deck of The Nimo as the sun set off the shores of New Jersey.

2.3 The Battle of Llandudno

The days that followed Crooked Nate's Weekend at Rimet's were filled with battle preparations, strategy meetings, correspondence with the South African government and periodic fits of laughter from the Att'y Gen.'s fellow ministers as he recounted the entire peeing-on-the-record-player story.

The Ministry Arsenal hadn't been accessed since the 1950s, the final decade that The Ministry had identified as a partially-militant organization before officially adopting nonviolence across the board. Though the arsenal hadn't been put into use in half a century, it had been gradually increased over the course of 40 years by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson while he served as Attorney General for the Bureau for the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, Amyls, Ether, Acid & Gonzo. The supply was now so massive that it rivaled the size of most militias throughout the American mid-west.

Dr. Thompson's legacy would now pass to Crooked Nate as he assumed the Attorney General mantle and led Ministry forces into battle for the first time in decades. The Ministry gave unanimous consent to grant Crooked Nate access to every chopper at their disposal, as well as a loyal legion of Ministry gunmen, ready to ride til they die to help save the Republic of South Africa.

After his final nite in The States, spent partying with The Grand Minister in Brooklyn, Crooked Nate was leading a fleet of Ministry hovercrafts across the Atlantic bound for the shores of South Africa. Calls were volleyed back and forth between The Ministry Fleet and the South African Coast Guard throughout the weeks-long voyage. President Nelson Mandela ordered a mandatory evacuation of every beach along the entire coastline, but keeping the order as quiet as possible. The Grand Minister called him every day in the mid-afternoon, describing the latest battle strategies and reassuring Mandela that any involvement by South Africa's forces would only draw unwanted international attention to the crisis.

Nate would stand on the deck of the ship in the evenings, as if he was searching for an invisible far off shore. But his heading was decided this time and he knew where they were headed: straight into a harrowing crab-ridden hell. The monsters he and his forces would face were unlike any humanity had ever seen before, but he didn't feel fear, only the warm nuzzling upon his ankle of the tiglon cub he'd smuggled out of Jules Rimet's mansion in his pants.


*                                                   *                                                 * 


The following is an excerpt from Crooked Nate: War Journal depicting the 1st Battle of the Giant Crab War.


---


Crooked Nate: War Journal
Llandudno, Cape Town, South Africa
March the 20th 2010


7:30 AM SAST


The South African dawn fell upon my eyes like the first light upon my birth. Never had I witnessed such a rich and glorious sunrise as the one that rose off the horizon. It was the gateway to the Indian Ocean, the majestic sentry of the kingdom of the East. We'd docked here in Llandudno the night before. President Mandela had come down accompanied by the highest ranking officials of Parliament to greet us. They prepared us as best they could for what to expect from the South African coastal terrain and what the weather patterns for the season should be. Indeed, we were well prepared and they made us all the more, but no one could have prepared me for the beauty of that rising sun. I realized, however, that I cherished it so, not only because it was the first time I looked upon it, but because I knew it may be the last time I looked upon anything at all.


10:45 AM SAST


Our forces are assembling down along the coast. We decided to settle in the tiny suburb of Llandudno after consensus amongst our sonar experts confirmed that the crabs were consistently dead-set upon that direction, moving in from the northwest. They'd traveled in a massive cluster for weeks now, never wavering from their course. We cannot confirm as of now whether there's some method behind why they're choosing this town to attempt to break land. It's relatively unprotected and surrounded by little more than the Oudekrall Nature Reserve. My vote is for 'no' they don't know what the hell they're doing, they're crabs. But every now and then I remind myself what we're up against and how truly fucking crazy it is and realize it'd be foolish to rule anything out at this point.


12:37 PM SAST



We have two solid rows of hovercrafts with mounted cannons in staggered formation along the coast now. There are a few smaller speedier ones that will stay low to the water and do their own thing when the enemy presents itself. The others will remain stationary as long as possible. Our highest priority is preventing the bastards from making land no matter what. I've scattered land forces with ground cannons throughout the brush and rock formations on this wide hill overlooking the shimmering blue coast; they're the last line of defense. I've posted up on top of the lighthouse that's currently serving as our command center and sole storage facility. We will keep up regular correspondence with both The Ministry and the South African government from there. I've got my BFG 9000 mounted and at the ready and a week's supply of cell packages up here at the lookout post of the lighthouse. I don't know how much it will take to put them down but we're hoping that if they stick together in this cluster as they make their way for land we might be able to take them all out at once.


6:49 PM SAST


Everyone is fully loaded and at the ready. The sonar team reported back at about 5:45 pm and I'm expecting another report any minute. They've been riding far off the coast to get directly above the crabs and get an accurate read on their coordinates as they make their underwater journey. The crabs have been rapidly advancing, much more quickly than predicted, and the sonar team has placed them at less than an hour off the coast now. The tension is palpable all over the shoreline. My forces and I don't really know what to expect. We don't know how big, how ugly, how fast or powerful these bastards will be and even if we did I don't think you can really be prepared to see something like a Giant Crab coming at you. I just keep reminding myself that we've got enough firepower to last five years and while they may be big they're still just crabs. I don't know what's going to happen. I'm being told that the sonar team is actually returning to the coast now. I need to go hear their new report.


6:53 PM SAST


HOLY FUCK!!! HOLY FUCK!!! HOLLLLLLLY FUCKING JESUS CHRIIIIIIST!!!!! CRABS! CRABS! CRABS! CRABS! CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABS!!!!!!!!!!! HOW THE FUCK IS THIS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????????????? WHY THE FUCK WOULD THIS HAPPEN!!!!!!!!!!?!?!??!???!?!?!? LOOK AT THE FUCKING SIZE OF ALL THESE FUCKING CRABS!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!?!?!? WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!?!?!?!??! SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!!! KILL THEM ALL!!!!!! KILL THEM ALLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!


---


The Battle of Llandudno lasted three days and the Ministry forces under the leadership of Att'y Gen. Crooked Nate were ultimately victorious. There were no casualties on The Ministry side, the crabs never made land and the forces upon the hovercrafts were well-protected, though some of the vessels were rendered unusable due to damaging claw punctures. Nearly a dozen crabs were recorded as dead after the battle. Ministry forces measured the carcasses as being over 60 feet tall (standing height) and 30 feet wide with an estimated weight of three tons. Ministry forces ate all crabs that were killed.


The forces were dismayed to find that the 10 or 11 crabs that were killed off and dined upon in battle only constituted about 2% of the entire cast of crabs that stood against them. To complicate matters further, they exhibited high intelligence and adaptability to battle strategies by side-stepping southeastward along the coast, rather than retreating back into the sea, as Ministry forces battled them back from the land.


An attempt the following day to confine the cast and exterminate in Hout Bay the following morning would go horribly wrong and the crabs' escape further along the coast would come to define the entire war, as Ministry forces chased the giant crabs along the coast line of South Africa with mandatory evacuations of the beaches being called for and undone as necessary.


For the next year Crooked Nate would courageously lead his forces against the crab menace, gradually whittling down their numbers as they drove the cast further and further eastward along the South African coastline. The war would finally conclude a year later in March of 2011 when the great claw of the dreaded Emperor King Death Crab was severed from his massive form and he bled out over a mile's-worth of coastline as he skittered away eastward finally dying at the water's edge. The Grand Minister gleefully dines on crab cakes baked of his innards to this day. This now historic photograph was taken moments after the Death of the Emperor King, when Att'y Gen. Crooked Nate and his 1st Officer Famed Anarchist Johnny Scapino, triumphantly hoisted its claw above their heads.


But Crooked Nate would play an equally important role elsewhere during his time in Africa, many miles away from the battlefront of The Giant Crab War to assist The Ministry in another and in many ways more dire fight altogether.


-


CHECK BACK SOON MAYHEMERS AND MAYHEMETTES!!!

FOR THE NEXT EXCITING INSTALLMENT IN THE UGANDA AFFAIR COMMISSION REPORT:

CHAPTER III

HOLLYWOOD'S MOST BUDDHIST!!!