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The Trigger

T he futility of politics in America these days has driven the public into exactly the dream-state of zombie blood-lust depicted in so many popular video fantasies, a nightmare of decay, powerlessness, and degeneracy matching the actual condition of a disintegrating polity that has lost collective consciousness and seeks only to infect the dwindling numbers of the still-sentient. Almost nobody in this country believes we can manage our affairs anymore.

Well, can we? One of the hallmarks of an imploding culture is that people lose a sense of consequence. Things just seem to happen and unhappen, and nobody really cares about chains of decision and event. Anything goes and nothing matters.

One reason this is happening to us is that we allowed reality to be divorced from truth. Karl Rove wasn’t kidding back in the Bush-2 days when he quipped that “we create our own reality.” The part old Karl left out is that there’s a price for doing that. In the short run, it allows you to pretend that you have superpowers and can act in defiance of the way things really are. In the longer run, your view of the world comports so poorly with the facts of the world that things stop working.

The tragedy of Barack Obama is that he continued the basic Karl Rove doctrine only without bragging about it. I don’t know whether Mr. Obama was a hostage, an empty suit, or a fool, but he broadened and deepened the acquiescence to lying about just about everything. Did criminal misconduct run rampant in banking for years? Oh, nevermind. Is the US economy actually contracting instead of recovering? We’ll just make up better numbers. Did US officials act like Nazi war criminals in torturing prisoners? Well, yeah, but so what? Did the State Department and the CIA scuttle the elected Ukrainian government in order to start an unnecessary new conflict with Russia? Maybe so, but who cares? Was the Affordable Care Act a swindle in the service of insurance and pharmaceutical racketeering? Oh, we’ll read the bill after we pass it. Shale oil will make us “energy independent.” (Not.)

Has anyone noticed the way these incongruities percolate into the public attention and then get dismissed, like daydreams, with no resolution. I’ve harped on this one before because it was, to my mind, Obama’s greatest failure: When the Supreme Court decided in the Citizens United case that corporations were entitled to express their political convictions by buying off politicians, why didn’t the President join with his then-Democratic majority congress to propose legislation, or a constitutional amendment, more clearly redefining the difference between corporate “personhood” and the condition of citizenship? How could this constitutional lawyer miss the reality that corporations legally and explicitly do not have obligations, duties, and responsibilities to the public interest but only to their shareholders? How was this not obvious? And why was there not a rush to correct it?

Of course, this only begs the question: where are the opponents to the ethos that anything goes and nothing matters? Where are the political figures who can sustain a complaint long enough, and loudly enough, to keep it in the public consciousness clearly enough to make a difference? The more conspiracy-minded might say that the security apparatus (the NSA and its servelings) or Wall Street actually run the country and somehow suppress opposition. I don’t believe that. I do believe that cultures go through tragic periods when they lose their bearings and the will to be truthful to themselves.

The latest news is that Mr. Jeb Bush is way ahead among his Republican rivals for the presidential nomination, leading to a beautiful setup for the battle of the dynasties: Bush versus Clinton in 2016. I believe that insulting prospect would be the wake-up call that will hit the American people upside the head and wake them out of their zombie rapture. A third party will arise. It may be a good one or a bad one, but it will blow the existing order of things apart, as it should.

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393 Responses to “The Trigger”

  1. Htruth December 29, 2014 at 9:05 am #

    The American dream is here. Anything goes, no rule of law and let’s hear it for torture! http://youtu.be/I5Ms_kqvNFk

    • CancelMyCard December 29, 2014 at 11:15 am #

      The American Dream is dead.
      The American Nightmare has arrived.
      And when the wake-up call comes, the nightmare will not go away.

      My first thought regarding the year ahead focuses on what will be looked back on as the “trigger event” this time around, which most closely imitates the 1914 trigger event: the assignation of Archduke Ferdinand that precipitated WWI.

      At the time, it was regarded as a minor footnote, but set off a chain reaction.

      This time it could very well be the Greek snap election, which could set off a chain reaction of an imploding ECB/Euro-bank system that hold hundreds of billions in Euro-denominated Greek sovereign bonds.

      Watch what happens January 25.

  2. Being There December 29, 2014 at 9:19 am #

    Well, JHK

    Let’s hope a viable third party can be effective. When you have a media that won’t cover third party candidates and allow them to debate, then it’s hard to imagine that anyone will know who they are.

    I liken this moment of history as I’ve said before to Murder Inc. recalling Myer Lansky.

    I do think that there is a preverse incentive issue here and I also believe people are threatened to go along. They get rewards for doing so and those who don’t are marginalized and considered kooks.

    The issue is that the polity has to come to terms with their self image as a nation. Are we the good guys? Were we ever, really? And at what point did the good guys become the empire of chaos. We are trying to destroy the power of nation states while we destroy our own in the name of global Neoliberalism and Neoconservatism.

    These are indeed ideologies that have the leadership locked up in a quest for full spectrum hegemony while the country they no longer want to focus on is falling apart at the seems.

    In the meantime we are watching government serve only the CEO and banking class while acting deliberately totally ineffectual in dealing with the nation’s problems where everything they do becomes a boondoggle for the few.

    They will extol the ideology of the private/public sector–for all things that were once serviced by govt. with the tax payer dollars. Now to be given over to private interests who will make a killing on those things that have been reasonably priced in the past.

    A good example is to check out the costs of Medicine these days. Just a few short years ago, it was somewhat affordable. but no more. Same thing is now happening to Medicare.
    When the people can no longer afford it, what happens?

    I have commented many times on these topics through the years, but at the end I recall meeting a Russian man in Paris. I asked him about his newspaper and what it was like to live in Russia and he told me that nobody believed anything they read and often would say things about the weather as a secret way of communicating with eachother. This is where we are going……

    • Brabantian December 29, 2014 at 9:56 am #

      Ironically, Meyer Lansky is himself a symbol of what the rule of law once was in America – when judges required actual evidence, and not just the US regime’s say-so.

      And also brings to mind the danger to Jim Kunstler himself, as shown in the cases of 3 other dissident Jews recently all forced to take exile from the USA:

      In 1970, Maier Suchowljansky (born 1902) aka Meyer Lansky, fled to Israel to attempt to retire there, arguing that the accusations against him had not been proven, and that he had a right to live in Israel as a harassed, beleaguered, slandered Jew – the very reason Israel was founded.

      To the shock of many Jews themselves, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir refused to let Lansky stay in Israel, and deported him back to the USA … despite lack of judicial proof of Lansky’s gangsterism.

      But remarkably, in the USA, the more honest judges of that era, threw out the cases against Lansky, reprimanding prosecutors for bringing only smears and innuendo and not evidence. Lansky died a free man, in Miami Beach, in 1983.

      Interestingly, post-2000, 3 anti-corruption dissident Jews who were active in the USA, Jews who risked their lives to help other US citizens, have been forced to leave the USA to save their lives, and to take refuge in Israel or in Europe – Will Jim Kunstler become one too?

      3 refugee Jews from the USA are Julian Heicklin and Joseph Zernick who fled to Israel, and Polish Jew Dr Leszek Sachs now in Brussels Belgium, who was a Harvard classmate of Obama and Bush advisors, and was victimised by US judges joining with Google Inc to block all Sachs’ journalism from the internet, and leave Sachs unable to respond to thousands of words of defamatory lies about him.

      The Google attacks on Polish Jew Sachs, not letting him reply to lies published via Google, are a major reason for the ‘break up of Google’ demands of an appalled European Commission.

      Cannot help but wonder, if Jim Kunstler starts talking too much about US judicial corruption as he does above – exactly the ‘crime’ of the 3 Jewish refugees from the USA, Heicklin, Zernick & Sachs – maybe Jim Kunstler might need to escape too.

      What an irony with Meyer Lansky … he sought haven in Israel in the 1970s, was rejected by Israel itself as ‘Jewish mafia’ … yet Lansky found a haven in the US, because US judges demanded to see evidence and not just smears.

      That was the era before US judges became tools of US ruling families … the era of US judges who magnificently made the USA a non-death-penalty country during 1967-77. The corruption of US judges and lawyers is probably the deepest reason why there is little home for a USA future, even after some kind of US collapse … that judge-and-lawyer-mafia will seek to keep control and play their old games..

      • Being There December 29, 2014 at 10:02 am #

        Really interesting. Thanks for that, Brabantian.

        • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 12:51 pm #

          Me too. Speaking of Jews, and spying, I can think of a prominent Jew who was thought to be getting close to Wall Street/white collar financial crime, and who was ‘brought down’ with legal trolling through his banking records.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:07 pm #

        And of course Lansky was a gangster. You know that, right? Jews were very heavily into gangsterism before they found more lucrative endeavors like Wall St.

        The disputation of the most basic facts is also a feature of profound break down.

        Another Jewish refugee is Roman Polanski. Do you think he is innocent too?

        Bobby Fischer is a good Jewish refugee who fled to Iceland. You probably think he is evil because he criticized Zionism.

        • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 7:29 pm #

          It frustrates me when people only tell part of a story. Yes, Jewish Mafia, but also Italian Mafia, Irish Mafia, Anglo Saxon Mafia – the US has had all kinds. Now even Russian and Chinese Mafias! SF has always had the latter.
          Mr. Lansky believed his gang should operate more like corporations! That’s right. E.g., instead of random murders have a department for that. And he developed the business model for the mafia-owned casinos in LV – skimming. They didn’t even have to run crooked tables, just dedicate the revenue from selected tables to the boys in Chicago and Kansas City and New York.

          The other folks you mention have only their ethnicity in common. I simply do not get your point.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 7:57 pm #

            Exactly. Jews control Hollywood and the Media so they left themselves out and only talked about the Italians. I make a point to mention them for the sake of Truth. The these two groups were the biggest players – with the Irish as a distant third, but strong in some areas and in politics. And of course the groups often allied.

        • outsider December 29, 2014 at 8:35 pm #

          When I was young I was really into chess and followed every game of the Fischer-Spassky match in Iceland in 1972 when Fischer won the world crown. He was basically a harmless eccentric and was incessantly hounded by the US authorities for his anti-US/anti-Israel comments. It’s not a good reflection on the US that this unstable man was forced to seek asylum. However, as I’m sure you know, Fischer has been dead for several years.

          • outsider December 29, 2014 at 8:38 pm #

            I should have said unstable “genius” as he certainly was one.

        • malthuss December 29, 2014 at 10:16 pm #

          Bobby had a goy mother.

      • abbybwood December 29, 2014 at 8:49 pm #

        My guess is that Mr. Kunstler would sooner stay and fight the good fight so he could write all about it someday….

    • lsjogren December 29, 2014 at 12:21 pm #

      “When you have a media that won’t cover third party candidates and allow them to debate, then it’s hard to imagine that anyone will know who they are.”

      The public increasingly recognizes establishment media (Fox News, New York Times, etc. as garbage)

      And there exist a multitude of alternative media outlets through the internet.

      I don’t believe the old media’s power to perpetuate the political oligarchy in this country is all that strong.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 12:53 pm #

        I’m not sure. Mention Ron Paul to the average voter, and you get the automatic “he’s a kook” response, but they can’t even tell you why.
        This is not an endorsement of Ron Paul, by the way.

      • outsider December 29, 2014 at 1:24 pm #

        Last time around there was a third party movement calling itself “No Labels.” It was looking for a middle ground to unite disaffected D’s & R’s and did not espouse either a left or right philosophy. It ran its own national primary where you could vote for any person, even though no one, to my knowledge, explicitly volunteered to run under its banner. To assure that its internet primary was legit, you had to give up your name, dob, and last 4 digits of your ssn. Shortly after doing so, I was advised by its creators that the whole enterprise was being abandoned. To this day, I’m not sure why.

        The only way I can see a third party making any real headway in this vapid country would be if a disgruntled billionaire 1%-er would self-finance it, as crazy Ross Perot did in ’92 (and received 19% of the vote). But we have less than two years to go so that person better emerge pretty quickly if we are to avoid a Bush-Clinton gag fest.

        • Neon Vincent January 1, 2015 at 4:12 pm #

          The third party movement you’re referring to was called Americans Elect. They were the ones running an internet primary and getting ballot access in a majority of states, not No Labels. They were hoping to get a centrist problem solver like former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Instead, the person who got the most votes was former U.S. Representative Ron Paul, who was far from centrist. He wasn’t even a declared candidate. The best performing one of those was former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer, who got 6,000 votes. At least Roemer came off as a centrist. Neither Paul nor Roemer received the minimum 10,000 votes required to earn the nomination. Since the group failed to get a candidate and didn’t attract any of the big names they wanted, its leadership decided to suspend its efforts. What a waste of 35 million dollars!

          That written, I can see why you thought No Labels was running this effort. Mark McKinnon co-founded No Labels and was a major player in Americans Elect who was quoted in a Washington Post article about the organization’s failure. Americans Elect may be moribund, but No Labels is still around, looking for ways to get bipartisan solutions to problems they see the current polarized political system not addressing.

    • capt spaulding December 29, 2014 at 12:32 pm #

      Out of old habits, I find myself thinking that the democrats are still the party of the working class, and the republicans the party of the wealthy. Of course I know better, but old habits die hard. Articles like this, and comments like yours, drive home the reality that those days are long gone. It seems that the future can only go one of two ways. Either everything explodes into violence, or there comes a numbing acceptance of things as they are. A lot of the young people are slowly being conditioned to accept poverty and it’s effects, because they don’t know of a time when that was not the case. Unlike us old timers, who remember when life was better. Of course after we are all dead, the memories of a time when people could live a decent life, will die along with us. I saw a bumper sticker the other day. It said “WE’VE GOT THE BEST CONGRESS THAT MONEY CAN BUY”. Wisdom on a bumper sticker of all places. Sad but true.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 12:56 pm #

        You get them to accept poverty and its effects by getting them fighting with each other. A man from Northern Ireland explained it to me.

        • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 7:35 pm #

          Divide and Conquer. Capitalism’s HR SOP!

      • michics December 29, 2014 at 1:17 pm #

        I too feel the same as you. I fear that we will continue our downfall because it’s all about money. Economic collapse will benefit the 1%. The military Industrial Complex needs another war (ideally with Russia or Iran ) so they can make more money. Again the 1%. Every problem we have right now is driven by the 1% to make more money. The current high stock market is a bubble due to burst.
        The political system, including the POTUS, is being controlled by the elite 1%.

        I’m currently reading a very good book by Thom Hartmann “The Crash of 2016” that does a very good job of explaining our history of good times, economic crashes, revolution, right up to our current situation. All of these cycles, there have been many, were caused by the “Economic Royalists” Oligarchi , 1% .

        Our problem this time is we are enter twined globally so everyone will likely crash together or be in another World War together.

        And yes there has been a very thought out program to train our younger population that this is the norm. Also the militarization of our police forces is one of the steps to indoctrinate a new norm.

        The facts are everywhere when you look for them.

        • outsider December 29, 2014 at 1:34 pm #

          I don’t understand how “economic collapse will benefit the 1%” when there will be few left to buy their products. But I do agree that our MIC needs constant war.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:10 pm #

            As long as they own everything, what does it matter? In other words, a return to the Feudal System with them as Lords and us as the renter/serfs.

            Of course, that assumes they win the war with Russia/Iran or China and there is enough left to rebuild with. Neither of those is guaranteed.

        • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 5:00 pm #

          Our problem this time is we are [enter twined] globally – mic

          =================

          OMG!

          It’s [intertwined]

    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 2:58 pm #

      falling apart at the [seems]. – Being There

      ================

      seams

      • outsider December 29, 2014 at 8:45 pm #

        “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”

        WE Yeats, “The Second Coming”

        • outsider December 29, 2014 at 8:46 pm #

          That’s WB. Wish we could edit.

  3. dannyboy December 29, 2014 at 9:21 am #

    Kunstler,

    Thanks.

    From my vantage, all these evils were done by evil people for evil purposes. Why try to interpret the motives, just look at each act.

    I do appreciate your deliberate attempts to predict futures. I can’t.

  4. Smoky Joe December 29, 2014 at 9:23 am #

    “I do believe that cultures go through tragic periods when they lose their bearings and the will to be truthful to themselves.”

    I’m reading about the final centuries of the Byzantines, after the disastrous sack of their capitol city by their fellow Christians from Western Europe in 1206.

    They limped along for nearly 250 more years, losing territory and influence, even as their best minds fought over theological issues so opaque that they escape us today. They still considered themselves the mightiest nation on the Earth.

    That’s us, after the sacking and pillaging that began when Reagan, that artful liar, was elected in 1980. This is the Slide and I think I know where it ends.

    • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2014 at 12:57 pm #

      Are the Turks coming for us?

      • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 10:47 pm #

        Nope. But the EU might be negotiating with themfor natural gas in the mid-term future… & that will be so much ‘fun’ for them… /s

        Cheers!

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 10:43 pm #

      Hello Joe,

      I am also an adherent of the ‘USA is to Byzantium as the British Empire is to the Roman Empire’ school of historical equivalence. However, I think that the Byzantines started their slide much earlier – when they were defeated in Manzikert in 1071 AD.

      Once the Seljuq Turks had the eastern provinces (which were the breadbasket of Byzantium) Constantinople strategic game was done.

      Why? Because in a world driven by wind, water and muscle, _*grain* or its nearest equivalent_ is the critically strategic energy input in pre-industrial societies. Without the eastern provinces, the rest was as inevitable as the tide.

      What are the modern American parallels? Loss of the ‘eastern provinces’ ie., the middle-east, and an unhealthy reliance on mercenaries – The Byzantine army that showed up at Manzikert was more merc’ than regular military – with predictable results. One of the merc’ factions changed sides mid-battle, and as soon as the battle looked like it was going in the wrong direction the emperor’s nearest rival fled back to Constantinople & took over the government (among other subsequent horrible things).

      Final notes: I’m always amused at the vanity of American observers in comparing to Rome. Rome had a second-act: Constantinople… just as London had a second-act in the DC-NYC axis.

      The other thing that amuses me is people bemoaning the fall of Constantinople. The Byzantine government was as twisted and corrupt as any has ever been. Getting rubbed-out might have been the best thing for them and their neighbors, i-m-o.

      Cheers!

  5. pequiste December 29, 2014 at 9:26 am #

    Jim writes that he doesn’t know whether Barry O. is “… a hostage, an empty suit, or a fool….”
    Any person not suffering from TV or chemical induced reified consciousness, should know by now that our federal level (and most other) politicians are bought and paid for by the Plutocracy and do their bidding.
    The whole show is theatre for the lumpen to watch and give the media something “substantive” to chatter about.
    The last politician who might have broken that mold (whether you agreed with him or not) was Dr. Ron Paul. I can remember how he was marginalized, ignored and smeared (at the same time.)
    Barry O. is either a sock puppet or marionette. Does his best work on vacation me thinks.
    Consequences be damned; he show must go on!

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    • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 12:58 pm #

      I didn’t think I was naive, I didn’t support Barack Obama, but I really did believe he would be somewhat better than this. I really did.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:14 pm #

        Why? Because he was Black? To the extent he is real and has any power, he has always intended to get revenge on America and the West for what it did to his Father and the people of the 3rd World. It was all in his book: the hatred and contempt for Whites and the West. Yet countless Whites voted for him anyway out of ignorance or because they believe in that hideous agenda too – never dreaming that it would apply to their precious selves.

        • outsider December 29, 2014 at 9:08 pm #

          There’s a lot to chew on there. First, why does President Obama keep dropping drones on wedding parties, and why is he bombing IS daily? Second, and more importantly, why is he insanely provoking war with Russia? Regardless of the power of the neo-cons and the MIC, he could have nipped this in the bud if he wanted to. Has Victoria Nuland been fired? Both sides should understand that, if there is an all-out war with Russia, even if it doesn’t go nuclear, the White Man is finished for good. After World Wars 1&2, maybe the White Man does have a death wish.

        • malthuss December 29, 2014 at 10:19 pm #

          ‘Because he was Black’. He was NEVER Black. He was marketed as Black to both Blacks and Whites. Since Blacks are very nepotistic they voted [for more gravy].

          Whites being naive voted for ‘hope n change’.

    • Subvert December 29, 2014 at 7:43 pm #

      RE: Barry O being “… a hostage, an empty suit, or a fool….”

      How about all 3 simultaneously? As are all politicians. C’mon James, you should know this cold as a student of history. Perhaps you’re just being nice or trying to keep from becoming a hostage yourself. Politicians are merely the public relations poster boys for the people who really call the shots, the oligarchs. The police, military, intelligence spooks and court system are the “Muscle” like Rocco da hammer and Vinnie da shoe are for Mafia Dons. It’s a simple, one to one correlation. Organized crime through and through.

      I had an epiphany about the phrase “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Allow me to share it here:

      It’s not so much that good hearted people attain power and THEN become corrupted. (Although this does occur) It is rather that people who seek power are corrupt in their paradigm to begin with (else they wouldn’t seek to control millions or even a few others) and once they attain the power they seek, they simply act in accordance with their already corrupt paradigm. Pathology is at work here, and anyone who is mentally ill enough to seek such power is a fool, and an empty suit and is therefore quite easily taken hostage by the real power brokers.
      Politicians get into office via the oligarchs funding and once there, are met by the inner circle functionaries of the oligarchs, (usually CIA members), and shown a film the public has ever seen of the JFK assassination and told in no uncertain terms that if they can get away with murdering the most popular president of the century, what are the chances they won’t get away with it again? BO could have been as sincere as an altar boy about everything he said on the campaign trail, but that matters not one whit. Once in office, he’s a marked man and he knows it. If nobody has pinned the murder of JFK on the real perpetrators in over 50 years, they did a pretty sterling job of it, no?

      These Malignant Overlords are people who study “The Prince”, “The Art of War” and “Mein Kampf” as Holy Writ. They use the initiation of violence to get what they want. They consider genocide, coup d’état, false flag revolutions, blackmail, famine, plague and war as essential tools of their control. This is all common knowledge. Does anyone imagine that they have any qualms about blackmailing a lowly president into doing what they want? Please, let’s not be infants here. Anyone who has read John Perkins’ excellent book “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” will understand that this is SOP – Standard Operating Procedure for the oligarchs. They’ve employed this tactic successfully in a hundred or more countries, why would it not be successful on their own turf where projecting this kind of power is even easier? They have a willing cadre of assassins ready to go at any moment and a host of financial and criminal persuasions that are usually used first as they arouse less suspicion than blowing a president’s brains out. The choice for the foolish, empty suit is simple; sell out or die out. And so it goes, age after age, with the same dynastical crime families always remaining on top. Could there be a discernable pattern here?

      Only a massive paradigm change will change things on this prison planet. Such a change is indeed under way, but I sure wish it would accelerate. Nonetheless, according to Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point, it only takes about 25% of the population to reach any tipping point, no matter what topic is under discussion, whether it’s fashion trends, political change or religious attitudes. The paradigm we change to is just as important, however and this is the crucial point. The paradigm we need in order for this species to survive on Earth is a 180 degree reversal of the current one. The current human paradigm East and West is: “The world was made for man, and man was meant to conquer and rule it.” The new paradigm that’s rising is “Man was made for the world, and man was meant to live in it like every other member of the Community of Life.” This profound contrast of worldviews is explained in detail in Daniel Quinn’s “Ishmael” trilogy which I consider to be a pivotal set of books, essential to the survival of the human race. Is this overstatement or hyperbole? Not even close. Do yourself a Huge favor and read these books, they’re fairly short, immensely powerful and available at most libraries, though, you may have to wait for a copy to come in due to their popularity. I guarantee your paradigm will shift, either that or you’re Janos. LOL.

      To quote Permaculture founder Bill Mollison: “though the problems of our world seem increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple.” Amen, brother Bill, free your mind and your ass will follow.

      Happy New Year everybody, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

  6. christiangustafson December 29, 2014 at 9:27 am #

    I picked up a copy of The City In Mind at the Goodwill in Ballard yesterday, the one Kunstlerschrift missing from my shelves.

    After all of the doom writing and wider cultural critique since Long Emergency and the CFN blog, and Jim’s recent work in fiction, it’s refreshing again to see Jim back in the role of urban enthusiast and critic, following up his attack of the American suburbs with a survey of world cities, good and bad.

    What a great lil’ treat. I’ll read it on the bus this week.

    Apologies, no actual revenues made it to upstate NY from this purchase.

    • K-Dog December 29, 2014 at 12:43 pm #

      Greetings neighbor. Ballard is for those who don’t know, a neighborhood in Seattle.

      • Subvert December 29, 2014 at 7:47 pm #

        Greeting Ex-neighbors. I lived in Ballard for a few years in the 90’s and Thoroughly enjoyed it. What a great little hamlet!

        Yasure, Yabetcha!

  7. Greg Knepp December 29, 2014 at 9:33 am #

    “One of the hallmarks of an imploding culture is that people lose a sense of consequence.”

    A great sentence in a great article!

    However, another hallmark of an imploding culture is the inability of the populace to coalesce around a central purpose. Cultural ‘Diversity’ political polarization, class delineation, the collapse of a common national ideation or narrative – call it what you will. I don’t believe Americans have the stuff to rise up and overthrow the current system.
    I see a continuation of slow disintegration.

  8. Being There December 29, 2014 at 9:34 am #

    One more thing, JHK,

    I’ve been listening to Chris Martenson re energy and economy. And Gail Tverberg on her site, “Our Finite World”, formerly, the actuary at The Oil Drum.
    She writes about the 10 worst results of low oil prices.

    http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/12/07/ten-reasons-why-a-severe-drop-in-oil-prices-is-a-problem/

    • malthuss December 29, 2014 at 10:20 pm #

      Thanks.

    • BeerBarrel January 2, 2015 at 10:02 pm #

      Gail is probably best remembered, by me anyway, for her article essentially predicting the entire 2008 chaos that played out, only it was pretty much ordered in Gail’s mind!

      Here’s the link!

      http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3382

  9. newworld December 29, 2014 at 9:34 am #

    I’m a conservative for lack of better terms and now to look back on it Carter was actually more conservative than Reagan. But look at the political split at the time and you have to understand that the Greatest Generation was at its peak and were looking for that gold watch. What did Carter and the D party offer but sweaters and childish nonsense from the hairier part of liberalism.

    Now we are all living off the decay.

    • Being There December 29, 2014 at 10:07 am #

      Well, Newworld,

      I blame it on The Chicago school of business and Neoliberalism which both parties in reality adhere to. Sorry, but Carter moved in the direction of deregulation and starting in the Nixon WH the ideology of Milton Friedman was followed by both sides of the aisle.

      We may have different takes on what is right and left, but I’m afraid, I don’t see much of a difference.

      Read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, the Rise of Disaster Capitalism. It’s a well researched book which outlines the history of this process for the last 4 decades.

      • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 1:01 pm #

        Thanks for the reminder. I saw her on television and have been meaning to read her book.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 7:51 pm #

      No, I think I did because I foolishly believed his rhetoric And forgot to notice that “Hope & Change” is pretty generic, non-specific. So I was fooled, and now feel swindled. After Bill Clinton I felt seduced and abandoned. Now I realize he was Reagan II with NAFTA, etc.

      And it’s just a marketing slogan, but I didn’t get that. Later it occurred to me that apparently no one at the meeting where they dreamed up that slogan thought to say, “Now, remember, the flip side of this is “No Hope Without Change.”

      It was thought to be an historic moment. But it turned out to be, as usual for America, nothing but symbolism.

      In over 30 years of voting I have voted for only one person I consider worthy of the office – George McGovern. It’s been a slow move right and away from the promise of the New Deal, and that’s really why we feel like we need a third party.

      • beantownbill. December 30, 2014 at 12:52 am #

        My last presidential vote was in 1968. At the time, I refused to believe Nixon could possibly get elected. Silly me, I was young and naive, and greatly underestimated the excepional stupidity of the American people. Exceptionalism indeed!

      • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 2:34 pm #

        “I didn’t get that” – this is your first post that has anything real in it or has anything to deal with reality. It’s also your first post with a trace of humility. Reality and Humility – is there a connection?

        And guess what? You still don’t get it.

  10. piltdownman December 29, 2014 at 9:45 am #

    Obama was handed the keys to the kingdom and he squandered his eight years, like a feckless pol. How ironic that under his less-than-watchful eye the state of race relations has deteriorated, not improved. Perhaps, like so many Blacks, he should have been pulled over after a few years, not for “driving-while-black” for “driving while clueless.”

    I sense that we are facing a time when the dissolution of the mainstream media, particularly newspapers, has left people unable to find even a smattering of actual, solid reportage. Jim jabs at the NYTimes frequently, but it is the Times and the WaPo, which once, at the very least, deigned to put it to “the man.” Now they run click-bait stories and columns.

    On the local level, we’ve lost dozens of great newspapers and with them, the institutional knowledge of their reporters. Even the ones which are left are hollowed out, with stories being written by interns and none of them daring to step on the toes of their precious advertisers, who are slipping away quickly.

    The promise of the Internet, at least when it comes to news, has not lived up to the hype. When everyone is a journalist, no one is.

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    • shotho December 29, 2014 at 10:02 am #

      Right! Journalism today is a parody of its real self and the internet has brought us a hundred million “sources” of news, so that nothing is news – only opinion.

      • shabbaranks December 29, 2014 at 1:19 pm #

        There is an advantage in all that information, however trivial each individual data point may be. Once aggregated, all that data can become an indicator of sentiment, be it political, financial, social, religious etc. One role of the technology comprising the internet is to be a giant sentiment gathering machine.

        • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 10:54 pm #

          If you approach the internet like an intelligence analyst would, it’s a target rich environment.

      • outsider December 29, 2014 at 1:49 pm #

        G*d bless the Internet. Without it we would be unable to read great weekly blogs from intellectual giants like JHK (not meaning to suck up too much). There is also serious journalism done if you look. The only thing preventing this once proud country from slipping into complete fascist dictatorship may well be its presence.

        • piltdownman December 29, 2014 at 2:11 pm #

          I don’t disagree that the news is “out there,” but your average citizen has neither the time nor the inclination to scour all those sources, every day. For whatever you may think of the MSM, they performed a service. Reporters worked a beat and learned their specialty. And they actually had editors who looked over their stuff before it was printed. They aggregated a myriad of sources and stories. And, like Jim, they actually knew how to write!

          • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:16 pm #

            All you say is true, but it’s still all just relative, and those journalists of the past also told less than the whole story, and were subject to many of the same pressures you describe. The big difference, I think, is the loss of hundreds of papers. And now the independents, like those free weeklies that, e.g., in the Bay Area, fill a great news gap, especially about LOCAL news! We lost one of three recently, and the grand city of SF does not have a decent paper.

            Maybe an Old School concept, but I don’t see a “decent paper” on the internet.

            And the alternatives I am aware of are read by about 200,000 Americans.

            Oh, and plenty of Americans seem to have LOTS of time to sit in front of FOX news!

          • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 10:57 pm #

            And they knew how to “manufacture consent”… The rise of the steam-powered printing press and the penny-dailies had its own issues.

  11. shotho December 29, 2014 at 9:51 am #

    Who would have thought that Mr. K was a closet optimist? But I’m glad to know it and believe that he is right about the backlash that would attend a Bush-Clinton match. I’m not sure it could survive the backlash that it ( a third party) would face, but it would be interesting to have the battle joined. Anything to shake up the current two party grip on the polity would need to be appreciated by those who would like to continue our constitutional form of government, which is in danger of being obliterated in the free-for-all grab by special interests today. Nobody knows what is coming this way, but Mr. K’s prediction is better than most.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:25 pm #

      I too hope JHK is right about that backlash. Plenty of articles being written with the theme, “Slow Down, Hillary.”

      I fully believe that the Dems need to ask how many of us aren’t fooled, e.g., by Hillary’s repetition of old rhetoric, and especially how many voters see an apology to Goldman-Sachs is a betrayal.

      I knew before Bill left office that I could never vote for Hillary. She is simply too conservative for me – a real Hawk! Had I known how conservative Obama is I would have voted Green.

      More importantly there’s Bill’s record and his obvious embrace of Reagan’s domestic program, and the demise of the middle class. The Dems want to glide right by that, but as far as I am concerned if they’re going to embrace Reaganism then that’s the end of my support. That and all the guns and ammo!

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 10:58 pm #

      “Who would have thought that Mr. K was a closet optimist? “-sh.

      LOL

      Indeed!

      😉

  12. the blame/e December 29, 2014 at 10:08 am #

    The idea — any idea — that the people will finally, suddenly, just wakeup and come to their senses is a sick fallacy.

    Something will continue until it cannot, and then it will stop. Consequences has nothing to do with it.

    The people are just having too much fun watching, like the show going on, as a school yard bully beats the crap out of some kid who quite rightly deserves it, because it all starts with the family, and the kid having the crap kicked out of him doesn’t have a functioning family so the fault begins with him; just a home life already suffering from an alcoholic, drug using, depressed, and distant mother; a didactic, autocratic, missing a human being chip father; where there is no possibility of help or emotional support of any kind to gained from his brothers and sisters because of out of control sibling rivalry.

    This is the primal body politic — and JHK expects any but salivation, status hell, revolution? “The earth is evil. Nobody will miss it when it’s gone.”

    • Being There December 29, 2014 at 10:26 am #

      I think humanity might be capable of better than its most base urges, but it’s sometimes hard to imagine.

      We are up against the destruction of our ecosystem while our elite dreams of escaping to Mars through private financing.

      Maybe we are totally indulgent in pure folly—-we shall see who rises.

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:27 pm #

        Maybe there are terrorists waiting for them on Mars.

        I can dream, can’t I?

    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 3:21 pm #

      and JHK expects any but [salivation], status hell, revolution?

      =================

      The act or process of secreting saliva.

    • Greg Knepp December 29, 2014 at 3:53 pm #

      “The earth is evil; nobody will miss it when it’s gone.”

      From the 2011 movie ‘Melancholia’ directed by Lars von Trier.

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 10:59 pm #

      “The idea — any idea — that the people will finally, suddenly, just wakeup and come to their senses is a sick fallacy.

      Something will continue until it cannot, and then it will stop. Consequences has nothing to do with it.”-bl.

      This is realism… FULL STOP.

  13. Paulo December 29, 2014 at 10:12 am #

    Is there a way to pull a ‘Ghandi’ as opposed to being caught up in the morass of trying to develop a 3rd political party? Excuse the analogy, (I hate football and the swaggering personalities thumping their chests for doing their fricking job…. like WWF wrestlers), but I am reminded of the defunct World Football League? They tried to offer an alternative or add on to the NFL. The mountain was too big to climb and no one cared except those who couldn’t make the cut and found themselves playing there. But what if people just stopped attending the games and turned off their tv? What would happen to the US if people worked for cash as much as possible, paid for things with cash and did not ask for receipts? What if they no longer watched CNN or FOX? No longer voted? Reduced consumption/debt?

    Is such a thing possible? I’m asking.

    • Being There December 29, 2014 at 10:27 am #

      IF…… (that was a British film in the ’60’s)

      • beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 12:51 pm #

        And a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 1:11 pm #

      The NFL exists to sell beer and cars. How many people don’t even like football but tune in to the Superbowl “for the commercials”?
      Speaking of beer, true beer aficionados tell me they are having problems with their favorite beers being bought up by huge corporations, and then having poorer quality beers substituted for the product they liked. It’s like Mr. Kunstler mentioned in an earlier post, about the stores all full of the same pair of swim trunks.
      The beer drinkers switch to a microbrew, or whatever you call it, only to have the small breweries sell out to the big companies, and the inferior beer gets substituted once again.

    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 3:25 pm #

      Is such a thing possible? I’m asking.

      ===============

      No, not during our or our grandchildren’s lifetimes.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:29 pm #

      People need leadership. We have none.

  14. George December 29, 2014 at 10:30 am #

    “Of course, this only begs the question: where are the opponents to the ethos that anything goes and nothing matters? Where are the political figures who can sustain a complaint long enough, and loudly enough, to keep it in the public consciousness clearly enough to make a difference?”

    “A third party will arise. It may be a good one or a bad one, but it will blow the existing order of things apart, as it should.”

    My sense is that our thinking is far too conditioned by the limitations of our senses to allow us to correctly direct our attention to see what the more salient amongst us sense.

    In 1932, at the height of the depression, it appeared that despair and gloom was to last indefinitely. Yet in 1934 ordinary people organized themselves and effectively transformed the country.

    For well over a decade now it seems as if we’re a nation given to sleepwalking through history with occasional stops along the way to get tattooed and have nose rings fitted. In the coming years there may be an incident, off stage and therefore not given the attention it deserves, that could arose what at first will seem inconsequential. The most salient amongst us, even those formally given to prophesizing on subway walls, won’t see this coming. I for one sense that it will be like nothing any of us has seen before. Not only will we not see it coming, the ever-eager cadre of “Boy Scouts” driven to breathlessness in their zeal to demonstrate their loyalty to the 1% won’t see it or have the slightest clue what to do about once they do.

    • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 1:13 pm #

      Young people today did not learn civics in school. They don’t even understand how it is supposed to be.
      I like your “Boy Scouts” line.

  15. edward4432 December 29, 2014 at 10:40 am #

    Yes, President Obama is a disappointment. He talked a good line then lost his nerve when he was elected. No doubt his advisers warned that rocking the boat would tip it over. If he had had the background of FDR
    he might well have had the audacity to make the real change he talked about happen.
    With the money men calling the tune, a 3rd party candidate is a pipe dream The oligarchs would open the flood gates and swamp any 3rd party challenger.
    In other words we are screwed.
    The best we can hope for is a reply of 1932 and a FDR type Democrat arises to take over the sinking ship with drastic money controls ie 90% marginal rate and death tax without foundation loop holes.
    Chances are slim to none of that happening.

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    • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 1:15 pm #

      I think he only talked about it because he needed more votes than his cheerleaders in the media could give him. I don’t think he has real convictions about much of anything.

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:33 pm #

        That is how I would define a US politician: Someone incapable of actually believing in anything. So we get pretty speeches, s though no one ever said, “Actions speak louder than words.”

        We will get even more pretty speeches from Hillary Clinton.

        A politician is as useless as a screen door in a submarine.

    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 3:50 pm #

      The best we can hope for is a [reply] of 1932 and [a] FDR type Democrat arises to take over the sinking ship with drastic money controls ie 90% marginal rate and death tax without foundation loop holes.

      ==============

      [replay]

      [an]

      I am 100% against a 90% marginal rate and death tax. Saving (or accumulating wealth) to help your offspring and even THEIR offspring is as natural as breathing. But YOU favor stamping out human nature via tax law. This can only mean one thing…you have no savings or accumulated wealth or, perhaps, no children. If you did you might see things differently.

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:43 pm #

        The rich pay a lower percentage of their incomes in taxes than average wage earners.

        Plus, wage earners are earning at a lower rate than their counterparts did in the late seventies.

        Also, when a CEO makes 300 times what his average employee makes, then he has no right to whine about taxes.

        Also, wage earners subsidize all those fortunes. 90% may be too high, but since capital gains taxes are so low, I think that a higher tax rate than someone making $50,000/year would definitely be in order.

        Also, we live in a low-wage economy. Most Americans cannot save any money. A significant portion of their wages is stolen each month by their employers, no less, and many lose because they have to use a check cashing service – because America won’t provide banking services they can afford!

      • edward4432 December 30, 2014 at 8:55 am #

        I certainly don’t qualify as a wealthy person though I think I am above the median and I do have children.
        With the free trade agreements and the defeat of unionism, a substantial segment in the US is stuck in unremitting poverty. while the top 1% increasingly add to their already obscene wealth. How much does a man need to care for his dependents?
        I suspect you have no wealth and no children and have the instincts of a serf.

  16. ozone December 29, 2014 at 10:41 am #

    JHK,
    Thanks for trying to pin down the parameters of the present Fools’ Paradise.

    IMHO, there are a bunch of us out here on the fringes quietly suffering from outrage fatigue and doing our level best to contract consciously, before it becomes necessary to hard-bitten survival.

    I must agree with “the blame-e” above that the chickenshit volk don’t really want the responsibility of making critical changes as they still see a small segment of their crumbling society magically becoming part of the ultra-wealthy. (Somehow thinking, “That’s gonna be ME someday!”.) Glorification of predatory sociopaths has harsh consequences too.

    I’m afraid this third party of which we speculate will be of a nasty Authoritarian variety, no matter its’ mask and pretensions. That’s what happens when a society begs for saviors that it doesn’t deserve. (When said society willfully ignores reality and won’t strive for common/commonsense values, it certainly doesn’t deserve any further indulgence of its’ ignorant dream-state .)

    • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 1:21 pm #

      I have neighbors who see themselves as victims because they have a mortgage, but they don’t even vote in the school board or local government elections. They don’t somehow make the connection between those entities and their homes being unaffordable. Maybe because they have children themselves so they think they are getting something free? Anyway, it goes to prove your point.

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:06 pm #

      “Glorification of predatory sociopaths has harsh consequences too.”-oz.

      Stockholm Syndrome is real.

      “I’m afraid this third party of which we speculate will be of a nasty Authoritarian variety, no matter its’ mask and pretensions. That’s what happens when a society begs for saviors that it doesn’t deserve.”-oz.

      Well put.

  17. nsa December 29, 2014 at 10:48 am #

    History will repeat as farce……the 2016 third party effect. A Perot-like demagogue will appear to suck enough votes from Bushie to elect a menopausal La Clinton a la 1992……….

    • Being There December 29, 2014 at 11:00 am #

      Can I just say “like”?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:23 pm #

      Ross was a good man, maybe he still is if he is alive. Face it, he was right just too far ahead to be appreciated. What is that sucking sound? It’s your brains.

      • Petro December 29, 2014 at 4:32 pm #

        Ross Perot… I can still hear him say, in that brittle, East Texas cracker accent, “Folks, it’s just that simple!” Demagogues always try to make everything simple, black & white, appealing to the already ignorant masses and making it even easier to manipulate them.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 7:52 pm #

          Yes, he said if we shipped our jobs overseas, Americans wouldn’t have jobs. Real simple – but you still can’t get it.

          • Petro December 30, 2014 at 7:56 am #

            He said a lot of things, not just on that one issue. And for him, EVERYTHING was all just so SIMPLE, people. Hearing him say it over and over made me chuckle.

            I’m not saying I didn’t think he was basically right about some things, like moving production to wherever the labor was cheapest (ie., out of the U.S.). But that’s capitalism & corporatism, the system in which he made his millions (billions?).

    • hineshammer December 29, 2014 at 4:08 pm #

      Like her or not she is way past the menopausal stage.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:47 pm #

      Tragic Farce, I call it.

      Though Perot was absolutely right about NAFTA.

      That was a Reagan bill that Bill Clinton shoved down our throats.

      He was a fraud.

  18. K-Dog December 29, 2014 at 10:49 am #

    Anything goes nothing matters and shit happens. Perhaps there might have been consequences if high fructose corn syrup hadn’t obliterated America’s attention span and with it any will to live lives of any consequence. As it is we don’t need no stinking consequences, we just do what we want. Let consequences fall to others after we are gone. The further in the future the better. Like an old vaudeville act of spinning plates on sticks, as long as those plates spin life is good.

    You say conspiracy-minded folks might say gov-mint and Wall Street run the country and suppress opposition but you don’t agree. I’m not surprised, you have a particular affinity to that point of view, but I’ll not suggest reasons why this might be so. Instead I’ll just point out it doesn’t take much suppression of opposition to keep things as they are. We exist on isolated on islands of technology were fact and fiction are easily confused and credit cards are just as easily cancelled. Men behind computerized wizard of Oz curtains of control have immense power.

    It doesn’t take any big conspiracy, just a little push here and there does the trick just fine. With lost bearings and a lack of will to be truthful to ourselves it doesn’t take much in the way of redirection. A shiny new distraction to divert attention from things of consequence does not have to glow bright, it only has to only glitter for a brief moment.

    For those involved in any minor and inconsequential homeland deceptions it is difficult for them to understand that what they are doing is wrong. Their salaries depend on them not understanding.

    • ozone December 29, 2014 at 11:14 am #

      Good points, K-Dog.
      I agree that this “perception management” is a very important impediment to the lumpenprole’s potential awakening from their long sleepwalk.

      (If this be conspiracy “theory”, then why all the think-tank and talking-head illusion-massagers?? There’s money in distraction and misdirection; which is all you need to know…)

      • K-Dog December 29, 2014 at 12:34 pm #

        Yup, no need for a big conspiracy when a little one pounds nails in the coffin just fine. Curious someone as refined and as technologicaly aware as Jim Kunstler is does not see the obvious. He is involved in perception managment himself yet chooses not to see the monopoly and danger complete reliance of electrons for all things brings. Here Jim is our favorite critical sourpuss but when it comes to suggesting that government agencies might, just might be managing perceptions he suddenly has infinite faith in the capacity of human nature to do good and be without flaw or error in judgement.

        • beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 1:02 pm #

          Hmm, high fructose corn syrup… Funny you should mention this, K-Dog, as I gave up any foods containing sugar about 6 weeks ago, as did my wife. I’ve lost about 15 pounds and my wife, 10. You are so right about the deleterious effects this substance has on people.

          • Beryl of Oyl December 29, 2014 at 1:37 pm #

            I like K-Dogs points as well. It concerns me greatly, this push to eliminate the Postal Service, because if, like me, you have switched to managing finances on a cash basis, you need the mail sometimes. Also for privacy reasons.
            Another subject dear to my heart, the HFCS controversy. If you for some reason want your children to be fat, and have rotten teeth, you probably can’t go wrong adding a generous helping of Karo syrup to every single thing they eat. High fructose corn syrup, which is GMO, even better.
            I have a theory that Michelle Obama is being used as a pawn of Big Food to keep crap like corn syrup in school lunches.

          • K-Dog December 29, 2014 at 2:25 pm #

            People who push to eliminate the Postal Service would do well to read the constitution. Provided such types can read.

            I feel you Beryl of Oyl. I too prefer to manage things on a cash basis. But try as we do it does not always work out. For instance I have a job now where I’ll never get a pay check. Instead numbers magically appear in my bank account. Frisky electrons at work again. I work and they work.

            My option should I find this arrangement objectionable is to quit my job. I have this freedom in this most free country of ours but I’d find being cold and hungry more objectionable than magically increasing bank balances.

            I could also eschew HFCS with a religious passion. Freedom of religion is another freedom I have in this most free country of ours. As fasting is a part of many religious observances my freedom to starve to death is well protected.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:29 pm #

          Remember, intellectuals hate the very idea of Conspiracy because it means that what they’re analyzing doesn’t matter as much or even at all. A whole new crop of experts like Alex Jones become all important. Thus there is a struggle for power between the two groups. I believe the Alex Jones types are winning because Conspiracy is a reality. That doesn’t mean Jim’s work is meaningless because he doesn’t write primarily about politics per se, but rather about Society and how technology and resources affect it. Thus he shouldn’t feel he is in competition with them, but alas he does.

    • beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 12:56 pm #

      Yeah, but why does this unforeseen event have to be bad?

      • beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 12:57 pm #

        This was meant as a reply to George. Sorry.

      • Steven W. Maginnis December 29, 2014 at 1:42 pm #

        Well, those are the odds. 🙁

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 8:59 pm #

      “A shiny new distraction to divert attention from things of consequence”

      “America the Indispensable Nation” – Shiny enough for you? That’s one of Hillary’s big lines. New words for the same old mumbo jumbo.

  19. barbisbest December 29, 2014 at 11:30 am #

    ” I do believe that cultures go through tragic periods when they lose their bearings and the will to be truthful to themselves”. It has been anything goes for the polity in this country for quite some time, and the people as long as no negative thought has to pass through the individual or collective mind. What Karl Rove said indeed, “We create our own reality”.

    Jesus, James H. Kunstler, blue butterflies, Yogananda, Man Made Armageddon, Thom Hartman, intentional communities, the significance of the metaphysical, all these are written about in Twin Souls, a Message of Hope for the New Millenium. It has a blue butterfly on the cover. Just got done reading. Like History of the Future, intelligently written and fascinating.

    This lady’s prediction for 2015 and beyond. Millenials may truly be the greatest generation ever. Happy New Year CFNers.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:32 pm #

      The Millenials are a bunch of wankers. The ones that care at all rave about peace and then secretly try to burn things down. Or are obsessed with making Whites pay for creating the greatest Culture in the history of the world. That book sounds like New Age happy horse shit.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:04 pm #

      “The greatest generation ever.”

      The hucksters and fast-buck artists they work for are telling them that. Not really a new sales pitch.

      We were told the same thing in the sixties. It was condescending BS, sort of patting us on the head for being so moral and anti-war and all. They just did not get what we were about.

      That line is always a con!

      • outsider December 29, 2014 at 10:08 pm #

        Excuse me Tom Brokaw, but the meme that the World War 2 generation was the greatest is also a con. Any generation would have won that war. The USSR did the heavy lifting for us in Europe, and Truman dropped the Bomb on a Japan that was already defeated (Ike didn’t want the bomb dropped). Back then, they were called “gooks” and not considered real humans. Truman would have never dropped the Bomb on Berlin. After the War, these “heroes” started the Cold War against our ally, an economically prostrate USSR, forcing it to spend what little it had left on Nukes instead of on the people. Greatest generation, indeed.

        • seawolf77 December 30, 2014 at 2:03 pm #

          The Greatest Veneration. Everyone from that generation thought their shit didn’t stink, and that every word from their mouths was pure gold. The only thing worse than those people are the proselytizers who parrot their inane platitudes like retarded parrots. God when I think back on the movie “Patton,” I get sick to my stomach knowing the General himself would have been appalled. We didn’t win anything. America couldn’t even beat the Vietnamese army in spite of a kill ratio of 60 to 1. Did the Greatest Veneration insure the defeat to further their fame and denigrate the “Lesser Generation,” All while faking the Apollo Moon Landings.

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:19 pm #

      Personally, I’m more of a Barbara Ehrenreich fan when the subject is America’s ‘irrepressible positivity’.

      Cheers!

      🙂

  20. Malthus December 29, 2014 at 11:34 am #

    ” I believe that insulting prospect would be the wake-up call that will hit the American people upside the head and wake them out of their zombie rapture.” I doubt that zombies ever recover. Being a dooms day’er I am wanting to see this failed BS experiment fall on its face. I do have faith there are enough people still alive that will understand to start living as we were 30,000 years ago and allow our minds and spirits lead us instead of the big man theory of civilization and not build walled cities ever again. Day dream I know and yet it will be the only thing that will work for the species and all other species.

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    • BackRowHeckler December 29, 2014 at 12:00 pm #

      30,000 years is a long time Malthus.

      How about 175 years to about 1840 western Massachussetts, into one of those self sustaining villages like Stockbridge or Lenox; watching the 4 distinct seasons come & go, raising some cattle for beef and dairy, growing corn, wheat and vegetables, light, and water powered industry to manufacture items necessary for civilized life … its been all downhill from there.

      brh

      • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:53 pm #

        Then Stockbridge allies with Lennox and attacks those bastards to the South in a Land called Connecticut.

      • Malthus January 1, 2015 at 10:57 am #

        I guess it is if you believe in a linear time line. As Einstein said:”we who believe in physics know that the past, present, and future are nothing but a persistent illusion.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:35 pm #

      Tell it to the ladies. They go for the guy with the biggest club, the booster, the great man.

      Those who beat their swords into ploughshares will do the plowing for those who don’t. Even the Hopi, the People of Peace, had a strong cult of warriors and lived behind walls.

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:07 pm #

        And the ladies, they’re happy with that, are they?

  21. venuspluto67 December 29, 2014 at 11:43 am #

    It’s good to know that I’m not the only once-upon-a-time Democrat who has very serious misgivings about Obamacare. So very many people these days just want to drink the Kool-Aid about everything.

    Back when I learned about Peak Oil And Gas in late 2003, I knew in my heart that we would sail down Denial River about it right up to the very end. And everything we could do to make it worse we eagerly would, from the Oval Office right on down to the lowliest People Of Walmart who wander the aisles with visible fetid loads in their pants.

  22. beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 12:48 pm #

    One can only look at the world with a jaundiced eye.

    What many CFNers are seeing is not just the “collapse”, but rather the visible manifestations of great change arising out of advancing technological, cultural and sociological evolution – all of which are apparently exponential functions. When we reach a point further down the graph where change is occurring rapidly, great chaos ensues.

    Nothing stays the same forever, from the wider universe down to subatomic particles. The only thing that stays the same is change itself.

    Personally, I don’t see the United States, as presently constituted, surviving too far along into the future. That isn’t necessarily bad because what remains may result in a much better society.

    Jim, I run my life according to several operating principles. One of the most important is that actions have consequences. Ignoring this one invariably leads one to harm in some way. You are right on about this being an implosion of our culture.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:39 pm #

      Exactly. America has turned against its founding population and deserves to be thrown into the scrap heap of history. Let the Swarthy Men see how well they can do without us. But please, oh please let us watch via satellite as they fumble, fall, freeze and finally lie still.

      • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 4:14 pm #

        as they fumble, fall, freeze and finally lie still.

        ===========

        Nice alliteration there, Janos.

  23. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 12:52 pm #

    How did this happen to us and what is the culprit? That is the question on CFN today. High fructose corn syrup says K-Dog. Inverted totalitarianism says Being There. Lack of real journalists? The failed promise of the internet? The Citizens United decision? Shadowy conspiracists of the “plutocracy” (not named and no evidence provided), etc. etc. etc. CFN never lacks for finding fault in others.

    Jim speaks today of the “futility of politics.” In CFN there are some who will not vote. There are others who already know how they will vote because they have been Republicans all their life, or Democrats all their life. There are some who hope a true alternative will arise.

    Here is the REALPOLITIK: if you do not vote, those who do vote (of whatever persuasion, and however small their number) will make political decisions for you. That is the way the system works. If only thirty million people vote and the other 300 million stay at home, then the political future of the entire nation will be decided by those few who vote. So vote for someone who represents your political stance.

    Another copout is saying nobody can run without money, because big money is what rules. That is just not true. Ask the millionaires who have outspent opponents 10 to 1 and still lost. Look at the stats: self-funded candidates tend to lose. The cost of registering as a candidate is minimal. Many small donations from many small fish can outweigh the large donations of a few big fish. For example, Bernie Sanders is working on a way to use small money to overcome the effects of big money… and Senator Sanders will not run until he has it figured out. Big money is not a prerequisite for running. Human energy trumps dollars. Big money buys media, but more and more people are looking for someone they can trust, not someone being sold to them via media.

    Another copout is saying without big media is needed to run. The Green Party does not need corporate contributions or big media. Corporations do not give to the Green Party. The media largely ignores the Green Party. But Green Party candidates continue to be elected. Why? Because they make their case on the grass roots level, they have a consistent political platform, and they make their case as an alternative to Democrats and Republicans. Green Party candidates are winning elections on the local level: school boards, city councils, etc. http://www.gp.org/elections/candidates/

    Another copout is saying we have a one party system. There are 14 political parties who ran candidates for president in 2012. The assertion that your political choices are for tweedle-dum or tweedle-dee is wrong. Look at the political platforms of the 14 major political parties in the United States. Unless you are an anarchist, one of them will have positions similar to yours. Vote your conscience. If you are truly an anarchist, then don’t vote for anyone, but decisions will still be made for you even if you don’t vote. That is realpolitik.

    There is far too much paralyzing pessimism and paralyzing cynicism on CFN. Far too many who are purposefully ignoring the alternatives to the red/blue game. Far too many who only want to sit home and bitch, far too many who want to play the simplistic “x is our problem” game, out of a need to find something (high fructose corn syrup, the media, the judicial system, etc.) or someone (immigrants, bankers, the 1%, etc.) to blame. Be an autonomous actor instead of blaming the Other.

    Gandhi and Martin Luther King are always held up as examples of people who started mass movements that forced political change. I don’t recall them vilifying anyone or playing the blame game or whining about how the system was rigged against them. They acted. They acted without any guarantee of success. But they acted. The least anyone can do is vote your conscience. If you are sick of seeing Bush-Clinton elections, there are 12 political parties as alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans. Stand for something instead of always being against something. Stand for the Tea Party, stand for socialism, stand for the Constitution, stand for conservatism, stand for the environment. There is a political party you can vote FOR, instead of impotently complaining AGAINST. Make your bitter alienation count.

    • Apneaman December 29, 2014 at 1:14 pm #

      Cop out=I cannot handle the fact that I am completely powerless and the elite own everything and make all the decisions. Pretending the system still works is a cop out. It is a form of cowardice. Much safer to pretend that we can get some control back by voting. I simply look for historical comparables and I have yet to find anyone handing over power without a real fight. Once it’s gone there are a number of ways to get it back. None of them have to do with voting and all of them involve sacrifices of one kind or another. You sound just like the millions of faux environmentalists who place all the blame on coal and oil while they live with central heating 24/7 electricity, surf the web at will, drive, shop, consume, consume, consume, jet off to climate rallies once or twice a year, bitch about population while shitting out a string of little shoppers of their own. Mistakes were made, but not by me.

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:12 pm #

        I can only think of FDR in 1932. He was a major threat to the rich and powerful who destroyed the US economy with their shenanigans.

        Big election, and from what I know Hoover didn’t have a chance. That time the voters stood up, and they re-elected him three times!

        And he was a traitor to his class. May never see that again.

        • outsider December 29, 2014 at 10:20 pm #

          FDR was never a real threat to the rich and powerful. He is actually the man who saved capitalism. Without him, there is a chance this country would have gone socialist. This was shortly after Lenin and the US intelligentsia of that time were enamored with the Soviet Union. As usual, the knuckle-draggers on the Right had to be saved from themselves.

          • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:27 pm #

            “As usual, the knuckle-draggers on the Right had to be saved from themselves.”-out.

            Truth. FDR was the kind of results-oriented brother Mason who actually got things done. If he had not, idiots led by the likes of Prescott Bush et al. would have capsized the US decades ago.

            As it was, Prescott got caught trading with the Nazis and had his funds frozen for the duration of WW2…

            There were consequences back then. it wasn’t a pretty situation for a lot of people, but at least the nation was behaving as if it cared about avoiding perdition – as a nation.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 2:57 pm #

            Like Wilson he campaigned on keeping us out of war – even as he made plans for the war he intended to enter. The man was a thorough scoundrel.

            Remember, Communism is a disaster for Capitalism, but Socialism isn’t – not for the big boys. So they fund Communism to break the middle class, and then switch to Socialism on the brink of victory. South Africa was a text book case of how it’s supposed to work. It doesn’t always though – as Cuba showed. But their plan was always very long term and it is working overall and over the generations.

    • K-Dog December 29, 2014 at 2:59 pm #

      Shadowy conspiracists of the “plutocracy” (not named and no evidence provided).

      Because naming them will bring unwanted attention. You in fact were saying yourself that you were going to keep a ‘close eye’ on me a few months ago. Hmmmmmmmm what did that mean? Just thinking about it makes me want to scratch something.

      And evidence:

      There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Outer Limits.”

      The horizontal is controlled, the vertical is controlled. and the evidence is most definitely controlled, though a better word would be ‘managed’. Dead electrons don’t talk and even if they did someone would have to listen and guess what’s up about that. The media does not want unwanted attention and is most willing to support the ‘war on terrorism’. They aim to please and do whatever they are told as their patriotic duty.

      If the media found the infiltration of Amazon Web Services to be as impressive as I found it to be perhaps the story might be different. But as it is the media is a most willing ally.

    • ozone December 29, 2014 at 3:26 pm #

      “The System” is an ass.
      (BTW, you reliably and consistently represent it. There’s an implication there; can you guess what it is without twisting it into some unrecognizable rhetorical format? Betcha can’t. 😉 )

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:14 pm #

        An ideology itself can constitute a conspiracy and the system its plan.

    • Being There December 29, 2014 at 7:44 pm #

      PKrugman,

      I’ve voted in every election each year since 1972.

      You know what I think of this duopoly, but…..
      A vestige of representation is better than none.

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:15 pm #

        A vestige is all I feel I have. Three women represent me in Congress and two of them are warmongers. Fortunately I have Barbara Lee in the House, the only one who voted against the Iraq war.

  24. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 1:37 pm #

    “…I am completely powerless and the elite own everything and make all the decisions. Pretending the system still works is a cop out.” –Apneaman

    Wow.

    The “system” is working: it is making you think you are powerless. Therefore, the system will continue to own everything and make all the decisions. This is a tautology.

    Think outside the box you are trapped in, Apneaman. Or not. In which case you will be rendered, effectively, powerless… by those who do vote. Your choice.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:19 pm #

      You assert a connection between voting and power that I do not perceive.

      Americans voted for a public option in health care and the Congress ignored us. We have made it very clear we all want an increase in the minimum wage, and they ignored that too.

      The list goes on. And that’s the problem. They ignore us – because they can, not because people don’t vote.

      • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 11:52 pm #

        we all want an increase in the minimum wage, – GG

        =================

        Please don’t bandy around the word all. I don’t even WANT a minimum wage much less an increase in it. I have nothing against people making more money but a minimum wage is not the way to go about it.

        • outsider December 30, 2014 at 12:21 am #

          GG seems to be taking us for granted when he says “we all want.” Only economic illiterates think that raising the minimum wage would solve anything. All it would do would be to increase youth unemployment and cause a big increase in inflation. Let’s say you double the wage and make it $15/hr. Well, people currently making $15 will deserve a commensurate increase, wouldn’t they? And on down the line it would go until we’re right back where we started from. Except those living on social security would be that much poorer.

  25. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 1:40 pm #

    Millionaire Candidates

    As the costs of running for office have escalated, more and more candidates are jumping into politics using their personal fortune, rather than trying to raise all those funds from other people. Though they don’t lack for money, self-funded candidates typically lose at the polls.

    https://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/millionaires.php?cycle=2012

    Another CFN myth (“Money rules”) is thereby exploded.

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    • piltdownman December 29, 2014 at 3:27 pm #

      Saying that rich, self-funded candidates lose more often than not is not that same as saying you don’t needs tons of cash to run. That is a false equivalency if I’ve ever heard one.

      Having worked in politics, I can tell you that it is ALL about money. Candidates, and those who have already been elected, spend a good part of each day “making their calls” to solicit campaign cash. And perhaps you could look here…

      http://www.rollcall.com/50richest/the-50-richest-members-of-congress-112th.html

      The poorest of the top 50 has assets somewhere north of 7 mil.

      It’s true that you may be able to work through way up from town council to state rep to Congress….but it has become increasingly a rigged game. And it is because (mostly) TV commercial time is so expensive, that a party organization won’t touch you unless you are a) self-funded or b) willing to sell out to the highest bidder.

      I don’t disagree that we need to keep fighting and clawing…

      • outsider December 29, 2014 at 10:43 pm #

        I my state of PA, a self-funded multi-millionaire named Tom Wolf, whom no one outside of his home county had ever heard of, blew away the competition for governor without every honestly saying what he intended to do. Starting well before the other democrat candidates, he produced several amazingly slick TV ads to build up such a lead that he coasted to an easy victory over his more experienced competition, who didn’t have that kind of loot.

        As Governor Corbett was so unpopular, any of the democrats would have beaten him. Shortly, I fear, when he’s sworn in, we’re in for our “deer-in-the-headlights” moment that Dan Quayle is so fondly remembered for.

        • piltdownman December 30, 2014 at 9:24 am #

          Indeed. Corbett was ripe for the picking. He had managed to alienate a large swath of the electorate, from Penn State alums who were pissed about his involvement with the Sandusky affair, to parents with kids who saw education funding plummet. Tom was never a good politician and it showed. He just did the bidding of the GOP elite in PA, gave them what they wanted and then got hammered by Wolf. PA is a weird state, with strongholds of unionism and working class Dems in the east and west, and that whole “Alabama” land in the middle, so it’s never an easy matter for the Gov to balance that. The funny part is that Corbett’s campaign was run by a very savvy political consultant, but they just didn’t have the budget. Why? Because the party knew he’d never win. His fate was sealed two years ago…

          Finally, I’d argue that Wolf is different than many of the other self-fundies, in that he didn’t come from an uber-rich family. He played up his self-made-man cred and that worked for Democratic voters as well as the GOP and independents.

          I expect we’ll see a DINO for the next four years. Sort of a Bill Clinton of PA….

    • ozone December 29, 2014 at 3:29 pm #

      That’s right; the self-funded lose. That’s because they have not been properly vetted and found worthy by “The System”.
      What’s the matter with your cognition in these regards?

      • piltdownman December 29, 2014 at 4:02 pm #

        Being vetted by a “system” is not the worst thing. Depends on how corrupt that system is. Political parties want their people to win, so they vet them. It’s why even the GOP tried to back away from the more fringe Tea Party candidates; because they couldn’t win.

  26. Steven W. Maginnis December 29, 2014 at 1:41 pm #

    “Twitching like a finger on the trigger of of a gun . . . leaving nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town.” – Paul Simon

  27. volodya December 29, 2014 at 2:57 pm #

    So, Jeb’s running is he? I started hearing this too and around about the same time I started to sense a coast-to-coast rolling of liberal eyeballs.

    Think Hillary is the sure Democrat nominee? Think Jeb’s sure to win his? Think Hillary can beat Jeb? Think Jeb’s a sure loser? Don’t be too sure about any of this.

    It’s all about the economy stupid. That’s what they say. But Bill handed Al an economy that looked, at least compared to today’s, a paragon of rosy prosperity and good prospects. And Al spent eight years as Vee-Pee. How much more of a head start do you need?

    Then Al went on the road and, during the course of the presidential campaign, screwed it all up. He had the election in his hand and threw it away. Had to resort to recounts where he thought he could wring out a few more votes. Not many more, just a few thousand would have done it. It was down to nonsense, hanging chads and the like. You remember.

    And, remember this also, Hillary couldn’t beat a sweet-talking nobody, a nobody with nothing to say, a nobody with zero executive experience. Hillary had Bill, she had all the advantages of long immersion and familiarity and connections. Didn’t matter. Hope and change? Give me strength.

    When was the last time Hillary answered a question? You know, just answering, just blurting out a response. Not the typical Sunday morning talk show “that’s not the question” type crap. Do you remember? I don’t.

    They say that Democrats have a hammer-lock on the Latino vote. But consider: I heard that Jeb majored in Latin American studies, speaks Spanish, married a Mexican women and, according to his dad, fathered a small tribe of “little brown ones”.

    Now, imagine Jeb on the campaign trail spouting Spanish, imagine his wife on the platform with him doing the same, imagine his brown-skinned kids there also. I think the Democrats are too confident by half.

    What does all this mean? Nothing. Obama got the big prize. So bloody what? No matter who wins they’ll do the bidding of the money-men. The highest levels of the US government are hopelessly corrupted. Remember what Holder said? They’re too big to jail. The vampire squid will surely strangle anyone who tries.

    Some of us are old enough to remember what happened to JFK. Just imagine, Jack failed to extract a sweaty Latin lover from a flea bitten island 90 miles away. Jack paid for it. It was a pretty straight forward affair when all was said and done: they shot him in full public view, in broad daylight, in front of thousands of people. A rub-out, a real mess, brains everywhere. But Jack was a duly elected President. It was a de-facto coup d’état.

    But they weren’t done yet. No, they shot the alleged assassin. Again, nothing sneaky. Rather, right in front of the cops, right in front of the cameras. Apparently those guys weren’t messing around, no ornate plans and scenarios, no screwing around with difficult to detect poisons, no stiletto in the dark, no seeming “accidents”. Nope, it was murder American style, bullets galore, boom, bang.

    And, wouldn’t you know, the guy that shot the assassin died shortly thereafter. Convenient, no?

    So, the shooters dead, nobody telling stories, nobody pointing fingers. And, on top of it all, a joke of a police investigation and commission of inquiry. Oh well, you know, what’s done is done, we all need to put this tragedy behind us. And not end up shot like those other guys. Besides, and most importantly, as Hyman Roth said to Michael, it has nothing to do with business.

    In the end, a very neat and thorough job it was. Don’t you think? No loose ends, aside that is, from the perps who, after all this time, have kept their traps shut. No tell-all books from them. Probably all deceased by now and, I’ll bet, mostly from natural causes.

    What about Jack’s adversary in the missile crisis drama, Nikita Khrushchev? Remember, he suffered the ignominy of having to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba. Well, for his own failure, he didn’t get his head blown off like Kennedy. No, he was sent off into retirement. Maybe not an ideal end but it could have been worse.

    Will a third party arise? Maybe. So what.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:26 pm #

      So what, indeed.

      I take it you’ve read, “Family of Secrets,” mostly about the older Bush. The book at least suggests that he actually runs the world!

      • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:38 pm #

        “I take it you’ve read, “Family of Secrets,” mostly about the older Bush. The book at least suggests that he actually runs the world!”
        -gu.

        It’s funny how Prescott Bush isn’t talked about: his role in an attempted coup, his aiding and abetting the enemy. What a ‘patriot’ he was… /s

        Do or did they run the world? Nope. But they __are__ on the inside – even if they get stuck with the dirty jobs.

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:57 pm #

      “And, wouldn’t you know, the guy that shot the assassin died shortly thereafter. Convenient, no?”-v.

      Brutal but effective; do the job, then ‘burn the tree’.

      It’s so out there in the open. And it’s still being ‘debated’ and ‘investigated’ after all these years, as if…

      😉

  28. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 2:58 pm #

    “How about 175 years to about 1840 western Massachussetts, into one of those self sustaining villages…” –BRH

    BRH, can you really call it “self-sustaining” in an economy dependent on slavery for the western Massachusetts folk to buy cheap cloth?

    When the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1835, that is about when the country began to go downhill? Damn, Black lives do matter!

    “Cheap, slave-produced cotton enticed investors with access to water power to establish textile factories in the Northeast, especially Massachusetts, which in turn produced inexpensive goods that encouraged Americans everywhere to shift from self-sufficiency to participation in a market economy: they grew surplus crops, sold them, and bought other goods. In short, Americans’ economic lives were affected by the existence of slavery, even as the presence of slaves shifted to one region of the country.”

    –Massachusetts Historical Society

  29. St. Roy December 29, 2014 at 3:01 pm #

    As a viable alternative to a 3rd party, I think alternative media should ban together and promote to citizens that the only way to stop the carnage in America is to not vote in the next election. Bush/Clinton is not a choice. A truth movement spearheaded by all AM seems like the only way to achieve any real change and right the ship is state.

    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 4:41 pm #

      I think alternative media should [ban] together ……….. and right the ship [is] state.

      ================

      [band]

      [of]

      Whatever happened to proofreading?

  30. K-Dog December 29, 2014 at 3:12 pm #

    A hypothetical CFN exchange. K-Dog talking to Q.

    …….

    K-Dog: Do you know where the CFN New Years Eve party is going to be at?

    Q: Do not end a sentence with a preposition.

    K-Dog: Do you know where the CFN New Years Eve party is going to be at bitch?

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    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 4:44 pm #

      K-Dog: Do you know where the CFN New Years Eve party is going to be [at] bitch? – K-Dog

      ==================

      [held]

      • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:30 pm #

        As a former copy editor and proof reader, I’d make it “…going to be at, bitch.”

        Also, grammar or no grammar, it made me laugh!

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:40 pm #

      Oh Jesse!

      😉

  31. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 3:18 pm #

    “the only way to stop the carnage in America is to not vote in the next election.” — St. Roy

    TPTB probably don’t care if you do not vote. But if the 18-26 year olds all refused to enlist in the armed forces, and military bases all over the U.S. started to shut down, that would stop our participation in carnage overseas.

    TPTB don’t care about your vote as long as they get your life blood.

    • AKlein December 29, 2014 at 3:35 pm #

      Maybe what we need is a “No Confidence” vote – a vote that’s actively cast, but not for any of the nominees. Of course, that will never happen since it’s a fair bet it, i.e. “No Confidence”, might well win by a landslide. Meanwhile we have the League of Women Voters promulgating that nonsensical drivel that it’s not important who wins, but rather that the electorate has “participated”.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 3:50 pm #

        Giving women the right to vote was another nail in our coffin. As a group, they are far too sentimental and ill informed. They would ban most of the Bill of Rights if given half a chance. They loved Bill Clinton because he was good looking. And they vote in higher percentages than men, in predictable Democratic blocs, and there are more of them to begin with. Huge herds of them, with their claw like finger nails and little pointy shoes…

        • Being There December 29, 2014 at 7:47 pm #

          Vlad,

          Please become a standup comedian, you really had me laughing!
          I realize how much I miss this site when I read your comments.

          Next week—back to the grind and what a lovely grind it is!

          • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 8:11 pm #

            I meant every word. Bobby Fischer told the Truth so you people sought to silence him.

            Women have an incredible ability to ignore things they don’t wish to think about. They like Bill Clinton and don’t care that he is a sexual criminal – as long as he abused under class White Women everything was fine. Obviously Feminism isn’t interested in women like this, much less Conservative women.

        • beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 8:21 pm #

          I’d vote for Kate Upton in a heartbeat if she ran for president. Imagine looking at her every day instead of Hillary.

          • Being There December 30, 2014 at 1:44 pm #

            Dearest Vlad

            Ahhh

            I don’t like Bill or Hillary. In fact I care little for any of those neos on both sides of the aisle as you know.

            In fact you can’t speak for millions of people even if you imagine you live inside their heads.

            Can’t imagine why anyone would make a blanket statement on how any group votes.

        • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:33 pm #

          You are obviously more comfortable in a world in which you can lump people into groups.

          Either that or you just like to put us on, i.e., waste our time.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 3:06 pm #

            As if you don’t lump White into groups? Nigga, please.

        • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:43 pm #

          “Huge herds of them, with their claw like finger nails and little pointy shoes…”-j.

          Okay, so I take it that it’s been *awhile* since you’ve had any female company?

          🙂

          • Being There December 30, 2014 at 3:05 pm #

            Oh, that’s the part that made me laugh!

          • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 3:08 pm #

            And women love to laugh, don’t they? Far too much. And fyi, I have never associated with the type of she ape that sports long claws. I resent you implying that Being There is like that.

  32. Therian December 29, 2014 at 3:46 pm #

    I think I know where the opposition has disappeared to in the American polity. They’re downwardly mobile and, increasingly, working two jobs just to keep a roof over their head. If they’re not working two jobs, they’re working in tremendous fear of losing their jobs. In states that are giant call centers, like Oregon, even people in the allegedly booming high tech industry aren’t even getting COLAs (example, Carl Icahn’s XO Communications) much less actual raises even when they’re exemplary employees.

    Workforce Participation is at 37 year lows because many people are refusing to be members of the WORKING POOR so they game the welfare system. In eleven states, such as CA, NM, and HI out west, there are more people on welfare than there are working. Why shouldn’t they game the system? They’re merely trying to survive while the well-heeled gamed the system to get enormous, stolen fortunes.

    The stupidity of the Federal Government in all this is that lowering workforce participation means perpetually low government revenues and eventual loss of financial credibility in the international community. Nothing can stop the national debt from zooming through $20T and then onward and upward to $30T.

  33. hortonz December 29, 2014 at 5:11 pm #

    “Did US officials act like Nazi war criminals in torturing prisoners? Well, yeah, but so what?” Your comparison of the CIA’s tactics for gathering information from detainees about the activities of dangerous psychopaths to the Nazis brutal and inhumane treatment of people they thought were genetically, morally and intellectually inferior is nonsense. Do you think Israel could have survived for nearly 70 years if the agents of Mossad treated Palestinian detainees according to the rules of the Geneva Convention? Heck no! If I had mly choice I’d rather be governed by well-intentioned criminals than Eric Holder’s justice department any day. At least the criminals would protect and enforce the rights they granted me. And what about the undeclared war being waged against law enforcement by members of America’s black underclass? Did you think the cold-blooded murder of two NYPD officers was an abberation?

  34. Frankiti December 29, 2014 at 5:36 pm #

    Remember Occupy Wall Street? Remember how quickly the marginalized were quickly marginalized as anarchists, kooks, and fringe counter-culture types? It doesn’t pay to pay attention, nor to manifest your outrage through protest. Not when you have the corporate media and the comfy bourgeois middle class lined up against you. They have 401Ks to tend to and addictions to cheaply produced commercial goods to feed. Your car, your house, your retirement, your job; all controlled by the long pervading fingers of finance. This was the last time that people peacefully, for the most part, rallied behind a cause… and it was made illegal by a mayor that elected himself for the third time after a long career in finance… it simply doesn’t pay.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:38 pm #

      The US government has been marginalizing dissent ever since WWI and Woodrow Wilson.

      True Americans would NEVER protest anything their government does.

      Civil Rights workers in the sixties were marginalized, called Commies as well as tortured and murdered.

      Union demonstrators in the fifties were also called Commies.

      Anti-war demonstrators during Vietnam were called outside agitators.

      NEVER will the US government admit that a US citizen would actually have a grievance against it. Despite the fact that our right to do so is written in the Constitution.

      • hortonz December 30, 2014 at 11:34 am #

        If the American government won’t admit that any American citizen has a grievance against it, then why is the American Justice Department trying to overturn a not-guilty verdict that exonerated a law enforcement officer in Ferguson MO? If I’m not mistaken, law enforcement officers are employed by the government to enforce federal law. And why, oh why, has Eric Holder, the chief law enforcement official in America, been so quick to condemn the actions of his own enforcers when they anger minority communities? And wasn’t the Civil Rights and Wagner Act passed by the American government into law to rectify and atone for the moral transgressions of the government? Do you think a government that marginalizes dissent would admit, let alone rectify, its’ own failings?

  35. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 5:43 pm #

    “Maybe what we need is a “No Confidence” vote”

    Yes, a “none of the above” choice. If “none of the above” wins, then a new election with a mandatory new slate with none of the previous candidates allowed… until somebody steps forward who really represents the interests of Main Street.

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    • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 9:24 am #

      Not if Diebold has anything to say in the matter.

      “Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
      Those who count the votes decide everything.”

      — Josef Stalin

  36. Jill December 29, 2014 at 5:56 pm #

    “Anything goes and nothing matters” is not what we have here. More like “Money talks and the rest of us walk– away.”

    Obama couldn’t have done anything about Citizens United. The Blue Dog Democrats are the same as Republicans on the issue– all for it.

    • GutenbergGuy December 29, 2014 at 9:42 pm #

      Well, Obama could have called those Blue Dogs into the Oval Office and reminded them that he was the only reason they had a seat in the Congress in the first place. And the House members would be out of a seat in 2010 if they didn’t support him.

      And he would’ve been right.

      “Anything goes”, etc. Many of the grunts in Vietnam put it this way:

      Fuck it! Don’t mean nothing.

  37. beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 6:14 pm #

    What is it about human nature that feels the need to have someone rule them? I can think of several possibilities,but I really don’t know.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 8:20 pm #

      Your premises seem to be Libertarian or Hobbesian. Man didn’t sit down and decide to associate at some point. The group was always paramount – that’s our evolutionary heritage back to the apes. The individual is an evolutionary development – one that depends on a well functioning society, Libertarians notwithstanding.

      Is your support of the Tribe, right or wrong, the actions of a free individual? Hardly.

      • beantownbill. December 30, 2014 at 12:14 am #

        Survival of one’s own genes became an evolutionary imperative when apes got the ability to think. Hence the individual ultimately became more important than the group when push came to shove. The present state of America in large part is a result of extremely selfish individuality at the expense of the group. I think nature intended a more even balance.

        My support of my tribe has its limits. Those limits haven’t been close to reached for me, as I know much misinformation about my people is constantly being disseminated through both ignorance and evil intent. This isTHE major disagreement we have, but for the purpose of this discussion, I don’t want to go into it at this time.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 3:13 pm #

          When will they be reached? Say, when they start jailing people like me because we don’t believe everything your Jewish owned media tells us? I don’t believe in your Holocaust Religion – does that mean I should go to jail? In Europe it does. And you better believe Jews want those same laws here.

  38. pkrugman December 29, 2014 at 7:48 pm #

    “What is it about human nature that feels the need to have someone rule them?” –Beantown

    Beantown, do you feel you are being ruled? Isn’t there a difference between being represented and being ruled? Is a direct democracy via daily electronic voting a possible way to bypass rulers/representatives? If we can pay our taxes online, why couldn’t we vote directly online on every single issue instead of electing representatives to vote in our name?

    • beantownbill. December 29, 2014 at 8:19 pm #

      I’m all for being represented – only if I feel sure that my best interests are being addressed. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case in this country.

      Voting electronically is a great idea if someone can work out all the kinks in that system. For example, how do you prevent unauthorized voting of all forms? Hell, my wife just found out today her email account was being spoofed and had sent out 2300 emails, unauthorized. The Internet isn’t secure yet. When it is, I’d be glad to revisit this idea.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 29, 2014 at 8:21 pm #

      People would vote away their most basic rates. Thank God we’re not a Democracy but a Republic, and the people aren’t given the chance to destroy themselves so easily.

      • Pucker December 29, 2014 at 8:58 pm #

        Because of their lack of a viable culture perhaps Cuban-style Communism is better suited to the blacks?

    • Q. Shtik December 29, 2014 at 11:27 pm #

      do you feel you are being ruled?

      ===================

      Every year around Feb, Mar, Apr I become infuriated as I plow through the unbelievable complexity of the tax code…and it makes me feel ruled rather than represented. This year will be exponentially worse since I need to do not only my own return but two returns for my deceased brother. I have already spent $150 for a one hour consultation with an estate tax CPA and will spend about another $1000 for him to do the returns…the first time ever I’ve had to turn to a professional. It simply shouldn’t be this complicated but it is. I went to an IRS office with a page or two of questions. They didn’t have a clue.

  39. Pucker December 29, 2014 at 7:55 pm #

    Unfortunately, I bought a copy of the pickup book entitled “Bang” by the ethnic Iranian bloke called “Roosh”. Terrible book, absolutely horrible, a wasteland. In any case, Roosh says that if a bloke wants to score with American chicks, then he has to have a good “Vibe”. I’m not sure if American chicks would get a good Vibe from a bloke who’s always talking about Collapse?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 7:55 pm #

      Roosh is alight. Look, you tried to read a book that’s too advanced for you. Go to Chateau Heartiste – he is the Master of Masters in this realm.

      https://heartiste.wordpress.com/

  40. Pucker December 29, 2014 at 7:59 pm #

    “Hey Baby, my name is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

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  41. Pucker December 29, 2014 at 8:49 pm #

    According to James Norman’s book, “The Oil Card”, the Russians stole a large swath of oil-rich Siberia from the Chinese during the Qing Dynasty. What a f…ck’n Rip Off!

  42. nsa December 29, 2014 at 9:54 pm #

    Hey Janos,
    How much do you know about the erratic and one-off life of Bobby Fischer? In the late 60s he was a member and lived near the campus of Garner Ted Armstrong’s Church of God in Pasadena, CA. At the time, he played little chess….your humble nsa spook ran into him at the local bowling alley in Altadena. He was entirely normal in appearance, dress, and demeanor….and blue collar bowling appeared to be his passion. Being a club level tournament chess player, attempted to discuss the game with him….he wasn’t interested. Just the moronic bowling appealed to his 175 plus IQ.
    His serious difficulties commenced with his accepting a rematch with Spassky for good money against the wishes of the US State Dept in Serbia. This resulted in his being stripped of his US passport and being jailed for over a year bythat pathetic yank satrap…Japan. Now here is the thing to understand about Bobby Fischer……he lived like he bowled like he play chess…..head down and right up the middle. The Russians complained that he played chess with the brutality and simplicity of a child…..head down and right up the middle…a force of nature.
    When chess computers became readily available in the 1980s, essentially memorizing MCO and turning an elegant game into a pathetic algorithm….Bobby Fischer solved the problem with his usual simplicity and elegance…..pick the major pieces out of the shoe blind, and set them up on the back rank of squares left to right…..making the computer’s memorization of MCO irrelevant.
    Bobby Fischer lived his life his way….AND SUFFERED THE CONSEQUENCES….

    • outsider December 29, 2014 at 11:10 pm #

      Actually, I think Fischer had a great idea there and I’d like to see it adopted. Like many great chess champions, his demons caught up with him. He was never able to live any kind of normal life. Does anyone know if he ever had a girlfriend?

    • MisterDarling December 29, 2014 at 11:52 pm #

      nsa,

      this is the best thing that you’ve ever posted.

      tnx…

  43. Pucker December 29, 2014 at 10:05 pm #

    When is the Pee Wee football, Pop Warner Super Bowl? Some of those Pee Wee football players take steroids and grow quite large and start push’n around the adults.

  44. malthuss December 29, 2014 at 10:28 pm #

    Here is the forgotten manifesto of communist-terrorist William Ayers who launched the political career of Barry Barack Soetoro Obama from his Chicago living room:

    http://zombietime.com/prairie_fire/

    Also valuable information is in ‘Obama Nation’ book and the You Tubes of Ann Barnhart.

    • BackRowHeckler December 30, 2014 at 11:52 am #

      I checked out that Zombietime site.

      Holy Sh#t! I thought New Haven was bad.

      brh

  45. pkrugman December 30, 2014 at 12:34 am #

    “For example, how do you prevent unauthorized voting of all forms?” — Benton

    Each voter would have a social security number which is kept private. You would then need to program the vote gathering servers to validate a voter’s age and social security number against the social security database, then detect and invalidate any social security number duplicated on any given vote. I think even 20th century computers were capable of matching numbers and detecting duplicate entries in a database.

    It is not rocket science.

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    • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 9:32 am #

      Not if the network administrators have any say in the matter.

      “Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
      Those who count the votes decide everything.”

      — Josef Stalin

  46. PeteAtomic December 30, 2014 at 1:05 am #

    Thanks Mr. Kunstler, however you’re much too optimistic about the rise of some 3rd party as some kind of counterbalance in a future election. I’d love to believe that could happen, but the two party system has become so entrenched and institutionalized amongst respective constituencies of the 40-odd percent of Americans who vote in presidential elections (and that’s probably an optimistic estimate), that it makes a 3rd party doubtful.

    Like you, I’m allergic to conspiracy theory, and I believe that plain old apathy is the driving factor in the public lack of political interest. Why should the US populace care? The gravy train continues largely roll on, the money continues to be printed, gas prices are down, and grocery stores are exploding with goods. The foreign policy matters which you describe of are no concern to the overwhelming numbers of Americans. Ukraine and Syria may as well be on Pluto, to the American psyche.

    So, the proof in the pudding is gonna be when the US economy runs off the cliff similar to Willy E. Coyote in one of the old Loony Tunes cartoons. Willy runs off the cliff, but keeps running for a while before plummeting to the bottom of the desert floor with an exploding ‘poof’! It’ll be when there are still goods in the Walmart supermarkets, but they’ll be too expensive for the majority of people to buy. It’ll be when there is fuel at the KwikTrips and SuperAmericas, but nobody will have the money to fill their tanks. But because of the generational political apathy which has become common in the US polity, ‘change’ will be chaotic, and anarchic, and I doubt will come through the fossilized channels of the two party system.

    • seawolf77 December 30, 2014 at 1:51 pm #

      Like the Wily E. Coyote aircraft holes in the WTC.

  47. pkrugman December 30, 2014 at 1:52 am #

    “…the two party system has become so entrenched and institutionalized amongst respective constituencies of the 40-odd percent of Americans who vote in presidential elections (and that’s probably an optimistic estimate), that it makes a 3rd party doubtful.” — PeteAtomic

    On the contrary, a 60% disaffection rate with the Bushes/Clintons who only win with 20% of the voters means a third party has an even greater chance to win. 60 is greater than 20. Even if only half the disaffected vote, 30 is still greater than 20. The more disillusioned people become with Democrats and Republicans and stop voting, the more potential support a third party has.

  48. HowardBeale December 30, 2014 at 2:03 am #

    Clinton vs. Bush 2016?

    When Bush ran against Gore in 2000, I began drinking heavily and voted for the first time in my life; though I knew it was futile, I couldn’t imagine the historic demeanor of the evil that was to be unleashed. I left the country shortly thereafter.

    When Obama won in 2008, I returned, feeling, perhaps, there might be a cleansing; the People were ready to man the guillotines.

    After living through what can reasonably be described as one of the greatest political/social disappointments in the history of political endeavor (Obama), I no longer care to endure: This, has poisoned a planet. And if it is Clinton vs. Bush in 2016, goodnight.

  49. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 5:21 am #

    God Damn Russians rip’ n off the Chinese!

  50. FincaInTheMountains December 30, 2014 at 6:15 am #

    Mikhail Khazin: Why America Can’t Stop

    United States is deliberately destroying the entire system of international security. In the 1990s the generation of “victors” came to power , these people are convinced that they had “defeated” the USSR.

    They decided that collective security arrangements are onerous, and that they need their own security system, the one that only they will have control over.

    Obviously constructing a new security system from scratch is an endeavor that is both expensive and slow. The trouble is that all those plans, which were developed in the 90s and which US began to implement during 2000s (quite possibly, the events of September 11, were organized to launch the execution of those plans), so those plans had been based on the premise of continuous economic growth, itself founded upon the primacy of America’s resources. Instead US ended up with a crisis, which has significantly reduced those available “resources.”

    The capture of former Socialist Commonwealth’s markets has indeed become “the golden age” of American economy, even the budget scored a surplus.

    But at the beginning of 2000 the US economy was standing on the brink of abyss comparable to where it found itself in the early 1930s.

    Today’s picture is far more frightening and what can be done about it unclear as well. The old security model has been destroyed. Trust cannot be restored, a new model does not exist, there are some elements of it here and there, but they function only if the US directly intervenes into the process. Intervention factually consists of allocating large sums of money to all participants in the process, and it is faulty: Palestine, ISIS, etc.

    This is happening while the situation inside the US worsens. The problem is that for a long time US have a barrier in place that has separated the elite from the rest of the society. American educational system, system that prepares societal leaders, has been destroyed already back in the 1960s, an average citizen (the sheep in the parlance of the elite) has actually no chances of advancement to an upper “elite” level, the one from which the society is being governed.

    However for those few who are born active, unless the punitive psychiatry destroys them at a tender age or they fall victim to juvenile justice, for them there are still mechanisms for upward social mobility which could bring them up to the level of technocratic elite.

    The trouble is that in the course of this half of a century America had accumulated lots of people who are absolutely unprepared to tolerate a sharp decline in their standards of living. But along with the worsening of the economic crisis, in order to maintain their grip on power and their status the “actual” elites must most definitely reduce the living standard of these population strata of the American society. And that can push the system up onto the critical level of mutual contradictions. Because internal resources necessary for maintenance of the quality of life of this so called upper middle class are depleted, they need to find some substitute external resources.

    To phrase it differently: the United States can only preserve domestic social stability at the expense of someone else.

    The Bretton Woods system was based upon a premise that all assets of participating member states will be dollar denominated. So fresh dollars were printed along with introduction of new assets into the system, and the US elites could then work out how those dollars are to be shared with the elites of those new countries (or regions) that were about to be incorporated within this dollar zone. How those regional elites were going to split those dollars with their own population was their own concern. But there are no more assets to be brought into the system, consequently no new dollars are being printed, and worse than that, existing dollars are being redistributed for America’s benefit through US controlled world dollar system.

    This makes internal conflicts in many of the world’s countries all but unavoidable.

    Some of those conflicts are at their beginning stage while others are already burning hot, but their essence is all he same, counter-elites, the ones who were not let into the proverbial dollar cookie jar now make claims upon existing elites demanding either to restore the scale of support they get (that means that the old elites must commence financing of the economy from their own pockets) or yield power and get out of the way. Most obvious that because those existing elites are all pro-American, the scenario is developing under accompaniment of increasingly anti-American rhetoric.

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  51. FincaInTheMountains December 30, 2014 at 9:33 am #

    “According to James Norman’s book, “The Oil Card”, the Russians stole a large swath of oil-rich Siberia from the Chinese during the Qing Dynasty. What a f…ck’n Rip Off!” — Pucker

    Russian conquest of Siberia

    “The Russian conquest of Siberia took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Khanate of Sibir had become a loose political structure of vassalages which were becoming undermined by the activities of Russian explorers. Although outnumbered, the Russians pressured the various family-based tribes into changing their loyalties and establishing distant forts from which they conducted raids. To counter this, Kuchum Khan attempted to centralize his rule by imposing Islam on his subjects and reforming his tax-collecting apparatus.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia

    What the heck it has anything to do with China? It is Mongols Khans Russia legitimately (being under long occupation from Mongols) wrestled Siberia from.

    So, stop salivating at Russian Siberian riches and better solve your Indian problems.

  52. nsa December 30, 2014 at 11:15 am #

    Outsider,
    The USSA state dept had their Jap colony jail Fischer for a year and then deport him. He somehow ended up in the Phillipines, where again the USSA state dept had their colony deport him. He had a radio show playing oldies and made comments as to how glad he was that someone finally fought back against the empire….you can hear his 911 comments on YouTube. Along the way he picked up a Jap girlfriend and a Flip wife and kid…..who fought over the pathetically small estate he left in Iceland (the only country on the face of the earth willing to buck the USSA and give shelter to the world’s greatest chess player (he had put Iceland on the map with his match there against Spassky). Janos is a Fischer fan based on Fischer’s virulent jew hatred…..Bobby was fully capable of observing the surnames on the state dept letters and threats and drawing logical conclusions as to exactly who were his persecutors. So there you have it……in a world saturated in kiddie rapping priests, degenerate politicians, crooked bankers….the USSA decided to make war on a chess player of great intelligence but dubious sanity.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 3:27 pm #

      That’s unfair! I fully appreciate his chess abilities though I have never developed my abilities in that area – and they are probably quite modest in any case. I love eccentrics. Madness is akin to genius after all. How did Hans Eyesenck put it? Can’t quite recall, but irascibility correlates positively with great creativity. Or the other way around rather since there are plenty of assholes with nary a spark or clue.

      Each man must destroy a world to be born. The typical Mensa Member is high IQ but lacks the spark. He will never break thru the egg shell into the real world. Look how they disparaged the great Birdman Bryant – wouldn’t even read his exposes of the Jews and even boasted about NOT extending such a basic courtesy to a fellow member.

      • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 7:33 pm #

        JS,

        You are a sick, disgusting, piece of garbage.

        How JK allows you to continue to exist and pollute this site,
        I will never know.

        You will die in the hell of your own making.

        May God have mercy on your corrupt and pathetic soul.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 7:51 pm #

          What exactly do you object to? Remember, ad hominem arguments are not valid. Too bad this isn’t Europe and you couldn’t just get me arrested for criticizing those who thrive in the darkness. Ah well. Here you still have pretend to be a decent, well read man – a citizen in other words. Start here.

          http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Index-Jews.html

          • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 8:06 pm #

            JS,

            Your link to a hate-filled, obnoxious, vile, and pernicious site proves nothing . . .

            other than that you are filled with self-hate,
            because

            already having been rejected by a wholesome,
            wonderful
            and respectable woman . . .
            whose name we will not mention here. . .
            you are consumed with self-loathing.

            And that your resultant self-loathing
            has consumed you
            beyond recognition.

            May God have mercy on your pathetic soul.
            You will need it.

          • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 8:21 pm #

            Wholesome, Wonderful, Respectable Woman? Me? You got the wrong JS. Such Woman do exist – in small numbers. They tend to get taken early by men with means. I mean just because they’re Wonderful doesn’t mean they’re dumb. They know their worth and leverage it to get what they value: wholesome, wonderful, respectable men with lots of money or at least on the road thereto.

    • malthuss December 30, 2014 at 3:37 pm #

      kiddie rapping priests???????????????????/

      • Q. Shtik December 30, 2014 at 5:28 pm #

        rapping as in rape?

  53. Buck Stud December 30, 2014 at 12:01 pm #

    Yeah, Ron Paul is a kook, nut, lunatic, crazy–and someone not worth listening via censored during political debate–because of this one message:

    “To oppose all war propaganda perpetrated by governments against the will of the people.”

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/ron-paul/arms-dealers-generals-and-politicians-want-war/

  54. Being There December 30, 2014 at 1:45 pm #

    And speaking of neos (Neoliberal that is)
    Here’s an article I found this morning I thought I’d share:

    http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-toxic-legacy-of-Milton-by-Brian-Cooney-Anti-government_Capitalism_Corporations_Financial-141230-942.html

  55. FincaInTheMountains December 30, 2014 at 2:28 pm #

    Ukraine confirmed radiation leaks at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Station

    Official reports indicate that the press service of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Station (ZNPS) hides the truth about the accident in the 6th Unit.

    Ukrainian nuclear scientists misinformed the public and the media about the real state of affairs in the ZNPS. The Internet got a summary of the State Service for Emergency Situations of the 28 and 29 December, which refute the assurances by the leadership of ZNPS that the sixth unit was put into operation in the evening on 28 December.

    In addition, the permissible level of radiation at the plant, according to the measurements, was above the norm by 16 times.

    http://lifenews.ru/news/147890

    Just a reminder, Chernobyl happened in Ukraine. Switch to American-made (by Westinghouse) nuclear fuel assemblies from Russian made is named as one possible reason for accident.

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  56. volodya December 30, 2014 at 3:19 pm #

    As you say Mr Darling, so out there. Goes to show that, if you don’t want people to see, you do it in the open. Or is it the other way around? You do it in a public square so there’s no misunderstanding. PAFF!!! Bits of brain everywhere, all over Jackie, the car, the road… Not subtle that’s for sure.

    But really, I mean, who did these Kennedys think they were and what did they expect? Roman Catholics, Irishmen, upstarts, certainly not part of the inner sanctum, barely American, nobodies, not qualified, all in all intolerable. Cripes, what was next in the White House? A spic? A wop? A ni… an African American? They had to draw a line. Probably many straws, one of which was the LAST straw.

    You wonder if people and especially future presidents took JFK’s example. And it wasn’t just JFK. There was Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, MLK. And others.

    Bobby sure didn’t read the memo. Or maybe he did. Brass balls given all that went before. No matter. He got shot. What about Teddy? Looks like the famous Kennedy recklessness intervened at Chappaquiddick. After that calamity it would have taken a miracle to get the presidency. No, Teddy survived, the runt of the litter lived to become the lion of the senate.

    And let’s not forget Nikita. He was part of the drama. And Fidel. They didn’t shoot Ike. He was too great an American hero. They apparently didn’t have the gall to try. But somebody was going to damn well pay.

    You know, maybe Cuba wasn’t the central problem. Maybe Cuba by itself was a minor irritant but indicative of wider trends in the world, trends that had to be stopped. And, to do that, you had to focus some minds. Maybe they did.

    But maybe the outcome wasn’t exactly what was intended. Communism is gone but you have black faces in the White House. And a lot of other stuff.

    Which brings up the issue of how to get out of the rut. A third party? I seriously don’t think it’s an issue of political parties anymore. If it ever was. IMO there’s nobody that you can put in Washington that can or will move the needle.

    Things for a multitude of reasons can’t go on as they are. But, as our esteemed host pointed out a multitude of times, a great mass of the people are in no shape to do anything useful. Zombified by TV, immobilized by i-gadgets, vulgarized by porn, wasted on drugs, addled by alcohol, gun toting, grossly fat, diabetic, barely literate.

    I suspect that whatever spews up from the landscape will, like in other periods in history, be a gigantic surprise. Nobody will see the great big Black Swan hatching.

    • Buck Stud December 30, 2014 at 3:44 pm #

      “But, as our esteemed host pointed out a multitude of times, a great mass of the people are in no shape to do anything useful. Zombified by TV, immobilized by i-gadgets, vulgarized by porn, wasted on drugs, addled by alcohol, gun toting, grossly fat, diabetic, barely literate.”

      Here is an U.S. “Obesity Map”. I wonder why obesity is so prevalent in the South?

      http://www.maxmasnick.com/2011/11/15/obesity_by_county/

    • MisterDarling December 30, 2014 at 10:50 pm #

      “Which brings up the issue of how to get out of the rut. A third party? I seriously don’t think it’s an issue of political parties anymore. If it ever was. IMO there’s nobody that you can put in Washington that can or will move the needle.”-vol.

      In situations such as ours where ‘democracy’ comes equipped with multiple ‘command-override’ features (by design) the only real hope for tangible change is a) the system is wiped out or b) war breaks out among the ranks of the reigning power elite, in which their may be substantial reshuffling of the figurative deck chairs.

      If you’re in the mood for an indication of something that *might* be a step in a positive direction, there’s this:

      http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/12/23/pers-d23.html

      I don’t normally read this source, but I think that their analysis isn’t too far ‘off the beam’ this time.

      “I suspect that whatever spews up from the landscape will, like in other periods in history, be a gigantic surprise. Nobody will see the great big Black Swan hatching.”-vol.

      William Gibson said something salient that applies to the Black Swan phenomena:

      “The Future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed”.

      After all, Mr. Taleb begins __Black Swan__ with that story about the young turkey penned in the turkey farm; he meets his fate every single day when the farmer feeds him. 999 days the farmer feeds him, and our young turkey *knows* in his heart of hearts that the farmer is *good* and worthy of the deepest sort of trust… but on the 1000th day the farmer comes… But not to feed him.

      Are you paying attention, you various-and-sundry members of the CFN-neocon !rah-rah! clique?

      Whom am I addressing? You know who you are. . . If the shoe fits, as they say…

      😉

  57. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 3:49 pm #

    In high school in the US, I worked one Summer in a warehouse with a fat redneck bloke named “Randy”. Randy lived in a trailer somewhere in the countryside with his 15 year old wife, “Darlene”. Which US states allow men to marry child brides with her parents consent?

  58. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 3:52 pm #

    According to James Norman’s “The Oil Card”, the US pushed up the price of oil to frustrate China’s economic growth rate, but the stratagem largely failed because of Chinese government subsidies and rebates. It will be interesting to see if the US can hurt Putin by pushing down the price of oil?

    • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 8:24 pm #

      According to the latest reports . . .

      there are approximately 16 different stories about why
      the price of oil has plummeted within the last several days.

      All of them have various and sundry theories associated with them, all of which are semi-rubbish, since none of them account for all the elements that are relevant.

      Pity.

      Would be nice to have a rational and level-headed analysis of what is really happening.

  59. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 3:56 pm #

    Whatever happened to “Ricky Fitts” from the movie “American Beauty”? Ricky was smoke’n that G-13 (“genetically engineered by the US government.”)

  60. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 4:00 pm #

    “The End justifies the Means.”

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  61. pkrugman December 30, 2014 at 5:25 pm #

    “Communism is gone” — Volodya

    Today, in the 21st century, there are five countries with communist governments ruled by communist parties, with big communist controlled armies, including the largest economy on earth, and representing over ONE BILLION people on earth. The IMF recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. Communist countries will produce $17.6 trillion in terms of goods and services– compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S. Communism has overtaken the United States in terms of PPP (purchasing power parity).

    Communism is not gone.

    And it is also nice to have Black faces in the White House. Black faces have managed an economic recovery these last six years after white faces left the country in a ditch. With Obama in the White House the stock market has been hitting new highs. Some people have already forgotten about the Great Recession.

    Recall 2008 when white faces were in the White House. Things looked pretty bleak economically.

    But the outlook has changed dramatically for the better with Black faces in the White House. Change I can believe in. And it has been a boon for white investors, as even the safest indices have yielded a 250% return (>25% annualized compound return).

  62. FincaInTheMountains December 30, 2014 at 6:05 pm #

    “Communism is not gone.” — pkrugman

    Religious cults and secular ideologies represent only the Third Priority of the Sufficiently General Control Theory, being preceded by Conceptual and Historical Priorities.

    Communism and Capitalism are just that – secular ideologies of temporary significance.

    Much more important is Conceptual Priority – Information of worldview nature, or methodology, which, once adopted, allows one to build – individually and socially – their «standard automation» of identification of particular processes within the completeness and integrity of the World, and to define in their individual perception the hierarchical order of these processes in their mutual interconnection.

    Currently, the World as a whole is lacking any Conceptual theory that is capable of accommodating modern realities of human and social life. Neither West, East or Russia have anything of a kind. More so, Russia constitutionally prohibits adoption of any ideology as state sponsored.

    For instance, assuming that the new coming Technological Order will revolutionized the Production and Labor Productivity to such level that only 2% of population will be able to provide the entire society with necessary goods and services, what’s next? What are we planning to do with the rest?

    Currently the answer is somewhere between all encompassing state’s welfare and total genocide, in one form of another, of the “extra” population. Obviously, BOTH solutions are unacceptable, since being in the bliss of fat welfare and caviar-buying Food Stamps also represent a genocide, if not physical, but moral.

    We desperately in need of a new Conceptual Teaching that will guide us through the coming Dark Ages of Mind.

  63. pkrugman December 30, 2014 at 6:51 pm #

    “Currently, the World as a whole is lacking any Conceptual theory that is capable of accommodating modern realities of human and social life” — Finca

    The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a milestone document in the history of human rights. Drafted by representatives with different legal and cultural backgrounds from all regions of the world, the Declaration was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948.

    It is currently available in 440 different languages, including sign languages, from Abkhaz to Zulu. Pretty much the World as a whole, Finca.

    http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/618067/Universal-Declaration-of-Human-Rights-UDHR

  64. ozone December 30, 2014 at 7:03 pm #

    “… One of the hallmarks of an imploding culture is that people lose a sense of consequence. Things just seem to happen and unhappen, and nobody really cares about chains of decision and event. Anything goes and nothing matters.

    One reason this is happening to us is that we allowed reality to be divorced from truth. Karl Rove wasn’t kidding back in the Bush-2 days when he quipped that “we create our own reality.” The part old Karl left out is that there’s a price for doing that. In the short run, it allows you to pretend that you have superpowers and can act in defiance of the way things really are. In the longer run, your view of the world comports so poorly with the facts of the world that things stop working.” JHK

    Created reality, eventually morphed into S.O.P. and FUBAR all rolled into one! (Some call it evil incarnate, while others refer to it as success and a potential for future markets. What *you* decide is the proper terminology decides whether you might be an unrepentant a;;hole or someone capable of some critical thought. The coin is tossed and time is short…)

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40585.htm

    Stay wobbly; that’s the way your overlords [and their sycophants] like it!

    • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 7:35 pm #

      One Dark Day in the Middle of the Night,
      A Thousand Black Girls got up to fight.

      http://www.amren.com/news/2014/12/black-teen-girls-riot-in-pittsburgh-mall-force-closure/

      Now I axe you Zone, what other race would do a thing like this?

      • Buck Stud December 30, 2014 at 9:41 pm #

        When I view clips such as this the thing I find most disturbing beyond the violence is the noise: a cacophony of aural evil.

        This type of noise and mayhem doesn’t seem to bother these types but to my ears it’s nothing less than Hell itself. I like quiet, contemplative, respectful people and those in the above video are, quite honestly, barbarians with whom I would purposefully live far,far apart from.

        The other day I was anticipating a beautiful music video on You Tube but first had to endure the most obnoxious pre-video advertising. It was an interesting contrast and one that really drove home the point that most of us are, voluntarily or not, inundated with sensory trash a good portion of our lives.

        Boiled down, the wrong type of sound, IMO, is capable of inciting/triggering violence. I know I have fantasized about shoving a bass beating boom box up the ass of some asshole obnoxious punk when subjected to that type of “musical” trash.

        On the other hand it begs the question: what type of person voluntarily listens to this garbage? And why, for instance, are some unable to distinguish between a Gregorian chant and the verbal antics of a Snoop Doggy Dog rant?

        Frankly, I think some people have zero appreciation of Nature, hence the insensitivity to, and outright coveting of aural pollution.

        And BTW–and not to be an cultural equivocator–but this type of aesthetic decadence stretches many types of commercial musical genres.Take country music for instance; most of the current performers are nothing but pretty faces and flexing biceps. There are no longer any Patsy Cline “Walking After Midnight” masterpieces to be seen or heard.

        • beantownbill. December 30, 2014 at 10:20 pm #

          I, myself, dislike loud, noisy people, and I generally agree with your post. However, what that video showed is nothing new. This type of human behavior is as old as the species. What I find sad about it is that our social evolution has not kept up with our incredible technological advancement. And I say this reluctantly as a technophile.

          • Buck Stud December 30, 2014 at 10:59 pm #

            Well my larger point–not well made–was more in response to the comments on the Janos link. Most of the commentary below that article is the same old genetic rationale–blacks are prone to violence etc,etc,etc–made by white nationalists/supremacists.

            But I believe it is cultural, hence my noise music comment. For instance, in looking at some Nation of Islam clips one might think there were listening to chamber music in terms of demeanor/quietude. And if one was the trampled victim at a Who concert one could only hope they would have been involved in a commonplace brawl instead. Again, cultural and not ethnic causation. I have had the misfortune of having heard far too many white rappers musically pollute as well.

            I’m not sure what to say about your social evolution.technological advancement comment. For instance, so many of the barren,soulless, minimalist boxes/buildings being built in upscale urban neighborhoods are nothing but a visual emanation of the computer screen. Art echoing technology, in other words. Square sanitized homes for square sanitized minds. Don’t express the rare idiosyncratic thought;it’s bad for business;bad for the status quo flow.

            And the same in music. That same barren expression imbues country, rock and rap music. Or at least to these older ears. And I would like it be “Just My Imagination’ but I fear it is something far more sinister.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 11:17 pm #

          Well said. The explosive cackle of the Ghetto Black Female is one of the most hideous sounds in nature. My exposure of to Black Women from Africa didn’t show anything like this. But they may be the crème de la crème. Certainly Winnie Mandela showed herself to be of the same mettle underneath the mask.

          Did you read that piece I sent you last Sunday about the conflict in France between the Millionaire Bohemians (backed by Billionaires) and the Catholic Traditionalists over the vision scape of France?

          • Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 3:32 pm #

            I did see your post on Sunday night and left a response that you must have missed. Anyway, very interesting and predictable happenings IMO.

      • beantownbill. December 30, 2014 at 10:06 pm #

        O, come on. Haven’t you ever seen a good, old-fashioned brawl before? Almost by definition a brawl is a screaming, shouting fighting mass of hormone-driven people. Just from the video, I see no need to racially label this incident. Your anti-Jewish, anti- Black, anti-Hispanic, anti-liberal, anti-woman, anti-socialist emotions leaves about 4 people in the world you could like.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 11:05 pm #

          Oh really? A THOUSAND women decide by twitter to all meet up at a mall and fight. WOMEN? You don’t see something amazing there? Something new (and bad) in our reality? Can you imagine White or Jewish Women doing that? Asian? Even Hispanic? No friend Bill, it’s uniquely Black.

          I like you as a person. Your humble pride in the way you’ve lived your life doesn’t turn me off or make me doubt that you’ve lived a life of industry, grace, and charity. It’s only insofar that you are a Zionist that I take issue with you. Unfortunately this aspect of you is not a negligible factor in who you are. We could be good neighbors or co-workers, but obviously not personal friends. As I’ve said before, and like the Birdman, some of my best friends have been Jews. One or two of them know about my transformation. One of them is still my friend even now.

          • dannyboy December 31, 2014 at 9:57 am #

            “some of my best friends have been Jews.”

            Janos, you use the same discredited words that have been used for decades to deceive others into believing that there is credibility in you.

            Been debunked before.

            Debunked again.

            Try a newer deception?

          • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 2:46 pm #

            Yeah Dan I know it’s a cliché. That’s why I used it. I love them. As you should but probably don’t know, most clichés have a lot of truth to them. After all, that’s how they get to be clichés.

            That you automatically react against clichés, shows a reactionary mind, not a mind attuned to the North Star of Wisdom.

      • ozone December 30, 2014 at 10:06 pm #

        Huh, doesn’t appear nearly as exciting as Kristallnacht to me.

        However, I’m not too sure what that has to do with the price of Shit in Shinola-land. One could be [justly] accused of trying to change the subject or put someone off-balance (as to “wobble”).

        Now as a final word to you, sychophant [vlad], I’d advise you to have a care as to which cord of your web you tread upon; you are becoming hopelessly tangled in your own memes.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 11:12 pm #

          Kristallnacht was like Fergusson: a mob action prompted by a killing. This is far different. Women getting together to fight and to cheer on fighters? Women? Buddy, you aint thinkin’. And it aint the first time neither.

          Because I have a wide range of interests, how does that indicate confusion? Reality is big Zone. Men make it small with their doctrinaire approach to it.

          Ok, how does this tie in? All day long we’ve been talking about social breakdown, its causes and symptoms. I proffer this as another symptom, indicative of a very profound breakdown in Black society. And since they are the movers and shakers of pop Culture world wide, might this kind of thing spread to other Countries and Races? There I did the work for you.

    • ozone December 31, 2014 at 6:16 pm #

      Soooooo, I looked down the list of “replies” to my posting and I see not one has addressed the points put forth in D.O.’s missive.

      It’s certainly the fault of a particularly voluminous poster whose apparent MO is distraction and acidic division. I therefore dub them sychophant and tool of the oligarchs. Sincere posters had better get their minds right and perspective double-checked…

      Good Luck, along with *focus*; they’re going to be requirements with jerks like this on the loose.

  65. Buck Stud December 30, 2014 at 7:43 pm #

    For the IQ obsessives, check out the beautiful centenarian who devoted her life to creative design. And then the link below that on how daydreaming ” might actually encourage the sort of long-range neural connections that make us smart.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoKsyzqm3c

    http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/01/07/intelligence-and-the-idle-mind/

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  66. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 7:44 pm #

    The Chinese don’t recognize Russian claims to Siberia.

    • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 8:38 pm #

      Possession is 90% of the law . . .

      what Russia has . . .
      that China wants . . .

      China has to take by force.

      Well, we will wait to see the outcome of that . .

      nukes and all.

      May the best man win.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 30, 2014 at 11:21 pm #

        What Lola wants, Lola gets, eh? A real first chakra type argument. Why by that logic, Whites have the right to the North American continent! Care to restate that perhaps?

  67. Cold N. Holefield December 30, 2014 at 7:56 pm #

    Go Jeb!

    • CancelMyCard December 30, 2014 at 8:42 pm #

      Jeb Bush doesn’t stand a chance in hell against Hillary.

      She will mop the floor with him, such that
      he will be kissing the hem of her skirt at the end.

      Couldn’t happen to a nicer bush boy.

  68. Cold N. Holefield December 30, 2014 at 8:03 pm #

    “Communism is gone” — Volodya

    Nope — it’s new & improved and stealthily plugging along with a fancy new wardrobe and glamorous shade of lipstick. It’s scarcely resembles the understated, modest and muted gun-metal gray of its former incarnation. It has learned — and learned well.

  69. Cold N. Holefield December 30, 2014 at 8:07 pm #

    Not too long from now, considering the absurdity of these protests, as a form of reparations Black men (Black women will be granted this right at a later date) of all ages will have the right to shoot any White person of any age or gender without legal consequence — cops included.

  70. Cold N. Holefield December 30, 2014 at 8:10 pm #

    Did they really find the flight or are they making this shit up?

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  71. dfnslblty December 30, 2014 at 8:33 pm #

    Respectfully, JHK,
    What makes you – or anyone else – think that Jeb/Hillary will get people moving/thinking toward a third party?
    I like your doom/gloom scenarios – first paragraphs – best because they address the reality of a regressive citizenry.
    We have met the enemy . . .
    And we steadfastly refuse to change our ways.
    Thanks for your shouting and cautioning.

    Let us Stop The Immoral and Illegal Wars!

  72. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 9:44 pm #

    Chairman Mao didn’t take any shit off the Russians. Siberia was part of China during the Yuan Dynasty.

  73. Pucker December 30, 2014 at 9:52 pm #

    According to Norman’s “The Oil Card”, Saddam had granted huge equity oil concessions to the Chinese, which was the real reason why the US invaded Iraq and kicked Saddam’s ass.

  74. pkrugman December 30, 2014 at 10:26 pm #

    “The other day I was anticipating a beautiful music video on You Tube but first had to endure the most obnoxious pre-video advertising” — Buck Stud

    Your computer has a mute button. Use it.

  75. Q. Shtik December 30, 2014 at 11:41 pm #

    They know their worth and leverage it to get what they value: – Janos

    ==============

    Of course. How could it be otherwise? We all do this. It’s as natural as breathing. Why is everyone so god damned dead set against human nature? I think what angers some people is that they have little worth to leverage.

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    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 1:30 am #

      Well people, or at least some people, have a higher nature too – one that is above nature in the sense of our commonality with animals. This nature is natural to us as well. Obviously people have the right to get the best mate they can, as long as love is there. I’m not suggesting people choose a poor man or an ugly woman just to make a point. After all, it’s just as easy to love a beautiful person as an ugly or poor one. Perhaps one might choose a mate who is less beautiful or rich than another one could attain. That might be the higher nature at work.

  76. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 12:12 am #

    “Because I have a wide range of interests, how does that indicate confusion? Reality is big Zone” — Janos

    Hmmmm. Sounds a lot like Asoka. So you contain multitudes?

    What Lola wants, Lola gets, eh? A real first chakra type argument.

    Actually it is a third chakra argument. The third chakra relates to power grabs and any sort of non-consensual power or control games.

    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 1:32 am #

      Ha, you fell right into my trap. Only Asoka, Asia, and I would know that about the correct chakra. So you are Asoka since you are not Asia and you are not me.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 2:24 am #

        Thinking further, I was not entirely wrong. What Lola (America) wants is a power grab of Eastern Europe and Russia and thus 3rd chakra as you indicated. But what Russia will do in return will be self defense – and that’s first chakra or survival.

        And let’s face it: the West has a poor record of wins when invading Russia. Teutonic Knights, Swedes, Napoleon, Hitler – now America. When will we learn. If we were going to do it, we should have let Patton take his shot. That was the time to do it, but we were too enamoured with Jewish Communism at the time. Only when the Revolution turned against the Jews did we turn against Russia.

  77. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 12:17 am #

    A gallon of gas is now $1.75. Soon gasoline could go below $1 a gallon, if it continues to fall at the rate it has fallen these last two months.

    I never thought we would see gas under $3.00 a gallon. Now it is under $2.00 a gallon. Soon to be under $1.00 a gallon?

  78. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 12:33 am #

    The duty of doomers is to be pessimistic. When gas was over $4.00 a gallon, boomers said it was bad news. Right here on CFN people were saying gas would go to $5.00 or $6.00 a gallon, provoking economic collapse. This did not happen.

    Now that gas is going down, down, down, now under $2.00 a gallon, economists, environmentalists, etc. are explaining why this is bad news. Others are blaming Obama, as they did when prices were going up.

    “It’s odd that so many continue to see Obama as a radical and a socialist even as the Dow hits record levels and the wealthy continue to do very nicely. If he is a socialist, he is surely the most incompetent practitioner in the history of Marxism.” — E.J.Dionne

    Meanwhile, Brent crude futures are holding above USD 60 a barrel as Obama’s strong US economy continues to support the market.

  79. Pucker December 31, 2014 at 12:37 am #

    Dr. Bill Cosby, PhD:

    “They’re standing on the corner and they can’t speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk…

    Why you ain’t

    Where you is

    What he drive

    Where he stay

    Where he work

    Who you be…

    And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. ;

    And then I heard the father talk.

    Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth.

    In fact, you will never get any kind of job making a decent living. People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we’ve got these knuckleheads walking around.

    The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.

    These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids. $500 sneakers for what??

    And they won’t spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

    I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

    Where were you when he was 2??

    Where were you when he was 12??

    Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn’t know that he had a pistol??

    And where is the father?? Or, who is his father?

    People putting their clothes on backward, isn’t that a sign of something gone wrong?

    People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn’t that a sign of something?

    Or, are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up?

    Isn’t it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

    What part of Africa did this come from??

    We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans. They don’t know a thing about Africa .
    With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap, and all of them are in jail.

    Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem.

    We have got to take the neighborhood back.

    People used to be ashamed. Today, a woman has eight children with eight different ‘husbands’ — or men or whatever you call them now.

    We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

    We have million-dollar basketball players who can’t write two paragraphs.

    We, as black folks have to do a better job. Someone working at Wal- Mart with seven kids… you are hurting us.

    We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

    We cannot blame the white people any longer.

    – Dr. William Henry ‘Bill’ Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.

  80. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 12:59 am #

    “Dr. William Henry ‘Bill’ Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.” –Pucker

    Dr. William Henry ‘Bill’ Cosby, serial rapist

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  81. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 1:17 am #

    World Wrestling Entertainment has banned choke holds.

    So, the WWE has higher standards than the NYPD.

    I can’t breathe.

  82. Pucker December 31, 2014 at 1:39 am #

    Perhaps Cuban-style Communism could turn things around for the black community?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 2:26 am #

      They need to be working simple jobs – what the Mexicans are doing in other words. They wouldn’t work as well as the Mexicans, but at least we wouldn’t be doubling our problems by letting in another nation.

      • pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 2:58 am #

        They need to be working simple jobs – what the Mexicans are doing in other words.

        Janos, Mexicans don’t “need to be working simple jobs.” They are as capable as whites or Blacks or Asians to do professional work. In fact, Mexican immigrants are currently working as prominent journalists, political figures, military figures, scholars and educators, scientists, technologists, civil rights leaders, community activists, sports figures, religious figures, artists, entertainers, business people and entrepreneurs. For someone who supposedly contains multitudes you seem to be ignorant of chakras and Mexicans.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Mexican_Americans

        • Q. Shtik December 31, 2014 at 12:43 pm #

          you seem to be ignorant of chakras – Krug to Janos

          ===========

          chakras schmakras

          More mumbo jumbo akin to “what sign are you?”

          • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 3:02 pm #

            Right. Chakras are unreal but the dollar is? Get back to your column of figures Bob Cratchit. And leave that coal bin alone. A single candle is all you get. Hope you can see your numbas. Meanwile I’ll be in my well lit Lab Oratory, working and praying – picking choice flowers in Mag Mehl, the fields of glory, lost in the realms of Only God.

            The human body is precious because of the flowers within it.

          • malthuss January 1, 2015 at 9:31 pm #

            http://www.harishjohari.org/chakras.htm

            Dismissing something does not mean it does not exist or that it has no validity.

  83. FincaInTheMountains December 31, 2014 at 6:11 am #

    Russkies send their best New Year wishes to American war-mongering elite:

    http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/fritzmorgen/12791732/170471/170471_original.jpg

  84. FincaInTheMountains December 31, 2014 at 6:22 am #

    Head of German Raiffeisenbank: Americans are going to fight Russikies till the last European

    Chairman of the Board of Raiffeisenbank International (RBI) Carl Sevelda in an interview with the Austrian newspaper “Kurier” sharply criticized US policy toward Russia.

    “I hope to resolve the conflict with Russia, – he said. – Unfortunately, the United States, is expected to fight Putin till the last European”

    Putin’s policy of war avoidance and containment of American aggression in Ukraine are starting to pay off. The fact of sharply reduced trade with Russia, while at the same time the US is picking up the slack, didn’t skip attention of European business community.

  85. FincaInTheMountains December 31, 2014 at 6:33 am #

    The steel of monument of T-34 – the infamous Russian tank that participated in final attack on Berlin in 1945 – in the center of Berlin now carries a graffiti: “Please, come back and liberate us again“.

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  86. FincaInTheMountains December 31, 2014 at 6:39 am #

    Grateful Frenchmen still remember friendly Russian occupying force of 1814.

    The infamous Parisian “Bistros” got their name from Russkie word “BISTRO” – meaning quick, fast.

  87. Jamyang December 31, 2014 at 7:23 am #

    As disgusted as I am with the dynastic matchup in 2016, I highly doubt it be a wake up call for anyone. Zombie nations don’t do wake up calls. And for the remnant of the sentient ones, there seems little we can do about it.

  88. Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 8:05 am #

    Q writes:

    “Why is everyone so god damned dead set against human nature? I think what angers some people is that they have little worth to leverage.”

    You made a similar point a few days ago regarding upper income tax bracket rates in the fifties and sixties, And it’s a very old argument, the unjust argument of philosophy.

    From my perspective, your argument is short sighted and flawed. I presume your working career was launched in the aftermath of WW2 and at a time when the working middle class was reaping the structural benefits enacted by FDR and the Labor Movement previously. But after reaping the benefits of this macro-economic dynamic, you revert back to micro-individual “human nature” and leave a playing field that you never had to negotiate and which, in fact, was a large, macro-economic contributor to the post WW2 burgeoning middle and upper middle class America.

    Ironically, you cite your descendants as the motivating concern of your rationale. And while I agree that this is indeed natural and visceral, after a generation or two, what type of economic playing field have you really left behind for more distanced descendants?

    Moreover, the “human nature” argument is not all that convincing IMO. It’s probably human nature to run a red traffic light for purely selfish reasons or have a jack-ass good time brawl at the Mall but for the sake of civilization we impose conventions from without in order to benefit the “Whole” and by extension, the individual as well.

    I’m not stating that I’m right or your wrong; I’m stating that you have not made a very compelling argument beyond the equivalent of an infant selfishly holding on their a pacifier or security blanket. In other words, why is it a good idea to abandon macro-economic structures that benefit the whole in favor of micro-individual self-interest?

    • Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 8:11 am #

      *you’re”–correction for the sake of the post as a whole, and not the nit-picking mind 🙂

  89. Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 8:46 am #

    ‘Brunettes are fine and blondes are fun,
    but when it comes to getting a dirty job done–I’ll take a red headed.’

    http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/redhead-photo-sperm-bank-invitro/?kwp_0=6992&smid=fb-nytimes&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&bicmp=AD&smtyp=aut&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&kwp_1=119033&kwp_4=53818&_r=0

    • MisterDarling December 31, 2014 at 7:20 pm #

      This is an incredible shame Buck. We need *m o r e* gingers (redheads, strawberry-blondes, auburns etc.) in the world not fewer, yes?

      😉

  90. Cold N. Holefield December 31, 2014 at 9:41 am #

    And for the remnant of the sentient ones, there seems little we can do about it.

    This is the part I love the most. It’s Divine Justice. The ones who consider themselves sentient are anything but, so for them to feel helpless and hapless in the face of the tsunami called life is perfectly fitting.

    Go Jeb!

    There are many forms of reparations. The legacy of slavery was never properly reconciled, and if it’s not consciously done, it will unconsciously work its way out in a more dysfunctional manner. Blacks have created a culture around the lasting legacy of slavery and victimhood. Opportunistic Whites and Blacks have exploited and leveraged this cultural conditioning for all it’s worth.

    Human nature is highly malleable and adaptable. It’s a matter of getting to that mould first, though, because the first impressions are the most prominent and long-lasting. It takes considerable effort to rework an already impressioned mold. It can be done, but the odds are slim.

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  91. barbisbest December 31, 2014 at 11:05 am #

    Wow, Bush and Clinton in 2016, what a blessing. Talk about white entitled females, and the dynasties go on. All experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. American Declaration of Independence

    .Please see the documentary,The Four Horsemen!. Subjects that JHK tries to get across are discussed. Amazing piece of work the Four Horsemen. Brilliant and enlightening. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson states on it that Royal Dutch Shell postulates two different scenarios, Scramble and Blueprint for our resource predicament. These scenarios to be played out by 2075. Interestingly, Dutch Royal is betting on scramble. I quote what my father always used to say, “Come the Revolution, we’ll all be generals.” Yes, Happy New Year 2015. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”

    Eh, I’m going to register on Farmers Only.com. Cheers JHK.

  92. barbisbest December 31, 2014 at 11:13 am #

    Wow, Bush and Clinton in 2016. What a blessing Talk about white entitiled females, and the dynasties go on. All experience has shown that mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. American Declaration of Independence.

    Please see the documentary The Four Horsemen. Brilliant and enlightening. It goes over the topics that JHK tries to get across. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson states that Royal Dutch Shell posits two different scenarios for our resource issue, blueprint and scramble. These scenarios to play out by 2075. Interestingly Royal Dutch shell bets on Scramble. I quote what my father always used to say, “Come the Revolution, we’ll all be generals.” yep, Happy New Year 2015. “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night”

    Eh, I’m going to register on Farmers Only.com

  93. volodya December 31, 2014 at 12:46 pm #

    Mister Darling,

    I read the article. I guess there’s much in the world that I don’t grok.

    Such as big, honking (literally) liberals like Eleanor Clift claiming that drones are a “blessing”. Seriously. You don’t know what to say.

    OK, maybe I can say a few things. Like, maybe better than dropping canisters of napalm or B-52s unloading on whatever’s down below. But a “blessing”?

    I agree, if torture is a crime then what the hell is murder by drone? Is getting blown to shit by a drone missile is better than suffering by water-boarding?

    In any case, I don’t see that whacking a bad guy here or there moves any needle you want to move, especially when you dismember the innocent donkey-riders along-side.

    This smells to me like people having to be seen to be doing something. Including torture and drone strikes. Also smells to me like inside-the-box thinkers doing what inside-the-box thinkers always do. They think inside the box.

    No, this is what such thinking entails, no matter the obvious futility, they keep on doing what’s obviously futile. They can’t do otherwise. They don’t know how. The old ideas don’t work but they can’t entertain new ones. They just can’t. They don’t have any and, if anyone comes up with some, they won’t listen. The shot-callers obviously don’t have the intellect, they don’t have the neural flexibility to make good judgment calls. Especially ones that require changes in direction.

    You see, we all live in a world of imperfect information, we ourselves are highly imperfect when it comes to assessment of ourselves, of other people, of foreign societies, of other people’s capabilities and especially our own. Perfection in a world of imperfect and fragmentary information is impossible. But, if we’re to survive we have to make reasonably good, if imperfect, calls. Calls that align with reality.

    That requires higher orders of thinking, that is, people that are able to interpret incomplete puzzles, puzzles whose pieces move and change day by day. But Washington isn’t up to it and hasn’t been for a long time. Higher-order thinkers don’t work there.

    Maybe you’re right, maybe it eventually comes down to elite factions duking it out among themselves. It wouldn’t be anything new.

    • MisterDarling December 31, 2014 at 6:36 pm #

      Volodya,

      re | “Maybe you’re right, maybe it eventually comes down to elite factions duking it out among themselves. It wouldn’t be anything new.”-vol.

      The salient thing about that article is one point: if the NYT (which performs the same function that Fox-‘News’ does, but with a ‘centrist/moderate’ slant) is calling out the reigning administration and the one previous for war-crimes, it’s an *indication*.

      Specifically it means that a schism between top-0.10%-ers has opened up. In other words, some people that actually _matter_ in the big-picture feel threatened by the clique of desperate whack-jobs fronted by Dick Cheney et al. They see the direction that the neocon, would-be ‘philosopher kings’ are heading, and how badly they’ve effed-up already and they don’t like it.

      That’s worth noticing.

      Since ancient Athens and Rome, the flip-flop of power between ‘the people’ and the oligarchs depended on moments of instability at either end of the political power spectrum. When oligarchs overplayed their collective hand they destabilized the political system (which they need as a vehicle for wealth ‘creation’). At that point *war* – hot or cold – broke out among them, then one of the factions made a populist appeal to the masses to gain leverage, and that’s when the pendulum of political power would swing back in the direction of the average person-on-the-street, OR a tyrant took control for a time, purged the ranks of the political class and then flamed out.

      I’m not saying that this is what is going to happen in our case – we have a lot more issues in the air than any previous civilization ever did – but if I wanted to feel guardedly optimistic about something, this might be it.

  94. barbisbest December 31, 2014 at 12:48 pm #

    Hey Janos, that new age happy horsecrap book. This is a new age, the age of Aquarius. We’ve left the age of Pisces. So, in fact this is a new age. interesting to note ancients used to gauge time that way. Fact too, and I do believe and know, there are more psychics alive today than at any period in history. New age, yes we are in one.

    If I may say, Clinton in 2016, Oh happy day. The brain in search of a soul. Speaking of amazing souls. Cheers JHK. Happy New Year Janos! Who loves ya baby?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 2:54 pm #

      All real Traditions are clear that the World is getting worse and will continue to do so until the end of this Aeon – which is mercifully near. Mohammad said this “World” would end when building were very high and a lot of people began to cross dress. Have you gone outside lately?

      Obviously these are just two easily verified symptoms – there are countless other signs of break down. Kali Yuga is here in spades. The symbol of Kali Yuga is a Black Man beating a cow btw, apropos of nothing (everything).

      Thus Mr Kunstler, who has no apparent interest in the Esoteric, is more attuned to it than New Agers like you are.

  95. Q. Shtik December 31, 2014 at 3:00 pm #

    The best we can hope for is a repl[a]y of 1932 and a[n] FDR type Democrat arises to take over the sinking ship with drastic money controls ie 90% marginal rate and death tax without foundation loop holes. – Edward4432

    =================

    I have been mulling how best to articulate a response to Edward’s line of thinking and to Gutenberg, and Buck and many others and even to Janos, who think similarly.

    I was reading a movie review – A Most Violent Year – which contained this sentence: “The movie entwines two old sayings; behind every great man there is a great woman, and behind every great fortune there is a great crime.

    To those aphorisms let’s add “It takes a village” and “every fight is fixed.”

    The common belief of the natural born leftie: One’s “good fortune” was either ill gotten or, at a minimum, could be attributed to society……..and so, it is only right and fair that society take 90% of it for society’s needs and, further, tax the hell out of whatever remains at death so that the offspring don’t benefit …….. after all, what makes THEM worthy of a windfall? What part did THEY play in the accumulation of the wealth they would otherwise enjoy?

    I say, if crimes were committed in the accumulation of wealth, prove it and take it all away. Otherwise, what right does society have in determining how much wealth someone feels they need to leave to their posterity? Keep your nose out of other people’s business… it’s none of your bees wax.

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    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 3:15 pm #

      No. I’m a National Socialist and they are Marxist Socialists. We would “entice” the Rich to play right or tax them into penury. Regular Joes would benefit and could pass their estates on as they will. In your absence I tried to debate this with Mr Darling. It was far too sacred for him to talk about with any but those who already agreed with him. Sacred means Scared in this case.

      Think of how many jobs would come back if we drove the 30 million illegals out. We would do it. Conservatives are chicken shits compared to us. They are not the bogie men the Liberals make them out to be – we are though. We would not do business with Companies that outsourced to China or India. We might even drive them out of America completely. But they could take their wealth – private ownership is too precious to monkey with. One caveat though: if a private company or a handful of them control a key industry like oil, then by definition it’s no longer private per se. That doesn’t mean confiscation or anything like that. That means they are part of the Elite and have a some big Duties in regard to the People and the Nation. And again the refrain, if they refuse to act responsibly they can take their wealth and leave. The Industry would stay under new management of our choosing.

      • Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 3:55 pm #

        You paint a idealized picture of National Socialism but how do you square that with the historical reality, the NAZI invasions of neighboring countries? (And just to be up front, I anticipate you will invoke German military necessity in light of other post WW1 circumstances that had a deleterious effect upon Germany.)

        The logical contradiction I see in your statement is ‘keeping the elite in line’ By definition the Elite are the decision makers so they would in effect be policing themselves. Most likely these types would not be the stuff of “Philosopher Kings” hence the fly in the idealized ointment.

        BTW, I don’t consider myself a Marxist. In fact I could settle for pure Libertarian setting but that is pure fantasy as well. In fact they all are. It seems no pure economic system is politically possible. As one systems seeks to romp another system attaches a hitch in the giddyup so potential is never realized. In other words, a perpetual Clusterfuck.

        One thing I am fairy certain of is unlimited immigration in a social welfare state as advocated by PKRugman is simply absurd…like offering a helping hand to a pool of quicksand desperation. The helping hand gets pulled under too and nobody survives.

        • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 6:58 pm #

          Nazi is a Jewish word btw. They are sensitive to sound qualities as befits jingle writers and Ad Men. They like that hard Z sound that would help put over that inhuman image they were pushing. Calling us National Socialists would only get people thinking – and they wanted and still want as little of that as possible. Read London, Debbs, etc. National Socialism is an American Tradition too. We’d have nothing if it wasn’t for the Unions. Now the Unions believe the same things as the Management and are all for the Amnesty. You’d think that would wake people up, but it typically doesn’t. Marxism was always there, but now it has conquered completely and they don’t have to pretend to be for the workers anymore. Or for the Nation.

          Yes and No on German National Socialism. The Russians were massing an enormous force on the border, so Hitler stuck first. The people greeted him as a Liberator and he treated them like slaves. He did have designs on Eastern Europe and I can’t agree with him on that. Needless to say if you’ve followed my logic, this doesn’t negate the concept of National Socialism. Franco never did anything like this. But I agree that Fascism has been associated with militarism and excessive hero worship. Fascism 2.0, also called Identitarianism, remedies these defects.

          As long as you believe the tenets of Howard Zinn, you will be mistaken for a Marxist and will in fact be one to some extent.

      • Q. Shtik December 31, 2014 at 4:33 pm #

        For such a smart fella it is amazing that you don’t see the flaw in your thinking implied by these phrases:

        . We would “entice” the Rich to **play right**
        . if they refuse to **act responsibly**
        . new management of **our choosing.**

        • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 6:48 pm #

          No, I know. But Someone has to be in charge Q. Since you people refuse to see that, by default the wrong people get in. In our case, the Plutocrats. Libertarianism or “big fish eats little fish” is just Plutocracy disguised, as the Oak Tree is concealed in the acorn.

          If Americans really wanted to maintain the System passed down to them from the Founders, they would never have allowed the growth of parties or factions – which the Founders condemned. And there’s lots more: the need for a moral code. You seem like a smart fella, do you really think they were Libertarians? Do you really think they would be Ok with the open production and sale of pornography? Of abortion? Etc. The French Revolutionaries would more than Ok with these things: they put Whores inside the Churches to be worshiped as Goddesses. Some of the Founders loved France and had an early infatuation with the Revolution. They repented thoroughly once things really got rolling and the terror began. Indeed Washington and Adams took steps the curb the influx of the Illuminati into the American Lodges.

  96. Cold N. Holefield December 31, 2014 at 3:05 pm #

    Seven bodies have been recovered from the sea, some fully clothed, which could indicate the Airbus A320-200 was intact when it hit the water. That would support a theory that it suffered an aerodynamic stall.

    Tatang Zaenudin, an official with Indonesia’s search and rescue agency, said earlier that one of the bodies had been found wearing a life jacket.

    But he later said no victim had been recovered with a life jacket on.

    At least get the story straight if you’re going to make shit up. If it was a stall, the pilot would have had plenty of time to radio a distress call and send an emergency distress signal. He did none of that. I think there’s a Big Lie afoot, but a lap dog press will record rather than question.

  97. Cold N. Holefield December 31, 2014 at 3:13 pm #

    I say, if crimes were committed in the accumulation of wealth, prove it and take it all away. Otherwise, what right does society have in determining how much wealth someone feels they need to leave to their posterity? Keep your nose out of other people’s business… it’s none of your bees wax.

    I’m all about looking out for me, myself and I, and as such, if that means taking what you think is your’s then by golly, that’s what I’m going to do because it’s human nature to look out for No.1 above all else. Right? Or do you retract upon further review?

    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 3:20 pm #

      The philosophy of Gypsies, Irish Travelers, Fake Construction Companies, and Grifters of all kinds. That’s why Government grows – this kind of irresponsibility. It’s either regulate or allow people to track down the Grifters and take retribution upon them.

      Our Current Business and Banking Elite are just these kind of Grifters. And they do plan to leave town for once they have sucked all the blood out of America. They will drop the corpse and leave it for the ghetto vultures to devour as they fly off to Australia, China, South America, etc.

    • Q. Shtik December 31, 2014 at 4:58 pm #

      Cold, you have, of course, put a nasty and negative spin on my personal philosophy and, I might add, the personal philosophy of nearly all humans if they just had the balls to admit it and were not cowed by political correctness. And so, let me try rephrasing your reply into something closer to the truth:

      I’m all about looking out for myself and my family first and for others to the degree I feel is appropriate, and as such, if that means keeping, using and enjoying what I have earned and or stumbled upon through shear good luck then by golly, that’s what I’m going to do because it’s literally impossible to purposely do what one feels is not in their own best interest.

      • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 7:02 pm #

        So you agree there has to be regulation to protect people from hucksters, conmen, and grifters? Or do you support personal vendetta or posses of citizens who would do what must needs be done to such miscreants?

        It has to be one or the other.

  98. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 6:26 pm #

    “a lap dog press will record rather than question.” –Cold

    Cold, a lap dog is pretty lazy. Just sits in a lap. Does nothing really.

    Our press, on the other hand is not a lap dog. Our press works, moves from place to place, carries heavy cameras, takes notes verbatim. The press carefully records and in good stenographic fashion, passes along to the public the information recorded. It is hard work. Ask BRH, who works the night shift at spreading propaganda, i.e., he works at a newspaper.

  99. Cold N. Holefield December 31, 2014 at 6:39 pm #

    Our press, on the other hand is not a lap dog.

    Our press? I won’t speak, or I should say type, for others here, but it’s certainly not my press and despite your sedulously generous characterization of “your” press, it most certainly is a lap dog. A lap dog sits in the powerful, all-encompassing lap of its owner providing that master secure and predictable comfort and companionship — precisely what “your” press does for its owners/masters — of the universe.

  100. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 6:46 pm #

    “One thing I am fairy certain of is unlimited immigration in a social welfare state as advocated by PKRugman is simply absurd…like offering a helping hand to a pool of quicksand desperation.” — Buck Stud

    Buck Stud, this country was founded by immigrants and built by immigrants. Americans will never turn their backs on immigrants because history has shown immigrants make America better. And, unless you have drunk the kool-aid, you will admit that immigrants make this country vital through infusions of intelligence, innovation, and a willingness to work hard to help their families. Even Q. says all he wants is to look out for himself and his family. That is all immigrants want to do, also. Immigrants are and have always been a net positive for America. I am proud to be an American. I welcome the millions of new immigrants (legal or illegal) to America. America is where they want to be, and I am happy they are here, too. I do not buy into the scarcity scare-talk of P4W nor do I accept your claim that unlimited immigration is absurd. High population density does not equal poverty or third world status. Check the stats. I wish you a Happy New Year in our multicultural, multiracial, America. You should stay and enjoy your new neighbors. Immigrants are here to stay.

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    • Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 10:21 pm #

      Pat Kelly Rugman,

      You know I agree with a lot of what you write in your post. But I was specifically talking about your espousal of a tsunami immigration policy.

      In painting they talk about “shape” as a critical aspect of the process. A good shape in graphic/painting terms is one distinct shape of color with one distinct value. The term ‘muddy painting/color’ really has nothing to do with color but with a shape that is comprised of competing colors and values that are poorly defined as a result.(And BTW, the transitional shapes between distinct shapes of color are also considered shapes that strategically ‘lead the eye’ around the composition. For instance, if two adjacent colors are strongly disparate in color and value, a transitional shape might be a mixture of the two and which acts as a bridge The point being, is the process is not a haphazard free for all.)

      So a color composition is comprised of various shapes of color–say, the best of De Kooning.

      You, on the other hand, seem to be advocating ‘drip paintings’. Yes, some beautiful visual happenstance may occur but more likely than not, such a unconsidered approach inevitably results in visual chaos that lacks the alacrity of considered design.

      In my mind, the manner in which you champion immigration invokes Jackson Pollack flinging paint. And that’s just not my cup of tea thank you very kindly 🙂

  101. Cold N. Holefield December 31, 2014 at 7:06 pm #

    Cold, you have, of course, put a nasty and negative spin on…blah….blah….blah….and more blah.

    Thank you for elaborating on your “personal philosophy.” Unlike you, I don’t have one — a personal philosophy. Nor do I want one. Too restricting.

    I didn’t mean to impugn your character or cast aspersions, I was merely trying to evoke a clarification, and I did. You know I think highly of you — I always have. You are one of the kindest, bravest, warmist, most wonderful human beings I’ve ever known in my life. Raymond Shaw is a close second.

    That being said (uh oh), I have one request. Please don’t use the word “nasty” so much — it makes you appear gay. I know you’re not, or at least I think you’re not gay, but calling things “nasty” is part of the gay lexicon so you might want to choose another descriptor. It reminds me of a friend from way back. Tim was his name. He was a friend in high school and college. Tim was a great guy in every way — he was amiable, if not a bit shy and subdued. On occasion Tim and I would hit the bar on a Friday or Saturday night, and one such night I could hold my tongue no longer. Tim was due for a redirect or more precisely some friendly feedback from a trusted source. See, Tim was somewhat effeminate. He wasn’t gay, or I’m fairly certain he wasn’t, but he spoke with a quiet lisp and he was loose with his limbs, especially his wrists. When we were leaning into the bar throwing back some drinks one uneventful weekend night, he was resting his elbow on the wood with his arm in the vertical position and his wrist as limp as the dick of some poor slob with erectile disfunction. Being the statesman I was and am, I diplomatically informed him that by virtue of the way he held himself, some might consider him gay and by virtue of the fact I was accompanying him at the bar, I might also be considered gay. I told him to buck up and act like a man. He took the advice like a champ and admitted that he never realized he acted effeminately. Of course, like so many before him and after, he relapsed into old habits. A year or two later, we were at a bar and he was up to his effeminate ways again. He went to the bathroom and upon his return informed me he was approached and solicited by a gay guy. I told him, “I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.” We lost touch over the years so I’m not sure if he’s still effeminate now or not, but I do know he’s married with several children. Hopefully he didn’t pass the effeminate gene on to them — or not the males at least. Anyway, you remind me of Tim. That’s a compliment by the way, not an insult.

    • Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 9:56 pm #

      LOL–great story!

      A while back ago here on CFN, Q recalled some early career business travels and some other exploits such as a dance floor encounter (hope my memory is not flawed). If words could draw a picture, Q’s self portrait looked an awful lot like Don Draper to me at the time.

      But now that I think about, I have never heard Don Draper utter the word, nasty.

  102. Pucker December 31, 2014 at 9:43 pm #

    I wish the Great Russian People a Happy New Year!

  103. Pucker December 31, 2014 at 10:14 pm #

    I’m now reading Charles Murray’s book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America”. Have any of you CFNerds ever read “The Bell Curve”? I’ve read mixed reviews of the book.

    • malthuss January 1, 2015 at 9:44 pm #

      Ah, TBC.Cover to cover it is about 850 pages with too many charts.
      I am looking at it right now.
      I read it long ago and it was an eye opening read.

      For me one of the most shocking parts was on page 419.
      That is a NJ HS entrance exams questions.
      Entrance exam not exit.

      I could not answer the questions.

      [Name three events of 1777 and why were they important].

  104. Pucker December 31, 2014 at 10:35 pm #

    In the movie “Forrest Gump”:

    A. Did Forrest really know what love is? Or was he just conflicted due to his Momma fixation, anger due to his Daddy being on vacation, his Momma’s fornicating with the Greenbow County school superintendent, and his lust for Jenny?
    B. Was the reason that Jenny didn’t have sex with Forrest because she thought he was “Stupid” and lousy in bed, or because she wanted to Pussy Whip Forrest as a vicarious way to get even with her daddy?

    • Buck Stud December 31, 2014 at 11:32 pm #

      Jenny was one of those women in a perpetual state of “finding herself”.
      And God help the man who falls in love with that type.

      Vincent van Gogh wrote down some thoughts on women:

      http://www.vggallery.com/letters/177_V-R_R04.pdf

    • Janos Skorenzy December 31, 2014 at 11:53 pm #

      She was looking for the Alpha, the best man she could get. Forest was a beloved friend, but far too much of retard. But finally she gave him a mercy fuck when she saw how much pain he was in. Thus Jenny redeemed herself, by fucking a wise retard with a heart of gold. Go Thou and do likewise. But I warn you, good looking female retards are hard to find. Most of them get taken or “used up” if you know what I mean pretty early.

  105. pkrugman December 31, 2014 at 11:52 pm #

    “But I was specifically talking about your espousal of a tsunami immigration policy.” — Buck Stud

    OK, point taken. I can see how my advocacy of “unlimited” immigration is frightening. So, let’s limit immigration mathematically to only twice the current quotas. That way it is not an uncontrolled “tsunami” …. rather a gradual and controlled increase in the number of immigrants.

    Currently there are about 42 million immigrants, or about 13% of the population. We can begin by doubling that number, say from 42 million to 84 million. Of course, it will take 2 decades to reach 2x the current population. At that point another rational decision can be made.

    Perhaps changing the number from 1x to 2x would at least prevent you from using the Jackson Pollock image of “flinging paint.” Let’s increase immigration rationally, starting with twice the current number. 2x. The number 2 is not that scary, is it? There is really nothing to be afraid of.

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    • capt spaulding January 2, 2015 at 12:37 pm #

      There is a limit to everything. It depends on your opinion as to what is enough when it comes to immigration. In my opinion, 11 million illegal immigrants is a tidal wave, not just a few people sneaking across the border. Look at the demographic projections. Hispanics are poised to become the majority ethnic group by around 2050. I like to visit Mexico, but I don’t want to live there, and I don’t want this country to become another Mexico. Most people who come here aren’t interested in becoming Americans, they want to import their culture along with them. Look at the immigration legalization marches a couple years ago, the majority of flags carried were Mexican, not American. They finally had to be told by organizers to leave the Mexican flags at home, because it looked bad. I know I’ll be called a racist, but it won’t be the first time. There have been about 75,000 people murdered there in the last three years or so, and that behavior will move north right along with them. Mexico is a failed state.

  106. pkrugman January 1, 2015 at 2:00 am #

    “But I warn you, good looking female retards are hard to find. Most of them get taken or “used up” if you know what I mean pretty early.” –Janos

    Janos, I find this comment to be misogynistic and offensive. Are you not counting on recruiting women to help you with your race war and the imposition of a national socialist government? Or do you believe women should not vote or participate in political action? What I heard is that women are as smart as men, if not smarter, and women hold up half the sky. Your degradation of women is disgusting. This is not your first such anti-woman comment. Apparently you do not recognize the inherent divinity of women. “Used up”? Sick comment you have made, Janos.

  107. FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 2:01 am #

    US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser heads machinations against Russian economy

    Some may think that the drop in the Russian ruble’s value is a result of the market acting on its own while others who recognize that there is market manipulation involved may turn around and blame it on the Russian government and Vladimir Putin. This process, however, has been guided by US machinations. It is simply not a result of the market acting on its own or the result of Kremlin policies. It is the result of US objectives and policy that deliberately targets Russia for destabilization and devastation.

    Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland — the wife of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and neo-conservative advocate for empire Robert Kagan—and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the objectives of the US economic sanctions strategy against the Russian Federation was not only to damage the trade ties and business between Russia and the EU, but to also bring about economic instability in Russia and to create currency instability and inflation.

    In other words, the US government was targeting the Russian ruble for devaluation and the Russian economy for inflation since at least May 2014.

    It appears that the US is trying to manipulate the Kremlin into spending Russia’s resources and fiscal reserves to fight the inflation of the Russian ruble that Washington has engineered.

    The Kremlin, however, will not take the bait and be goaded into depleting the approximately $419 billion (US) foreign currency reserves and gold holdings of the Russian Federation or any of Russia’s approximately 8.4 trillion ruble reserves in an effort to prop the declining value of the Russian ruble.

    Putin emphasized this again when answering Vyacheslav Terekhov’s question by saying that the Russian government and Russian Central Bank “should not hand out our gold and foreign currency reserves or burn them on the market, but provide lending resources”

    The Kremlin understands what Washington is trying to do. The US is replaying old game plans against Russia. The energy price manipulation, the currency devaluation, and even US attempts to entrap Russia in a conflict with its sister-republic Ukraine are all replays of US tactics that have been used before during the Cold War and after 1991. For example, dragging Russia into Ukraine would be a replay of how the US dragged the Soviet Union into Afghanistan whereas the manipulation of energy prices and currency markets would parallel the US strategy used to weaken and destabilize Baathist Iraq, Iran, and the Soviet Union during the Afghan-Soviet War and Iran-Iran War.

    Instead of trying to stop the value of the ruble from dropping, the Kremlin appears to have decided to strategically invest in Russia’s human capital.

    Russia’s national reserve funds will be used to diversify the national economy and strengthen the social and public sectors.

    Despite the economic warfare against Russia, this is exactly why the wages of teachers in schools, professors in post-secondary institutions of learning and training, employees of cultural institutions, doctors in hospitals and clinics, paramedics, and nurses — the most important sectors for developing Russia’s human capital and capacity — have all been raised.

    http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/12/26/from-energy-war-currency-war-america-attack-russian-ruble.html

  108. FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 3:42 am #

    Sorry, America, the New World Order Is Dead

    As Moscow continues to threaten a broader invasion — most recently demanding that Kiev withdraw its troops from eastern Ukraine — America’s indignant response reveals a great deal about how its leaders think about international norms.

    Unfortunately, it is the Americans, not the Russians, who are trapped in a time warp. They believe that the legal norms promoted by the United States during its brief period of global hegemony — which started in 1991 and has eroded over the last decade – are still in force. They aren’t.

    http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/06/sorry-america-the-new-world-order-is-dead/

  109. FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 3:50 am #

    “I wish the Great Russian People a Happy New Year!” — Pucker

    Are that the same “God Damn Russians that rip’ n off the Chinese” you’re wishing a Happy New Year for?

    • Pucker January 1, 2015 at 4:30 am #

      We need to have a trial, and if the Russians wrongfully stole Siberia from the Chinese, then the Russians need to make reparations.

      • FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 5:02 am #

        Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had said Siberia held too many resources for Russia alone.

        Should Madeleine Albright and similar comprise the panel of judges of such “hypothetical trial”?

        Stop salivating, Pucker…

  110. FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 4:27 am #

    Hong Kong protests are closely tied to the Oslo Freedom Forum

    Far from being “impromptu demonstrations,” the ongoing Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong was plotted nearly two years ago with the involvement of overseas forces, the BBC has reported in an article published on its website. It is an “open secret” at the Oslo Freedom Forum, which is referred to as “one of the biggest meetings of human rights activists in the world,” that plans were hatched for the demonstrations nearly two years ago, wrote Laura Kuenssberg, chief correspondent of BBC Newsnight, in the article. “Democracy activists” from around the world have helped “organize their struggle, gather together,” said the article.

    Before the “Oslo Freedom Forum” the events of Arab Spring were orchestrated from “Alliance of Youth Movements” – similar organization.

    Same “suspects” appeared in both organizations. For instance, the two-bit whores who enjoy masturbating on the church’s pulpit from Russian punk group “Pussy Riot” were noticed in Oslo.

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  111. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 5:33 am #

    The Russians used to be Communists. Why-the-fuck would someone be a Communist? I don’t even like to share the bathroom. In a shared bathroom situation there’s always some asshole who pisses on the toilet seat.

  112. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 5:41 am #

    I have a strong ethic about using communal facilities: I never urinate in the gym shower, and I never piss in the public swimming pool.

    • FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 7:22 am #

      Does your “strong ethic” include not salivating on public forums?

  113. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 7:55 am #

    The oppressed worker or oppressed negro would probably find the thought of urinating in the white American capitalist oppressor’s swimming pool rather appealing?

  114. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 8:15 am #

    Did Jeb Bush also attend Andover, like GW and GW, Jr.?

  115. Buck Stud January 1, 2015 at 9:47 am #

    Evidently, some Russians are every bit as disrespectful as some Americans. Perhaps these types should organize a get together at “The Mall”.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2886329/The-stores-stripes-Russian-shops-anti-sentiment-putting-American-flag-doormats-customers-wipe-feet-on.html

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    • Buck Stud January 1, 2015 at 9:55 am #

      People crack me up. From the comment section in above article:

      –“We gotta place a giant US doormat at the entry to Crimea. Gotta keep the beautiful landscape clean.

      –“Russia. A nation of drunken fathers and deserted single mothers desperately seeking American husbands on internet marriage agencies.”

      –“Many Brits (and other EU nationals) would buy such a doormat for themselves and their friends.”

  116. Cold N. Holefield January 1, 2015 at 10:08 am #

    Are you not counting on recruiting women to help you with your race war and the imposition of a national socialist government?

    He’d be a fool to exclude women from the effort to build the Fourth Reich. Women have proven many times over they are more capable Nazis than men. If Hitler was a woman and not merely a crossdresser perhaps we’d all be blond, blue-eyed and speaking German today. Look at Hillary Clinton — there’s a woman Hitler would be proud to call his daughter and his lover. Her thirst for absolute power knows no bounds, and there is nothing she wouldn’t do, and nothing she hasn’t done, to attain it including wiping the cum off Monica’s chin with one of her father’s heirloom hankies after the young, voluptuous intern was done blowing Bill’s crooked cock.

  117. FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 10:35 am #

    Oliver Stone: ‘CIA fingerprints’ all over Kiev massacre

    The armed coup in Kiev is painfully similar to CIA operations to oust unwanted foreign leaders in Iran, Chile and Venezuela, said US filmmaker Oliver Stone after interviewing Ukraine’s ousted president for a documentary.

    Stone spent four hours in Moscow talking to Viktor Yanukovich, who was deposed from power during the February 2014 coup

    https://www.facebook.com/TheOliverStone/posts/901387646552202

  118. FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 10:51 am #

    Finca Forecast for 2015: It aint gona be boring

  119. Cold N. Holefield January 1, 2015 at 11:18 am #

    Oliver Stone: ‘CIA fingerprints’ all over Kiev massacre

    Cold N. Holefield: ‘CIA fingerprints’ all over Oliver Stone

  120. pkrugman January 1, 2015 at 12:25 pm #

    2016 will be the first time we have two pro-immigrant candidates. Jeb, being married to a Mexican, has a special place in his heart for immigrants. Jeb will not associate with the racist anti-immigrant crowd (NumbersUSA and FAIR)

    MIAMI (AP) — Separating himself from much of the emerging Republican presidential field, Jeb Bush has declined an invitation to speak at a political event organized by one of Congress’ most strident immigration critics.

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  121. Karah January 1, 2015 at 2:36 pm #

    President Obama has been avoiding martyrdom since day one in my mind. Every President, regardless of color, has inspired as much hate as admiration. I believe a lot of people would like to take him out of the race literally and figuratively speaking if HE decided to “change” things for corporate America. He would have been labelled a dictator much like Kim of North Korea. If not killed, he would have definitely lost his second term of “service”. That level of change definitely would have paved the way for a Third party because the money would be evenly spread. Politics is about money and power and always has been, ignore the liberal media’s dreams of a true democracy, we never had one to begin with. I believe President Obama was put in office by the Clinton dynasty.

    The United States Constitution never begins to challenge money and power – it made it more stable. As a result of stability of leadership we have more economic growth and in turn we have more corrupt leadership banking on more economic growth instead of a “balanced” future. The Constitution does not work when a country’s people can’t work and if the Revolutionary War had been prolonged, if the continental congress had been arrested, tried and put to death, life as we know it now would not exist. Most of us would be speaking some dialect of Native American, Spanish, French or Dutch/German as a first language with the entire Eastern coast functioning much like Toronto. It would take a huge amount of analysis to consider all the variables of history but things usually hinge on one or two key events…some of them man made and some of them not. The weather usually has a lot to do with historical changes and outcomes.

    My theories have more to do with the mortality of men in the Presidential office than the actual personality. A politician is a politician, they all have to be able to lie and or believe the lie.
    Let’s say Obama dies in an “accidental” way instead of a blatant attack. Could you imagine what Biden would do or not do? How many running for president take their age into consideration? I think Hillary is too old and tired now and she passed her chance to win to Obama and he took the pass of the ball in the game in order to lay up riches for himself and his family to start a new dynasty. I think what got him under her wing is that he promised her he would make sure their baby, healthcare plan, would get all the attention and pass. He made a lot of promises to the Bush Dynasty, too, and we heard it all in the address to the (elite) nation. I don’t believe Obama ever learned how to talk to “his people” of color in a way that would make any difference in the culture, unlike MLK. He understood early on that their problems were spiritual problems and not those that could be addressed with politics. He never had an identity crisis, he understood what he had to do in order to protect himself and his family and that’s something shared by all races. That leads naturally into his lenient immigration policies. Most of the immigration debate is racially charged because a predominant amount of illegals are Latinos with similar traits and languages. Now we have Puerto Rico opening up because of the work done by the first Sec. of State…you don’t have to be President to make changes, just have powerful influence. The office of President is considered the most powerful and influential in the world and still is. However, I think Hillary took a lot of that thunder with her into all her seats of political power.

    2015 is going to be a year of sit back and watch as the work is being done by people you wouldn’t have expected to do it.

    • MisterDarling January 1, 2015 at 5:33 pm #

      “Most of us would be speaking some dialect of Native American, Spanish, French or Dutch/German as a first language with the entire Eastern coast functioning much like Toronto.”-k.

      And: slavery would have been abolished on or before the date that it was in the rest of the British Empire; And there would have been no American Civil War, and therefore no ‘need’ for 600,000 combatants and a 1M+ civilians to die, or for a large and attractive portion of North America to remain enshrouded in stupidity and willful ignorance…

      So, this would be an unfortunate turn of events how?

      🙂

      “I think what got him under her wing is that he promised her he would make sure their baby, healthcare plan, would get all the attention and pass.”-k.

      Thus passing the ACA and thus accelerating the impoverishment of the average citizen – further destabilizing the economy… Brilliant.

      /s

      “I don’t believe Obama ever learned how to talk to “his people” of color in a way that would make any difference in the culture, unlike MLK.”-k.

      Because they’re not “his people”. In very simple terms he’s a mulatto raised by scions of an elite family under elite circumstances. He doesn’t have a thing in common with the average African American – and it shows – and they’re have been a lot of people from that community that did and do voice this. This is why he was groomed by the finance sector (via Rahm Emmanuel, his ‘liaison’), why they supported him financially 2:1 during the campaign of 2008 and why he paused his campaign to help force a ‘yes’ vote for the TARP funding at the drop of a hat.

      He was selected to play a role, he did that repeatedly. Now it’s time to roll out the next useful fool for election – or so the thinking goes.

      Meanwhile, the world and it’s non-subjective reality has other plans.

      😉

      • Karah January 1, 2015 at 11:03 pm #

        having different states based on ethnicity and culture is bad for unification of purpose to have a common defense and become a dominate world economic power. its harder to decide what language to do business and english as we know it is a fairly new language made up from other languages. we do not speak pure old english and the constitution was written in a more direct modern usage as opposed to the old english or kings english. they had been overseas for a hundred years by now and had several generations of education outside of britain and it shows. they were free to study and interpret many things and thus the enlightenment etc.

        • Q. Shtik January 1, 2015 at 11:30 pm #

          to have a common defense and become a [dominate] world economic power. – Karah

          ===============

          [dominant]

  122. MisterDarling January 1, 2015 at 3:35 pm #

    There is quite a lot of chatter about the Saudi’s being the primary cause of the oil price collapse. I think that they saw an existing trend on jumped on it.

    __Demand__ is the primary reason for the price drop:

    Occam’s Razor says it’s Demand;
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-01/occams-oil

    T-Boone Pickens; it’s “Demand”;
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-23/t-boone-pickens-rages-cnbc-i-am-expert-not-you-says-oil-down-due-weak-demand

    The reason that mainstream ‘human-jukebox’ economists shy away from the Demand explanation is because of what it implies about the near future…

    Happy New Year!

    😉

    • FincaInTheMountains January 1, 2015 at 3:51 pm #

      I saw an abyss and jumped into it…Nice explanation for oil producing monarchy that balances it budget at 90/barrel oil….

      • MisterDarling January 1, 2015 at 5:03 pm #

        The House of Sa’ud is running the highest budget deficit they ever have, right now.

  123. MisterDarling January 1, 2015 at 5:01 pm #

    I’ve observed Paul Craig Roberts viewpoint evolve for the past ten years. Where he is now is something quite different than where he started.

    But on the other hand, who can blame him? “New information has come to light”… What choice did he have?

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/31/the-outlook-for-the-new-year/

    Signature Quote:

    “Russia and China should give no warning. They should just act.”-pcr.

  124. Buck Stud January 1, 2015 at 7:59 pm #

    PKRugman writes:

    ” I can see how my advocacy of “unlimited” immigration is frightening. So, let’s limit immigration mathematically to only twice the current quotas. That way it is not an uncontrolled “tsunami” …. rather a gradual and controlled increase in the number of immigrants.

    Currently there are about 42 million immigrants, or about 13% of the population. We can begin by doubling that number, say from 42 million to 84 million. Of course, it will take 2 decades to reach 2x the current population. At that point another rational decision can be made.

    Perhaps changing the number from 1x to 2x would at least prevent you from using the Jackson Pollock image of “flinging paint.” Let’s increase immigration rationally, starting with twice the current number. 2x. The number 2 is not that scary, is it? There is really nothing to be afraid of.”

    ———————————————————————————

    There is nothing “rational” about your proposed immigration numbers. In fact, ‘rationalism’ is not how a national immigration policy should be conducted. Rationalism implies a innate, indubitable truth such as a mathematical proof/geometry theorem. And since were talking about the United States the closest thing to any sort of rational source from which a deductive policy proposition can be made is the Constitution. Thus, your claim of a rational approach to immigration doesn’t fly.

    An empirical approach, on the other hand, would work. For example, if unemployment is high, immigration would be severely restricted. If unemployment is low and Americans are not available or trained to fill a certain demand, then immigration numberscould be adjusted accordingly.

    But to suggest that a certain set number of immigration quota is an inalienable. a-priori policy that descends downward from ‘rational’ source is utterly ridiculous. The truly sane and logical approach is the exact opposite: determine facts on the ground empirically– a posteriori –and then determine a course of action.

    You’re still flinging mud at the canvas Rugman.

    • Q. Shtik January 1, 2015 at 8:25 pm #

      You’re still flinging mud at the canvas Rugman. – Buck

      =================

      Buck, you should stop corresponding with Krug as though he was serious about his immigration proposal. He is not the least bit serious. His intent is to piss off a certain segment of commenters (you, me, Janos, Prog, etc) by suggesting with a straight face that we start off by ONLY allowing in twice the current 42 million.

      • Janos Skorenzy January 1, 2015 at 10:46 pm #

        He always had a weakness when it came to this poster. I used to think it was because the poster was ostensibly Black. But it seems deeper than that.

        But Krug’s logic, why not bring all of the World’s billions here? Think what it would do for the economy and cultural enrichment. And the rest of the world? Turn it into a Global Park for Nature and Nature lovers.

      • Buck Stud January 2, 2015 at 9:45 am #

        Oh thanks a lot Q for the heads up. All this time I had PKRugman/Asoka pegged as a sincere, hard-working retiree, building global housing down on a New Mexico commune while touting the liberation of an ascetic lifestyle–living happily on his 1200 dollar a month SS check.

        A highly intelligent black man in the vein of Gil Scott Heron- say it loud,say it proud, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”–Lord have mercy!

        But no, you have to burst my bubble and inform me that PK is nothing but the cyber equivalent of an pasty white Ferris Bueller, pushing buttons and shooting spit wads. I’m deeply disappointed:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDfbWDLNjjE

    • Janos Skorenzy January 1, 2015 at 10:43 pm #

      Rational can also mean reasonable in a human sense within a given context. Thus it’s reasonable to let a dying person die without trying to keep them alive at incredible expense and pain. Or it’s reasonable to let babies be born instead of butchering them in vitro.

      Thus Herr Krugs is a most unreasonable man. One get the impression who isn’t trying very hard to fight against it either.

  125. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 8:08 pm #

    Isn’t the word “Ruble” a derogatory word in German for a robber or a bandit?

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  126. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 8:09 pm #

    The Charles Murray book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America”, is quite good. Murray compares the US today vs the US in 1963 from a class perspective. I didn’t realize how remarkably egalitarian the US was in 1963.

  127. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 8:12 pm #

    Siberian was part of China during the Yuan Dynasty, and the Russians later “rubled” the Chinese out of Siberia during the Qing Dynasty.

  128. pkrugman January 1, 2015 at 8:18 pm #

    “And since were talking about the United States the closest thing to any sort of rational source from which a deductive policy proposition can be made is the Constitution.” –Buck Stud

    Great. Let’s look at the Constitution, Buck Stud, because the Constitution supports my open border preference. The Preamble to the Constitution states that the document’s purpose is to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

    Some opponents of immigration claim that the inclusion of the phrase “ourselves and our posterity” suggests that the Constitution was only meant to benefit present US citizens and their descendants, thereby justifying the US government in ignoring the rights and welfare of potential migrants in making decisions on immigration policy.

    However, the term “posterity,” as used in the Preamble, is probably metaphorical rather than literal – denoting future residents of the United States in general rather than merely just those who were citizens in 1787 and their descendants. In the 18th century, as today, the word “posterity” was often used to denote “future generations” in general rather than merely the biological descendants of a particular group of people. In 1787, and for almost a century thereafter, the US had a virtual open borders policy, and the Framers of the Constitution had no intention of changing that. They knew that millions of immigrants would be among the “posterity” referred to in the Preamble.

    Sincerely, Pat Kelly Rugman

    • Karah January 1, 2015 at 10:48 pm #

      what you quote was written by a group of men and we must consider it from their viewpoint. as much as we know about those men and their personal lives and ambitions, we can picture in our minds whom they were referring to at that time in history.

      it was formost referring to colonists or long term investors who planned to live out their entire lives in america or some version of it. union is federalism, justice was no longer decided by imperialists, tranquility is a political term for peace without threat from an occupying army or other group like terrorists, common and general is a class distinction to incorporate everyone living on their soil or just visiting and had already been established by previous governments, welfare is about people who can not work and are vulnerable, the blessings of liberty are primarily being allowed to live, hold property and conduct business.
      those men were heads of their corporations, plantations, in their day.
      they took responsibility seriously. they had some foreknowledge that their progeny consisting of whites and mulattos would try to gain some advantages and fight over resources. they could see a new world blossoming and the complications that come with it. they were expecting a large influx of peoples who no longer wanted to be under the roman yoke, who wanted to cultivate the new land in a biblical way…free of disturbance…but..it would be hard to make that ideal politically correct. it still is hard to be correct when discussing systems that involve a correction of peoples hearts ands minds. come over ‘ere but dont bring your political baggage with you.

  129. Pucker January 1, 2015 at 8:54 pm #

    Apparently, there were very few single parent negro families in 1963, according to Murray. The blacks may have been trying to mimic the whites at the time?

  130. pkrugman January 2, 2015 at 1:08 pm #

    Karah and Buck Stud,

    I am making the argument that restricting immigration is unconstitutional. Buck Stud said he wanted to rationally decide based on the Constitution. Buck Stud wanted to return to our founding document. So I am doing that. The Constitution allows unlimited immigration.

    Check out Rehnquist’ opinion in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995): “We start with first principles. The Constitution creates a Federal Government of enumerated powers. See U. S. Const., Art. I, §8. As James Madison wrote, “[t]he powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.

    There is no constitutional authority to “seal the borders” against Mexicans looking for work as motel workers and produce pickers because the Constitution does not give the Feds that power.

    The Framers intentionally did not give the federal government that power. The Declaration of Independence says that:

    The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. . . . He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither

    Why would the Constitution give to the federal government a power which was considered “tyrannical” by the Declaration of Independence? In fact, the Constitution vested no such power in the federal government. The Border Patrol should be abolished. America should continue to have open borders as it did our first 100 years. It is who we are to welcome immigrants. No limits, Buck Stud. Thanks for bringing us back to a rational basis, our founding document.

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    • Buck Stud January 2, 2015 at 1:55 pm #

      “Buck Stud said he wanted to rationally decide based on the Constitution. Buck Stud wanted to return to our founding document. So I am doing that. The Constitution allows unlimited immigration.”

      You didn’t read very carefully because I didn’t say that. I wrote that YOU were arguing from a rationalist point of view. I wrote, very clearly, that an empirical approach makes far more sense,i.e., determine immigration numbers based on need according to unemployment etc..

      At any rate, I can safely assume that you’re not a legal scholar based upon your tortured interpretation and neither am I so it’s probably best not to make fools of ourselves pretending to know what we’re talking about.

      And that’s the problem with ‘First Principles/Rationalism”. You torture the ‘ innate First Principles’ in one manner and somebody else twists it in another direction. For example this poster from Red State:

      http://www.redstate.com/diary/Ken_Taylor/2010/04/28/the-constitution-is-the-rule-of-law-on-illegal-immigration/

    • Karah January 2, 2015 at 10:52 pm #

      this is very interesting…

      it would seem obvious why the king would want to control the kind of people entering, “foreigners”, and that had benefits for the colonists.

      what benefits were there for the colonists to allow open borders?

      fast forward 100 years…slavery, indentered servitude, sweat shops…
      washington d.c. needed help building infrastructure.

      were they thinking of the natives as “foreigners”?
      most foreigners were crossing the atlantic and it was not an easy trip. as technology progressed by the 1800s and steam travel proliferated…we got more foreigners…with various skills.

  131. pkrugman January 2, 2015 at 2:32 pm #

    OK, Buck Stud, so now you want to argue empirically. That is OK because the empirical research supports my position also. You say:

    an empirical approach makes far more sense,i.e., determine immigration numbers based on need according to unemployment etc.

    Empirically speaking, immigrants are not responsible for high unemployment or low wages in the United States, Buck Stud. Empirical research has demonstrated repeatedly that there is no correlation between immigration and unemployment. In fact, immigrants—including them thar so-called “illegals”—create jobs through their purchasing power and their entrepreneurship, buying goods and services from U.S. businesses and creating their own businesses, both of which sustain U.S. jobs. The presence of new immigrant workers and consumers in an area also spurs the expansion of businesses, which creates new jobs.

    We can look at the favorability of immigration rationally, or we can look at it empirically, Buck Stud. All I ask is that you desist from characterizations such as “flinging paint” … My arguments are substantive and precise. I can cite my sources. It is nothing at all like flinging paint.

    • Buck Stud January 3, 2015 at 12:10 am #

      PKRugman writes:

      “Empirically speaking, immigrants are not responsible for high unemployment or low wages in the United States”

      Now you paint with too broad of a brush; of course some segments of American society are hurt by immigration:

      “Although the net benefits to natives from illegal immigrants are small, there is a sizable redistribution effect. Illegal immigration reduces the wage of native workers by an estimated $99 to $118 billion a year, and generates a gain for businesses and other users of immigrants of $107 to $128 billion. ”

      http://cis.org/immigration-and-the-american-worker-review-academic-literature

  132. Cold N. Holefield January 2, 2015 at 4:57 pm #

    Even Orwell wouldn’t know what to think of this derivative of his work. Reality is now satire. Maybe it always was. Read the comments. Too funny.

    A cop in Ukraine said he was detaining me because I was black. I appreciated it.

    • Cold N. Holefield January 2, 2015 at 5:12 pm #

      I placed approximately ten comments to that article and all of them were deleted. The American MSM really wants to get a race war on, but so far they’re miserably failing. My comments were satirical in nature showing irreverence for the author’s feigned concern and pet cause.

      The author clearly states he pines for the days of overt, unabashed racism — the very kind of racism he experienced, and appreciated, in Ukraine. He deplores the kind of racism, according to him at least, we have here in America where he has to “guess” whether someone’s a racist.

  133. Pucker January 2, 2015 at 9:46 pm #

    Several redneck eyewitnesses report that “…there was a nigger on the Grassy Knoll.”

    They may have been trying to pin Kennedy’s assassination on the Cubans?

  134. Pucker January 2, 2015 at 9:59 pm #

    What do you CFNerds think of the TV show “Friday Night Tykes” about Pee Wee football in the US?

  135. Pucker January 2, 2015 at 10:13 pm #

    Negroes seem to be “into” Pee Wee football. What about Monster Trucks? Are black people “into” Monster Trucks?

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  136. pkrugman January 3, 2015 at 2:08 am #

    “Now you paint with too broad of a brush” — Buck Stud

    Thank you. That is all I wanted: an admission that I am using a brush.

  137. pkrugman January 3, 2015 at 2:10 am #

    Looks like Hilary may not run after all. I certainly would not, if I were her.

  138. FincaInTheMountains January 3, 2015 at 4:45 am #

    The Urban Legends of the “Free Market”

    According to popular legend, the free market economy provides production of inexpensive goods of high quality. In the fictional world of liberal economic fantasies that is how it happens:

    1. Each type of product is produced by several firms competing with each other.
    2. Customers choose products that best meet the criteria of “price-quality”.
    3. Companies that make expensive and substandard goods are going out of business.
    4. Companies that make cheap and high quality products get a lot of customers and increase production.
    5. The State ensures that the competition is fair: no trusts or monopolies.

    Let’s try that theory on the Inkjet Printers. Liberal economic logic dictates that to win the market, the company will have to make printers with cheap and universal cartridges (or refillable ink). In practice, the market is dominated by manufacturers that produces a meaningless zoo of incompatible models, but also sells ink at the sky-high price. By the way, did you know that one of the most expensive liquids on earth – is ink for inkjet printers? There are no reasons for such high prices: just pure marketing.

    The real market economy works on completely different principle. In order to sell your product, you do not have to create the world’s best product. You just have to buy customers.

    Buyers are sold in special places, also known as “shopping molls”, “supermarkets” and so on: so in order to get to the buyer, you need your product to be placed in these places. It is not enough to simply have a beautiful wrapping for your product, it is also necessary to pay for massive advertising, through which the brains of potential buyers will be captured for the purchase of your goods.

    Suppose we produce a soft drink called “ToxiCola” In order to have the product sold, we have to do the following:

    1. Buy a good place for “ToxiCola ” on supermarket shelves.
    2. Make sexy packaging and intelligently arrange bottles on those shelves.
    3. Run a powerful advertising on TV and elsewhere.

    Voila. If done correctly, good sales are guaranteed.

    As far as quality and price … In the twenty first century it is ridiculous even to think about it. Every dollar spent on quality, it is the dollar taken from marketing and advertising. Therefore, the quality of our beverage will be kept as low as possible – just enough to be able to drink a bottle to the bottom without barfing out. About harm to health: that is just not important for sales.

    http://fritzmorgen.livejournal.com/749244.html

  139. FincaInTheMountains January 3, 2015 at 6:15 am #

    Israel is set for an engineering disaster: ”Russians are leaving”!

    Israeli association of manufacturers has sounded an alarm: thousands of engineers, scientists and educators in the field of natural sciences that arrived from the former Soviet Union 20 years ago and allowed Israel to become a leader in hi-tech, are set to retire in 4-6 years. There is no one ready to take their place – the replacement was simply not prepared, says economic publication Globes: 35% of physics teachers in schools – “Russians”, 30% of teachers of mathematics to the maximum extent – also from the former Soviet Union, the newspaper says, referring to the study conducted 4 years ago.

    According to Eli Horowitz, CEO of Trump Foundation, that invested about $100 million in the improvement of the Israeli educational system over the past decade, half of Israeli schools do not have teachers of natural sciences to the maximum extent. He told the publication, how stunned he was during his visit to Moscow to hear that Israel was mentioned as exemplary state in preparing the fine scientists.

    Horowitz told the Russians that no scientific training is conducted in Israel – a leap in the development of high-tech was due to “The Gift” – thousands of professional immigrants from the USSR. “After thinking about it they have suddenly realized why they themselves do not have good teachers,” – said Horowitz. He stressed that “The Russians” brought the flowering of science and education, not only to Israel but also to other countries, where they left the former Soviet Union for.

    He was echoed by Noah Galil, dean of the engineering school at the “Galilee” college, according to whom no rise in the high-tech and infrastructure development would be possible without immigrants from the USSR. Universities will not be able to compensate for their mass retirement, and Galil sees as an alternative scaling teaching engineering in college, with an emphasis on the practical component, so that graduates could be more rapidly “absorbed” by the workplace.

    http://izrus.co.il/obshina/article/2014-12-07/26258.html

    I personally saw those “graduates with an emphasis on the practical component” in management positions in US – can’t do the f*cking fractions.

    • MisterDarling January 3, 2015 at 5:02 pm #

      Interesting lead… I’ll give it a closer look.

      Tnx!

  140. Pucker January 3, 2015 at 6:43 am #

    What is the Pussy like in the Galapagos?

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  141. FincaInTheMountains January 3, 2015 at 7:45 am #

    Is US Intelligence behind the recent “bank runs” on Russian Sberbank?

    Influential Russian analytical publication “Politrussia” published an article blaming the recent December panic runs on ATMs of the largest Russian bank “Sberbank” on well-organized, well-financed and well-coordinated effort of US Intelligence.

    It all started with the fact that on Tuesday, December 16 right after “Black Monday”, when speculators managed to bring the ruble down to 55-58 rubles to the dollar, a number of media launched the story that the Sberbank suspends loans to individuals. The news was attributed to “a source in the bank” and first announced in “Profile” magazine. After the Russian clone of “Der Spiegel” had taken a shot at Sberbank, the news were caught by the pro-American TV channel “Rain”. And then, when the media provocation was launched on the Federal level and refutation by Sberbank when it was published, was printed in small fonts somewhere at the back of newswire, it wasn’t too difficult to ignite panic in the regions.

    In the regions panic spread not only through news agencies, and through social networks and forums – what could be attributed to a certain spontaneity and randomness. No, on the contrary, there was a purposeful work aimed at destabilizing the situation around the Sberbank ATMs, by sending SMS with panic calls to remove all the available cash. Here is a typical example: “Emergency repost! Tonight Sberbank blocks release of funds from the cards. Unlocking is not known when. Presumably, this is due to an increase in the dollar price and the transition to a single e-currency. In order to avoid inconvenience to withdraw money from your card now! ”

    And then as the saying goes “off we go.” News about runs on Sberbank ATMs began to arrive from Khakassia, the problems began in the Smolensk region, a similar situation in St. Petersburg and Tula. It is hard to find better example of skillfully organized attack on one of the systemically important banks in the country. And the nature of the planned actions suggests a few things. Firstly, the use of federal publication to start the rumor. Then panic spreading in the regions through SMS mailings and posts in social networks (and well-versed posts written by professionals, playing in the subconscious fear of people and their illiteracy in financial matters). Randomness of the action could be excluded, given a certain uniformity of provocative entries in social networks, mass SMS sending – all this requires considerable financial resources and organizing principle.

    http://politrussia.com/ekonomika/panika-kak-instrument-926/

    If that is true, it represents a serious escalation in US-Russian [economic] war. Reciprocity is the foundation of inter-governmental affairs.

  142. Cold N. Holefield January 3, 2015 at 9:47 am #

    Looks like Hilary may not run after all. I certainly would not, if I were her.

    Looks like Cold was right again. If I got paid for this gift, I’d be wealthier than Bill Gates, but alas the only value I receive in return is purely intrinsic — I love to laugh and there is no shortage of grist for that mill.

    Go Jeb!

    • Cold N. Holefield January 3, 2015 at 9:56 am #

      Also pk hairpiece, what’s up with one “l” versus two? How dare you disrespect one of your own — wink wink, nudge, nudge.

  143. Cold N. Holefield January 3, 2015 at 10:56 am #

    Hey pkr, I’m thinking about writing a new book. It will be titled Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Roberts. No doubt it will be a bestseller. When it goes to print, I’ll make sure you get a free autographed copy. No need to thank me — it’s the least I can do in recompense for your earnest contribution to CFN.

  144. nsa January 3, 2015 at 3:25 pm #

    Anybody here want to take up a collection to buy Ruggie a Sombrero and a ticket to Mexico city so he can witness his chosen future up close? And Ruggie…be sure to get your shots up to date…especially the hepatitis series and don’t forget the worm pills and water disinfectant chlorine…..dysentery is epidemic in the filth and squalor of the turd world. Oh, and remember the bullet proof vest……..

  145. MisterDarling January 3, 2015 at 5:28 pm #

    Great story, great article – an informative preamble to his books;

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/02/the-true-relationship-between-crime-and-law-enforcement/

    Also recommended: McCoy’s ‘Politics of Heroin’ for those that want a peek behind the curtain and essential backgrounding.

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  146. BackRowHeckler January 3, 2015 at 10:04 pm #

    January 1 2015
    Waterbury, Connecticut

    The body of a man was found lying in the street New Year’s Day morning. It was Donald Curtis, 50, a local man who suffered some undescribed handicapped, perhaps mental, perhaps physical. He was said to be a gentle soul who walked around the neighborood feeding and ministering to stray cats, sometimes bringing them home in a bag he fashioned by himself for that purpose. He was beaten to death in a $5 robbery by two white punks with neck tatoos, brothers (I’ll bet their mom is proud) Joseph and Jonathan Pape, age 20 and 22.

    Jonathan told police (describing the assault) ” … the man pleaded with him to stop, but he continued kicking and stomping on the male’s head … at one point the male (victim)was sitting on the ground staring up at him, and he kicked him in the face. He stated he actually felt good after he relieved his (anger) by assaulting the male.”

    Local news interviewed the dead man’s sister, an older woman; looked to me like the daughter of workers in heavy industry in the Naugutuck Valley, which no longer exists and is not coming back, leaving these people high and dry, abandoned by the world.

    This is the way it is now I guess, a Clockwork Orange all around. Many people have more to worry about than peak oil or financial shinanigans on Wall Street. It seems like they’re upper middle class concerns. These threats are more immediate, and more deadly. Take necessary precautions to protect yourself and your family.

    –brh

  147. nsa January 3, 2015 at 10:30 pm #

    BRH,
    Thanks for the sobering reminder of the country we live in….we all need to pack with or without the cwp (concealed weapon permit). When dealing with white trash meth head perps and niggers…..best to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. And you don’t need much….a 22 lr will send a white perp or nigger crying mommie to the ER….they are such little pussies at heart. Pack and feel the power!

    • BackRowHeckler January 3, 2015 at 10:43 pm #

      Just learned recently that Mr. Gun Control Himself, Mayor Bloomberg, travels with a security detail of not less than 17 armed agents, who are licensed to carry concealed weapons over state and international borders.

      brh

      • malthuss January 4, 2015 at 1:28 pm #

        Obama, Obamas family, Pelosi, Harry R all have gunmen, yes?

  148. pkrugman January 3, 2015 at 11:49 pm #

    The Constitution (Art I, sec. 8, cl. 4) gives power to Congress to determine citizenship requirements, not to restrict travel or tell American employers who they can hire. The Constitution gives power to the federal government to determine qualifications for naturalization, the process of becoming a citizen of the United States of America, not to “seal the borders.”

  149. Pucker January 4, 2015 at 5:34 am #

    “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
    – Benjamin Franklin

  150. barbisbest January 4, 2015 at 6:31 pm #

    Good Ole Karl Rove. That’s a misnomer. Maybe he should watch Scrooge with his bud Grover Norquist. Talk about fine polity. And remember, government works for you!

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  151. FincaInTheMountains January 5, 2015 at 3:19 am #

    Another failed “democratization” coup in Africa

    Gambia is a rare case when one member country of the United Nations has its borders only with the other UN member state.
    The African Nation of Gambia was once a British colony, surrounded on all sides by the former French colony – Senegal.

    The current president of the Gambia Yahya Jammeh came to power after a coup in July 1994; when a group of young soldiers led by Jammeh overthrew President Dawda Jawara.
    Since then he has scored four wins in the presidential election (in 1996, 2001, 2006 and 2011.).

    There was a coup attempt in Gambia on the eve of the New Year. According to local media, dozens of military and civilian were arrested. Police began to comb the capital Banjul immediately after return to the country of President Yahya Jammeh, who was abroad at the time of the rebellion.

    “It was an attack of terrorist groups, supported by some foreign powers. It was attended by dissidents based in the US, Germany and the UK,” – said the head of the state on national television.
    The attack on the presidential palace was on Tuesday, 30 December but was repulsed. Five of the attackers were killed.

    In recent years, the West strongly criticized Jammeh for his anti-homosexual policies.
    The European Union has ceased to provide economic assistance to the country.
    US excluded Gambia from the list African states that are allowed duty-free trade with the US.

  152. FincaInTheMountains January 5, 2015 at 3:46 am #

    West transhuman technology plays important role in conducting of its Neo-Colonial policies

    The leader of the Ukrainian “Freedom” party Oleg Tyagnibok criticized pro-gay policies that impose “European values” – in his opinion the Ukrainian parliament and government have high enough percentage of representatives of different sexual orientation. Even entire punitive battalions of “fighting gays” are being formed by Kiev.

    http://censor.net.ua/news/190255/tyagnibok_o_bolshom_protsente_geev_v_rade_i_pravitelstve_ukrainy_ya_ne_hochu_takoyi_evropy_zdes_v_ukraine

  153. FincaInTheMountains January 5, 2015 at 7:21 am #

    Russia advises EU to phase out the Americans (TTIP)

    Russia has presented a startling proposal to overcome the tensions with the EU: The EU should renounce the free trade agreement with the United States TTIP and enter into a partnership with the newly established Eurasian Economic Union instead. A free trade zone with the neighbors would make more sense than a deal with the US.

    The Russian Ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, surprised with a new proposal to revive the partnership between the EU and Russia. Chizhov proposes that the EU should stop the negotiations with the US over the controversial free trade agreement TTIP and instead negotiate with the should work came into force on 1 January Eurasian Economic Union. Chizhov said the EU Observer : “Do you think it is really wise to put so much political energy into a free trade zone with the United States, while much more natural partner had at his side, in the immediate neighborhood? We do not treat our chickens in any case with chlorine.

    http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2015/01/03/schachzug-gegen-die-usa-russland-raet-eu-zum-ausstieg-aus-dem-ttip/

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