I think America missed something. It must be the time of year, what with inhaling all those fumes from the charcoal starter... and fueling up the Jet-skis so as to turn a perfectly good mountain lake into something like a Cuisinart on the guacamole setting... and the rousing evenings in the Nascar parking lots hitting palmetto bugs with your wiffle bat... and all that anxious waiting for a 10W-40 hard rain to fall on the Gulf Coast states - but President Obama made a very interesting remark when the financial regulation package passed in the senate the other day. He said the bill would make sure that "Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street's mistakes."
Whoosh....
That was the sound of something going over America's head. Something about the size of Rodan the Flying Reptile. And frankly I don't think the president even meant to be coy or deceptive. It just means he doesn't get it either. Never again....
Never again?
What the fuck?
Why even this time? Why isn't there an army of federal attorneys out there, their teeth bristling with subpoenas, beating the bushes in every lane and skyscraper floor of lower Manhattan (and Fairfield County, Connecticut, not to mention a thousand office parks around the USA) to roust out the grifters and swindlers who took Main Street to the cleaners this time.
The audacity of cluelessness! And the hilarity of "next time."
Earth to President Obama: there isn't going to be a next time. This time was enough to git 'er done. Wall Street - in particular the biggest "banks" - packaged up and sold enough swindles to unwind 2500 years of western civilization. You simply cannot imagine the amount of bad financial paper out there right now in every vault and portfolio on the planet. Enough, really, to sink any company even pretending to trade in things more abstract than a mud brick or an hour of labor. What's more, the cross-collateralized obligations between them are so vast and intricate that all the standing timber in North America could not be fashioned into enough pick-up sticks to represent the hideous death-dealing tangle of frauds waiting for the wing-beat of a single black swan to come crashing down.
Go out and get a copy of Michael Lewis's recent book The Big Short for a close-up view on one micro-corner of the investment world. You will discover that the people fabricating things like synthetic collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) had no idea what the fuck they were doing - besides deliberately creating documents that nobody would ever understand, that would never be unraveled by teams of law clerks or secret words or magic incantations or prayers to some dark hirsute deity, and were guaranteed to place in jeopardy every operation of the world economy above the barter level. Sorry to invoke the hoary old metaphor about the horse being out of the barn - but the larger problem is what the horse left behind in a great steaming mound clear up to the rafters. There was nothing to understand in all this crap, except that betting against it was a good idea, and then only for those who placed the earliest bets - because everybody else is going to get just as screwed as those who stuffed their vaults and portfolios with Triple-A rated horseshit.
What banks and governments have been doing for the past eighteen months is a dumbshow meant to distract the public from the fact that the world financial system has been effectively destroyed. There isn't enough money left in the known reaches of the universe to pay off the outstanding claims. In fact, not even close. Everything that proceeds from this fiasco will be in service of impoverishing most of the population and, incidentally, probably bringing down governments and, with them, convenient social usufructs such as due process of law and civil order. What remains - what you're watching right now on CNN or Fox - is just a representation of the former structures of civilized life, what Joe Bageant refers to as "the hologram," a kind of 3-D picture you can see around, that looks like reality, but is actually immaterial, a collective hallucination. It's comfortable living in a hologram - until you discover that you're in one.
In the summertime, when there are weenies to grill and Jet-skis to commit suicide on, the public is usually having too much fun to pay attention to anything. Maybe this is how come summertime is also when lots of bad shit happens, or gets ready to happen. The guns of August... blitzkrieg... 9-11... the death of Lehman Brothers....
A few other social notes this week: Something else the public (and, of course, the news media) missed in the General McChrystal affair. It wasn't just that the general badmouthed his civilian superiors. It was that he was not the other thing that an army officer should be: a gentleman. He was a lout who reveled in everything lowest in his own culture. He was a man so disturbed by having to spend a night in Paris at a good restaurant with civilized people that it seems to have driven him plumb batshit. General George Patton - a man renowned for his own profane intemperance - would have boxed Stanley McChrystal's ears for his sheer childishness and assigned him to Graves Registration. When the USA falls apart in a few years, let's hope General McChrystal doesn't ride over the horizon on a white horse with an army of Af-stan vets flexing their neck tattoos behind him.
Oh, and something else: notice that the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher has vanished from the front pages of The New York Times and even The Huffington Post. Nobody gives a shit anymore. Bring it on.
_________________
A sequel to my 2008 novel of post-oil America, World Made By Hand, will be published in September 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Press.
First!
nobody gives a shit. period
When a politician says "never again" it really means that is precisely what is going to happen.... you can look forward to bailing out Wall Street forever, and ever, and ever and ever
Maybe we should just say no to politicians
http://www.suburbanempire.com
I had a dream I was on a sinking JetSki early this morning, only to find JHK is thinking about them too... Strange...
It's gone from the front pages but maybe it will come back up when the sound of the methane explosion and prime beach front property collapse will knock the ski riders off their waves.
Your prediction of the rise of McChrystal sounds eerily plausible and nightmarish at the same time. The end of civilization is on track all right.
http://hurricanekatrinakaif.com
Here is a 10 year scenario from a person who recently spoke on "Meet the Press" on NBC:
"The increasing demands from China, India, and other developing countries will reduce global crude exports to the United States. Refinery closures due to carbon constraints will reduce domestic production of gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel. Prices will rise dramatically. Taxpayer-subsidized biofuels, while taking up some of the slack, will not replace the millions of barrels per day in lost crude and oil products.
The U.S. car fleet and other uses will continue to demand some 20-plus million barrels to go around. Our liquid fuel supplies could drop to as low as 15 million barrels per day, leaving much of America short or just plain out of gas, or having to pay a price so high that few people can afford it. Agriculture will be hit hard, increasing food prices. ...."
From "Why We Hate the Oil Companies, Straight Talk from an Energy Insider" page 227.
By John Hofmeister, former President, Shell Oil Company.
My son goes to a high school where most of his peers are children of McMansion gods. The gods are off to all manner of vacations, trips, and sending their god-lets to summer camps, etc.
There's no end to it.
And they are blissfully unaware of, and completely indifferent to anything bad happening in the world.
Their world is still "intact."
The cornucopian outlook reigns supreme in the realm of the McMansion gods.
It will be fascinating to observe people's reaction when reality finally begins to have tangible effects on their lives. Surely there *must* be someone in power who feels at least somewhat nervous about causing so much displeasure to so many people?
http://www.goldsubject.com/the-enlightened-and-the-clueless/
Bring it on by putting it on. Put on your Shittibank, American Excess or Goldman Sucks Apparel.
Get it going one shirt at a time.
http://www.creativedestruction.us/
Jim has it all together too well.
Where IS the Obama 'Justice' department???
If there were any justice to be dispensed there would be a LOT of banksters in orange jumpsuits cleaning up roadside trash right now.
~Ruff
america is very sick people. Errol Morris article about Anosognosia: Social anosognosia is when a group of people, perhaps even society at large, devolve into a state of destructive cluelessness. And isn't this what has happened in the U S.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/the-anosognosics-dilemma-1/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia
Since the days of Ford and Carter, presidents have practiced OMERTA on whatever crimes the previous administration committed or allowed other friendly businesses to commit. Obama's lack of interest in pursuing the criminal behavior of the banksters is of a piece with his refusal to go after Blackwater and some of the Bush operatives for war crimes in Iraq and A-stan. It feeds the tendency of the conspiracists to assume that there was 'a deal' struck somewhere.
I've started to think of the presidency as being a job that mostly involves creatively kicking selected cans down the road. This was certainly true of W, who knew that most of his schemes would come undone at some point (and hoped to be happily retired when they did). But if it's Obama's goal to keep the finance system limping along on a death march until Inauguration Day 2017, that ship has sailed. The current known economic stresses plus the problems of Peak Oil and the way the Baby Boomers are leaving the playing field will unwind all their magic derivatives sooner rather than later.
I think Obama's "never again" is supposed to echo Jewish reaction regarding the holocaust. That way his words inherit unearned gravitas. We are supposed to interpret the "never again" as a profound statement of purpose and philosophy, all the while ignoring the fact there is a army of unpunished crooks out there responsible for the financial mess. Crooks who are now being implicitly admonished to not do it again - please.
And on top of all this, the melting arctic ice is going to beat the low of 2007. The author of Blood and Oil has posted several scenarios, including a loosened chunk of Greenland glacier toppling the Hibernia oil rig. Hunker down, folks and live small and close with your friends.
Lynn
http://www.10in10diet.com/
Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill
My guess is that more human time and effort is put into writing meaningless parking tickets every day than has been spent tracking down and outing the miscreants who torched our financial system.
My limited experience with the legal system taught me one important lesson; the people with the most money win. I was in a contract dispute with a huge corporation, people with a raft of greasy, highly-paid lawyers. I had no chance, since even a bargain-basement lawyer wanted an upfront retainer from me that numbered in the thousands. It was game over before it ever began, so I've learned not to expect much from the poorly named "justice" system...
"When the USA falls apart in a few years, let's hope General McChrystal doesn't ride over the horizon on a white horse with an army of Af-stan vets flexing their neck tattoos behind him."
There are over a million Iraq/Af/Pak vets. Probably half of them have spent multiple tours going around neighborhoods at night, kicking in doors and turning homes and lives upside down.
This is not a good skill to turn loose during the Long Emergency.
McC bailed because he doesn't want the Afghani albatross {an unwon war} to be a talking point during his campaign.
Jimbo: Wonderful! Except you may not have noticed that the two biggest dunderheads in government responsible for the shenanigans on Wall Street, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, just doubled down on the whole mess with their silly new bill to “regulate” the markets.
And the Illusion Master-In-Chief, B. Obama, just piles on the crap. People are starting to realize he has risen on star power alone, not brain power. If you are hungry to see brains in government, look to, of all places, Louisiana.
Better print some money at http://www.thenothingstore.com It may be all we have left.
What a sad place we have reached. The damage we have done to this planet is unacceptable. And Mother Earth will have the last word. Time to get the body working properly and the mind calm and clear in order to deal with what is ahead...there is no other path.
zen17
Art of Zen Yoga
Yeah, what does Eric Holder do all day besides spy on hologram-free citizens and trash talk the state of Arizona for doing the one thing that the Feds are actually supposed to be doing?
Prisons should be bursting at the seams with shady wall street/banking/financial grifters. Americans are too docile - there should have been a collective freak out when the giant banking shakedown of the little people came to light. Thats the day I started revising my standard of living and preppin' up for TLE.
As for the gulf of Mexico disaster - It is a game-changing nation and earth destroying mega-event. There is no other news or conversation, but the media are the mouthpieces of the state. I'd love to see Patton box the ears of the entire failed industry of "journalism".
Stanley McChrystal fired for not being a gentleman?
Had gentlemanliness been a requirement of the job, presumably his role in the Pat Tillman affair, to say nothing of JSOC assassinations — and the other ugly things which surely lurk in the dark corners of the grotesque that was his career — would have prevented his rise to the Afghan command to begin with.
The Dumbshow was often a comic or satyrical version of the Tragedy to follow, a few laughs before the blood. Speaking of summers past remember 2001 when Donald Rumsfeld was tearing around the country telling us we HAD to build the Star Wars system to protect ourselves, while his boss was cutting wood in Tejas?..... Moe.
The intimidation President O felt during his first meeting with military brass must have carried over to the first crisis meeting with Wall Street. From cash cow to crash now. Bets are that the conversation was quite different from pre-election hand shaking ceremonies with Wall street donors.
Scene 1: Opens with obese Wall Street fat cat dressed in boxers and tank t-shirt lying in fetal position on floor beside sofa, rocking and trying to reach the phone, just out of arms length. After a lengthy struggle, fat cat gives up, limping into exhaustion. Moments later, Pres O enters room with a smile and hand extended for a warm, sincere greeting. Pres O expression changes from "hello dear friend" to "what the hell"? Fat cat murmurs, then shouts, I fallen...and I can't get up".
Scene 2: __________________________
Palmetto bugs in New Hampshire?
I too am frustrated by Obama's lack of interest in prosecution. But there's this: between a media that thrives on sensation, and a deranged opposition party that seems to have retired from the job of governance and is now all-demagoguery-all-the-time, Obama has to pick his battles wisely. Any prosecution related to the Iraq war will soon lead to very high places, and the moment that someone like Dick Cheney gets hauled into court, the media will treat us to a non-stop festival of wankery that will make strong men weep. Such is life in the Happy Motoring kingdom.
Similarly, it would have been (in my view) perfectly reasonable for Obama to suggest... just suggest, mind you... that deep water oil production might be something that we should no longer do. But again, think of the reaction to such an idea!
My greatest fear is that, as a nation, as a culture, we'll get what we deserve.
The Anniversary of Michael Jackson's death took priority over most other news, including news about the oil spill. Beyond this, the country's been Enron'd again, by the banks and Wall Street, resulting in millions unemployed (and soon to lose their unemployment insurance because 'they should' be able to find jobs and if they can't, well on the street), foreclosed, and made homeless. But, the DEFICIT now seems to matter all of a sudden---it's why unemployment benefits are cut off, but not a factor in war spending, and in general, DOD's budget. Why has the banking and Wall Street Enron'ing of America come down to the responsibility of individuals, states and local governments to deal with? Why no TARP for these entities?
Seems to me that too, not only our media, but the public has been numbed to all this, or they never woke up in the first place to what has been happening and what it means. Citizens just don't seem to care in enough numbers to make a difference and to make change.
We seem as a nation, to be intellectualizing like crazy--reading web sites, listening to alternative radio and podcasts, and reading papers, but we miss one thing: we don't have any power. Because Congress and the White House have disconnected us it seems to me. They have become so insulated and so well taken care of by lobbyists that they don't have to pay attention to citizens. And note how DHS says that people who cite the Constitution are likely to be terrorists? And the move to control the 'net? Congress isn't afraid or respectful of the people anymore; we're seeming to be seen as the enemy in this new globalized America. Look at Zimbabwe--how afraid is Mugabe of the people? That is ahead for us.
"It just means he [B. Obama] doesn't get it either."
Well, you've finally stumbled on what most of us understood from the beginning: Obama doesn't know *anything* about *anything*. He has no experience, no leadership, no accomplishments, no ... no anything. His entire wasted life is about as deep as a school play. We elected a wisp of smoke to the highest office in the land.
The fact that he can't/won't fix anything was predictable and predicted. But there is not a shred of hope that anything better could come of Congress, the entire bureaucracy, or any of the state and city governments. They are all Obama's.
JHK wrote:
"Why isn't there an army of federal attorneys out there, their teeth bristling with subpoenas, beating the bushes in every lane and skyscraper floor of lower Manhattan (and Fairfield County, Connecticut, not to mention a thousand office parks around the USA) to roust out the grifters and swindlers who took Main Street to the cleaners this time."
Earth to JHK: Come on man, you know it is because those are the scum bags who financed his campaign which, by the way, was mostly lies. He can't prosecute those criminals. It was part of the deal when they gave him all that money. He is one OF them.
And, the MSM is slowing reporting on the blow out in the GOM because there is no GOOD news there.
As for General McChrystal, he said what he said for a reason. You can call it insubordination and criticizing civilian leadership and such, but the simple fact is that he spoke what he thought based on his own personal interaction with the Liar in Chief. Maybe he shouldn't have said it, but I suspect it is mostly true.
Best hopes for the relief wells to work.
Best "hope" for "change" in November and 2012.
Good luck to us all.
I have been reading a book called, "The Creature from Jekyll Island," about the Federal Reserve System, by G. Edward Griffin. As lender of last resort, the Fed was designed around bailout from the beginning, along with accompanying inflation. And other unsavory developments, like the ruin of our currency and form of government.
BTW, June 24 NYT has an article on the return of large apartments on the Upper East Side, such that each of two children can have a bedroom, plus family room and so forth. Because, at 2.7 million, prices are so reasonable for young families now. How does one get into THAT hologram?
Unearned gravitas is exactly right, that is a great line.
I think Obama, being a lawyer, is as clueless as the average man on the street, his eyes roll back into his head when someone starts with the CDOs, MBSs, CDSs, SIVs and all the other sludge.
So he listens to the jibber jabber coming from Geithner, Summers and their ilk and they say do this, do that and Obama uncomprehendingly defers to the "experts", the very same ones that laid the groundwork for this catastrophe.
Mr K is dead right, the worldwide financial system is built on lies and bullshit. Our govt spews much praise at Canuck banks for their fiscal "prudence" to which I say blow me. Our federal govt threw 75 billion at them (some of that was my money which fucking infuriates me) in our own rescue packages. Plus I defy any of their senior management to explain what's in their derivatives line items. These guys and girls look and sound authoritative, they appear to have a grasp of the subject matter. And I'd bet my last dollar that they are as clueless as Obama. These banks are balloons looking for pins and inevitably they will find them.
About General McChrystal: Well said, JHK. I admired him after reading the recent profile in the Atlantic. I figured he was well read enough about effective counter-insurgency tactics from works on his shelf (Churchill, books about the Sudan and Malaya).
But no, the good General had to turn out to be a lout. Even if what he said was true, and Obama is blowing the Afghan war, as an officer McChrystal abides by a code of conduct. Let him resign his rank and run for office or go on the rubber-chicken circuit, if he wishes to critique the President or others in our civilian government.
Need I remind readers that our officers swear an oath to defend the Constitution?
I fear men like him. He'll be a dangerous one if he goes into politics, as expected. Smart louts like him are the most dangerous of all and they can rally those neck-tattooed enlisted men who are coming home messed up as hell, because the nation that waved flags when they left could not bother to make any sacrifices while they bled.
I'm from a military family, and I spent a bit of time with Army officers back from Iraq after a relative's tour ended in 2006. These guys are happy to be back, but there's a disdain among the younger officers, the only ones I know, for our soft civilian society.
They have a point.
As for the enlisted men, I haven't a clue.
With enough disaffected men behind him, a smart lout like McChrystal could wreck a nation's traditions and institutions, even while trying to save it, more effectively than can a dumb lout like G.W. Bush.
At least the general is not a lunatic fundie. That's a saving grace, even if his drink of choice is Bud Lime.
If our society can provide jet skis for the well-off, and prisons for the poor, pay one million dollars a year for each soldier kicking in a farmer's door, and multi-million dollar bonuses for the "wealth creators", and do it all with fake money -
then we can provide a decent sustainable standard of living for all-
As long as we quit reproducing like rabbits.
What are the odds?
I personally don't bet. My government does that for me.
And just in time for TLE, it appears we can now all be armed to the teeth, all the time. Ride 'em cowboy!
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/28/court-rules-for-gun-rights-strikes-down-chicago-handgun-ban/
McChrystal outsmarted the President, outsmarted the Congress, outsmarted the media, and outsmarted even Mr. Kunstler!
McChrystal knew the war was lost--he's not stupid--and obviously engineered his own departure. Much easier than the opprobrium he would have been received had he simply resigned.
If Obama indeed ..."has no experience, no leadership, no accomplishments, no ... no anything....", how can it be that the responsibility for the mess we're in "..are all Obama's..."
At worst, he's a stooge of the bankers/military/oligarchs (presidents have always been), and at best, just a super ambitious guy seduced by the chance to make history and soak up the world's attention.
"Never again" will the foxes get the chickens - that they have been posted to guard the henhouse is perhaps beside the point.
Good Morning Kunstler Nation,
The foxes are indeed in the chicken coup! It seems at this point in history there is not enough time to regroup and like many I have to many friends I cant even breach the topic with. This long emergency leaves many of us in a difficult position. Leave places along the Pacific coast to live with family in Dallas, TX or one of the many megaplexes???? Seems so counter intuitive There is no doubt that even before the enivormental disaster in the Gulf that the world sailed over the proverbial cliff. As Jim so beautifully points out I feel to that by September its going to be really nasty outside.
What is are next move for those who know whats coming?? I hope this generates some interesting perspectives and insights.
There's the mega-story about what Wall St. and Main St., and what Obama is doing, and there's what we're doing in our own lives and communities to prepare ourselves for the future that JHK sketches so deftly. Right now the mega-story's got our attention, but when the manure hits the windfarm full on, what's happening right around us will be the important thing. So will our personal sense of competence and confidence that we can take care of it.
http://www.radicalrelocalization.com/
JHK said,
"Deepwater Horizon oil gusher has vanished from the front pages of The New York Times and even The Huffington Post. Nobody gives a shit anymore. Bring it on."
Don't worry bout that. When the relief wells fail to stop the gushers in August it'll be front page again. And when humans, along with marine animals, start dropping dead in significant numbers from breathing in toxic air, and being doused by toxic oiled rain it'll be in the news again. And when the TPTB see people scurrying away from the Gulf States by the tens of thousands to escape oilgeddon it'll be in the news again!
Bobby said: At worst, he's a stooge of the bankers/military/oligarchs (presidents have always been), and at best, just a super ambitious guy seduced by the chance to make history and soak up the world's attention.
That's the best one-sentence summary of Obama I've seen.
The world is one big con game. It was revealed that police disguised as Black Bloc anarchists were destroying property so the real police could move in and make arrests. BO has touted great changes coming from the new financial reform bill, while derivatives, which were alchemized in Shadow Banks, can still go forward. Too many compromises spoiled the stew.
The corporate capitalistic oligarchs are in control. BP had stated that the Macondo well, back before it exploded, had 50 million barrels down in the cavern. At the rate it has been erupting, that well should have gone dry. Therefore, these oligarchs of oil have no idea how to accurately measure a damn thing, how to clean up an eruption let alone a large spill, or how to safely engineer a deep water drilling project. All they care about is cutting corners for profits and shareholders. Government keeps them in business.
If a developer built homes that systematically collapsed months after the owners moved in, the developer would be arrested. Yet, the BP bigshot on the well has been placed on leave-at home. Why isn't this guy being questioned in a jail cell?
What appears to exist is the preservation of Reaganomics. The neo-liberal, laissez-faire trickle down corporate oligarchy model of economics is what must be preserved, decries the financial crime syndicate bosses from within the White House and throughout the G20 conferences.
James, nothing will change for a long time. As the whole cloth begins to tear, all that is being done is the allocation of needle and thread to patch it up.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
Some people are commenting that Barack Obama doesn't know anything. How wrong can they be. He knows exactly what he is being told what to do.
He is another Manchurian Candidate turned president. He is not about change. He only lied about change in order to get elected.
Now that he is president, he is continuing the legacy of lies, deception, and fraud, while securing the power of the corporate capitalistic oligarchs, who drove the jobs out of the country, stole the working person's wealth in a funnel-up process of bailouts, and Fed Fund Happy Meals at zero percent interest, and government protection to continue their wealth machine disguised as derivative alchemy.
They, the financial oligarchs, are hoping to keep interest rates down while they pay off their debts. Higher interest rates are bad for their plan.
http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com
Prognostication:
Four "names" you need to know and trust.
James Howard Kunstler
Joe Bageant
Dmitri Orlov
The Automatic Earth
If you internalize a synthesis of these four, you will arrive at a "correct" impression of what's really going on. Most all else is bullshit, false hope propaganda, and pipe-dreaming.
There is no time for self-delusion; get busy or give up.
I had told everyone at the beginning of the year that June-July would be the tipping point in the time-line of collapse. Here it is, and the bodies are floating to the surface of the lake in all their grisly decrepitude (and in mind-boggling numbers). Unfortunately, I'm always right about these things. I don't want to be. When it's too late, no one will give a shit where they may have heard a hint anyway. That's a given, and it doesn't matter.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."
Why? Because it's COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE. It's time to become brutally pragmatic. The helplessly hoping will [for the most part] be left where they fall. How's that portfolio/sucker's game coming? That shit has been OVER for quite a while, just via the losses to inflation. But keep it up, mindsets like that need to go down to destruction by their own lights.
...And in D.O.'s latest, "Checkmate" the infantile sports metaphors to reality get the burning they deserve. No more "games" scheduled. Sorry; no more "there" there.
Bring it on; the only way "out" is through.
Thanks Large, JHK. There are those of us who have hearkened to your voice [shouting in the wilderness] for a long time.
Ps. Mike Ruppert has had a good bead on everything real and nasty for years beyond [american] remembering as well. (Now you've got to pay for the privilege of his warnings; you can hardly blame the guy after what he's been through.)
I have to many friends I cant even breach the topic with.
============
Groan ... it's too and it's broach (to mention or suggest for the first time: to broach a subject. - Dictionary.com)
Yeah, I know, they were typos.
Obama ignores the wishes of his electorate and does nothing to go after the wall street crooks.
Perhaps their are so many that Obama doesn't know where they would be jailed? All the non violent drug offenders would probably have to be let out out of prison to make enough room. Can't have that.
A better reason can be found by noting the comments of Timothy Geithner to the G20 leaders Saturday as they sniffed the acrid aroma of Toronto Police Car carbeque.
Geithner's spend baby spend message wouldn't jive with wall street prosecutions. His stimulate and spend you unemployed broke asses out of the recession message wouldn't fly if wall street was really brought to task.
We can't expect a president committed to business as usual to go after the grifters and swindlers of wall street. It would send the wrong message. It would take a president committed to real change and determined to set America on a new path for that to happen.
Not a Band Aid president.
"The damage we have done to this planet is unacceptable. And Mother Earth will have the last word."
Or more understandable to Americans, "Nature always bats last."
SEE???
Thanks, playaguy.
You are getting slack.
Coup ??? chickens live in COOPS
I have to sigh long and deep Wage because most of the time I agree with you but I have to give my own perspective on this.
Re "the poor": A South American Cardinal (can't remember his name) said several years ago that when we in North America talk about poverty it's in a different language from most of the world. I tend to agree and I would argue that real poverty mostly does not exist in the US and Canada ie Anglo North America.
Let me explain why: I used to work with a woman whose sister was a nurse in Pakistan. Her sister recounted a story about a family that had an infant with diarrhea. Treatment for the infant would have bankrupted the family (who had several other kids) and tossed them out into the street. Conditions in the streets were so foul that the infant would have sickened again and died anyway. So you would have had a homeless family with a dead infant plus their other kids would have been in terrible conditions. The nurse counselled the parents to let the infant die.
When I was a young teen in the early 1970s my parents took me and my sister to visit relatives in Italy. We went to see some of them living on a farm in Central Italy. They were destitute. They busted their asses on that farm and they were barely holding body and soul together. I was appalled. They had a toddler that was really sick with a fever. The parents insisted that the kid wasn't sick enough for a doctor. My parents offered to pay for the kid's treatment which by our standards would not have cost much but was way out of reach for them. the parents refused.
My father delivered milk house to house for years when I was a kid. I worked with him on his truck during the summers. We were at the time what we would now call lower middle class. One family (on welfare on and off) owed about 50 dollars to my father and they were way behind on their payments always pleading poverty. I went to see if I could collect some of it because what they didn't pay my dad came out of his pay. I knocked on the door and asked for the mother. A kid about my age told me his mom had gone to buy a stereo and would be back soon. My father, predictably, went ballistic. They can't pay their milk bill but have money for smokes and a stereo.
My father had several such families on his route as did most of his compadres working for the dairy. From my own experience and talking to my Dad's co workers it seemed that what characterized these families was extreme misbehaviour on the part of the adults ie alcohol, criminal records, violence, teen pregnancy and other fun stuff. It's not as if they had no choice. They could have behaved themselves, found work and been self supporting.
My point is that it seems to me that what characterizes poverty in a lot of North America is different from most of the world. From what I see a lot of the poverty in these environs results from bad behaviour, a lot of people at the bottom end of the income scale are bad actors pure and simple. Their poverty comes from this.
I have some sympathy for poor people outside of North America. But based on the shit that I've seen and heard about in these parts when I hear people advocating for "the poor" I can feel compassion draining out of my shoes.
There is a guy that panhandles in downtown Toronto. This guy is dirty and dishevelled, has no legs and deformed stumps for arms. He is utterly helpless and obviously living in misery. Why this should be is beyond me. It seems that the "will-nots" (like those useless bums back home who can work and should work) are soaking up money that the "can-nots" (like the guy with no legs) should be getting.
Defend the Constitution? That piece of paper that says that our borders are to be protected - those of each and every state? Do you think Obama is doing that? Remember the rest of it - to defend our Constitution against all enemies, both without and WITHIN. And as Cicero said, the worst enemy is always the one within. All great Civilizations are betrayed from within before they are conquered from without. And yes, the people in their corruption, are part often part of this betrayal.
Yeah ... so many errors .. so little time.
From the same post I also could have mentioned the mixed metaphor:
sailed over the proverbial cliff
And then in K-dog's post there's the word jive which should be jibe. How many times have I pointed out the jive error?
Public Radio broadcast numerous articles subsequent to the worldwide economic collapse and if my memory serves one of the most astounding facts (to me) that came out of these broadcasts was the vastness of the estimated wealth, in the hands of the ultra wealthy, for which they were looking for investment opportunities. As I recall, prior to the collapse the available investment wealth was estimated at slightly less than $80 trillion but what was amazing was that after all of the to big to fail shenanigans and bailouts the available investment wealth was estimated at slightly more than $83 trillion. This is approximately 4 years of the gross output of all the Earth's human critters.
Could someone please elucidate me as to the rationality of the reasoning that the 98% of the human critters on the Earth, who eke out a day to day (paycheck to paycheck) living, have found themselves beholden to ensure that the 2% of the
human critters on Earth, who own nearly 4 years worth of worldly output, not only get to keep what they have but get to loan it back to we sheeple so as to increase their largess via interest.
Apparently even "helicopter Ben" is concerned as he has been observed warning those who inhabit Capitol Hill that the CBO is estimating that within ten (10) years the US national debt will rise to 90% of GDP.
How much do we sheeple owe the ultra wealthy? Is it perhaps time that we suggest that those with the $83+ trillion bail out the governments of the Earth and they "eat it", "take a hair cut" or whatever aphorism "floats your boat"?
SNAFU
Great post! Few write pissed-off as well as our host. We are sitting on a keg of gunpowder and that funny smell is the fuse burning, yet no one’s alarmed? As long as gas stays under three bucks a gallon, all the wildlife in the Gulf dies where we don’t have to watch it, the Supreme Court declares it’s firearms for everyone anyplace, and the Catholic Church gets its child molestation back to acceptable levels, it’s business as usual. We have surely gone down the rabbit hole.
Yes, when the Federal Reserve was set up, America was placed on a hundred year countdown to its destruction. Why? Because they intended to use the wealth of America like a booster stage of an Apollo or Gemini Rocket - to get them to a postion of World Control. Once America has served its purpose, it just falls flaming and spent back to the ground, a complete ruin. It has served its purpose for the Money Masters, mostly Jews of European background - and of course some Gentile accomplices like the Rockerfellas. Paul Warburg once got up before Congress and told them that we would have a World Money system whether they liked it or not. He held no office and may not have even been an American Citizen. But he was the direct representative of the Rothschilds. That was more than enough.
To a large extent their plan has been a success. They are certainly much further along in their plan of World Domination because of the wealth and power of America. And the downfall of America is right on schedule too. I'm sure they are making plans for which nation or nations will be the next booster stage. Argentina and Australia are apparently high on the short list. In the meantime, they will use whatever we have left to fight their wars in the Middle East.
The LAST OFFICIAL ACT OF GOOBERMINT, loot the nation...
I got it:
'jibe' from here on out. If I could I'd edit the post. I've got a 'you' that should be a 'your' also. On top of that I only should have put spend baby spend in italics and not message.
I'll try harder next time, sometimes the finger gets itchy when the mouse goes over the Submit button.
Sure, maybe. However, your point is moot.
Think micro, not macro (if you would do what might be "good for you"). Your ox has yet to be gored. When it is, you will react out of practical necessity, not ideology.
The owl of Minerva always flies at dusk...
Too late, too late.
Not for nothing, but neck-tattoos are prohibited by military regulations, so I dont know where JHK came up with this silly notion of a legion of neck-tattooed GI's following a McChrystal -cum-Caesar across the Rubicon/Potomac.
This leads, however, to an interesting point. As Jim himself has spoken of many times, our social, political, and cultural institutions are largely failing and are in varying states of unravelling. This is especially evident in the incestuous relationship between government/business/media which have grown too deluded and obtuse to correctly percieve the problem and too large, corrupt, and incompetent to take action even if they did. This is leading us to the point, like to admit it or not, that the only institution left in this country that still has a reputation for competence and integrity is the military. That the military is one of the last holdouts in our sick and ailing nation that still says, no, you cant have a tattoo of flames on your neck, is emblematic of of an emerging subculture, where selflessness, discipline, tradition, and most of all achieving results, are still paramount. Contrast this against the presently dominant me-first culture of victimhood and entitlement. Who do you think will still retain legitimacy and authority when things start to get rocky in the TLE?????
Thank you, Jim, for pointing out that the Deep Horizon oil leak story has vanished from the front pages! I'd been following it online every day on BBC and NPR (among other media outlets), and was incredulous to find it pretty much gone last week. You have to wonder what sort of horrendous milestone will make them pick it up again...
It's always fun to get together and commiserate about all the multifaceted dimensions in which we are all screwed, but what are we gonna do about it?
I just read the headline on the USA Today at the newsstand: New Poll Says 58% of Americans Approve of the Firing of McCrystal, primarily because he didn't accept the Bullshitter-in-Chief's timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan. I wonder how the public is going to like the news that we have found some new reason not to withdraw at all?
Now that a trillion dollars of rare mineral wealth has been discovered there, I suppose we will find it important to protect that country's new democratically elected government from the majority of their citizens. Just as we do here.
For a realistic plan to reclaim your health and lost wealth before this nation goes under: http://www.healthyplanetdiet.com/
Hello.
Folks make the mistake of thinking the US Presidency is such a position of power that the President can rule the folks in Wall Street. That is wrong. The financiers rule over the government.
Also the corporations run the media. Yes, most Americans are apathetic. What they really care about is driving their cars as fast as possible, getting stuff, watching tv, and indulging themselves.
How do you get everyone to agree that the emperor is wearing clothes when his clothes have been blown off by an economic tornado?
Starting with globalism and supply side economics which creates wealth for those who own the debt of many, we have seen a progression toward this outcome coming down the pike.
The same standards apply to large multinationals: BP committed numerous frauds in their exploration plans concerning the building of Deepwater Horizon. I always thought that fraud was criminal, but not in this system. If you've got enough money to finance the political careers of congress and presidents, the truth is just a casualty of economic warfare.
If you follow Matt Taibbi's articles of last summer, laws have been made horizontally and vertically to make all this legal. Even the bankruptcy laws were changed before this debacle and "W". tried to privatize Social Security. It feels like a set-up for what was to come. Our system of checks and balances is lost in the conflict of interest in both the members of our judicial system, and with lobbying efforts on the congress.
Although it does seem as if the financial experts blew themselves up without knowing the implications of they were doing, you might consider that throughout the last thirty years, there has been a progression toward the seamless banking system.
Along this path, came the institution of NAFTA and trade laws that make this atmosphere incapable of making and keeping jobs long term. --Oh and I just love that we will be a nation of "innovators" doesn't that make you feel better?
Unfortunately all this means is that the middle class that took so long to build will have to be dismantled for the few that don't want to pay for the cost of doing business--or taxes. Hey--they couldn't even reinstate Glass-Steagall (a no-brainer) in this new legislation, but that was too radical for our leadership.
Soon, they'll tell us how all social safety-nets must be privatized, although we've been continually paying taxes for them. They call them "Entitlements", because in this marketing paradigm, linguists like Frank Luntz has demonstrated that words are magic and you can turn people against their own best interest if you use the right incantations.
As we speak, Obama has a "commission" looking into making changes in our medicare and social security.
If you think TBTF won't get a bailout in the future, you've got another thing coming. Sure, another financial tsunami can happen. What integrity does the world economy have when you are talking about anywhere between $800 trillion or $1.4 quadrillion in toxic derivatives? It's pure fiction! There will never be enough wealth to cover those sums, but they want more! When you get everyone in the G-8 on board, any manipulation can happen and probably will. Christine Lagarde claimed in a recent interview with Fareed Zacharia when referring to a new bubble was that that there's nothing else to work with. So with that in mind, why not destroy the fictional economy again for the gain of a few.
The world financial system is so toxic that there's no tuning the ship around--or at least there's no stomach for it.
In the meantime the right wing revisionists would have you believe that Roosevelt did not turn the depression around--it was WWII. Why don't wars help build the economy, now you might ask?
Because the profits are going into a few privatized hands and at the same time they get money from We the people. Xe, formerly Blackwater stated during murder investigation hearings that they are moving headquarters to the United Emirates while getting more govt. contracts for Afghanistan.
Our gash in the Gulf is continuing to bleed and is presently threatened by the first hurricane of the season with many more to come...
You're a jibe turkey.
Snafu said in an earlier post:
Apparently even "helicopter Ben" is concerned as he has been observed warning those who inhabit Capitol Hill that the CBO is estimating that within ten (10) years the US national debt will rise to 90% of GDP.
Current National Debt is: $14.114 Trillion
Current GNP is: $14.424 Trillion
That's already 90.9179%. Who knows where it will be is 10 years. Boy are we in trouble!
Mmmmm, jibe turkey, my favorite.
We had our baby last week! Little Oliver was almost 9 lbs and a generally robust lad all around. 24 hours in the hospital was enough and we're all home safe and sound and enjoying some of the first of our garden fare (we got a late start what with moving cross country at the end of March and all).
I helped the midwife pull him out and cut the cord. Our 2 year old, Ella, seems thrilled about all this. And mama is losing the baby belly fast and producing loads of milk.
And now it's time to, ahem, stop procreating.
Bang on the mark as usual, and how about this article in today's Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7857595/RBS-tells-clients-to-prepare-for-monster-money-printing-by-the-Federal-Reserve.html
Central banks may be on the cusp of a truly massive money printing orgy- a terrifying read.
I don’t believe the western worlds debts are geologically payable and the next drop of the shoe will be a really serious realignment with the true value of the Yuan. Its got to come some time and its not going to be pretty for anyone when it does (certainly not for most Chinese factory workers.
Just another thought that occurred to me in the supermarket the other day, maybe there is an answer that someone can help me with. What is the farmed area of an average supermarket? How many acres of farmed land and sea are required to supply an ordinary supermarket for one year? If one adds up the entire produce that goes into the supermarket for a whole year what agricultural area would that represent? I would also like to know the ratio of the inhabited urban area to the size of the agricultural hinterland (across continents) that it actually represents. I bet that the area and its distribution are breathtaking.
Every Ecuadorian banana plantation, every ounce of Amazonian soya that went into feeding Dutch pigs, every Iranian pistachio nut, every spear of Peruvian asparagus, every drop of New Zealand Wine every South African apple and every prawn from the Philippines would have to be included.
And its all made possible by the black stuff.
"As for the gulf of Mexico disaster - It is a game-changing nation and earth destroying mega-event. There is no other news or conversation, but the media are the mouthpieces of the state. I'd love to see Patton box the ears of the entire failed industry of "journalism"."
Amen, sister...
I think my grandmother made a smart move when she switched to travel writing late in her career. Travel on the paper's dime while you still can, and write beautiful stories about places those other schmoes will never get to see. Brilliant.
Sorry, I meant the orange stuff.
Tripp! congratulations on your new addition! He will be one of the very few newborns well prepared for a new world. I send you blessings on blessings. Your grandmother was whip smart. I think where would I travel to now? If i were to jump the good ship 'merica, where would I go? Mr. Chickory is still not on board - Good that you have a unified front.
I'd like you to take a look at this video about crop damage and bird kills inland from the gulf and let me know what you think:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlC9W8EqRUQ
You can see very clearly on satellite that our rain often if not mostly comes out of the gulf. Im trying to imagine what Corexit5000 will do to all of us. We know its principal use is to fatten the wallets of that 2% somebody above wrote about and also to sink the oil where it can do plenty of damage...but just out of sight so there isnt the full tilt freak out there should be.
I would also like to give you this valuable link in environmental reporting. Im so glad to see you back.
http://www.desdemonadespair.net/
Yep, most of America's poor are much better off than the rest of the world.
And if you compare us to the past, we're better off than kings, what with our electricity, hot and cold running water, stoves that work without chopping wood, etc.
Even our homeless eat well out of the garbage cans of fast food joints, those that don't lock up their garbage, that is.
And we, the little people, have all seen egregious examples of the undeserving poor, because we are one step above them on the class level. I see lazy, stupid, extremely poor pieces of protoplasm daily.
But what about the undeserving rich? Most of us don't live at that level, so we don't see them.
But Paris Hilton? Come on!! Does she deserve all that she possesses?
And little Georgie Bush, the frog torturer. Did he really deserve to be given 3 corporations and then a country to drive into bankruptcy?
I am not really a lover of all mankind. But I realize that we have to live with those who are here now, and the most moral and most pleasant way to do it is to make sure that everybody works to contribute and everybody shares in the products of labor.
This massive inequality, coupled with massive ecosystem destruction, coupled with the massive repressive apparatus being set up (a billion dollars for a weekend in Toronto? Really?), is not a pleasant way to live.
I really think we can do better.
Cash, let me add to your characterization of poverty in America. A few years ago I worked for an east cost electric company. The black woman who ran the cafeteria wanted a house of her own and got Habitat for Humanity to build one for her. She had to pay for it, of course, but at bargain rates. Also, she was required to have her friends and family commit 500 labor hours. The guys in my department got together and helped her out: we spent many an hour at the site doing all sorts of work. I put in the natural gas lines, for example. We did this because this woman was one of the nicest, gentlest, most dependable people we knew. She treated us all like we were her kids. And we saw her just about every day since she ran the cafeteria and food prep. So far, everything sounds great, right? Well, not so. This poor but resourceful woman was surrounded by freeloaders and losers. I remember once when I went over to her house to repair her dryer, the living room was festooned with layabouts who were content to do absolutely NOTHING to earn their keep. Most were not ever her kin. They were just there sucking up the "free" air conditioning and food. My point is that our industrious woman friend was being dragged down by being surrounded by parasites. Her nature was such that she simply could not say no - and their nature was such that they could simply not contribute. The parasites ruined her home and she died. Sic transit gloria mundi. In our culture it seems that even those with the moxie to pull themselves up are dragged down by the others.
accomplices like the Rockerfellas.
===============
It's Rockefellers ... but who gives a shit? Google today's NY Times Op-Ed section and read "The Triumphant Decline of the WASP." It'll put a frown on your face.
Right on, SNAFU!
How dare they run up a giant bill for us to pay?
Where are the religious people in all of this?
I'm not big on the Bible, but not only did it proscribe against usury, it had something called the Jubilee, where debts were wiped out occasionally.
We used to have that also. When capitalism, as it its wont, gambled its profits away, the gamblers lost. Speculators in a bubble lost their money, jumped out of windows, etc.
Game reset.
Not that I'm for that, but, come on! It's beats this, no reset, no rest, just the peons paying.
Congratulations, Tripp. Best wishes for your family
Well, the cover-up of the oil spill has been successful. Financial business as usual will continue. What is that? It is called fleecing fools where you find them. Knaves fleece fools. Those who are not too shrewd, have been screwed and jewed
and continue to lose.
Geoff
Sacramento, Ca
But Paris Hilton? Come on!! Does she deserve all that she possesses?
===============
"Deserve" and "undeserving" are irrelevant terms.
Paris Hilton being wealthy places no burden on the rest of us. You are galled, as are socialists, in general, that the rich are rich because of a mistaken perception that the economy is a zero sum game but her excess wealth, beyond basic needs, was not extracted from the pockets or mouths of the poor. Another mistaken perception of socialists is that all excess wealth is ill-gotten.
I read it and it put a smile on my face.
Yes, the Constitution was written exclusively by White people. That's in large part because Blacks and Native Americans weren't exactly invited to the meeting.
WASPs continued slavery until they realized it would be an economic blow to the south if it were abolished. In any even WASPs in the North had slave like conditions in factories.
WASPs continued to treat women as subservient beings until women were granted the right to vote and own property.
Women were arrested by WASP males if the women wanted to prevent unwanted pregnancy or STDs if they had contraceptives and condoms on them. Even today WASPs are shooting abortion doctors.
WASPs supported the enforcement of separate but equal and the right to condemn minorites from seeking membership in private clubs such as; country clubs, and social groups.
WASPs often reinforced housing codes for those they felt were socially / racially / economically not their equal to reside in their neighborhood.
The disappearance of WASPs and their privilege cannot come soon enough, with their attitude that: "it's moral for us to keep ourselves dominant in society...how would the ethnics take care of themselves?"
Good riddance, WASPs.
The fireworks should be interesting this summer.
Take cover.
Here's a bookend for today's rant-o-rama by the commenters: 46 US states now facing Greek-style financial meltdowns:
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=atxrhPqbty_4&pos=14
A long, hot summer indeed.
@ smokeyjoe. I don't know how you would classify a 4 Star General as a lout. General Mac is a Airborne,Ranger,Special Forces qualified West Point grad. He has lived in the dark world of Special Op's most of his career. He deserves the utmost respect. A lout is a disrespectful term.
http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum/index.cgi?md=read;id=48278
I read this article someone sent:
AfriGeneas Genealogy and History Forum
"Race" & DNA Testing Surprises ManyBy:Bijan Bayne
Date: 4/17/2005, 10:16 pm
from the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/nyregion/13penn.html
If the link doesn't open:
DNA Tells Students They Aren't Who They Thought
Kalim A. Bhatti for The New York Times
Indrani Halder, a student, with a chart of those in a sociology and ethnic relations class who took a DNA test for genetic ancestry.
By EMMA DALY
I found it fairly disgusting there were so many mullatos. Miscegenation is repugnant. Note however that the most articulate and accomplished blacks were really about half white. That was made clear even in this posting.
I also objected to this statement:
"I think the test is really interesting; I had to know," said Ms. Best. "But it makes me question, why are we doing this? Why do people, especially in this country, want to know? Why are we, as a people, so caught up in race? Maybe we haven't progressed as much as we thought we had."
It is not progess to move past race. It is blindness not to acknowledge. Blacks tend to be pyschopathic morons. Mexican indians are nearly as stupid and fat too. East Asians are brighter but tend towards taciturnity and totalitarianism.
Only whites have the mixture of intelligence and creativity that enables them to create dynamic stable societies. To ignore this is to refute reality. Incidentally, my lines are unpolluted by black primitivism and indian backwardism.
Say what? Congress today used its constitutional powers to cut off billions of dollars of appropriations for Afghanistan.
How will Obama continue the war if Congress cuts off the funding? Here is what they wrote to Obama:
OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW! NO MORE SOLDIERS, NO MORE "CONTRACTORS", NO MORE USA DOLLARS FUNDING TALIBAN!
Qschtik- just die, fucking die. you are the most niggling, irritating, petty shitbucket i have encountered on this site. you have jack-shit to contribute. fucking swallow your tongue and DIE. god and satan in their mutual conspiracy to let us destroy ourselves have no place in the formula for douchebags like you. FUCK OFF AND DIE. The earth dies screaming, and you want the epitaph to be grammatical. Suck my dying ass. DIE.
CASH:
from last week:
As for Islam and the slave trade I've read that Muslim slave traders were active. Is this what you're getting at?
I assume thats how islam got to africa, not on the spice trail but the slave route.
He said the bill would make sure that "Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street's mistakes."
THEY WEREN'T MISTAKES!!!!!
They were deliberate, calculated, criminal acts.
He's protecting them.
I need a bucket.
You said:
"Not for nothing, but neck-tattoos are prohibited by military regulations, so I dont know where JHK came up with this silly notion of a legion of neck-tattooed GI's following a McChrystal -cum-Caesar across the Rubicon/Potomac."
You also said:
"That the military is one of the last holdouts in our sick and ailing nation that still says, no, you cant have a tattoo of flames on your neck, is emblematic of of an emerging subculture, where selflessness, discipline, tradition, and most of all achieving results, are still paramount. Contrast this against the presently dominant me-first culture of victimhood and entitlement. Who do you think will still retain legitimacy and authority when things start to get rocky in the TLE?????"
============================================
These are both points you make and they are well-taken. As a veteran myself, I concur.
I also agree that JHK doesn't seem to know a lot about the military or know many military and ex-military people. But I am willing to give him "poetic license" in this regard. Also because there certainly are plenty of the types who he describes in the military also (sans neck tatoos) so it can't be fully disregarded.
However, it is easily observable that throughout human history, most of the greatest atrocities have been borne out of those very noble sentiments applied in the direction of sociopaths and madmen.
Who staffed the Concentration Camps and Gulags?
Who performed the executions for Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.?
Who crucified people by the hundreds of thousands over five centuries of the Roman Republic and two centuries of the Roman Empire?
Who massacred the Armenians?
(and on and on and on, the examples can be recited, though I trust I have made my point)
Which circles back to a quote I once heard, "To get a good man to do good is easy. But to get a good man to do evil requires God."
Whether God or not, the question is not why people do horrific things, but why sociopaths so often gain authoritarian power over masses of people and get them to do horrific things often in the name of many of the fine qualities you laid out, that in and of themselves are good, right, and honorable.
So, in the end, I think you are both right and wrong in your assessment. The part where you are wrong is that, most likely, whenever TLE results in some serious definitive widespread consequences for a majority of people in the nation (TSHTF), once again the military's fealty and honor will likely be placed in the service of sociopaths like Dick Cheney, the Bildebergers or whatever combination of Rich Aristocrats are actually behind this Charnel House and Monkey Show we call Human History.
And the military, most likely, as all other militaries have done pretty much for the last 5000 years, will obey the sociopaths, directing those noble honorable ideals not at their targets/victims, but in obedience to the sociopathic authority that leads them, if such winds up in power when TLE leads to TSHTF (which it pretty much always does).
I read it and it put a smile on my face.
============
Ohhh, I knew it would ... but you did what is so typically Asokian: you failed to ever mention the Supreme Court; that the article is about the makeup of the Supreme Court.
I was waiting for you to spell out the following desirable goals for the future: Get rid of those 6 Catholics (Wage would like that too). After awhile maybe dump the smartass Jews and in time the males and the heterosexuals. Yeah, thats the ticket, we need a Court composed entirely of Black and Hispanic atheistic lesbians (preferably illegals, if that can somehow be worked out).
"Qschtik- just die, fucking die. you are the most niggling, irritating, petty shitbucket i have encountered on this site. you have jack-shit to contribute. fucking swallow your tongue and DIE. god and satan in their mutual conspiracy to let us destroy ourselves have no place in the formula for douchebags like you. FUCK OFF AND DIE."
Couldn't have said it better myself, shecky.
Three cheers and a case of Heineken for you, sir!
Sir — In light of Rabbi Schiller’s article I would point out that in every issue of The Final Call, Louis Farrakhan’s newspaper, there is a full-page summary of what is called The Muslim Program. Parts of it are very interesting:
“We want our people in America whose parents or grandparents were descendants from slaves, to be allowed to establish a separate state or territory of their own — either on this continent or elsewhere.”
I agree with these sentiments, of having a separate territory for blacks. They even want a fertile, minerally rich land. I suggest whites clear out of Mississippi and give it to the blacks. It is fertile riparian bottom land which is too hot and humid for the white constitution anyway. I do grant that blacks were brought in partly due to their agricultural knowledge and skills in addition to their robust constitutions and ability to thrive in tropical and sub-tropical
climates.
http://www.amren.com/ar/1995/03/index.html
So far, so good, but the Muslims want something more:
“We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to provide such land and that the area must be fertile and minerally rich. We believe that our former slave masters are obligated to maintain and supply our needs in this separate territory for the next 20 to 25 years — until we are able to produce and supply our own needs.”
The Muslim Program also calls for racially segregated schools and legal prohibition of miscegenation.
Paul Tomlinson, Carson City, Nev.
Qschtik- just die, fucking die. you are the most niggling, ... etc etc.
==============
Shecky, I think your posts are among the best on this blog ... clearly stated and I agree with your opinions and sentiments almost to the last word.
About this most current post of yours all I can say is that you have misspelled my handle - it's Qshtik - and you should stop being lazy, like Asia and a few others are, about using the upper case for the first letter of a sentence;)
my lines are unpolluted by black primitivism and indian backwardism.
===============
May I asume then that you've taken this DNA test and your percentages were all in the "western European" and/or "east Asian categories?
The article says:
The test compares DNA with that of four parent populations, western European, west African, east Asian and indigenous American, and the company claims it is more than 90 percent accurate.
The saddest part of the volunteers,murdering people in these so called wars,is,these retarded morons are mostly white.Even Germany over the years has raised a large crop of idiots joining these uniformed goons and blackwater scum.You parents,that raised this garbage of humanity,are totally responsible for their actions.So,the next time you parent losers join a peaceful demonstration,don't be surprised if one of your crotch fruits hits you over the head with a billy club or tasers your grandmother,who was next to you protesting.Being a member of your tribe makes me puke.
Good Morning: Frist, I have an awakening with Joe Bageant's great recent article and now with JHK. Excellent way to start the week. Here in NYS massive health care cuts and increased in taxes, fees,etc,etc. A strike at the Motts applesauce processing plants in the 4th week has raging Ayn Rand and Miltion Friedman disaster free makret capitalism commenting on their hatered of working American families and those that dare question unlimited growth. Same here in my rust belt city, peak oil is false, Socialism trick, this summmer camping, boating,and flying. Its all good,what oil spill?
dear Doctor Kunstler,
Methinks you are showing signs of terminal naivete. By the second paragraph of today's monograph, I was rubbing my eyes, trying to believe your assertion that Mr. Obama is the victim of his own innocence. Yes, there, quite apparently, is a difference between "Conspiracy Theorists", like myself, and "Coincidence Theorists", aside from the shifting difference in quanta of these two camps.
I don't really believe Mr. Obama is such an innocent rube. Do you - really ?
Hey Qstik...huw obut tis won? I thunked "Qstik" shud be "Cue Stick" but ten i cunt spel fer shit.
It is becoming apparent, even to the sheeple, that the Democrats and Republicans are wholly owned subsidiaries of the banking cartel. No one seriously expects them to investigate their superiors unless some whitewash is needed. If these pirates are brought to "justice", it will be by vigilantes, posse comitatus, public lynchings etc., or the occasional paid "cleaning" by revenging financial victims. Not condoning such action, just saying it is the only available outlet.
Perhaps another war is being planned. We have been told that truth is the first casualty, and maybe General McChrystal represents that casualty. Or perhaps he merely tired of spending troops to make the stan safe for the cartels opium/heroin trade. We poor subjects may never know.
Many, including most of the captive media, are ignoring the continuing emergency in the gulf. This (the damage and the ignoring) is likely to get worse before it gets better. If the "relief" wells don't shut it down in August/Septenber i expect it to be shut down by an "earthquake" shortly thereafter. Perhaps this will work and perhaps not. Either way there is the potential to trigger the New Madrid fault, which might be about due for a great quake.
Great article this week, I'd like to see JHK put in charge of prosecuting white collar crimes in the Justice Department.
"Paris Hilton being wealthy places no burden on the rest of us. You are galled, as are socialists, in general, that the rich are rich because of a mistaken perception that the economy is a zero sum game"
You were an accountant? The economy is not a zero sum game?
Must of made it difficult to balance the books, huh?
Oh, wait. You worked for a military contractor, that's right. Being able to balance the books would have been a liability there, not an asset.
(Terms you probably aren't familiar with either).
Back in the non-military contractor world.
If Paris being filthy rich has nothing to do with the relative poverty of the rest of us, why doesn't her family pay hotel workers a decent wage? No skin off their noses. Is it just pure meanness that makes them import Mexicans to work for poor wages?
Or does it only work one way, qstick? The rich don't take money from us, but we greedy workers take money from them, with our minimum wages, and our unemployment, and our health insurance costs.
Your logic is peccable.
Either the rich are rich because they take more of their share of a limited money supply, or there is plenty to go around, in which case you're a socialist.
Your "reality" is meaningless puffery and self-aggrandizement. I encourage you to live it.
But Joe Baegant explains the qstick american-idolize-the-rich mind much better than I-
"Naturally, they believe they are far superior by virtue of having made it to an elevated point in the gilded cage, closer to the feed, water and sex. Because they believe it, and the media echoes their belief, hovering and quoting them, discussing their every brain fart, we tend to believe it too. Nothing shakes our belief, not even staring directly into the face of a congenital liar and nitwit like Sarah Palin, or a careening set of brainless balls like Donald Trump or a retarded jackal like George W. Bush. Americans are unable to explain why such people "rise to the top" in our country. We just accept that they do, and assume that America's process of natural selection -- survival of the wealthiest -- is at work. These people are rich; therefore, they should run the country. God said so. It's a uniquely American principal of governance, which in itself, makes the case for our stupidity."
Well, we could always default on the debt, as many nations have done before successfully. As long as the rest of the economy, i.e. farms, factories and mines are functional we'd be fine.
Oh yeah, we outsourced everything but farming and "finance" {gambling}, and depend on the "money flow" to bring us the world's resources.
Then we had agribiz hire illegals to work the farms and put kleptos in charge of the "finance".
We are so screwed.
I'll put in another row of potatoes.
It's gonna be a damn small Jeffersonian Democracy, if we're lucky. If not, welcome to the new middle ages.
There is more to it then that.
The author below, David Brooks, assumes that maximizing shareholder (and executive) compensation are of the highest value and supposes that state capitalism develops in societies because trust is low there.
The following assertions may also be untrue:
"We in the democratic world tend to assume state capitalism can’t prosper forever. Innovative companies can’t thrive unless there’s also a free exchange of ideas. A high-tech economy requires more creative destruction than an authoritarian government can tolerate. Cronyism will inevitably undermine efficiency. "
The big oversight in this discussion is that in much of what the author considers to be the part of the world run by democratic capitalism, the corporations rather than the government actually run the show. Thus in fact what happens is that a plutocratic oligarchy actually rules in both systems. However, in so-called democratic capitalism, it is the corporations who rule. In state-run capitalism, it is the state governments that rule. The corporate rulers look only to maximize their immediate returns. The idea is to take as much money as quickly as possible exclusively for oneself. The state-run capitalist societies -- which are often more mercantalist than capitalist particularly China -- are often more fore-sighted and have more of a sense to value national resources, not merely to use them for political advantage. In all likelihood it is these societies that will be more successful over term, if their resources are not depleted.
Does Brooks' argument pitting state capitalism against "democratic" capitalism hold water? (My dad asked this.)
Wonderful that we have Brooks to now and then step back and try to see the larger picture. Cheers, jak
The Larger Struggle
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: June 14, 2010These days we are transfixed by the struggle between BP and the U.S. government. This is a familiar conflict — between a multinational company trying to make a profit and the government trying to regulate the company and hold it accountable.
David Brooks
But this conflict is really a family squabble. It takes place amid a much larger conflict, and in this larger conflict both BP and the U.S. government are on the same team.
The larger conflict began with the end of the cold war. That ideological dispute settled the argument over whether capitalism was the best economic system. But it did not settle the argument over whether democratic capitalism was the best political-social-economic system. Instead, it left the world divided into two general camps.
On the one side are those who believe in democratic capitalism — ranging from the United States to Denmark to Japan. People in this camp generally believe that businesses are there to create wealth and raise living standards while governments are there to regulate when necessary and enforce a level playing field. Both government officials like President Obama and the private sector workers like the BP executives fall neatly into this camp.
On the other side are those that reject democratic capitalism, believing it leads to chaos, bubbles, exploitations and crashes. Instead, they embrace state capitalism. People in this camp run Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and many other countries.
Many scholars have begun to analyze state capitalism. One of the clearest and most comprehensive treatments is “The End of the Free Market” by Ian Bremmer.
Bremmer points out that under state capitalism, authoritarian governments use markets “to create wealth that can be directed as political officials see fit.” The ultimate motive, he continues, “is not economic (maximizing growth) but political (maximizing the state’s power and the leadership’s chances of survival).” Under state capitalism, market enterprises exist to earn money to finance the ruling class.
The contrast is clearest in the energy sector. In the democratic capitalist world we have oil companies, like Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell, that make money for shareholders.
In the state capitalist world there are government-run enterprises like Gazprom, Petrobras, Saudi Aramco, Petronas, Petróleos de Venezuela, China National Petroleum Corporation and the National Iranian Oil Company. These companies create wealth for the political cliques, and they, in turn, have the power of the state behind them.
With this advantage, state energy companies have been absolutely crushing the private-sector energy companies. In America, we use the phrase Big Oil to describe Exxon Mobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and others. But that just shows how parochial we are. In fact, none of these private companies make it on a list of the world’s top 13 energy companies. A generation ago, the biggest multinationals produced well more than half of the world’s oil and gas. But now, according to Bremmer, they produce just 10 percent of the world’s oil and gas and hold only about 3 percent of the world’s reserves.
The rivalry between democratic capitalism and state capitalism is not like the rivalry between capitalism and communism. It is an interdependent rivalry. State capitalist enterprises invest heavily in democratic capitalist enterprises (but they tend not to invest in each other). Both sides rely on each other in interlocking trade networks.
Nonetheless, there is rivalry. There is a rivalry over prestige. What system works better to produce security and growth? What system should emerging and struggling democratic nations aim for? There is also rivalry over what rules should govern the world order. Should countries like Russia be able to withhold gas from Western Europe to make a political point? Should governments be able to tilt the playing field to benefit well-connected national champions? Should authoritarian governments like Iran be allowed to nuclearize?
We in the democratic world tend to assume state capitalism can’t prosper forever. Innovative companies can’t thrive unless there’s also a free exchange of ideas. A high-tech economy requires more creative destruction than an authoritarian government can tolerate. Cronyism will inevitably undermine efficiency.
That’s all true. But state capitalism may be the only viable system in low-trust societies, in places where decentralized power devolves into gangsterism. Moreover, democratic regimes have shown their vulnerabilities of late: a tendency to make unaffordable promises to the elderly and other politically powerful groups; a tendency toward polarization, which immobilizes governments even in the face of devastating problems.
We in the democratic world have no right to be sanguine. State capitalism taps into deep nationalist passions and offers psychic security for people who detest the hurly-burly of modern capitalism. So I hope that as they squabble, Obama and BP keep at least one eye on the larger picture.
We need healthy private energy companies. We also need to gradually move away from oil and gas — the products that have financed the rise of aggressive state capitalism.
You were an accountant? The economy is not a zero sum game?
==========
To paraphrase Christ on the cross: Father forgive her for she knows not what the fuck she's talking about.
At this stage of your life and mine I see no chance that any explanation I could make as to why the economy is NOT a zero sum game would change your opinion so I will not waste my time. Maybe Cash would be willing to undertake the chore. He has both the knowledge and temperment required.
And BTW, I have never misspelled your name yet you always misspell mine. This form of disrespect is uncalled for. Take a Dale Carnegie course and learn the importance of names.
Sitting here eating a perfectly ripe banana, it is hard to imagine it could be my omega one, ever. I hope someone {of you} would hear about it and be in a location you could send me a bunch someday, if the need everose {A}. I will supply horse apples, osage oranges or bow d'arc. This is some of the hottest burning wood on the planet, a lot of BTUs stored there. The staves can be made into a long bow that will throw an arrow 300 yards, accurately. The British and the Welsh were feared for the long range accuracy they were capable of sustaining.
Just pipe dreams, considered potentially useful by and old hippie out in the Twilight Zone of the eastern half of what remains of eastern kansas ans western missouri {the extreme northern BAFWAPS area, just south of Bull Creek}. Tell Lorenzo to write.
Q, the world economy is most assuredly a zero sum game, always has been. In pre-fossil energy era it was based on the productive ability of the land, and land was finite even when the populations were small, because the man's appetite for land was only limited by his ability to exert control over it. So, the Earls and the Dukes and various other nobles came to "own" the land, and the land owned by them was not available for ownership/control by the people who worked it -- zero sum game.
During the fossil energy era, it's also a zero-sum game because of both our limited capacity to extract and refine it AND the finite capacity of the earth to supply it, vs. the world's unlimited appetite for the products of the fossil energy (i.e. everything).
There's no place for a vacuum in the ownership and control of resources, someone always claims the possession of them, thereby precluding the possesion by others, thus a zero sum game. BTW, I thru in a few misspelings here for your jollies :
indeed!!!!!!!!
SAY MISTAKES WHEN THE WORDS ARE MISDEEDS / CRIMES.
and JHK:
'Oh, and something else: notice that the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher has vanished from the front pages of The New York Times and even The Huffington Post. '
hahahahaha..gees even the 2 libtard pubs [one one media, one new] dont give a dang..hahahahahah
they [ and you?] id rather hang sarah palin!
where and how much ?
ancestry.com?
Hi Druid - thought I'd do you a favour and point out your literary faults, but gently,before Qshtik jumps on your with both grammatical jackboots:
The wood of the Osage shrub is called variously "bois d'arc" [correct French] or "bodark" [colloquial English/bastardised French] but not (as far as I can tell 'bow d'arc', even though it looks logical.
weeks ago you said
'less than 1 in 10 will survive'.
if i were you id move further into the rurals.
But Joe Baegant explains the qstick american-idolize-the-rich mind much better than I
================
Don't be ridiculous. I don't idolize anyone. Nor do I care how much wealth anyone has so long as it was not ill-gotten. There is nothing wrong with Lebron James or Steve Jobs making millions per second and there will be nothing wrong if their kids someday inherit billions. You simply must get over your silly notion that wealth must be evenly distributed. Socialists refuse to recognize human nature staring them in the face. My eyes roll back in my head and I'm near swooning in wonderment how otherwise intelligent people like you and Asoka can be so blind. And I'd be remiss if I left out the demented EightM and his $3000/mo free salaries.
I assume you meant to address your questions to Treebeard.
Dio, I am surprised that you would not do the obvious thing first - google zero sum game - before you start talkin outta your ass and embarrassing yourself.
Read this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum
and in particular the section labeled Economics copied below:
Many economic situations are not zero-sum, since valuable goods and services can be created, destroyed, or badly allocated, and any of these will create a net gain or loss. Assuming the counterparties are acting rationally, any commercial exchange is a non-zero-sum activity, because each party must consider the goods it is receiving as being at least fractionally more valuable than the goods it is delivering. Economic exchanges must benefit both parties enough above the zero-sum such that each party can overcome its transaction costs.
What credentials do you have that make you an expert in this area?
hahahahaha..gees even the 2 libtard pubs [one one media, one new] dont give a dang..hahahahahah
they [ and you?] id rather hang sarah palin!
=================
Can someone interpret this for me? Honest to God .. it may as well be in Chinese.
You are a fucktard, who's implying that money is the same thing as wealth. Yes, if I have one hundred dollars, and I have to give somebody fifty, that's a zero-sum game, and his gain is my loss. But, money is not wealth. Money is an imperfect representation of wealth. I don't give a crapshit about Paris Hilton or her family, but someone who has the capital and intelligence to build a chain of hotels is creating wealth. They are creating jobs and opportunities for many people, who must be happy to work there for the wages they're being paid. It's none of your fucking business how much money they have, or what they do with it. Nor is it any of your business how much they pay their employees, unless you happen to be one. Why don't you worry about employing your limited faculties in a manner that will create wealth for yourself and those around you? Paris Hilton is a rich idiot. So what! Get over it.
I doubt they will actually allow that in Chicago, where the laws that apply to you depend on your connections.
Your point that this might not be the best time to reinstate the right of millions of untrained people to own guns is well taken, but freedom has its costs.
The founders might disagree with the Chicago gun law decision, but not its intent. The right to self defense was not questionable to them, as it flowed from the right to life and liberty. Thus that right is not specifically addressed in the second amendment.
The second amendment protects the right to bear arms, and arms are the tools needed to make war. The second amendment's main purpose was that arms remain primarily under the control of the populace, and not the government. Wars were to be declared by congress and fought by a volunteer citizen militia, with their own weapons. This was considered an essential condition for a government controlled by its citizens rather than the reverse as it is today. It also would (if followed) limit standing armies, foreign wars and "defense" taxation. Today's decision does not address any of this.
"Even the bankruptcy laws were changed before this debacle and "W". tried to privatize Social Security."
Tru dat. [couldn't resist] It wasn't enough for the oligarchs to profit from your labor throughout your productive life. It wasn't enough to renege on promised pensions. It hasn't been enough to walk off with the wealth represented by your invested earnings (which was the responsible thing to do with them). It isn't enough to demand a bailout paid for by the future earnings of our people. Now they want the wealth represented by your safety net too.
Think about what kind of people we're talking about here. It is nothing less than a crime against humanity, and one which is "legal" to boot.
We heard all about the "ownership society" 24/7 during W's tenure. It just never occurred to the general public that those words were code for the "owners" of 95+percent of the wealth of this nation assuming ownership over whatever we have left, including future productivity.
This reminds me of an unintentionally funny advertisement for a mortgage lender that read, "Learn more about our plans for owning your home!" It was funny 30 years ago. Now? Not so much.
The upshot is that cheap fuel and productive people made the ruling elite exponentially more wealthy than ever before. Yet the elite have shown a resentment toward having to play nice occasionally. They clearly desire to roll back beyond FDR and Teddy, to that gilded age where clean water and food inspection were too much to ask.
As for Social Security, it won't be necessary if child labor and poverty properly diminish individuals into spent hulks, unable to exist long after their profit-producing "utility" peters out. Make no mistake. This is purely sociopathic behavior and deserves no defense.
As Frank Zappa once pointed out,
"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."
And then we will see unprecedented suffering beyond all capacity to comprehend it.
In the mean time, I'm just going to head over to youtube and watch cute ferret videos. Well, at least until they throw the "Internet Kill Switch!"
Well, I was expecting {actionable advice} on the obvious innovation I performed on another level of grammatic synthesis but yours is certainly welcome also, in that, bois is the identical to bow.
Furthermore, regarding that zero sum game thing. For the better part of the 20th century the game board got bigger at enough of a pace to allow some sizable crumbs of wealth to be retained by the middle and working classes. But an increasing game board is totally reliant on increasing extraction and utilization of resources (especially labor and OIL).
Well, [pun intended. I kill me.] it sure seems the game board ain't getting bigger anymore. Which explains the "kill" intended for the middle and working classes.
Seriously, we went from being citizens to being consumers. Now I feel that we are nothing more than "marks."
Holy Shit. You are the master. See you in Albany.
-- Tommy
http://freedomguerrilla.com
David Brooks is ignoring facts when he says of Venezuela, who he names as a state capitalist (socialist) country:
If you look at the poverty statistics for Venezuela and the United States, you will see that socialist Venezuela has DECREASED its poverty rate from 61% to 44% from 1997 to 2005.
The capitalist United States, a "democratic" free market country has INCREASED its poverty rate from 11.3% to 13.2% from 2000 to 2008.
So where does David Brooks get off saying state capitalism (SOCIALISM) is for "the ruling class"?
Seems like Venezuela is going in the right direction in decreasing a horrendous poverty rate and the United States is going in the wrong direction by increasing its less horrendous poverty rate (unless you happen to be one of those who has lost his house and his job and his health care, then the poverty is horrendous, even in the USA).
You can say that poverty in Venezuela is much worse than poverty in America... but that doesn't change the fact that Venezuela (using its own definition of poverty) is making progress in eliminating poverty, while the USA (using its own definition of poverty) is not eliminating poverty.
So Socialism seems to be outperforming Capitalism for regular people and the ruling class is not hoarding the wealth.
What it looks like to me is that democratic free market capitalism is about to bring down the entire world economy thanks to its wanton greed.
Socialist countries like Cuba and Venezuela will suffer less in a worldwide economic depression, and the few resources they have will be more equally shared.
In the USA the poor simply die, for lack of air conditioning, or lack of heating oil, or lack of medical care, or lack of food, etc. because capitalism is a heartless, dog eat dog system. Maybe that is how the poverty statistics stay low.
Howard
It truly is fascinating to see what is happening now in the world. There seems to be quite a lot of disaffection with the way things are "progressing" - eco-crises all around, a global financial meltdown, peak oil, the growing drumbeat of war, unparalleled greed, apparently irrational terrorism, ethnic hostilities, and the evaporation of the American Dream like warm breath on a mirror. Even Mother Nature seems to be getting into the act with volcanoes, sinkholes, tornadoes, tsunamis, global warming. What's next? It's like the whole fucking thing is coming down around us all at once.
Barely two decades into America's uncontested, unipolar imperial status, with the entire planet apparently globalizing around our self-delusional spectacle of democratic capitalism and its digital enclaves of techno-freakiness, and the whole thing starts to unwind. Planes are flying into buildings, wars are popping up everywhere, terror is on the lips and in the minds of the populace, the world is eerily connected by virtual communities, the Euro zone is going under, Toyota is selling shit cars, mini insurrections are flaring in Greece and the Persian Gulf, the Israelis have gone bonkers, North and South Korea are playing paddy cake again, and everybody is a news reporter, political analyst, or terrorist. Why, even some Joe nobody and Sarah know-nothing have become overnight national heroes.
Now, for those of you who think this makes the system vulnerable, well perhaps you're right. But don't believe for one moment you are going to take it down. It will not come down by an act or even the collective acts of all the disgruntled middle class Americans and Europeans who have seen the light. There are centripetal forces holding it together as much as there are centrifugal forces pulling it apart. Aside from the controlling hands of the plutocracy, there is too much raw desire out there in the hinterlands of civilization, too many have-nots who have been living on the poverty stricken fringes of this beast just waiting their turn, and scratching for a piece of the elusive pie.
The entire Soviet Bloc, for example, was systematically and forcibly excluded from all the "fun" for almost a century. But the forbidden fruits are now within their grasp. And now the Chinese have finally woken up from their slumber as well and are quickly focused on putting a car in every one of their citizens' driveways. The Indians as well have decided they want to play in the game. In Mumbai they have made a good beginning by taking over all of the telephone customer service functions for most major American corporations. Not only that, but a majority of citizens in the West (the first world) have been living at or below the poverty line for generations. They too want a payday and a taste of the forbidden fruit.
The only way you're going to bring down Western civilization, its curriculum and its spectacle, is if you pry it from the dying hands of all these previously designated have-nots and the plutocrats who own and manage it. You can see it in the younger generation of Siberians here in Barnaul. They cannot live without their cell phones, their iPods, their recently financed cars and newly minted driver's licenses. They are tasting the promise of the spectacle, and they are mesmerized by its elusive appeal. It is not just blue jeans they want... they want it all!
So, what about those of us who have this sense of ennui today, this feeling of pre post-collapse blues? How do we act on this feeling and prepare for the reality of a post-collapse world? First, if we think that we can somehow return to the Garden, how things were before the rise of civilization - back to the life of a hunter-gatherer - we are ourselves delusional. The conditions for the possibility of a return no longer exist. The land bases have been destroyed: raped and depleted of their natural flora and fauna. Moreover, the tools of civilization have become too much like a second skin for any of us to let go of them so easily, if at all. Rousseau was right when he said that civilization replaces our natural instincts with other, newer one's, without which we cannot long survive in civil society. So, to prepare for such a return would be a fool's errand.
However, it does seem that our current course is unsustainable, and will eventually consume itself in its own greed and shortsightedness. So, what does one do in this state of malaise, living with the pre post-collapse blues?
The most likely piece of advice is to find a small piece of manageable land in the more northern climes. This assures you that most freeloaders from the collapse won't bother you. They will most likely head south, where it is warmer, thinking life should be easier there. But when global warming really sets in the north will be a paradise (relatively speaking), the south more like hell. And you will be sitting in the catbird's seat, so to speak.
Next, it may be good to learn how to fish, hunt, and grow your own vegetables. Also, learn how to forage for mushrooms, berries, and nuts in the forests. A course in naturalism might be advisable. Make sure you understand which foods are edible and which are not when going into the forest.
Begin simplifying your life; wean yourself off of technology - computers, television, stereos and cell phones. Learn how to live without it all. Automobiles! Hah, that's a joke. There won't be any gas or oil around to run them. Remember Mad Max!! Bicycles may be a good source of transportation for short distances. But, then, you may be wiser learning how to enjoy life in the forest, the cave or your small cottage if you've prepared one that's easily maintainable.
Try to locate a good source of drinking water to set up your outpost. And whatever you decide to do, do it with someone you trust and care for, and who cares deeply for you. You will need that security, because that will be all you get. A small tribe or perhaps a clan of loosely related, like-minded folk would be a good idea. The prospective anarchy that will follow the collapse of civilization will not resemble in the least the primal anarchy of egalitarian tribes of hunter-gatherers that preceded the fall into civilization.
This post-collapse anarchy may more truly resemble Hobbes' war of all against all. It is best to be prepared; or perhaps, just let it be, and enjoy the moment!! After all, the moment is all we really have.
In this scenario you have painted, firearms will be useless ... your ammunition will run out quickly, being expended on hoards of attackers, who will be after you day and night, until you cannot even see from lack of sleep. There will be no possibility of replenishing ammunition, as you fend off the continuous onslaughts in the war of "all against all" without being able to sleep during non-stop attacks that last for days; from lack of sleep you will soon become a sitting duck, vulnerable to attack. They will take away everything you have, and... oh, what horror awaits you!
Kulturcritic, you do have a vivid paranoid imagination.
I have a totally different scenario involving lovingkindness, sharing, and mutual support (with no firearms). Neither of us knows what will happen. But, whatever happens, I can control my own actions, and refuse to harm anyone.
Oh believe me, James, the people along the Gulf Coast are still paying attention to the BP disaster. It's caused a veritable depression here -- not recession, depression. Economic activity in many areas has basically come to a standstill because of the oil mess. It IS creating an awakening among many that things clearly have to change, but it's a helluva thing to live through ... after the region's already been socked by Ivan, Dennis, Katrina and Rita in the past few years.
Sucks to be a Gulf Coaster these days.
Howard
=========
Seeing as you're on a middle name basis with Mr. Kunstler, I assume you must be kin or know him extremely well. Tell us about your relationship;)
Reading comments here is always a draining but somewhat entertaining exercise. My advice is to find a Bible to take with you into TLE. But if you derive no comfort from that, then stock up on whiskey. TLE won't last long enough to use up a year's supply of food and ammo.
As for General McChrystal: I urge tolerance, an alien concept to Liberals. People are created differently. Society thrives on such differences. Warriors often have an ascetic streak, actually so did some of the famous Industrialists. Carnegie didn't know what to do with all his money once he had paid his bills. But Liberals seem to want to enforce a uniformity on Society. True diversity is not understood and not appreciated when it shows up. The only kind of diversity that is approved of is that of skin color and sexual orientation. Diversity of thought and temperment can go to the devil. But the Devil will have the last word with such tyrants. There must needs be a price to pay for driving a Country into a multicultural (no culture) ditch.
If we must have a Strongman as President - and it seems like we are heading that way, we could do far worse than Gereral McChrystal. He actually loves this Country and is a real citizen to boot, unlike some. And how many of our contemporaries can actually look good smoking a pipe? He can because he's earned it.
Congrats! What did you do with the birth cord? Aren't hippies supposed to eat it? Or did you bury it as compost? Some people are starting to save them because the cells might be valuable in case of disease down the line.
Twelve by Twelve
New World Library
Paperback: 296 pages
$14.95
(check your public library, if it is still open)
Overview
A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid & Beyond the American Dream
I have to agree with Q on this one - you're just not thinking. Martyr said it well - you are confusing wealth and money. If someone inherits an apple orchard and lives off it - well it's zero sum. But if someone grows an orchard from seed over twenty years, surely they deserve to enjoy the "fruit" of their labor? And did they not create wealth that was not there before? I agree with you that inheritance is a sticky moral issue - Andrew Carnegie thought it ruined people to inherit large fortunes. Yet at the same time, it's is a deep seated desire in the human frame to pass on what one has to your children. You may find yourself doing the same thing someday.
As I indicated before, your passion is getting in your way. Even orthodox Marxists wouldn't go along with a complete zero sum concept. Be clear: that's what you want not what is. You want a zero growth economy so you judge on that basis. And there is something to be said for this - but you don't seem to know you are willing instead of thinking. And no one else is going to know either if you aren't clear. But to be clear to others, you have to be clear first to yourself. One philosopher said, to be objective is to die a little. You need to die a bit. Your kind of passion has no place in thinking.
Was shocked at your knee jerk support of Nudge on Sunday. She had slandered our appearance and character - and of all White Men in America. We had every right to defend ourselves in like measure.
Tripp, you are a braver man than I.
Congratulations. Now get your vasectomy... please.
Good luck with your family!
I have my first full week of bike commuting under my belt, and it wasn't that bad. Apart from the carload of teenagers that swerved at me and yelled, "Get off the road asshole!", and the pair of twenty something males in a pickup truck who threw an empty tin of skoal at me, it went well (they missed). It's surprising what folks will do when they know they can get away with it. That statement pretty much sums up everything.
On a different note, I would like to offer a congratulations to Tripp and a welcome to the new addition!
Kulturcritic, hunting and fishing are great, but trapping is king in that type of scenario. It's passive, allowing you to do other things, and it's higher percentage than hunting. And remember to boil that water!
I sometimes entertain scenarios, but one can never really know what's going to happen and how it will do so. I often come to the conclusion that I will be left staring at my hands thinking, "What the f*ck am I going to do now?"
Downsizing is one way to conserve energy and oppose consumerism. Here is a video showing the TWELVE BY TWELVE house that is the subject of the book TWELVE BY TWELVE.
http://www.williampowersbooks.com/wpowers-twelve-trailer.htm
Twelve by Twelve by William Powers (New World Library)
http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-One-Room-Cabin-Beyond-American/dp/1577318978/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277793458&sr=8-1
Well looks like w/ 40% methane coming out of the BP wellhead, they are probably sitting on a giant lake of methane at 100,000 psi. Here's what will happen if that blows..
http://www.helium.com/items/1864136-how-the-ultimate-bp-gulf-disaster-could-kill-millions?page=3
The glut of mcMansions in our neck of the woods (Phoenix) is an ugly sight indeed. We have, as you can imagine, more than our fair share of the rich and shameless who don't give a rip about anything except themselves, their cars, the houses (kept in white and beige perfection for that resale that will never happen) and their money. Kids of course rank way down there with the hamsters and electric drills that are never used. Even though these people flock to "Planned Communities" they have zero interest in participating in anything to do with community and of course the streets themselves offer nothing that would encourage any sense of place or community - everything you see is 3-car garage snouts, little if any shade trees and streets that wind to nowhere.
Our region is a desert - Duh! But our cockamamie zoning, land use and construction codes make sure that the easiest route to City Planning approval is to make sure that every proposed development meets the streets and roads requirements (after all, traffic MUST be more important than people or places) and a fake Tuscany styling. I've been to Tuscany and its nothing at all like this Region. So what do we have? Minneapolis in the sun. Ridiculous.
I could go on.....but hopefully those McMansions and the entropic "planned communities" will eventually fall apart or - as Jim K has suggested - become tomorrow's Home Depot for awhile. We rented a 5-year old McM when we first moved here over 4 years ago and it was incredibly badly built, ate energy and was already showing signs of decay. Bad stucco - they use Portland Cement instead if Lime so every wall of course cracks and lets in moisture which in turn starts to rot the stick frame studs. And talking of studs...why the heck do they build with light wood frames in the desert!!!!!!??????
Nonsensical all round.
He has both the knowledge and temperment required.
Surely this should be "temperament"
By the way, shouldn't Asia be made allowance for ?
He obviously only has a tenuous grasp of english. I, like you, rarely understand a word of his posts and find it much easier to skip them.
Just a thought as it seems you are getting your knickers in a bit of a twist and at our age this should be watched.
>What credentials do you have that make
>you an expert in this area?
No credentials other than a Game Theory class in college about 30 years ago (it was actually a Math class). But let's think about it: a zero-sum game is where your gain is my loss. Take U.S. Airways as an example: a few years ago the pilots' salaries were cut in half, but the top management salaries went up. The pie (earnings) is of finite size, and for some people to have a bigger slice, other people have to have a smaller size. ZERO-SUM game, my friend. The entire economy is likewise a zero-sum game, for some people to have a bigger slice (the executive class, politicians, banksters, tort lawyers), the rest of Americans get a smaller size. What's so difficult to understand about this? Their gain is our loss.
Many transactions ares the same way: let's say you have a bucket of worthless collateralized debt obligations to sell - your profit will be my loss since I'll be holding the bag, this is a zero-sum game and that's why our financial system is unsustainable, the dupes believe that the game will go on forever. Ultimately, in the world of finite resources, everything is a zero-sum game, the mathematics of that is irrefutable. The losses may be intangible such as polluted environment, depleted resources, etc., but make no mistakes, our gains today come at the cost to future generations, and this is the classical zero-sum game. You can't get something for nothing.
Now, if you bring psychology into this, it changes things. FOr example, if you and I have a game of chess, my victory will be your loss, but you could claim that we both ENJOYED the game and therefore we both gained. This is true, but mathematically it's still a zero-sum game.
So, I stand by my contention :)
Kulturcritic says
"if we think that we can somehow return to the Garden, how things were before the rise of civilization - back to the life of a hunter-gatherer - we are ourselves delusional. The conditions for the possibility of a return no longer exist. The land bases have been destroyed: raped and depleted of their natural flora and fauna. "
Later Kulturcritic says
"The most likely piece of advice is to find a small piece of manageable land ... Next, it may be good to learn how to fish, hunt, and grow your own vegetables. Also, learn how to forage for mushrooms, berries, and nuts in the forests. ... you may be wiser learning how to enjoy life in the forest, ... Try to locate a good source of drinking water to set up your outpost. "
Hmm, am I the only one thinking this is a self-contradictory outlook? And paradoxically, I find both of your lines of thought persuasive.
Barnaul, eh? Kak pogoda v sibirii? :)
Surely this should be "temperament"
==============
Thanks for pointing this out. I had no idea and I don't recall myself or anyone else enunciating the "a" sound within the word. The beauty of Dictionary.com is that you can, not only, look up a word quickly but you can click on the speaker icon and hear the word properly pronounced. Hearing the word is often a great aid in remembering how to spell it.
And about getting my "knickers in a twist," it's no problem at all. I think of it as my mission in life to help other people not appear stooopid, as much as they fight it and demand to be left alone to look as stoopid as they damn well please. And all the sarcasm I incorporate is sooo annoying to the victim that they actually remember my unwanted lesson. Sarcasm is an incredibly effective teaching technique.
This mission of mine could only be undertaken in the annonymity of cyberspace ... otherwise I'd long ago have had my nose broken and my front teeth knocked out. The only thing required is skin thick enough to deflect the occasional blast like the one I got from Shecky yesterday.
Qshtik: "This mission of mine could only be undertaken in the annonymity of cyberspace..."
I guess that also explains how you can attack someone's child and not feel the need to apologize for your uncouth behavior...
By the way, you misspelled anonymity. Your posts are full of errors and misuse of the English language, which would be OK... if you had not set yourself up as Mr. Grammarian. Your knowledge of economics and zero sum game is also lacking.
Hey! There's no "like" button on this thing.
But I liked your posts.
OK, two things, Vlad.
It's an umbilical cord, not a birth cord.
And hippies eat the placenta, not the cord.
And, as Terry, Diogen and others have pointed out, while the rich got richer in the last three decades, the poor got poorer.
Coincidence? I think not!
And Nudge did not attack your appearance. She mostly called you the equivalent of child molesters, which I actually don't agree with, but you attacked her by calling her "fat" and a "lesbian".
Tree did it more than you, I'll agree.
But you're the one who holds up superior European culture standards, blah, blah, blah.
I would expect you to be more chivalrous.
"like"
"I think of it as my mission in life to help other people not appear stooopid"
This is lame, Q. Occasional misses and slips in spelling/typing have nothing to do with stupidity.
On the other hand, it's pretty stupid to persist in annoying people. Folks here want to be able to share their thoughts, not admire spelling and grammar. It would be good of you to resign your "mission" and enjoy sharing thoughts and ideas.
I think that the pissant may have reared his little head again.
What r u referring to, Capt'n?
Plus- Martyr said it well?
An obscenity-laced, ad hominen attack filled with unproved assertions?
You praise that?
I'm starting to lose respect for you, Vlad.
Look at Asoka. Attacked viciously, week after week, he never responds in kind, only with logic and facts.
He remains a perfect gentleman, although he doesn't believe in the class based, race based origin of that word.
You can learn from him.
"but someone who has the capital and intelligence to build a chain of hotels is creating wealth"
This is very flawed reasoning. Much of the capital that went into the building boom of the last 50 years - suburbs 50 miles away from cities, cities in the deserts (i.e. pretty much most of Vega$, Arizona, etc.), strip malls, McMansions - most of the foreclsed or abandoned real estate did not ultimately result in increased wealth, it resulted in wasted resources and environmental destruction.
"who must be happy to work there for the wages they're being paid."
You must be insane to think that people are HAPPY to work for $10/hr with no benefits, no future?
They do it because they have no better choices, or desperate to make ends meet.
"weeks ago you said
'less than 1 in 10 will survive'.
if i were you id move further into the rurals."
What would your timeframe be like, Asia? ASAP? Our current plan is to spend 5 years establishing an urban self-reliance model, lease it to the most appropriate steward (say, the city planning dept or a local NGO/non-profit), and then set up a 2+ acre (preferably 5+) rural permaculture site in the mountains of lower Appalachia to live for good. Somewhere near Dovey perhaps!
We need cooler nights than middle Georgia offers to keep house temps semi-comfortable during blazing hot days w/o AC. The windward side of the Appalachains also gets LOTS of rain - some of it is bonafide rain forest with nearly 100 inches a year. Our 60-ish in Macon is ample, with properly-scaled storage, but 90-ish takes care of all, with water to spare. We probably lose our figs, pomegranates, guavas, and olives, but we gain apples, cherries, currants, ramps, etc. Oh, and trout.
Always trade-offs I guess. Seriously, do you think we need to step it up a notch? We feel pretty comfortable in our new neighborhood (surprisingly), and neighbors are starting to show interest in what we're doing after only 3 months. I'm even giving my first tour and lecture soon on the 'Garden as Ecosystem'.
As usual you spout a lot of tripe. How can you dismiss the importance of correct spelling, punctuation and grammar. To disregard these aspects of writing is to potentially introduce misunderstandings or at worst, mystifying nonsense as posted by Asia for instance.
Laziness and/or ignorance is not worthy of defense and crusty old buggers like Qshtik are not doing any harm in trying to raise basic standards a little.
JHK said: "And frankly I don't think the president even meant to be coy or deceptive."
I think Obama knew, and consciously chose to use "never again" ... but I have also come to the conclusion, after the rope-a-dope (2022 bank hedge funds deadline) fake financial reform, and the decision to conduct perpetual war with General Betrayus, and his refusal to prosecute environmental criminals or war criminals, that Obama is consciously now on the dark side.
Obama is not being fooled or played... he knows what he is doing, and so do I. As difficult as it is to leave a brother (who has done a few good things), I am now ending my flirtation with the Democrats and moving my {non-economic} support back to the Green Party.
I like the change of tone and increased focus on "change" in the BLOG this week. Again I was in "flyover" country - getting it done - meeting with "real Americans."
Understand this: "there's plenty of oil right here. the government is stopping them from getting because of treehuggers."
"Natural gas will become the new gasoline in a few years and will last long enough for good hydrogen or electric cars come out."
"Obama was seen coming off Airforce One with a copy of some "Muslim Guide Book of World Domination" "He quickly hid it -when press people approached."
I'm not making this stuff up. Most of America is thinking very differently than you. I could go on and on, these are quotes from people living in rural areas of Southern Illinois.
I really appreciate all the comments from various locales. I've lived in Phoenix and Austin and my tasks in those days involved traveling beyond those metro areas as well.
having been around long enough to go back and revisit these area across 20-30 year time frame is a perspective few people experience.
Anyone who has actually seen and experienced the sprawl of metro areas knows that "growth" is no longer a option. Yet any idea of reinvention and or reclamation of urban area is seen as really
"out there" by the PTB.
Wouldn't it be weird to hear some urban leaders actually strike back at new developments/developer scheming and tell people how things "really are" ...?
As far as the weekly expectation/prediction for TSHTF date - I continue to offer scenarios involving the loss of electricity.
Only when the "air" goes off - and the frozen food aisles are emptied - and the batteries are run down will people become restless to pick up there arms and go looking for better conditions.
Currently, the blend of moronic media distractions and entertainment - along with
air conditioning keeps the "masses" satisfied.
Take that away too long - anything could happen.
"if i were you id move further into the rurals."
The counter-question to that is: Are geeked-out trailer park hicks less of a threat than grass-mowing reefer addicts? Dovey would say no, and I would tend to agree. She's been broken into more times than we have in the 'hood. Someone vandalized my front garden gate on Memorial Day, but I fixed it. No real harm.
The fairly regular gunfire is disconcerting, but that happens in the country too. I've been peppered by birdshot before. Not fun. But it was arguably a Club Med vacation compared to a stray .38 round! That's what really scares me.
"is to potentially introduce "
This, my friend, is a split infinitive, however it didn't introduce any misunderstanding.
It's like this: when you go to, say, your own wedding, you may want to wear formal clothing (or your bride may kill you). But if you come to a BBQ in my backyard, you'd be foolish to wear your suit and tie. It's the same w/ writing, this is an informal chatting place, it's OK to wear old sneakers, stretched out tshirt and old jeans :)
Relax and enjoy, and grab another beer :)
Asia is an EXTREME example, it's sily of you to use it as an example.
Here is my first act of {non-economic} support: join me in affirming these TEN KEY VALUES of the Green Party USA:
http://www.gp.org/tenkey.shtml
"Obama is not being fooled or played... he knows what he is doing, and so do I."
Do you honestly believe he (or any other politician for that matter) has even the vaguest choice on the course of action to take on any subject involving wealth or real power.
I have for a long time respected a lot of your posts but the above belies a severe attack of naivety which is uncharacteristic.
Trip, big congrats and continued good tidings to you. Enjoy fatherhood, living close to the earth, building connections, etc.
"Asia is an EXTREME example, it's sily of you to use it as an example."
I don't think it is sily at all. (O.K. I realise that was probably deliberate)
I join you in affirming 9 of the 10. I think #7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY is already included in spirit in #2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY, and in #8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY.
Although I support the spirit of Feminism (I love women, my wife is a woman for example :), unfortunately the militant wing alienated large portions of the population, thus hurting the cause. Why single out FEMINISM specifically in their platform when EVERYONE deserves justice? THis will do nothing but alienate many people, and hurt the Green Party cause. As usual, the extremists help derail the enterprise...
I work with someone who tried to get pregnant for 5 years, eventually producing twins via artificial insemination. She was back at work within a few weeks.
I was baffled. Why go to all that trouble and then hand them over to baby-sitters?
As it turns out, they were lifestyle accessories, as you pointed out.
It became clear when another woman became pregnant and the twin-owner congratulated her and then immediately asked about the style of the nursery decor. What store was she buying it from and what color were the accessories?
Embarrassing admission- I have been watching HGTV lately.
I used to wonder about JHKs anti-granite remarks. Now I understand.
These people go on and on about their despair about their kitchens, etc. They recount how they cry when they walk into their kitchens, and are unable to cook dinner, because their counters are not granite and their cupboards are not mahogany.
It is simultaneously appalling and entertaining.
How will these people forage when it all comes crashing down?
Yes, I honestly believe as President of the United States and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Obama has choice... not vague choice, but real choice.
He is not even using his bully pulpit to confront "real power" ... wherever the hell that lies.
Welcome back, Asoka!
And for Diogen, most of the world's Green Parties only have four pillars-
Ecological wisdom
Social justice
Grassroots democracy
Nonviolence
The US Green Party added the others!
"If we must have a Strongman as President - and it seems like we are heading that way, we could do far worse than Gereral McChrystal. He actually loves this Country and is a real citizen to boot, unlike some. And how many of our contemporaries can actually look good smoking a pipe? He can because he's earned it." -Vlad
Ahhhhhh, I knew it would come to be revealed eventually. Why have you waited so long?
A true believer; a hero-worshipper; a brown-shirt. A FOLLOWER who wishes indoctrination (re. purpose) and elite cache. (A spiffy uniform would be nice too.)
Here is my advice (I am aware you won't care, but it's also a prediction):
Go now, my son; worship at the feet of the torturers, killers, and destroyers. Join their cadres and become the abyss you so yearn for. Your doom will be its' own reward, the die is cast and your fate is sealed.
Yes, Budizwiser, when I referenced the lazy, stupid, piss-poor pieces of protoplasm that I meet everyday, please know that I live in Southern Illinois.
It's surprising what folks will do when they know they can get away with it.
==============
How true! Like me correcting people's grammar and spelling. Take, for example, this line in your post:
I would like to offer a congratulations to Tripp
I would say, No, Peak, you "would like to offer congratulations to Tripp." Since congratulations is plural "a" is not appropriate. But that's just me ... who really gives a shit?
One of my co-workers was filling up at a gas station, when a car rolled up full of people.
They rolled down a window, and smoke billowed out from the 4 or 5 smokers in the car.
They said "Hey, you work in the ER! The baby is wheezing again!"
My co-worker said, "Didn't we tell you not to smoke around the baby?"
They said "They told us- don't smoke in the house around the baby, not the car!"
HEADLINE:
"Gunmaker Stocks Rise on Court Ruling
The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms binds state and local government officials as well as federal officials."
============
God bless that WASP-free Supreme Court ... right Asoka? ;)
"Where are the religious in all of this?"
You are all argueing about your pet doctrines and condemning each other for breaking rules made by other men to control your opponents and one another. There are no self-organizing principles that all adhere to except obstinance and befuddlization. How can two walk together unless they be agreed {on a destination}? Violent men take the kingdom through violence, and my people love to have it so. Walking as He walked doesn't make sense, unless you look at the destination. The ends does not justify the means. Those that believe it does have no need of directions, only resources.
http://www.gods-kingdom-ministries.org/weblog/WebCategory.cfm?CID=6
But that's just me ... who really gives a shit?
You are not alone.
Drill, baby, drill!
We need a slogan!
JHK, I do not know if you read these discussion threads very closely or not, but I expect you at least scan them. And now I'm giving your title for next's week's installment.
Here goes:
DRILL, BABY, DRILL is a great slogan. It fits easily on a bumper sticker. However, current events are showing it to be a stupid idea.
People who understand reality need a slogan that expresses reality concerning oil use.
I have thought about that for a while at this is the best that I have come up with:
"Oil is cheap because Americans steal it from the future to burn it today. We selfishly refuse to admit oil has greater value to our children than to us. We willfully ignore the damage we are causing now."
Now this will not fit easily on a bumper sticker....well, maybe a really big bumper sticker on a REALLY BIG SUV.
But I do think this has potential. I normally would go copyright it (LOL) first, but I think we're having a long national emergency and time is short.
I think if we're every going to fix America's energy problem this summer is a great time to get started.
So I freely give my slogan to the collective mind of the readership at CFN.
Do with it as you will.
Anyone in marketing who would like to tighten it up and put it on 10,000 bumper sticker may freely do so....if you make any money with it I would like mine in large unmarked bills. :-)
Yours in service to all,
C
PS to regular thread posters from last week. I meant to get this posted Monday morning, but company stayed over. I may have to edit this and repost it next week depending on how it looks....
But our wonderful guests just left after omelets from the chicken coop and carrying a big basket of squash and cucumbers from the garden.
Life is good!
Hi Wage,
"These people go on and on about their despair about their kitchens, etc. They recount how they cry when they walk into their kitchens, and are unable to cook dinner, because their counters are not granite and their cupboards are not mahogany."
I wonder what they would think about the OSB covered counters, door-less cupboards, walls and ceiling and a concrete floor in my kitchen? Cooks fine for me :-)
SNAFU
Hi Progressive,
"We need a slogan!"
As you state yours is somewhat long for bumpers:
"Oil is cheap because Americans steal it from the future to burn it today. We selfishly refuse to admit oil has greater value to our children than to us. We willfully ignore the damage we are causing now."
I re-recommend the bumper sticker I suggested last week as it is succinct, easily fits on a bumper sticker, and definitely accomplishes the the restorative action required for the Earth.
"SAVE THE EARTH SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR CHILDREN"
SNAFU
SNAFU,
Honestly, I agree with the underlying sentiments and appreciate the humor. However, I'm not sure we're going to sell many of your bumper stickers
"SAVE THE EARTH SPAY AND NEUTER YOUR CHILDREN"
to the masses of America.
AND
In my personal case...one of my sons is bigger than me and the other is meaner than me. Both of them are well armed most of the time. If you want to come neuter them let me know and I'll tell them you are coming....you know, so y'all can chat about it first. ;-)
continued good tidings to you.
===============
Wrong word Dio. Tidings means news, not wishes. It is Tripp who has informed us of the good tidings. But, hey, who gives a shit about definitions?
Even shorter:
"SAVE THE EARTH, STERILIZE YOURSELF"
PS -- I got my vasectomy in 1970, so this bumpersticker fits me perfectly. No little Asokas were loosed onto the world, and I think we could all agree that is a good thing. :-)
FROM THE DICTIONARY:
The verb STERILIZE has 2 senses:
1. make free from bacteria
2. make infertile
The ends does not justify the means.
============
end ... but who really gives a shit?
Global Swarming: Is it time for Americans to start cutting our baby emissions? by Daniel Engber
Our other green lifestyle choices can't even begin to offset the cost of adding a brand-new CO2-emitter to the population. When I ran my own numbers through Al Gore's carbon calculator, I discovered that a switch to 100 percent wind and solar power would reduce my emissions by just 1.3 tons per year. That's not even enough to account for one quarter of today's average American. Meanwhile, I'd have to do quite a bit of driving around in a Hummer H3 to mimic the environmental impact of creating another version of me. Not to mention the fact that my children might eventually decide to have their own children, who would emit even more carbon dioxide down the line.
SmokyJoe,
I don't believe anybody with the brains and ambition to rise in public life really TRULY believes that lunatic fundy stuff, anyway. They just put it on like kevlar to "energize the base."
Ok, Asoka,
I saw the humor in Snafu's post.
I can see the humor in yours, too, but it takes a little more effort....your slogan starts to seem
....either shrill,self-righteous or threatening to the average man. And the average man is the audience that we must seek to reach.
How about, "Save the planet..Spay or Neuter Yourself." At least that is gender neutral.
I'm kidding, btw. I'm afraid your slogan needs more work than mine.
Hi Asoka,
No little SNAFUs running about either although I did help raise 5 step-daughters from two marriages. The problem I see with self selected sterilization is that by the time most humans come to the realization that it might be a worthwhile endeavor they already have a herd of little-uns. Sterilization at a prepubescent age far and away more effective. :-)
SNAFU
Anyway BOYS,
I'm not intending to start the sterilization wars on here in hopes of replacing the racial wars. I'd like to argue about something that at least a "critical mass" of average Americans can agree upon.
If we frame it the right way and give it a nice slogan.
Beyond that, your freedom of speech stops long before your knife gets close to my gonads.
Hi progressor,
"In my personal case...one of my sons is bigger than me and the other is meaner than me. Both of them are well armed most of the time. If you want to come neuter them let me know and I'll tell them you are coming....you know, so y'all can chat about it first. ;-)"
Not my job man; if you are not up to the job what better function could our military have? :-)
SNAFU
"SAVE THE EARTH, STERILIZE YOURSELF"
================
Bad idea (painful and dangerous). How about this wording: SAVE THE EARTH, HAVE YOURSELF STERILIZED (i.e. let professionals handle it)
But even that wording could be misconstrued as a mean-spirited message ... that "you are such an awful, ugly and despicable person that the world would prefer that you not unleash any offspring on it."
Sooo ... another suggestion: FIGHT OVERPOPULATION, HAVE YOURSELF STERILIZED
Now you are suggesting that our military might be used to come sterilize American citizens.
I've gotta say that chills me right down to my b...a....l.....l...........
oops, where'd they go?
Guilty as charged. I was mentally itemizing I suppose, but that is besides the point. However, there is the idea that one's writing should suit the audience, and this forum is nothing if not informal.
On the subject of the granite countertop people, I have a few of them in my family. My brother is one of that crowd, and he hosted a gathering this past Christmas eve. Dinner consisted of take out from a local high end steak house.
It's the same w/ writing, this is an informal chatting place, it's OK to wear old sneakers
===============
Sorry, I don't buy it. Why on earth would anyone think it's good to communicate less well than they are capable of just because they're doing it on the internet? Yeah, I know, I know ... too much time and effort.
Yo Wage working Guy, I don't mean to disparage Southern Illinois or the population of geography.
I don't get out much, but when I do, I often exchange talk of day with the people I meet. I happened to be among many residents of what I consider the really "out of the way" towns and hamlets that JK is so fond of.
Some of the current events that many CF nation readers consider as fact and incontrovertible are thought of as "fiction" by a good deal of the American population. I find this interesting, so I posted my recent state of bemusement.
Off hand, the grist of these exchanges proves to me that America in longer an "informed republic" and much of the population no longer has the capacity to sustain a democratic government.
Only turning off the electricity will shock the people to action. When there's nothing left in the fridge, and its too hot to sleep - thats when the TSHTF..........
A hurricane along a certain coast line could foster such a situation..... Film at eleven, maybe, maybe not.
All those granite countertops can be re-purposed as great tombstones!
I was looking for a gender neutral word that didn't apply only to animals.
But maybe I should just direct it to men, since without the sperm the woman is not going to get pregnant:
SAVE THE EARTH, GET A VASECTOMY
By the way, for male readers who don't know, a vasectomy does not involve cutting off balls or penis. It is a small incision to remove a small piece of the vas deferens.
In my case I asked for the ends to be cauterized and tied back on themselves because at age 20 I was sure I did not want kids...
And the reason, in 1970 (year of the first Earth Day), was exactly out of concern for Mother Earth and the resource depletion and environmental degradation that comes with each child born. Whether or not it "mattered" my conscience is clear and I have never regretted the decision.
(It's not too late to prevent number 3, Tripp)
You are not alone.
=============
As my daughter would say, "Awww .. that's sooo sweeet." A tear just rolled down my cheek.
Thanks for the support Anglo.
Mr. Gannon,
your response to smokyjoe,
"@ smokeyjoe. I don't know how you would classify a 4 Star General as a lout. General Mac is a Airborne,Ranger,Special Forces qualified West Point grad. He has lived in the dark world of Special Op's most of his career. He deserves the utmost respect. A lout is a disrespectful term."
I will grant respect to General/Mr. Mac based on his accomplishments in the military. "Lout" may be an (over?) reaction to the idea that the general deliberately orchestrated his forced resignation from the service....to enter politics?? when some in politics (including our legally elected Commander in Chief) are called "louts" and worse.
the grist of these exchanges proves to me that America in longer an "informed republic"
=================
OK, I get it. You people got together last night and said "we'll fix this fucker ... we'll put so many ridiculous fuckin errors out on the blog that he'll never be able to keep up."
Well, I hope you're happy ... you're winning.
BTW, it's gist and it's is no longer (I guess). But hey, who gives a flyin fuck?
Now we're getting somewhere, asoka:
SAVE THE EARTH, GET A VASECTOMY
I can actually visualize that on a car, bicycle, or backpack.
It amuses and challenges without being TOO threatening.
If it is original with you you should consider copyright. lol
Now, would you perform that same magic on my slogan?
"Oil is cheap because Americans steal it from the future to burn it today. We selfishly refuse to admit oil has greater value to our children than to us. We willfully ignore the damage we are causing now."
BTW, do you have a link to how y'all do those nice little blue boxes when you paste quotes into your own posts?
"SAVE THE EARTH, STERILIZE YOURSELF"
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The problem, of course, is that those who would listen are exactly those who shouldn't. Using Arthur C. Clarke's terminology, the earth would be left to the true yeast people, The Marching Morons
that is besides the point
================
From what I read, the jury is still out on beside vs besides. Personally, I'm in the beside camp. Besides grates on my ear like fingernails on a chalkboard. Various stuff I read on a google search came down heavily in favor of beside but who but me would give a shit? Right?
Ok.
A few Things:
You folks watch way too much television and see too many movies. Life is not like Hollywood.
The S will not HTF. There will be no Mad Max future, replete with zombies. It will not be apocalypse now. Folks will not rise up. You are very bored and looking for entertainment. Also there are signs here of very limited thinking in terms of scenarios: continued suburban sprawl with oil or altenerative fuels (magic elixer scenario), or folks power down or else the sky will fall and civilization will end. It isn't going to be like that. The US is engaging in the -last-man standing scenario. When that plays out, we will end up in a more third-world position with a few rich and many poor. The middle class are just poor people with big debt loads. Don't bet on the life-boats scenario either as those are precarious.
Also, Q serves a useful purpose in maintaining standards. Those who don't make effort to maintain standards contribute to cultural decay and a lack of clear thinking and also contribute to health and safety hazards.
Birth control, abortion, and sterilization are all dysgenic if practiced in an individual voluntary way as the more intelligent and responsible select themselves and their genes out while miscreant morons over-breed. I am producing more kids. Am please to see Trip had a couple two as he is bright and responsible. Am in favor of limiting the reproduction of the lower orders, particularly those of the mud races, the morons, and the criminals. Requiring that fat, ugly stupid welfare ho's get norplant inserted into them is a good idea.
Ebishirl,
You said,"
Oh believe me, James, the people along the Gulf Coast are still paying attention to the BP disaster. It's caused a veritable depression here -- not recession, depression. Economic activity in many areas has basically come to a standstill because of the oil mess. It IS creating an awakening among many that things clearly have to change, but it's a helluva thing to live through"
Yet, JHK is correct that this is receiving less and less news coverage.........
How is this possible?
Because modern news media exist only to make a short term profit??
Zero sum game indeed....
I saw this bumpersticker the other day:
Draft SUV drivers first!
I had an idea a while back to print (sorry Q, to have printed) a bunch of bumperstickers that say
I Support Islamic Terrorists and Petro Dictators
and paste them on the bumpers of Hummers and other like vehicles
"Why on earth would anyone think it's good to communicate less well than they are capable "
Bullshit, an occasional mis-spelling or mis-typing, or a word that isn't the bulls-eye (but the intent is clear) does not mean "communicate less well"... admit it Q -- you've got a serious problem. Repeat after me: My name is Qshtik and I'm an anal grammarian. Not to mention a patronizing thorn in the side of casual writers
Am pleased to see Trip had a couple too as he is bright and responsible
The problem, of course, is that those who would listen are exactly those who shouldn't.
===========
Unquestionably true.
Poor, uneducated and low IQ people need to be incentivized with cash. Tax breaks won't work since most don't pay taxes.
Also, Q serves a useful purpose in maintaining standards.
=============
All RIGHT!! Some people get it. That's two. We've got Anglo and now Tree. We're starting to make some headway.
"low IQ people need to be incentivized with cash."
Don't forget the law of unintended consequences, doing so will increase the percentage in the population of Ken Lays, Paris Hiltons, Jeffrey Skillings, Dick Cheyneys, Leona Helmsleys, etc...
My other thought is it may be less expensive to incentivize them with beer and drugs :)
No, no more chivalry for women who act like bad men. Why should we accept things from a woman we would never accept from a man? The Ancient Greeks can be our guide here: they fought the Amazons and defeated them. There is a beautifl picture of Achilles killing the Queen of the Amazons - they fall in love as she dies.
Women in the Old South were revered - but it wasn't a blank check like modern women have come to expect. They had to work to live up to such reverence.
I accept your two points. I couldn't remember the word "umbilical" or placenta for that matter. If only you would accept my criticisms so humbly!
Women feel sensations much more strongly than men do. They are so bombarded by sensations and passionate emotion that it is very hard for them to think clearly. Perhaps to the extent a woman can think, she must become like a man.
Probably the best way for to have handled last night's discussion would be like Tripp does: just reject the old paradigm completley; say that wealth so called doesn't matter now, only
survival does. You seem to accept this so it would work for you too. Of course, Tripp hangs on to the old paradigm emotionally in his hatred of Whites and his non violence schtik. But intellectually, he is always quite clear about putting away the old and embracing the new.
Logic and facts? Asoka? My dear, you need to lie down now. Let me loosen your corset.
Spoken like a true Obama Worshipper! Don't deny it, you were one even if you have repented now. McChrystal is far from perfect, but given the dire straits we are in, economicall, ecologically, and in terms of the civil unrest that is sure to come - someone like him might be necessary, in other words, better than chaos and complete collapse. That's all I said. Are you sure you're not projecting a little of your own psyche on to me?
Hi again Wage. A billion for this gabfest is about 990 million too much in my opinion.
But I wouldn't go too far with this business about a repressive apparatus. This is no fascist dictatorship. Hooligans broke hundreds of storefront windows during demonstrations and the cops basically sat on their hands. There were a few minor injuries, no heads were broken. Many were arrested, most will get off with a slap on the wrist. Mostly there were very pissed off parents trying to bail out their kids from the lockup.
All this "demonstrating" was just middle class youth grandstanding, they're just poseurs, playacting the part of heroic working class warriors. (Sigh) I don't wish this on them because they are witless but if they really wanted to be heroic fighters they should have been alive during the Spanish civil war where they could have showed their bravery in front of Franco's firing squads. They are silly assed ninnies, they are not serious. If you asked them what they were demonstrating over you would get incoherent nonsense, their eyes doing little discos of incomprehension. I'm sounding high and mighty here but I don't care, that's how I see them.
To me the rich fall into different categories. There are rich people like the guy that started the dairy that me and my father worked for. The dairy processed raw milk into drinkable milk, butter, ice cream etc. People paid money for the goods they bought, the dairy paid me and my dad a decent wage and kept food on the table and paid my school tuition. These were not zero sum transactions. People paid money and got food, me and my dad and many others worked to make and deliver this food and we got paid. And the owner of the dairy is a church going pillar of the community, an eminently decent fellow. In my opinion he earned every penny of his wealth.
Then there's the scum on Wall Street. Undeserving rich? You bet. You can throw whatever shit you want at them. They've wrecked our economy. Creators of wealth? Bullshit. They are creators of mayhem, destroyers of wealth. They've ruined millions of lives. Fuck 'em all, I hope there's a Hell made specially for them.
One other thing, this business about little people. Don't call yourself that. You are a freeborn citizen. A human life is a human life regardless of whether you are a CEO or a garbage collector. If you call yourself that, the bullshit artists/gangsters/banksters sitting at the top of the pyramid will have got you thinking of yourself the way they see you.
"Oil is cheap because Americans steal it from the future to burn it today. We selfishly refuse to admit oil has greater value to our children than to us. We willfully ignore the damage we are causing now."
MISUSED TODAY, GONE TOMORROW... CONSERVE FUEL!
PS To get the quote boxes to appear do this: type before the text you want in the box. At the end of the text you want in the box type
Do not put the spaces in near the brackets. I put them in so you could see the text. Scrunch the brackets right up to the blockquote text.
OK, that didn't work LOL!
Best just to look at an actual example of how to do block quotes... here:
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/tag_blockquote.asp
Not to mention a patronizing thorn in the side of casual writers
================
Calm down big fella. I make plenty of spelling mistakes and typos myself and I really hate it when I do. I guess you could say my problem is I believe in "casual conversation" but I don't believe in "casual writing." Conversation disappears instantly into the ether. The written word is there forever. I believe in proofreading a post at lease once through before clicking SUBMIT.
OK [quote]dont quote me[/quote]
Budizwizer, you have to use the pointy brackets and use the word blockquote instead of quote
but I don't believe in "casual writing."
[quote] i dont believe in casual prose. [/quote]
That was a really sad story but it is illuminating isn't it?
Recently there's been talk here in Toronto about so-called "food deserts" ie neighbourhoods, predominately poor neighburhoods that have no large grocery store within a reasonable walking distance. So people in these neighbourhoods have to spend inordinate amounts of time trudging to go shopping. This is unjust, right?
Maybe not. One big reason for this I think is that grocery chains don't want to locate in poor neighbourhoods. Why? Because shoplifting will be rife, grafitti will cover the walls in no time, they won't be able to get dependable local employees, people from outside the 'hood won't want to go there because of crime...you get the picture. What's the solution? How about for people in these 'hoods to behave themselves.
Highly politically incorrect to blame people for the situations they find themselves in. I heard not too long ago that kids of immigrants from certain countries drop out of high school in huge numbers.
Why? Who knows? What a concept: finish fucking high school. Not rocket science. You don't need an advanced degree to comprehend this. This is not an idea that can be lost in a haze of cultural misunderstanding. The kids will be fucked all their lives and for no conceivable reason. Canuck school systems are in no way demanding, they are designed to practically carry kids over the finish line, they are keenly sensitive to cultural and racial minorities. Actually caucasians in Toronto ARE the minority. So for even minimally skilled jobs where you need a grade 12 diploma, these kids will be unqualified right off the bat and you have a generation of poverty guaranteed and for no reason at all.
Qshtik, are you trying to be a comedian?
This blog exists in cyberspace in electronic format. It could disappear in an instant if JHK decided to cancel the blog or if the USA decided to use the Internet Kill Switch.
"The written word is forever." That is a good one!
There are some books that used to be in the library at Alexandria that I would like to read... but they don't exist anymore, anywhere. They were written and now they are gone.
By the way, Egypt, IN AFRICA, is the cradle of civilization... not Rome, not Greece, not Europe.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/10/1016_021016_alexandria.html
Budizwizer, you have to use the pointy brackets and use the word blockquote instead of quote inside the pointy brackets
There are over 8 million non-white women between the ages of 15-24 according to July 1st 2008 census estimates.
What would be the return on investment with regard to social service outlays if 800,000 of these women were sterilized at a cost of $10,000?
How would we know whether women accepting the incentive would be the women more likely to produce "wards of the state?"
What if the incentives were only offered to women already rearing a "socially subsidized family?"
I'd better quit rereading Brave New World.....
The bumper sticker already exists, and is proudly displayed by Winnebago-driving nitwits who don't even know it:
"We Are Spending Our Children's Inheritance."
Fill 'er up!
Pop quiz for James Howard Kunstler:
Who has the most American viewers:
NASCAR? or Soccer?
If you said NASCAR, you are wrong.
FOX's average rating for the season was a 5.4 with 8.9 million viewers before Saturday's NASCAR race. Overall, NASCAR's viewership on Fox dropped 7.1 percent from 2009, and the numbers are down 16.5 percent from 2008 for the races that were not affected by weather.
The Nielsen Co. estimated that nearly 9.4 million people watched Argentina eliminate Mexico on Univision on Sunday. An additional 5.5 million people watched that game on ESPN.
14.9 Million for Soccer (on Univision)
8.9 Million for NASCAR (on FOX and ESPN)
CORRECTION:
14.9 Million for Soccer (on Univision and ESPN)
8.9 Million for NASCAR (on FOX)
bold
italic
regular quote
Budiwiser, I think you've got it!
What I learned was that civilization had multiple cradles: in the Far East, in the Middle East, in Africa, in the New World. My understanding is that farming, which is the basis for these civilizations, started more or less simultaneously all over the world at the end of the last ice age.
I'm no archeologist but I'll bet the development processes were similar all over ie in the New World and Far East as well as Africa and the Middle East. Trading, travel and communication networks existed even in prehistory such that ideas could be communicated back and forth. So when the idea of "civilization" was in the air, (with its walled cities, kingdoms, legal codes and all that) it would be carried from place to place. One place builds a temple and traders and travellers from another locale see it and spread the news. One place builds an aqueduct or irrigation canal and same thing happens. One place starts using glyphs, others start adapting the glyphs for their own language etc.
What I'm saying is give some credit to non Africans for their achievements which were huge ie Asians and New World people that probably had no contact with developments in Africa.
Several women in my neighborhood have recently upgraded their kitchens (to the tune of approx. $200K), but do they cook? No....one has a child who only eats macaroni & pizza (and was plopped into daycare fulltime at 2 months old), and she can't be bothered to really cook. The other neighbor plans to learn to cook, I guess.
My kitchen is functional, but not at all fancy.
I cook from scratch six nights out of seven, and the four of us sit down and eat together and share our day.
Cash, that is all well and good. Other people eventually got around to civilizing themselves in their own cradles.
But, if you consider writing to be a prerequisite for a true civilization, the earliest cradle is Early Dynastic Egypt followed by Sumer.
Please let me know if you know of any other people on the planet who had writing before it appeared in Africa.
crusty old buggers like Qshtik
============
Crusty is a persona I contrived exclusively for use on this blog. It evolved as a way of dealing with the likes of OEO and Rico. Once into it there was no turning back. In real life I am not considered crusty.
re: old, I play up my age when it suits my purpose but I'm in reasonably good shape and people are always telling me I look great for my age (of course they could be bullshitting me)
Finally, I assume you are intending the affectionate definition of bugger not the despicable one.
"The written word is forever." That is a good one!
==============
Try telling that to criminals doing 20 to life because they thought "delete" actually got rid of email.
Good job on bringing up the library at Alexandria so you could slip in your plug for Africa. After listening to those vuvuzelas Africa needs some better PR.
maybe the Govt or some NGO will pay you to teach urban farming in yr area.
'What would your timeframe be like..'
well as someone who lived in the wilds of hawaii for a year id say what otheres here know...THAT COLLAPSE ISNT ORDERLY....MAYBE the usa has 5 more years....the narco terrorists are buying more influence here..as did the red chinese with clintongore
you sound nuts
zappa also said theres no liberal bias in the news...which i take as an absurdity
in likes of chandra levys murder etcetcetcetcetcetcetc
all the USA is is north mexico....a place where the populations increasing to put it midly.
when i was a child..back in the 60s..there was no such thing as a latino,,now the us has 60,000,000? of em.
In European nations they use their own instruments at soccer games. In some places they play bagpipes all through the game.
In the United States they sell soccer horns. http://www.gotparty.com/horns.htm
At soccer matches in South America I experienced air horns http://www.kwikgoal.com/product/9A1/kwik_blast_air_horn.html
South Africa has its own sound, which has been around for 30 years, and suddenly it is annoying?
The Vuvuzela horn is a South African tradition, producing a unique sound that signifies pride in the nation's heritage and support for its national team. Get over it, Qshtik.
I hate to break it to the people who intelligently and thoughtfully comment on this site. Jim is both right and wrong: right about the circumstances wrong about the consequences. "We" do not control this system. "We" - generally speaking regardless of our abilities, will not be CEOs or Secretaries of the Treasury. We are not chairmen of Federal Reserve Bank. We do not control the Army.
You need to have a certain self-serving pedigree to be one of them. And once one of them, you will not possess the revolutionary spirit.
Everything imaginable will be done to preserve the structure of power. Everything and everyone will be blamed and held to account. Every rule, statute, and device will be invoked to keep the wolves from the inner sanctum of the high priests of power and finance. It has always been thus.
Our obligations are denominated in their currency, literally and figuratively and they will have satisfaction.
Can this country fail so that they are unseated? Sure. But it will not happen easily or soon. You are all waiting for a day, a single day. In the meantime, every device imaginable will block the way. Am I imagining things when I see that the stock market fell 10% in a matter of minutes, that Washington Post shares rose 99% in a day, that Boeing fell 44% in a heartbeat or that Citi plunged 17% in moments today. What happened. New rules were imposed to curb the violence of these movements.
Harsher curbs will be imposed to quell other movements of violence. Jim will be in his grave when the Banana Republic finally falls and a new republic founded on old principles rises. Light a fire or leave but do not simply curse the darkness.
I heartily agree that Chryssie's main fault is deliberate boorishness. And the comment about Patton was very apt - Patton was from old money - his hand-picked, second aide-de-camp, Charles Codman, was a scion of old Boston and an expert in wines. Both spoke fluent French. It was disgusting to see a general officer hobnobbing with the hoi polloi of lifetakers and heartbreakers. A real general is secure in his manhood and relies on his many divisions to do the ass-kicking.
Furthermore, the man can't hold his liquor, singing like a tipsy debutante while a reporter is in the room. What a pussy.
I'd like to see some general analysis, JHK, on what lies behind the current American world where a bumbling horde of pussies fall all over themselves trying to prove how tough they are while the country burns down around their delicate asses. I call it the "runaway feminine".
-drl
Does anyone have an opinion on the existence/origins/lifestyle/habits of the sasquatch {bigfoot}, that they wish to share?
messianicdruid, Goliath was not a Philistine. Goliath was a sasquatch descended from the old Rephaim.
The Rephaim were dispersed by the Ammonites and the remainder took refuge with the Philistines. Deut. 2:20,21 & 2 Sam. 1:22.
It's in the Bible, so it is true, if you believe the Bible is the literal Word of God.
Hi Diogen. I was referring to Martyr13's use of the word "fucktard" as well as his general (insulting) comments. It reeks of OEO (Not Mommy, etc.) in one of his many incarnations. Definitely brings down the quality of discourse here.
"Spoken like a true Obama Worshipper! Don't deny it, you were one even if you have repented now. McChrystal is far from perfect, but given the dire straits we are in, economicall, ecologically, and in terms of the civil unrest that is sure to come - someone like him might be necessary, in other words, better than chaos and complete collapse. That's all I said. Are you sure you're not projecting a little of your own psyche on to me?" -Vlad
Beeeeeeee-Boooooo.... Wrong again, on all counts (except for a realization of impending dire straits).
No projection, just an incisive prediction from perusing your postings.
Bait not taken.
Please let me know if you know of any other people on the planet who had writing before it appeared in Africa.
===============
Oh my, yes! The Secaucans - Markings on what appeared to be a sign near an ancient booth-like structure read: "EnnJay TPKE eggszit zixt eeen wess Secaucus." Other wall writings suggest their main farm crop was known as "JerrSeeToeMayToes." Based on carbon dating these writings were accurately established to be 7 months, 3 days older than the oldest Egyptian heiroglyphs. Sorry to burst your bubble Asoka ;)
The Secaucans came after the Witmynians whose wall writings read: "jerrsee werrr lrge n kontaind multytudes" carbon dated quite a bit earlier than the Secaucan writings.
Yes! I've seen that one proudly pasted on motor homes.
How-za-bout: "Are you burning your grand-children's oil?"
Oops, sorry, Q. No hyphen in the children (who are so grand). ;o)
The Vuvuzela horn is a South African tradition, producing a unique sound
===============
Yeah, I'll say it's unique!
Q's Rewrite:
The Vuvuzela is South Africa's idea of a musical instrument. It can be mastered by anyone in 2 seconds. It produces arguably the world's most annoying noise, and is responsible for ruining the entire sound track of the only World Cup South Africa will ever be permitted to host. TV viewers report having worn out the mute buttons on their remotes. The "instrument" has been banned from virtually every stadium in the world outside South Africa. The National Orchestra, composed entirely of Vuvuzelas, will perform a 90 minute piece at the World Cup closing ceremonies titled "African Football Torture."
Congratulations on the birth of your ittle one. You went to hopsital to have a baby ? Now real hippies homebirth ya know ! Great to hear you had a midwife and you helped your little one out. I homebirthed and kept the placenta and considered encapusulating it but eventually buried it under a small olive tree in a pot. It sits out my back window and is doing nicely now.
"The Rephaim were dispersed by..."
So, do you believe the descendents of the Rephaim were dispersed, further over the eons into northern Calif. Oregon and Washington State, even perhaps up the coast to Juneua? What of their languages, etc.
The existence of sasquatch in those regions is the evidence. Sasquatch are able to communicate and have been known to do so with people of the Chehalis Indian reservation via what the natives call "The Douglas Dialect." Of course, the origin of what is called the Douglas Dialect is actually the Rephaim.
"writing to be a prerequisite for a true civilization"
Is that a fact? My understanding is that "civilization" simply means a social organization above the level of hunter-gatherers where there is social stratification, some sort of centralized governance, settlement, purposeful economic activity, etc. I believe that writing developed as a result of agricultural surpluses, and is therefor the consequence of civilization, not a defining characteristic. I could be wrong of course...
In our own times, writing was in obvious decline until the silk-screening process allowed written word to appear on t-shirts, which insured that writing will flourish as long as people wear t-shirts... And the biggest threat to writing today is the pressure to confirm to strict spelling and grammar, this will cause the writing species to crack under pressure and abandon writing in favor of digitized voice communication, and it will all be Q's fault.
Q, "confirm" was a gift for you :)
... and so was "insured" :)
According to the dictionary civilization is:
"1. An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions."
In any event, Africa was first.
First, is Sasquatch plural or should it be Sasquatches?
Second, Douglas was a trader who became incredibly wealthy selling "fire water" to the Chehalis Indians by the Conestoga Wagon-load so it is not surprising they could communicate with Sasquatch(es).
... and so was "insured"
================
From Thesaurus.com:
insure and ensure mean 'to make certain,' but only insure can mean 'indemnify against loss'
In any event, Africa was first.
===============
I beg to differ ... The Secaucans of upper Gnu Joisey were first.
I can assure you, the first writing was in Pakistan.
The first known examples of writing may have been unearthed at an archaeological dig in Pakistan.
So-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings have been found on fragments of pottery dating back 5500 years.
Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University: "We may be able to follow the history of signs."
They were found at a site called Harappa in the region where the great Harappan or Indus civilisation flourished four and a half thousand years ago.
Harappa was originally a small settlement in 3500 BC but by 2600 BC it had developed into a major urban center
Fellowship of the Vuvuzela:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B2LPxggvqY
Don't confuse proto-literate symbol systems with developed phonetic writing systems.
And of course Africa does not automatically mean Negro - Caucasians have lived in Northern Africa since time immemorial. The Ancient Egyptians were dark skinned Caucasians in fact. They knew about Blacks - in one of their pictures, Blacks are closest to the Egyptian, then the Semite, and then the European.
I met an old timer in Idaho who said that he had seen one in the mountains of Idaho. He almost shot it, thinking that it was a bear. But then it turned and he saw it had a human face. The old times was eccentric, but didn't seem crazy or insincere.
I know all about that crap: the Frankfurt School and its grand tome "The Authoritarian Personality". Having heroes is just a sign of weakness and lack of individuation. The only way out was existentialism. But then Feminism came along and the Authoritarian Personality was identified with the Patriarchy. Herbert Marcuse and the Feminists offered a salvation - just give up your masculinity and become "a real Person". Polymorphous Perversity here we come!
The problem is that men aren't happy when the fem out. And the little Jewish Men who promulgated these doctrines didn't follow them themselves: they never stopped idolizing Heroes and He Men like Ben Gurion. In other words, these doctrines of individualism and emasculation were for us and not for them. But the students bought it. They became bald pony tail men (professors) and they taught it to you. And you buy it too. Boy do you have a rude awakening coming. Traditional White Men were and are the hope of the world. You will beg to get in with us when the going gets rough.
Vlad said: "Traditional White Men were and are the hope of the world."
Dalai Lama said: "The world will be saved by the western woman"
The pie (earnings) is of finite size
==========
Above is the fallacy in your argument. The pie for a company, a nation or the entire world economy is ever changing and in general, over time, growing larger.
I regret to inform you that your grade for Econ 101 is F-.
Canada didn't have these problems until they imported Blacks into the country. The used to be like Iceland is today - incredibly high rates of literacy. Likewise, Iceland will suffer a massive fall in literacy and an increase in poverty if they bring in Black Workers. The only question, the only mystery, is why people don't see this. East Asians immigrants don't have these problems? Why not?
And yes, the White kids fall too - because of media influence, they worship the Blacks and seek to emulate them. So instead of acculturating the Blacks, the acculturate us. An insane and unsustainable situation. Remember Stein's Law: what cannot last, wont.
How BP Gulf Disaster Could Kill Millions
Qshtik said: "The pie for a company, a nation or the entire world economy is ever changing and in general, over time, growing larger."
So, there is no world economic crisis. Just keep printing money forever, to grow the pie, and what you call the zero sum fallacy is defeated.
Neat!
You really are smart about money and accounting!
Does anyone have an opinion on the existence/origins/lifestyle/habits of the sasquatch {bigfoot}, that they wish to share?
=============
Yes, I have an opinion that I'd like to share Messi. It's a total friggin crock of shit just like the aliens they've got in cold storage at Area 51. What, are you pullin my leg?
Really Messi, what the hell even prompts you to ask such a question? And, as if simply asking about existence weren't enough, you actually are nutty enough to ask about lifestyle. This is a scream.
Well, in that regard (lifestyle, that is), all the sasquatches I've hung with were into rap and shunned disco like the plague. And for some reason they were into Tommy Bahama shirts.
Habits? Heavy into pot, glue sniffing and driving at way over the speed limit.
Origins? Central New Jersey
I hope I've been helpful.
Just keep printing money forever, to grow the pie
============
No, not at all. That would be your's and Krugman's remedy.
Father forgive them for they know not ... etc etc.
Oh, yeah, I have doorless cabinets and a particle board floor.
I also have chicks, ducks, geese and turkeys in my living room!
They would be unable to handle it!
How can my furniture express the "real me" if I got half of it off other people's curbs? :)
I think CFN is falling behind on publicizing the coming of 2012, the singularity and the shift in consciousness in 2012 with the asymptotic curve going vertical, to indicate the doubling of information, a quantum leap of evolution.
Shamans have studied this coming 2012 phenomena by going out of their minds and government remote viewers have done the same since 1947. Remote viewers report not being able to see beyond 2012, they encounter what they call a "discontinuity".
The space-time continuum is reduced to our mind, and brain studies are exploring inner space. Julian James (1976) wrote about the bicameral mentality being the normal state of the human mind and our inner voice being a left-over of old brain wiring.
What the Mayans meant by 2012 is not so simple. They were aware of brain chemistry and its function through altered states experiments. Today we are only beginning to scientifically experiment with out of body experiences and magnetc or electromagnetic fields / dimensions.
Are we now in the beginning stages of a geomagnetic reversal? CFN needs to address this and help people, especially sensitive souls, as we go through the 2012 end time.
We appear to be in a planetary gestation with a significant event coming in 2012.
The Mayans used a vegisimal (base 20) system. We use a decimal (base 10) system. 3114 BC was the beginning of our epoch, which ends on the winter solstice of 2012.
A new cycle begins, but what will it be? Our the Mayan expertise has been lost due to the invasion of white Spanish "conquistadores" (Spanish barbarians) who did not have any understanding of Mayan calendars or their significance.
The Mayan prophecies do speak of a huge chalice of fire over the sea. Could this be a coming methane explosion in the Gulf of Mexico?
Anyone have any scientific or shamanic evidence?
Qshtik: "the entire world economy is ever changing and in general, over time, growing larger"
Asoka: "Keep printing money forever?"
Qshtik: "No, not at all."
So, how does the economic earnings pie grow if the money supply does not grow?
Is that a joke?
Because I thought the same thing.
Hospital birth? Shouldn't the little one be welcomed into his own home?
Or in George Bush's immortal words-
"Make the pie higher. Make the pie higher!"
Women don't think clearly? We're too bombarded by emotion?
Dude.
If I saw a picture of Achilles killing the Queen of the Amazons, and was told that she fell in love with him as she died, I would NOT think "Awwwww, isn't that sweet."
I would think "Bullshit!"
In Qshtik's responses I sense something is being piled higher and deeper.
I have long advocated paying people for voluntary sterilization. I proposed $6,000 for women and $5,000 for men, to be paid over and above the cost of sterilization, which would be free.
It is time to drop the ridiculous idea that every new baby is a blessed gift to society.
However.
The idea that only the poor, or the stupid, or minorities should be sterilized is not a good thing.
As you know, responsible people get sterilized anyway.
And irresponsible people have an unwanted child, or two, or six, before they get around to the tube tying.
Tonight, at work, we had a particularly egregious case of child abuse, on a 2 month old baby.
One of my co-workers went on and on about how people should have to get a license to reproduce, because her hair dresser needs a license, so why shouldn't parents? She's new, and hadn't heard my plan yet. Plus, she's a Republican and an Iraq war vet, so she's very right wing.
OK. This is a non-starter. Pointing out that hair dressers must get a license has nothing to do with reproduction, which is very decentralized. The government bureaucracy that would be involved with such a thing would be out of control.
So I pointed out to my other co-worker that my plan would have worked quite well in this particular dysfunctional family. She agreed. Paying these people to be sterilized would probably have prevented at least one of the kids and possibly more.
And if the money were spent on meth, instead of a college education, so what? Better the meth go to the childless, rather than those parents smoking meth while their toddlers fall into ponds.
I truly believe that what people do is their own business, unless there are children involved. And just lecturing people on proper behavior does not work.
This is America. Everything has a price, and money must change hands for value to be realized.
Either we value children enough to make each one a wanted one, or we continue to produce kids as disposable as our fast food wrappers from Burger King.
Well, the good thing about 2012 coming is soon so soon we won't have to hear this bs Mayan prophesy talk anymore.
Vlad et al, I have seen the sorry cultural state of younger whites in the US and am disgusted how they adopt the repulsive culture of the moronic negro thugs. What do you recommend be done about this?
I think the hope for mankind is actually the orientals. The Japanese and Chinese leadership has the wisdom to recognize the superiority of western science and is likely to maintain some of the European cultural legacy. The knuckle-dragging morons and thugs of America will become increasingly irrelevant to the intellectual and scientific developments in the world.
Well, Cash, I'll bet that the dairy owner didn't have anywhere near the money that the speculator has.
Producing something of value, and selling it for a decent price, is very different from speculating on money, as you know.
As for the little people line, I was just quoting the head of BP.
I don't really think that the rich are better than the poor!
LOL! How did we get from repurposing granite counter tops into tombstones to Sasquatch? Whiplash, here :D
My take? "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." etc. etc. I keep an open mind. I think many of the sightings will turn out to be some poor old Viet bush vet. Or, one of our v-e-r-y shy grizzlies that probably live on the south slope of Mt. Rainier.
For an open minded overview of the whole Sasquatch question, round up a copy of Robert M. Pyle's ""Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide." Yup. The same Robert Pyle that does butterfly books for the Audubon Society.
You local Druid? You mention the Chehalis Tribe. Pretty obscure reference in the wider world. :-)
"The pie for a company, a nation or the entire world economy is ever changing and in general, over time, growing larger."
First of all, each fiscal year (Corp or Gov't) the pie is fixed (revenue or GDP), so for someone to have more, someone else must have less.
But taking a bigger view, the world-pie has been growing only because we've been living off the trust fund - fossil energy deposits. But the growth has been offset by environmental degradation and resource depletion, which are never factored into the calculations of revenues and the GDP. I think most people understand that once the returns from the trust fund diminish, or the trust fund is gone, there will be a huge contraction. So much for your ever-expanding pie theory. You grasp of real economics doesn't even register to warrant an F- :)
Speaking of granite countertops, I'd like to share this story. We know a young family (23-25 y.o.). AS soon as he got hist first job after college (she never went, had a clerical job), they contracted to have a brand-new house built even tho there are plenty of houses for sale. The new house was probably $30-40K more expensive that an existing house. She promptly got pregnant, quit her job. She never wants to go back to work, and loves staying home and having kids. Next she wanted a boat, so they got a boat (can't imagine how they're paying for all this). Now she wants a larger house (2,100 sq. ft. is too little space for a family of 3, you see) with (you guessed it) granite countertops. She watches TV all day at home (I do think she takes good care of the kid though). Oh yeah, the new house -- they were so clueless about the energy efficiency thing, they didn't even know what kind of furnace they were getting. The house is an energy-efficiency disaster -- 4" walls, marginal insulation, etc.
They have NEVER heard of the Peak Oil idea. Their two vehicles were SUVs, and to pull the boat they had to get a bigger SUV. They guy can't do any work around the house, all he wants to do in his spare time is play video games. Someone had to teach him how to cut the grass, he has no clue about doing any kind of maintenance or handyman work. I suspect he didn't want either the new house or the boat, all he cares about is the big-screen TV and his video games.
I have so many other examples of how unprepared young families are for the LE, it's truly frightetning.
That was a good story.
During this financial meltdown you keep hearing that govt is trying to prime the economic pump with deficit spending and low interest rates to avoid a disaster like the great depression like the 1930s.
I wouldn't want another great depression but consider this. Some good came out of what happened in the 1930s. Banks and a multitude of other businesses came crashing down but the side effect was that the dysfunctional behaviour that resulted in the depression stopped. And behaviour that was highly beneficial became ingrained in the collective psyche and culture ie the idea of frugality, hard work, not taking things for granted.
What govts are doing is propping up the messed up behaviour of that young couple and a multitude of people like them. If govt didn't act to bail us out and just let the economy implode there would be a decade of real suffering but you can bet that this easy attitude would go.
I've heard accounts by old timers that were young during the Depression and they told of families that were out of doors, in really bad shape, and on the verge of starvation. If those young knuckleheads you're talking about had to go through several years of extreme deprivation you can bet that the last thing on their minds would be getting granite countertops and getting into a mountain of debt. Rather they'd go the minimalist route, learn how to repair, refurbish and make do and put aside ever penny they could.
Quote: If Obama indeed ..."has no experience, no leadership, no accomplishments, no ... no anything....", how can it be that the responsibility for the mess we're in "..are all Obama's..."
I don't know of anyone who thinks this mess is all Obama's doing. That would be a silly thing to suggest. If you want to find the major culprit, I'd start with Abraham Lincoln. Obama is only responsible in the sense that he is the one who appears to be in charge (tho that isn't really true).
Quote: At worst, he's a stooge of the bankers/military/oligarchs (presidents have always been), and at best, just a super ambitious guy seduced by the chance to make history and soak up the world's attention.
A correct analysis. Both, that is. Carter was a decent guy, but incompetent. Clinton was very capable, but a hopeless narcissist. Obama seems to be a mix of the worst of both.
I also have chicks, ducks, geese and turkeys in my living room!
===========
Sounds absolutely awful. Doesn't the place stink?
So what do you do, get up in the morning and take all these birds out for a walk to "do their business?" And what about all day long while you're at the hospital and your son is in school? Do they have the run of the place? I live next to a huge park that is home to a large population of Canada Geese and they are prodigious shitters. You've heard the expression "loose as a goose" right? So what's the story? Why all these birds in your living room?
P.S. You've probably heard this old joke:
Question: What is that white stuff in chicken shit?
Answer: That's chicken shit too.
Michael-
Thanks for replying.
I think Carter may have been incompetent, but the was also a victim of the Iranian revolution, and he was sandbagged by domestic opportunists who simultaneously excoriated him for not doing anything about the hostages, and used the situation to get Reagan elected, and we all know what that has resulted in. Plus Carter was attacked by Ted Kennedy during the primaries, and came to the general election so weakened by his (Kennedy's) ego trip that he couldn't recover.
With regard to Obama, what would have been the alternative in 2008? McCain/Palin? Where the hell would we be now with those two bufoons?
"In Qshtik's responses I sense something is being piled higher and deeper."
Your obnosis is in fine form this morning.
Well, the good thing about 2012 coming is soon so soon we won't have to hear this bs Mayan prophesy talk anymore.
===============
I'll second that.
Your obnosis is in fine form this morning.
===========
Obnosis must be a slang word I'm not hip to. It doesn't exist in Dictionary.com. Please enlighten me.
"You local Druid? You mention the Chehalis Tribe. Pretty obscure reference in the wider world. :-)"
No, I think Asoka mentioned them. I'm down in the bois d'arc range. Osages are pretty obscure too, but most of them live in californicate, spending their "old" oil money. Only the "people" people hang around the res.
I tend to lean toward the, "large primate that has escaped scientism thus far" camp. Zinjanthropicus preceded the Rephaim {maybe}. I don't hold to the alien/angel cross breeding stuff.
A large stealthy omnivirous biped may have much to teach us about avoiding trouble and hardship, as well as adapting to a low tech future.
Hi Cash,
Something that I have not seen much palaver about is the fact that during the great depression we were on the steep up-slope portion of the Hubbert curve vice preparing to plunge down the the steep down-slope portion of the curve today. Recovery in the 1930's was aided immensely by the oil glut not so today.
SNAFU
Wotcha Qshtik,
I had already assumed your persona was a humorous creation and of course "Bugger" was used in the english sense, not the insulting way.
I was going to respond to Diogen's "casual" nonsense but you got in before me and basically covered it.
All the best.
Reagan elected, and we all know what that has resulted in.
================
Yeah, 8 of the best years in our history, punctuated at the end by the collapse of the Soviet Union - a failed socialist experiment if there ever was one - that Wage, Dio, Asoka et al would love to resusitate.
"Obnosis must be a slang word I'm not hip to. It doesn't exist in Dictionary.com. Please enlighten me."
Obnosis has several etymologies. The first part (ob-) is as in "observe." The second part might be:
from gnosis (γνώσις), Greek for "knowledge," so the word means knowledge by observation, or
from nosis (νοσός), Greek for "disease," so obnosis might be observing (or inferring) issues, illness, or disease.
You might ask why join an English prefix to either Greek word. But the usual ob- comes from Latin, which makes for an equally goofy mix. That prefix means the inverse, opposition, or distance from something, so obnosis might mean running like hell from knowledge, issues, illness, and disease.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Obnosis
What about the Incas? Would you argue they weren't civilized? Yet they had no system of writing. They did have a system of record keeping using knotted cords but the consensus seems to be that this was not true writing. I would argue they developed a brilliant civilization.
You sound like you're disparaging the early achievements of non Africans. Hazardous business that. For one thing people in different parts of the world lived in very different environments so I wouldn't be too quick to trumpet one people as superior to others by virtue of their having discovered this knowledge or that technology sooner than others.
For another, arceologists are digging up new things all the time. While people think that writing developed earliest along the Nile or Fertile Crescent there could well be discoveries that prove these ideas wrong ie it could well have been people in India or China that got there first. But in any case so what.
What should we make of the fact that there seems to be right now a motherlode of mathematical talent in south Asia or that Newton and Darwin was British or that Descartes, Poincare and Dirac were French or that Einstein, Marx and St Paul were Jewish? Do we argue superiorty of their respective peoples? We know from history where these lines of thinking and discourse go.
trippticket,
I've been trying to get back to you since you posted this:
{We need cooler nights than middle Georgia offers to keep house temps semi-comfortable during blazing hot days w/o AC. The windward side of the Appalachains also gets LOTS of rain - some of it is bonafide rain forest with nearly 100 inches a year. Our 60-ish in Macon is ample, with properly-scaled storage, but 90-ish takes care of all, with water to spare. We probably lose our figs, pomegranates, guavas, and olives, but we gain apples, cherries, currants, ramps, etc. Oh, and trout.}
We're neighbors, more or less....about 130 miles apart, I would guess. I'm in North Georgia, up above Dahlonega. And I've lived in Macon, so I understand where you are coming from with respect to the local climate. When I lived there back in the '60's the rotten egg smell from the paper mills down on the Ocmulgee would waft up over the entire town some nights.
I envy your ability to relocate that far away...clear to the other side of the Appalachian Mtns. And, let me tell you that it is getting plenty hot here this summer as well. Elevation makes a difference, too. I'm at about 1600 feet.
You go up over Woody Gap and you get about a 5 degree +/- temperature drop...and more rain and snow because it is on the windward side of the mountain, as you say....it's own little microclimate to a certain extent.
Gee.... I wonder if I should mention specific geography on a national/world blog like this....the last thing we need is 1000's of CFNers descending on the town and pestering the real estate agents.
Oh well, too late now..LOL...and in my experience most people don't have the ability to move around that much. They'd like to, but family, work, something always comes up. And in the face of TLE I'm thinking family is more important than location...within broad limits.
One practical suggestion for you to think about, Tripp.... I don't know if you heat your water with LP, solar, or electric. If it's electric you could think about a heat pump water heater. We have one and 900 watts of electricity input gives 1800 "equivalent watts" of heated water. Plus you get about 7000 BTU worth of cold dehumidified air....which is a useful byproduct in the Georgia summer.
We duct the cold air into the bedroom, which is nice.
So we get free cold air...or free hot water...depending on how you look at it.
Life is good!
That's interesting. You're right you never hear much talk of the oil glut helping us get out of the Depression. And you're right, $75 to $100 dollar oil right now is like an anchor around our necks.
diogen said: "First of all, each fiscal year (Corp or Gov't) the pie is fixed (revenue or GDP), so for someone to have more, someone else must have less."
diogen, remember that qshtik worked 26 years doing dept. of defense contract accounting, so he was in a fantasy world of endless taxpayer money, a world of cost-plus contracts, a world of perpetual contract cost overruns, a corrupt New Jersey world of waste, improper billing for work not performed, and outright fraud.
"I know all about that crap: the Frankfurt School and its grand tome "The Authoritarian Personality"." -Vlad
Well, good then... you have a guide to where you're going. Bon Voyage!
What is/was your line of work Asoka?
At this moment I am listening to a Terry Gross NPR program called "The age of tough oil" with Michael Klare on her "Fresh Air" radio show. Very interesting.
SNAFU
In regard to the relativity of the existence of "black swans" I need to confide to CF Nation that I had no idea that natural underground hydrocarbon reservoirs could be so vastly under pressure. In other words, I did not know anything like the BP Deepwater disaster could happen.
I did know that "gushers" existed - but I had assumed they were "flukes" of nature and were relatively small, and played out in several days or a couple of weeks at most.
Now I wonder about how ignorant I am of so many other areas of corporate activities that could generate world-wide "black swans."
Is this pretty much the predicament that our government is faced with regard to the financial sector misdealing? Don't do anything, or else it will all come down.
What about other sectors? What about genetically modified agricultural products? How about the other areas of science that are still in their infancy?
Hey I am about 45 minutes from you. I am in a mountain micro-climate as well. I dont use air conditioning of any kind - just cross ventilation and ceiling fans. It is only uncomfortable in August. Being by a creek drops the temp too...I have a heavy canopy of trees that keeps it cool and in winter i get the needed sun for heat as the deciduous trees allow for light.
Ive got a good organic food garden going -still on a learning curve - just my second year. But I am always amazed at how forgiving and encouraging the good earth is. I think Treebeardsuncle is right when he says it wont be mad max -more like third world where there are very wealthy and then the poor. I think altering my way of life now is the best way to prepare for that. The bigger point is I actually prefer this life to the one I left behind.
I love hearing from other readers on what they are personally doing to prep for TLE.
"Am pleased to see Trip had a couple too as he is bright and responsible"
That might be taking it a bit far! Although I appreciate the vote of confidence. The second child was a big mental debate. On the one hand we are living lighter on the Earth every year and producing more of our own food, fiber, and fuel each season, arguably benefitting the planet from the extra hands of another child. On the other, first-world humans have totally trashed the place, including enabling the so-called third world, and I'm not carbon neutral just yet. Guilty as anyone here, and more than some.
I've seen statistics that show that if every couple had but 2 children that our global population would start shrinking pretty quickly, so that is comforting. Statistics was never my forte'.
In a multi-generational analysis we definitely shine though! My great-grandfather had 4, starting at 23 years of age, my grandfather had 5 starting at 19, and my father had 5, starting at 19. I had 2 starting at almost 35, and I'm officially DONE! So I broke the geometric growth pattern in 2 different ways. That I can live with.
So, speaking of procreation, any luck with the Entwives?
"Congratulations on the birth of your ittle one. You went to hopsital to have a baby ? Now real hippies homebirth ya know !"
I do indeed! Apparently my vote doesn't count quite as much as the vote of the person suffering the pain of childbirth...
Are you a Sage-femme?
Growing Pie vs Zero-Sum Game - a parable:
When Adam and Eve entered the world outside the Garden no wealth existed - no houses, no cars, no tools, no orchards, no granite counter-tops. What some may think of as "the wealth of the land" existed only in potential form. It took human ingenuity, ambition and effort to convert mere potential into actual assets. (Please look up wealth in the dictionary which essentially comes down to assets minus liabilities.) In the 6000 years (wink wink) since then the face of the earth has filled with assets. The economic wealth "pie" has grown vastly larger. Wealth can only be created, it does not pre-exist. It is humans who created that wealth. And the pie has no fixed size. How could it if it went from zero to what it is today? It may grow or shrink in any given time period but as a matter of historical fact it, obviously, has mostly grown.
Dio, and you other socialists out there, please get a clue. While the empathy you show for the poor, (and BTW, none of you show any discernable empathy for whatever travails are suffered by the well-off such as taking a big entreprenurial risk and having it fail and losing your shirt) is commendable you are letting it blind you. You want so badly to reduce the suffering of the poor that you conclude it can only be done by taking the currently existing wealth of the world and distributing it in different proportions - preferably evenly. For this re-distribution to be just (believing yourself to be a moral person) requires you to conclude that the economy is a zero-sum game ... that the rich could only have acquired more than an even share of a fixed pie by taking it from the poor. ONLY if that premise is true can you justly re-take that wealth from the rich and give it back to the poor.
Time for your dose of sialis CFNers:
http://www.sialis.org/runt.htm
If the link works, scroll down to the 5th picture. My pair have 5 eggs also. Hatching should be any day now. The suspense is killing me.
Is this fair of Rep. Markey? I mean how could BP have known there might be storms or a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico?
(now taking tongue out of cheek)
How can free market folks like Rand Paul say the government has its jack boot on BP's neck? Looks to me like we needed more government regulation ... at least enough to read the faux BP disaster response plan, you know, the one that talks about the walruses in the Gulf of Mexico.
"So we get free cold air...or free hot water...depending on how you look at it."
POC, I love that idea! One thing I can't get enough of is redundancy in my systems design. I was planning on adding a solar water heating tank upstream of my electric one. Maybe I could do that AND replace the old standby with a heat pump version. Or would that negate the cooling effect?? We're eventually building a second bathroom off our bedroom, completely off-line - no electricity, no connection to the domestic water supply. Just rainwater for tub and shower, used sparingly, and screen walls surrounded by bamboo. Knowing me I'll plant the bamboo first.
I have family in north Georgia too, actually my wife and I are the only ones in middle Georgia, and a few of my closest relatives and we are talking about "retiring" to the mountains together soon. Macon has a ton to offer the permacultural plant breeder, but damn is it hot.